National Affairs: Treaty Talk

(2 of 4)

The prime issue that arose at these hearings had to do with the size and gun power of U. S. cruisers under the London Treaty. Congress has authorized the construction of 23 cruisers of 10,000-tons armed with Sin. guns. Of these only two, the Salt Lake City and Pensacola, are constructed and in commission. In addition the Navy has ten 7,500-ton cruisers (Omaha class) armed with 6-in. guns. Under the London Treaty the U. S. would reduce its 8-in. gun cruiser program to 18 vessels, of which only 15 would be actually finished at the expiration of the Treaty in 1936. The U. S. would be allowed 143,500 tons of smaller cruisers of the 6-in. gun class, including the 75,000 tons already in service. That would leave 60,500 tons of cruiser strength to be constructed and armed with 6-in. guns, probably eight vessels of about 8,500 tons each. Though the total cruiser tonnage of Britain and the U. S. in both categories would be almost the same (339,000 to 323,500). Britain would have more small cruisers, the U. S. more large ones. The committee controversy last week involved relative merits of the big 8-in. gun cruiser and the small 6-in. gun cruiser. Since 1926 U. S. naval policy has favored the big cruiser, on the theory that the U. S., lacking naval bases, needed fighters with the maximum offensive cruising radius. The 6-in. gun fires about three times as rapidly as the 8-in., throws a smaller projectile. The question was whether the U. S., by accepting the London Treaty, would not put itself at a disadvantage through a reduction of big cruisers from 23 to 18. This question was answered differently by different witnesses. Secretary of State Stimson, chief of the U. S. delegation to London, insisted that the Treaty gave U. S. '"substantial" naval parity with Britain. Banging the committee table with his fist he defended the 6-in. gun cruisers, declared that the 8-in. gun cruiser, a "vulnerable ship," was overrated as a sea weapon by certain naval experts, made much of the point that Japan would "stand still" on cruiser strength to allow the U. S. to catch up and pass her. He found nothing objectionable in the fact that the U. S. had agreed to a 10-7 instead of a 5-3 ratio with Japan on auxiliary craft. When questioned about the negotiations leading up to the London compromise. Statesman Stimson said he was like "a man with his hand tied behind his back," that he could not answer publicly. Secretary of the Navy Charles Francis Adams, a conference delegate, defended the Treaty as the best obtainable. He went to London, he said, to get 21 big cruisers for the U. S. and relaxed his demand only when it threatened to break up the Conference. ("You always like to get as much as you can.") He upheld the 6-in. gun cruisers as making a "well rounded fleet, declared that under certain close range battle conditions they were as useful as larger craft. Squirming uncomfortably before the hostile Naval Affairs Committee, Secretary Adams declared against building the U. S. fleet up to the full Treaty strength, said Treaty parity would cost the U. S. a billion dollars in new ships, was noncommittal about the large savings President Hoover had hailed as a benefit of the Treaty. Said he of the Treaty Navy: "Our country and its interests will be safe —far safer than those of any other nation." Admiral William Veazie Pratt, commander-in-chief