LONDON NAVAL CONFERENCE, 1930, THE.
The work of limitation of naval armaments has advanced slowly since the close of the World War. The first real achievement came at the Washington Conference of 1921-22, where the five prin cipal Naval Powers, who eight years later were to meet in London, conferred. There they succeeded in setting limits to the total dis placement tonnages of the categories of capital ships and aircraft carriers to be possessed by each of them on a certain date, and also in establishing a maximum unit tonnage, gun calibre and age limit for vessels in each of these categories. When the delegates endeavoured to agree concerning the limitation of smaller fighting vessels—cruisers, destroyers and submarines—they failed. The building of these categories was left unrestricted, except that a maximum unit tonnage and gun calibre for cruisers was fixed.
The failure to reach an agreement on auxiliary craft was due mainly to the difficulty of settling on tonnage figures in the various categories acceptable to all the five Powers. But it became evident in subsequent discussions (which came to a head at the meetings of the Preparatory Disarmament Commission at Geneva early in 1927) that the difference of opinion between the naval powers was not simply one on the particular figures which should be entered for each of them in a programme limiting every category of ship, but also on the general principles on which that programme should be constructed. The French, supported by the Italians, advocated limitation by "global tonnage", meaning that only the tonnage for the whole of a fleet should be limited, and that within this total a Power could allot what tonnage it liked to each category. The British, with the support of the United States representatives, urged that not only should the maximum total tonnage for each fleet be fixed, but that it should be agreed how this total was to be divided between the categories.
There were thus two major problems left unsolved by the Wash ington Treaty and subsequent discussions, and they were still un settled when the Powers met in London in January 193o. There was the issue of the general principle on which limitation pro grammes should be constructed and the question of agreeing, whatever principle was adopted, on actual figures for limiting the building of auxiliary craft.
Between March 1927 and 1929 there were separate attempts at solving, at least partially, each of these problems. First the Brit ish Empire, the United States and Japan endeavoured at the Three Power Conference in Geneva late in 1927 to reach an agreement on actual figures for the limitation of every class of fighting ship in their own navies. Their discussions failed, because the United States and the British Empire could not agree about cruisers. The root of their trouble was that whereas the need of the former was for 10,000 ton cruisers mounted with 8 inch guns (the maxi mum permitted under the Washington Treaty) the latter required a larger number of smaller cruisers armed with 6 inch guns. The two Powers had agreed in the most friendly spirit that parity should exist between them, but could not discover a strict mathe matical equality in cruiser strengths which would give each of them different numbers of different kinds of ships. This Anglo American cruiser problem was a difficult obstacle to a complete agreement which the discussions immediately preceding and at the London Conference had to clear away.
Secondly, after the breakdown of the Geneva Conference there were conversations in particular between Great Britain and France with a view to reaching an agreement on the "global" versus "cate gory" tonnages controversy. This resulted in the ill-fated Anglo French compromise proposals of 1928. These were virtually dead from the moment it became known that they were unacceptable to the United States Government. They were rejected in Wash ington principally because they proposed restrictions in the build ing of cruisers carrying 8 inch guns but not of cruisers armed with smaller guns. As the former was the type required by the United States, their Government could not consent to the limita tion of this type whilst no limit was set to ships more useful to other Powers.