1937-02-25 — Page 11

Another Naval Race Is On

of

Within

came

"THE creation of a squadron of that indicate the tensiones, the World War, few years outing, the brown sailors blasted the myth of

announced by the British Govern- struggle for the trident of sea pow- land and sea, of practically every ma, Russia is building a fleet. That ment to-day in a note delivered to er-since the war, a five-cornered one of the paper agreements reach fleet, the major strength of which the United States and Japanese Em- competition, now rapidly becoming ed at The Hague. But the dream consists, at present, of submarines, bassies here. The purpose of the a seven-nation race is approach of the last Emperor of All the is unclassified. It must remain un- note was to invoke the escalator ing a climax. Men and machines Russias did not die with him.. classified for the moment, because clause of the dying 1930 naval in all the world's shipyards are

little is known about the vessels The Hague Conferences, if they that are communism's first line of treaty so as to keep five overage toiling to capacity to turn out the

did nothing else, established a pre defence and offence. cruisers. ...

The five reprieved stuff of war, the secret war. The

cedent; and when the stage was set ships will be converted for anti-air- voice of the shipyards mounts to a craft service. Their 6.1-inch guns crescendo. will be removed and they will be fitted instead with lighter anti-air- craft guns."

at Washington in 1921-22 for an- But already Russia with many other Hague, nations sick of war submarines at Vladivostok is The world is reaping the drag- and hopeful for security were will- threatening Japan's stranglehold ons' feeth of the late war and its ing to subscribe to a convention on the Far East; already her Bal- aftermatch the Versailles Treaty, both limiting and reducing naval tic flotillas are offering a challenge St. NAZAIRE, France The Struggling out of the morass of arms.

--slight, but growing-to the rapid- strong, flowing lines of future men- depression, it is expressing itself in

ly growing strength of Germany. of-war are laid down in the molding dissident ways. In the Far East The naval race really had its Russia is perhaps seventh of the lofts of Penhoet and Eoire. For Japan, seeking her place in the sun, beginnings in the early Thirties. world's principal sea powers, ges flare in the night and bare is building an. Asiatic empire The last two years-first Japan de- though, because of Soviet secrecy, armed vulcans sweat at lathes and (treading on Russian toes among nounced the Washington Treaty, and no accurate rating of her naval hydraulic presses shaping the tools the Siberian borders and in Outer then the attempt to provide some strength is possible. of a to-morrow's Nelson; there near Mongolia in the process) and is really tangible substitute came to. the building dock tower the gaunt reaching southward into tropic is an abortive end. at London. early

One step ahead of Russia but

red ribs of the Strasbourg, with lands close to the American Philip last year have seen a vast speed is limited by agreement with the

her quadruple gunned turrets, her pines and to the richest of the ing up of rearmament. To-day 10,000 tons of armour- latest of Dutch East Indies. the battle cruisers.

a long step is Germany. The Reich

British Empire to a tonnage 35 per cent. of the British total.

with the naval treaties dead-Brit- In the Mediterranean a modern Italian, German and Russian ship completed, forty-nine of them prac-

ish, American, Japanese, French,

Germany has fifty-nine ships HELIGOLAND, Germany Into Caesar, with the crown of a dictator

yards are working to capacity. the gray sky yawn 10.7-inch howit- and the arching ambitions of the

tically new, and some thirty-eight zers, 11.8-inch naval rifles frown past is boasting of a modern Roman How do the navies stand as the others building. Her men-of-war above the North Sea. Great dred Empire, and has already carved a nations toe the mark for the last (built and building) total $23,748 ges suck up silt; pile drivers shape part of

Ethiopia; ominous lap of the race? Theore- tons of guns and armourplate; the- the docks of this German base that Italian sea

have tically, Great Britain and the Unit- tonnage is growing by leaps and may play a part in the war of to- threatened British control of the ed States maintain equal fleets; bounds, and will probably reach Mediterranean as well as France's actually Great Britain has the 420,000 by 1942. She already has sea links to her North African col- world's largest fleet, if tonnage recreated her “ submariner fleet onies.

alone is considered. She had (ac- (which is fast becoming one of the

morrow.

TOKYO, Japan.-The mightiest fleet ever floated in Asiatic waters is being reviewed this morning by its supreme chief, Emperor Hirohi- to.

it out of

and air power

By Hanson W. Baldwin

world's strongest) and her new submersibles are equipped with oxygen and hydrogen gas engines which may render obsolete the bat- tery-driven submarines of other powers.

TRIESTE, Italy-Cranes clatter; riveters drive home the red-hot To the north, where a Fascist cording to the latest available fig- steel that builds Vittorio Veneto, philosophy looks with some favour ures) 384 ships built and building, latest and greatest of the battle- upon Italian aspirations, another or appropriated for, totalling

Her squadron of six capital ships, ships-plate to plate added, beams, dictator is hoping to weld the Teu- 1,545,473 tons.

three of them the pocket battle- decks and bulk-heads.

tonic States into an empire of his

ships of the Deutschland class, The United States has about 308 when reinforced by the two 26,000- VLADIVOSTOK, U. S. S. R.-Ey own to serve as a rampart against

ships built, and ninety-five others ton ships now building and the Red Russia.. flat car from the west they come,

building, or appropriated for, total 35,000-ton vessel just started, will the Soviet's fleet of snub-nosed France, England and the United ling in all, 1,359,740 tons. In ad give her a long arm to reach across monsters of the deep submarines States, trying to steer happier cour- dition, two capital ships of 35,000 all the Seven Seas. In technical built in Western factories, shipped ses between the equally virulent tons each have been partially ap perfection and training the German piecemeal to the East across the philosophies of Right and Left, find propriated for, and undoubtedly Navy is probably unsurpassed. shining rails, assembled by that themselves caught between Scylla will be laid down soon. ice-locked sea, against Der Tag.

Rivals for fourth and fifth places and Charybdis, with little comfort

But sea power consists of more are France and Italy-France, with WASHINGTON, D. C. “Fortifica to be had from either prospect and

than tons and guns. The training a slightly larger submarine fleet tions must be met with fortifica- much difficulty in holding the rud-

of personnel, the type of equip and a greater total tonnage, but tions, menace

with menace" der true.

ment, that intangible element call with a navy probably not so smart ed morale, naval bases, the mer- or so, well trained as the modern chant marine and the men behind Italian fleet.

Secretary of the Navy Swanson,

*

To-day, the voice of the states-

The expiration of the naval treat- the ships all are important factors man seems to be a voice crying in les is a sad ending

to 2

a golden in any evaluation of sea power. The particular concern of French the wilderness of a rearming world, dream, a dream which found its Britain has a larger merchant fleet and Italian-naval strategy hereto- a world already engaged in the sec-

first fulfillment in 1922 with the and a superiority in bases (though fore has been "Mare Nostrum” ret war of peace the race for signing of the Treaty of Washing her bases are not very advantage the Mediterranean but now both arms. Ambrose Bierce, sharp cyni ton. That treaty died on Decem- ously situated in the troubled zone nations have supplemented their policy of building fast, light ships. cist, once described peace as “ber 31 after fifteen years of anae of the North-western Pacific). period of cheating between two per- mic life. It was a dream which

Third-a strong and close third France has four formidable cap- iods of fighting", a better defini- men had dared to dream and to exto the fleets of the United States ital ships building and three more tion might have a period of secret press even before the Armaggedon and Britain comes the heavily gun- planned; Italy has two 35,000-ton war between two periods of actual of the World War.

ned, modernistic navy of Japan monsters, armed with nine 15-inch

hostilities." To-day the secret war The Emperor of All the Russians. These ships, with their pagodalike guns, on the ways, and is moder- is being waged in the admiralties Nicholas II he who was to perish masts and curved funnels, control nising her four old capital ships, and behind the carefully guarded during the red terror in a cellar at partly because of their inherent to constitute "the fastest battle walls of the world's shipyards, the Akaterinburg was the first in strength, partly because of Japan's squadron in existence.” great Powers are burnishing that modern times to voice this dream. geographical situation and her

weapon which has been the deci In his invitation to the first fruit- string of island possessions and To-morrow's fleets, one may be sive factor in nearly all of history's less-Hague Conference held in bases the Western Pacific Japan's sure, will be mightier and larger great conflicts the fighting fleet. 1889, he declared that to put an fleet numbers about 233 ships built than today's how much stronger The naval race already has be- end to these incessant armaments and building, totalling, roughly and how much larger they will be gun, there is grave danger now,

and to seek the means of warding 882,000 tons. She has specialised in depends upon

ing political off the calamities which are threat submarines, of which she has about and economie.

To-day since the treaties limiting sea ening the whole world-such is the seventy to-day, in heavily gunned the trend is plain; unless the world power have expired that it may

om its policy quicken and, unbridled and un supreme daty which is to-day im- cruisers, like the Mogami, with ff does an about

teen 6-inch guns, in small torpedo of narrow natio

unless the checked, help to plunge the world posed on all States.”

craft, and in the miscellaneous ves- still-living democracies can provide The Second Hague Conference sels of a "mosquito fleet

brake to air of 1907 was also

which to protect her coast.

would seem that practica

at some future time înto another

red hell of war-

The secret

and Ted

guarded

scares, censo)

rooms, shipyards

small but

in precise and

les of war, nging Erita

at on

ission of

But at Vladivos

and

base at Possiet-Bay

́ ́

a new contest

trident is

frst time since Togo and his little

race-19-

all countries

Ben power