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APPENDIX I.

Cypher telegram to His Majesty's Consul (Geneva).

Foreign Office, 5th June, 1928. 10.30 p.m.

No.40.

23

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IMMEDIATE.

Your telegram No.56 L.N. (of June 3rd). Following for Secretary of State from Lord Cushendun. After conversation to-day with First Sea Lord I have

Meantime

arranged for him to attend Cabinet tomorrow.

Admiralty comment on your interview with M. Eriand is contained in following minute handed to me by Sir Charles

Madden.

Begins.

The Admiralty suggest that we are on unsound ground if we agree with the French that the length of the lines of communication should form the basis for estimating cruiser strengths. The statement that such a basis is at the root of the arguments of ourselves and United States is not correct. We have always maintained that the length of the lines is only one, and not the most important, of the

Other factors are the vital nature and volume

factors.

of the trade and the geograpical position of the route.

It is not clear further from Sir Austen Chamberlain's telegram what the French mean by lines of communication.

Do they mean the It is important to be certain of this. lines of communication along which the whole trade of the country passes, such lines going to foreign as well as colonial ports or do they mean the lines of communication

If the latter it is only to overseas possessions?

likely to raise serious resistance both from America and Italy and if we accepted it we should find ourselves aligned with France against these two countries and basing ourselves on an argument most difficult to justify.

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