500.A15a3/92: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Great Britain (Dawes)
195. Reference is made to your telegrams No. 209 and No. 211, July 29 and July 30. Insurmountable obstacles to agreement are apparently presented by the tentative program proposed by Mr. MacDonald for the following reasons:
- (1)
- The principle of decrease in naval armament is totally abdicated.
- (2)
- The principle of parity and equality between the navies of Great Britain and United States, the crux of which rests in the cruiser class, is abandoned.
We may reduce the proposal of the Prime Minister to the following statement of displacement tonnage, in order to make this clear:
British Empire: A total tonnage of 146,800 in 15 large 8–inch-gun cruisers (the Surrey and the Northumberland and an unnamed authorized cruiser would apparently be scrapped); a total of 39,426 tons in 4 cruisers of the 7½-inch-gun Hawkins class; a total of about 190,-000 tons in 41 cruisers of the 6-inch-gun class, or a grand total of about 376,226 tons of cruisers. This tonnage will be maintained by replacement of the various classes of ships.
United States of America: A total of 180,000 tons in 18 large cruisers, also a total of 70,500 tons of ten 6-inch-gun cruisers now in service, or a grand total of 250,500 tons which it is suggested that we increase by building ten more vessels of the 6-inch-gun type which would probably amount to 50,000 or 75,000 tons, but which our Navy Department does not deem acceptable and therefore cannot be included, as was fully explained at the Geneva Conference of 1927.
We would point out, in amplification of our statement in point (1) above that while the proposal implies scrapping the Northumberland and the Surrey as well as an unnamed large authorized cruiser, it is proposed that Great Britain shall undertake new construction of smaller cruisers to be used as replacements by 1936 of at least 70,000 tons, assuming that the tonnage of the ships replaced remains that of the vessels at present in existence. The construction of 10 out of our recently authorized 15 large ships in order to arrive at 18 large cruisers is implied, thus making new construction of 100,000 tons on the present authorized program for the United States, together with further construction of at least 125,000 tons more, in order to compensate us for the superiority of the British.
By 1936 the total new construction will thus amount to 295,000 tons between the two countries. When you consider that about 70,000 tons of this is replacement, there will remain a net addition to the present naval strength of the world of something like 225,000 tons, [Page 168] aside from the cruisers amounting to about 125,000 tons which the United States and Great Britain now have on the stocks. We would not be bringing about the reduction of naval armament should we carry out this program and the originally agreed basis of our negotiations would be completely abandoned. Attention is called to a statement in Mr. MacDonald’s letter to you of July 826 in which he said “we should then proceed to declare that on that basis the object of negotiations must be reduction in existing armament.”
Referring to point (2) above and in further amplification thereof, we would point out that while Mr. MacDonald’s program would leave the British with 15 large ships of a total tonnage of 146,800 tons as against 18 large American ships of 180,000 tons and thus with a British inferiority of 33,200 tons in this 8-inch-type cruiser, it leaves the United States with an inferiority amounting to 39,426 tons of the Hawkins 7½-inch-type class which more than compensates for the American superiority of 33,200 tons in 8–inch-gun cruisers above referred to.
Far beyond this, however, it leaves the British with about 190,000 tons of 6-inch-gun cruisers against the present 70,500 tons of that class held by the United States, or an inferiority of 120,000 tons which they propose, as set forth above, the United States should only partly equate by the construction of ten new cruisers of the 6-inch type which we have no intention of constructing.
These proposals are practically no real modification of those made at the Geneva Conference and it does not seem to us that they offer any hope of agreement.