Washington, Jan. 20.
A, report was received to-day by President Hoover from Col. Henry 1L. Stimson as head of the American delegation to the London Five-Power Naval Limitation Conference, indicating with reference to the' proposed conference agenda that a sharp disagreement appears likely ]because of the French insistence that of the conference shall bbe strictly limited.
The American attitude throughout has been that the conference should not be tied down in advance to any specific programme, as it is the view in Washington that former meetings ave been rendered futile on several occasions through a lack of flexibility which doomed them to disagreement in advance.
A similar open-minded and in some ways even more liberal programme is desired by the British delegation, according to reports here, and the French attitude is not expected to meet with sympathy on the part of either of these two Powers.
French fears that the submarine may be the focus for special attack are believed to be behind the French attitude as indicated at present. In spite of this view, which is believed to be shared by the Italians, it is anticipated that both the American and the British groups will fight for non-limitation of the conference scope, on the basis that the con-[ference should be allowed to progress [naturally and build up its work step by step as views of the different [delegations unfold in the course of the actual deliberations.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.