London, Oct. 29.
To guarantee that. 140 fighting ships will be added to the fleet during ihe years ending 1940, British naval building operations are being speedet up, it is disclosed.in a survey of the Admiralty's. armament plans, issued yesterday.
"The Admiralty is at the same time specially fortifying bases in the Mediterranean—at Cyprus, Malta, Haifa and other places—as well as at Simonstown, South Africa, and Singapore.
The 140 ships which will be added to the british navy, in the big armament programme will consist of five battleships, five aircraft carriers, 23 cruisers, 49 destroyers,. seventeen submarines, 41 "minesweepers and other small craft, The first two new battleships will be the George V and the Prince of Wales, each of 35,000 tons.—Reuter.
When the Committee met, it recognized two main tasks. The first was that it had to act as the mouthpiece of world public opinion. In pursuance of that it expressed horror at. the inhuman and barbarous methods of warfare used in the course of. the dispute, and it instituted an examination of the events following the original incident of July 7.
As ihe result of a completely objective and impartial examination, Lord Cranborne said, the Committee came to the unanimous decision that Japan had not been justified in taking the action she had, and had violated the Nine-Power Treaty and the Pact of Paris.
That report fulfilled the League's first task, but it had a second task of even more urgency and importance, to bring, if such a thing were possible, the conflict to an end.
The League had not merely to decide what action would be in accordance with the Covenant, but what action was most likely to be effective. It had also to decide what was likely to be the most hopeful basis of consideration—the League acting alone or some other basis.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.