1t the information of the "Sunday Times" Naval Correspondent is correct that Japan is building "pocket' cruisers ranging between 15,000 and 16,000 tons, then another serious obstacle has been thrown in the path of the naval designer. Germany confronted the world with a problem when she started building "pocket" battleships within the prescribed limitations of 10,000 tons, but by ingenious combination of engineering economies and devices, produced a type of vessel much more powerful and more heavily armed than the Washington 10,000 ton type subscribing to generally accepted principles. The Japanese plan, if correct, presents a more difficult problem for the size mentioned by the Naval Correspondent is so awkward in naval construction ideas that nothing but a capital ship of 40,000 tons could be accepted as an effective counterpart. According to the report, the new Japanese vessels will mount 12-inch guns and have a speed of more than 30 knots which will mean that they will outdistance warships of a comparable calibre, and will seriously interfere with present ideas of convoys and will demand employment of capital ships mounting 18-inch guns to ensure the defensive nature of convoy service. Of course, Japanese naval plans have always been shrouded in an obscurity which on dissipation has not always proved to reveal any striking advance, but as Japan, not a signatory to the 1936 Naval Agreement, has declined to answer the request of Great Britain, United States and France regarding her new building programme,—and a closer collaboration with Germany is in existence as revealed by Chancellor Hitler in his speech to the Reichstag on Sunday,—there is probably a substantial foundation to the statement of the "Sunday Times" Correspondent.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.