Comprehensive Rearmament Plans in Readiness, Awaiting President's Message On Defence Washington, Jan. 20.
MERICA'S giant naval rearmament programme will include the most powerful battles ips in the history of the world if plans now under consideration by Navy officials here are adopted, itis learned to-day.
Plans for the construction of an undetermined number of battleships of more than 40,000 tons and mounting 18-inch guns are receiving serious consideration in official circles. Government authorities offered no comment on plans for the giant warships, but observers speculated whether they might be applied to the two battleships expected to be authorized for construction in 1939.
Appropriations for such batt leships, it was pointed out, would involve abandonment of the London Naval Treaty limitations by the United States and serve not ice to all Powers that the United States was prepared to enter actively into the world-wide naval construction race.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.