Against such vessels our own battleships of 35,000 tons with"l4-inch guns would have no more chance than an armoured motor-car might have against a tank.
Five new capital ships were laid down by the British Admiralty last year, and it has been expected that five more will be provided for in the Naval Estimates to be announced towards the end of this month.
But if the Japanese Government continues to withhold the information which it has been requested to give about its building programme, the British programme of new battleships may be held over for later determination, and would be financed by There were many who foretold the outbreak of the last war by reckoning in what year Germany's programme of naval construction would be com-the vote of supplementary estimates Before new ships exceeding 35,000 tons are laid down the British Government would have to give three pleted. Additional menace is thus added to the international situation months' notice to its fellow-signatories of the London Naval Treaty, who by the fact that Japan, who is spending £55,000,000 on building new battle ships of unrevealed size and type, may thereby start another world-race in naval construction.
Had it not been for the "self-denying ordinance" negotiated between the three leading naval Powers:
Britain, the United States, and Japan—at Washington in the winter of 1921-22 the intense rivalry in battleship-construction now in prospect would have started seventeen years ago.
In 1921 the British Government already possessed the Hood, of 42,100 tons, the largest warship in the world It had also laid down two battle-cruisers of over 41,000 tons which were scrapped after the Washington Agreement had been signed limiting the size of future ships to 35,000 tons and fixing the proportions of battleship-tonnage between the three leading Powers at 5: 5: 3.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.