500.A15a3/1482: Telegram

The Ambassador in Great Britain ( Dawes ) to the Secretary of State

97. [Paraphrase.] I have obtained from Craigie, in answer to your No. 86, of March 30, 5 p.m., a statement of the difficulties which have occurred in connection with the proposed naval agreement. Text of statement (to be considered confidential) follows: [End paraphrase.]

“Part III of the London Naval Treaty establishes limits, which are not to be exceeded on the 31st December 1936, in the tonnage of the various categories. In order to attain these levels the method of determining the amount of new construction which is permissible is based upon two main principles dealing with:

1.
New construction of ships to be completed by December 31, 1936;
2.
Additional construction for the years 1934, 1935 and 1936, which is to be limited (under the last sentence of article 19) to vessels becoming overage in 1937, 1938 and 1939.

The negotiations with the French and Italians have throughout been based on these two principles, and indeed it had been assumed, almost up to the date of the announcement of the agreement, that both France and Italy would come into part III of the treaty on the same basis as the other powers. Possible difficulties with the United States Senate and the Japanese Privy Council rendered this course undesirable, but it was nevertheless made clear when Mr. Henderson and Mr. Alexander were in Paris that the words in the Bases of Agreement ‘those provisions (of part III of the London Naval Treaty) which are of general application’ must include the last sentence of article 19 of the London Treaty.

This understanding was believed to have been shared by the French Government, subject to the addition to the article which was to reproduce the effect of the last sentence of article 19 of some such phrase as ‘without prejudice to the decisions of the 1935 Conference.’ When, however, the French representatives reached London, it now became clear they interpreted the Bases of Agreement as regulating only construction to be completed by the year 1936 and that, failing agreement at the 1935 conference as to the additional tonnage which France and Italy might be allowed to construct during the years 1935 and 1936, those powers would have a free hand for construction in those years.

To the Italian Government, the French thesis is quite unacceptable because the principal advantage of the agreement from the Italian point of view had been stabilization of building programmes and the reduction in expenditure which they had foreseen from the spreading over 6 years of the tonnages available for new construction. These advantages would, however, in the Italian view, disappear if the programmes were not only to be compressed into 4 years but also the probability of increased building programmes in 1935 and 1936, had to be faced. The French interpretation of the Bases of Agreement was also entirely unacceptable to His Majesty’s Government, firstly, [Page 392] because it is in their view entirely at variance with the principles upon which the agreement has been negotiated, and secondly because admission of the French claim would mean in practice that while the members of the British Commonwealth of Nations remained bound for 6 years, France would only remain bound for 4 years, and might afterwards resume complete liberty of construction.

Up to the present efforts to overcome the difficulty have not been successful. In view, however, of the deplorable political consequences of a break-down at this stage, conversations are still continuing with a view to a solution being found.”

Repeated to Morrow.

Dawes