first successful throughout the seven seas, and in the decisive defeat of von Spee's German fleet at the Battle of the Falkland Islands.

The failure of our proposal to include collateral elements confirmed Britain and Japan in the possession of advantages already theirs. Halifax, Bermuda, Jamaica, and Trinidad, all British bases, cover at short range our entire Atlantic and Gulf coasts and the eastern entrance of the Panama Canal. The Bahamas, British Honduras, and the British West Indies have many areas quickly convertible into temporary naval bases, and, what is of equal or greater importance, airplane bases.

The Versailles Conference gave Japan mandates over the Marshall and Caroline islands, both of which block the routes from Hawaii to the Philippines. The Bonin Islands stretch from Japan south to the Caroline Islands, which run in an almost continuous chain east to the Marshalls, which in turn are but 1700 miles from the Hawaiian Islands, while the beach at Waikiki is 2100 miles from our Pacific coast. Thus in crossing the Pacific from Japan the greatest distance of open water is that from Hawaii to our own coast. With the rapid development of aviation, the day is approaching when the possession of airplane bases will be as important as is possession of ship bases to-day. This is true both from the advantage of distance covered, and from the damage that can be done in combat against ships at sea and troops and fortifications on land.

The day has arrived when airplanes have become a definite part of the equipment of a fleet. Their Their

practical value for scouting, for observation of fire, and for combat purposes has been fully established. In a combat between two fleets of virtually equal strength, in which one possessed ample aviation and the other did not, the probabilities approach a certainty that the fleet without would be decisively beaten. Consequently it is inevitable that every effort will be made to equip a fleet with the maximum number of planes. Carriers built for the purpose are expensive and cannot be quickly produced; and though catapults enable a war-ship to carry and launch her own planes, the number a combat ship can accommodate is decidedly limited. The bigger merchantmen, however, can be readily converted into plane carriers.

No argument is needed to prove the great importance of means to transmit to the fighting forces information concerning the enemy, and also to control the movements of these forces. The contrast between Nelson's blind search, back and forth across the Atlantic, for the French fleet, and the overwhelming British concentration against von Spee's German fleet, which led to his quick defeat off the Falkland Islands, shows the tremendous advantage given by cable lines and radio in time of war.

The more the question is examined the more it becomes evident that any attempt to bring about a ratio of naval strength between the powers which does not include bases, aviation, merchant marines, cables, and wireless must fail in its purpose. Granting this, then the difficulty, even impossibility, of controlling the instruments of the world's peace

time daily life tends to convince us that the scheme to regulate armament is based on a fallacy.

Capital ship strength being of first importance, the early part of the negotiations was primarily between the United States, Great Britain, and Japan, the only powers really possessed of such strength. After considerable discussion, an agreement was reached by which we scrapped eleven capital ships then building and seventeen old ships, a total of twenty-eight ships, aggregating approximately 750,000 tons. Great Britain scrapped twenty old ships, aggregating 400,000 tons. Japan scrapped four ships building and ten old battle-ships, aggregating 300,000

tons.

We were allowed to keep two battle-ships already launched, Great Britain to build two new ones, and Japan to keep one that had been launched.

The old ships scrapped by this agreement were naturally the oldest and least useful. As a matter of fact, they would all have been dropped regardless of the conference because the money and men needed to maintain them could be better applied elsewhere. Thus when it came to giving up what really counts we were the only nation that made any sacrifice. Great Britain had nothing new to destroy. While Japan did destroy four ships she at the same time advanced her strength in relation to ourselves, because the eleven ships that we scrapped constituted a greater proportion of our naval strength than the four she gave up did of her strength. The three great naval powers having settled their capital ship strength, that of France and Italy came up next.

France claimed that her necessities entitled her to 300,000 tons of capital ships. She pointed out that her colonial possessions, scattered throughout the world, were only second to those of Great Britain. She showed that throughout the period of the war she had allowed her navy to run down in order to concentrate her strength on her army. She proved that Great Britain not only maintained but increased her naval strength during the war, while neither in the number of her land forces facing the enemy, nor in the length of time maintained there, did she make an effort comparable with that of France. Thus she clearly demonstrated that the decrease of her naval strength in comparison with that of Great Britain, which had occurred between 1914 and the opening of the conference, was primarily due to the much greater effort made on land toward the defeat of their common enemy, the German army. While admitting the predominating part played by the British in keeping the German fleet in check, the French showed conclusively— and it is generally believed in military circles-that their land effort was much greater proportionately. They also pointed out that, far from asking equality with Britain, they were seeking a strength considerably below that of Japan.

The British, however, refused to agree. The result was a deadlock. For a time it looked as if the conference must fail. The British and French were adamant. Finally, as the result of a personal appeal by Mr. Hughes, Briand agreed to accept a capital ship limit of 175,000 tons, with the condition, however, that no

attempt should be made to bring about a reduction in the French quota of cruisers, destroyers, and submarines. As she asked an allowance of 330,000 tons, as compared with 450,000 tons each for Great Britain and the United States, in cruiser and destroyer strength, and 90,000 tons submarine allowance, the same as these two countries, her demand was not excessive. Here again Great Britain brought on a crisis by refusing to accept a limitation of naval auxiliaries, as we had originally planned, unless France submitted to as drastic a cut as the one imposed upon her in capital ships.

The justice of France's claim is well expressed by Captain Dudley W. Knox, U.S.N., retired, a distinguished naval officer who served on Admiral Sims' staff during the World War. In his "Eclipse of American Sea Power," published in 1922, he says: "It is essential to understand the pronounced vulnerability of France to naval domination by Great Britain. Nearly all the French home ports are very close to the sea and difficult to defend against long range bombardment by ships in the offing. Many of them are 'breakwater harbors,' with no land in front capable of being used for defensive purposes. Her ports on the north coast of Africa are similarly exposed. Two of them were bombarded with impunity by the German Goeben during the late war. Submarines and torpedo craft may be effective in preventing this form of attack and in keeping free for coastwise traffic a narrow zone along the coasts."

The British, determined to have

their way, started a vigorous publicity campaign against submarines. They based it on the fact that Germany had sunk without warning passenger and merchant ships, and ignored the many proper and legitimate uses to which submarines can be and have been put in war. Mr. Elihu Root, in an endeavor to straighten the matter out, submitted rules governing the future use of submarines in war, forbidding and punishing any inhuman practices. Again to quote Captain Knox, “No delegates exceeded the French in their hearty approval of these rules, and this, combined with their unqualified disavowal of the supposed advocacy of unrestricted submarining by a prominent French naval officer, who incidentally had been misquoted badly by Lord Lee, served to restore an atmosphere of more harmony." Italy in general supported France. The situation, however, still remained such that the conference could only be brought to an agreement by giving up the attempt to limit cruisers, destroyers, and submarines; in other words, by abandoning the original purpose of establishing a ratio of naval strength among the powers.

At this crisis, instead of giving Britain the choice of yielding to the French and Italians or of forgoing the restoration of her naval supremacy at our cost, through the destruction of our new ships, we weakly yielded. Rather than tell our people that the conference had failed, we surrendered our naval superiority without a compensating advantage, thus justifying the officer who said that the greatest British naval victory was won at the Washington

Conference by Lord Balfour and not at Trafalgar by Lord Nelson.

For some time before the conference met the pacifist organizations in this country carried on a campaign for disarmament. In this campaign they persisted in calling it the Washington Disarmament Conference and in so misconstruing the purposes for which it was called that finally President Harding had to issue a warning. Throughout the conference our delegates refused to give out any items of news. Our naval officers before and during the conference were warned to say nothing. The British delegates, however, brought Lord Riddell with them as a publicity agent. He, being an expert publicist and having a thorough knowledge of the psychology of news, never failed to fill the papers of this country with the British point of view. His work was so adroitly done that our newspaper men did not realize what was going on. The way in which the horrors of unrestricted submarine warfare were played up in our press and entire sight lost of the fact that the submarine has an honorable rôle in war, or that this country has a real need for a substantial submarine strength, is a good example of Lord Riddell's subtle work.

The French as usual paid little attention to publicity. The result was that the American public never had put before it the best interests of America as affected by the conference; was plied with British propaganda until, when the whole thing was over, the belief prevailed that our navy was equal in strength to that of Great Britain and bore the ratio of 5 to 3 to that of Japan.

In the years since the conference we have remained comfortably content with the situation, still as a people unaware of the failure of the conference to accomplish its original purpose. What is worse, we are ignorant of the fact that the partial ratio established by the conference has been upset to our disadvantage by two programs, one carried out by our own government, the other by Britain and Japan. We have failed to maintain our navy at the strength permitted by the conference. Britain and Japan by a steadily prosecuted building program have increased their auxiliary strength so that to-day the ratio of our navy to those of Britain and Japan is considerably below the ratios of 5 to 5 and 5 to 3 respectively.

The table on the following page, whose figures are taken from authentic sources, shows the extent to which our naval strength has fallen because of the economy program of our government and of the building programs of Britain and Japan.

From the table it is apparent that Britain is considerably stronger except in the destroyer and submarine

other than fleet-types. In the destroyer type our advantage in total tonnage and number of vessels is compensated for by her eighteen destroyer leaders.

Japan's strength in modern cruisers and fleet submarines exceeds ours. Her peace strength in personnel almost equals ours. In aircraft carriers and submarines, other than fleet, her strength is but slightly below ours. below ours. It is only in destroyers that we possess a marked superiority. In capital ships armed with 13.4-inch guns her ratio to ours is as 3.57 is to

Since the war, steady progress has been made in all countries through perfection in types of machines used, tactical methods, and organization.

As has been previously pointed out, fleet aviation is essential if our fleet is to meet an enemy fleet with any chance for success. At the same time army aviation must possess an adequate air force' so that in case our fleet is defeated, shut up in one of our bases, say Panama, by a superior force, or is in one ocean at the time an invasion is attempted in the other, the enemy can be met offshore.

The famous tests in which army aviators sank a number of war-ships

army corps.