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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 5, Issue 3 (July 1, 1930)

Europe Controls the Accelerator

Europe Controls the Accelerator.

Naval Treaty. By sixteen votes to four it is stated, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has approved the Treaty, creating the impression that it will now be ratified by the United States. If so, one or two shrewd prophets will have to admit a mistake. The argument of these prophets is that the United States Government started out in the first place to agree with the British Government on a naval tonnage total at which the British and the American navies should reach parity. The lower the tonnage the less U.S.A. would have to spend in building up. But Prime Minister MacDonald's disposition to accept Anglo-American parity on a low total tonnage was conditional on the acceptance by France and Italy of tonnages low enough to enable Britain (who is a European as well as an Atlantic-Pacific Power) to preserve the American understanding. France and Italy refused to come in on that platform, with the result that Anglo-American parity is attainable under the three-Powers section of the London Naval Treaty at a figure higher and more costly than the Americans had hoped. Moreover, even that figure may move upward (under the “moving platform” clause) if Britain deems her hand to be forced hereafter by the naval building of the Continental Powers.

American annoyance with the high tonnage of the parity figure, and with its lack of fixity, was deemed by the prophets to foreshadow that the Senate would wreck this