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Kellogg Pact to make it the basis for cutting her cruiser fleet from 70 to 50 ship?, which she is now ready to do according to an official statement earlier in the week by First Lord of the Admiralty Albert V. Alexander. The MacDonald memorandum threw cold water on the Tardieu proposal for a Mediterranean pact, and sidestepped the French project for a stronger League of Nations with the remark that the Kellogg Pact and the League Covenant may be considered "complementary." Ships
Submarines. As chief of the greatest surface naval power, Prime Minister MacDonald secured the assent of President Hoover to the basically British view that the submarine should be totally abolished. But there is no reason to think that France, Italy or Japan will ever give up this cheap and effective knife-in-the-belly. And the U. S. Navy would really like to keep it, as a coast-defense weapon. Abolition of the submarine will not be achieved at London and the chances of limitation look poor.
Destroyers and Cruisers. In the destroyer category it may be possible to strike a simple ratio among the Powers, but cruisers come in so many sizes of such widely different fighting power that they present a highly complex problem in comparison, perhaps to be solved with the famed "Hoover Yardstick" (TIME, Sept. 23). Exactly what this is the Engineer-President has never publicly explained; and the Sea Lords of the British Admiralty to whom it has been privately explained have never been enthusiastic. But last week Ramsay MacDonald said in his hearty ringing way: "We shall deal with every class of warship, from dreadnoughts to submarines! Great Britain, with the full consent of the Admiralty up to now, is prepared to make proposals which will mean a considerable reduction in naval programs."
Dreadnoughts or Capital Ships are already limited to 35,000 tons maximum each by the Washington Treaty which further apportioned their numbers among the U. S., Britain, and Japan in the famed ratio 5-5-3. The Japanese are willing enough to extend the ratio principle to cruisers, destroyers and perhaps even submarines, but they want a new set of numerals, 10-to-7. So far as Capital Ships alone are concerned it should prove easy to agree on their continued limitation.
¶Gold and Silver plating was dexterously applied last week to the ornate microphone through which George V will be heard on Jan. 21 opening the Naval Conference over a radio network which will practically put the whole world within five inches of His Majesty's lips and beard.
Every Briton who owns a radio set must pay ten shillings a year ($2.50) license fee, unless he is blind, in which case the Government licenses his set free. His Majesty's own listening set is an elaborate affair but appallingly old (four years). Palace servants will use it to catch his words, uttered in the historic Banquet Hall of the House of Lords.
Imperial Prostration. By way of kowtowing and prostrating himself before the most powerful oligarchy of modern times—the dry Senators of the U. S., whose votes will be needed to ratify any Naval Pact which may be made—the King-Emperor directed last week that the Refreshment Room in St. James's Palace shall serve no intoxicants for the duration of the Conference.