A SOLDIER - DIPLOMAT. By Brigadier-General Sir DOUGLAS DAWSON, G.C.V.O., K.C.B., C.B., C.M.G. With Portraits and Illustrations. John Murray. 18s. net.

Sir Douglas Dawson's reminiscences contain many interesting references to the eminent people he met as British Military Attaché in various European capitals. Most interesting perhaps are his references to the Austrian Court, the Emperor Franz Joseph, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and others. There are also several pleasant anecdotes of King Edward VII, when Prince of Wales. In his old age, Sir Douglas was duped in business affairs by a clever rogue, and he devotes a chapter to an explanation of this affair, in which of course the reflections cast on his good name were obviously unmerited.

HAWORTH PARSONAGE: A Picture of the Brontë Family. By

ISABEL C. CLARKE. Illustrated. Hutchinson. 12s. 6d. net. THIS addition to the mass of Brontë literature is a workmanlike attempt to describe the life of the Brontë sisters, and the tragedies that befell them. The differing characters of Emily, Charlotte and Anne are clearly drawn; but little new is added, or can well be added, to the information already published.

THE JUDGMENT OF FRANÇOIS VILLON: A Pageant Episode Play in Five Acts. By HERBERT EDWARD PALMER. Hogarth Press. 25s. net.

Mr. Palmer has attempted a " pageant play " of the life of Villon, with his strange mixture of evil and good. The result is robust, impressive, and in places beautiful. The play is intended not only for the stage, but for readers who desire to comprehend François Villon's tortuous nature, and in this it is successful, at least in so far as the episodes grip the reader's attention and bring out a personality which may be the true interpretation of Villon.

THE OTHER BUNDLE. By LORD SHAW OF DUNFERMLINE. With Illustrations. Hutchinson. 18s. net. THESE papers follow the "Letters to Isabel "by the same author, which were welcomed some years ago. Lord Shaw, with his wide knowledge coupled with modesty, again ranges over considerable ground-the League of Nations Union, whaling off Gibraltar, Canada and politics. The essays make attractive reading.

No. 504 will be published in April, 1928.

Printed in Great Britain by ROFFEY & CLARK, LTD., Croydon.

The Edinburgh Review

No. 504

APRIL, 1928

THE AMERICAN NAVAL PROGRAMME

THE

"HE American agitation about naval building is not, as many persons seem to think, the outcome of the Geneva Conference; indeed, if the Naval Bill which has just been passed by the naval committee is juxtaposed to measures in force before the conference assembled, it will be seen, at a glance, that the foundation stones of American naval expansion were well and truly laid before the conference was so much as thought of. In 1924, eight ten-thousand-ton cruisers were stated to be "projected" in the official lists of the United States navy. During the year a general board, convened by the president to consider naval policy and report, recommended in the most emphatic terms that British cruiser strength should be treated as a standard, and that the United States should build up to it without delay. Congress did not, it is true, give legislative sanction to the entire report of the board; but they certainly showed great readiness to give effect to it by authorising steady increments to the cruiser fleet. In 1926, eight ten-thousand-ton cruisers were authorised; in the following year two were taken in hand. When the conference at Geneva assembled, the British and American governments were already committed to the following cruiser programmes :—

If the Japanese proposal at the conference-that each country should complete its programme and then stop building-had been

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agreed to and acted upon, the final cruiser strengths of Great Britain and the United States would have been :

Thus before the conference began the United States had started on a programme, which would have brought their cruiser fleet to something very near tonnage parity with Great Britain's. It is true that some of the United States' cruisers are of rather old design; but they are large, powerful ships, very suitable for escorting commercial fleets, and patrolling the outer trade

routes.

After long discussion, in which only one argument was ever put forward by the American naval experts, the Naval Affairs Committee have reported in favour of a bill for fifteen tenthousand-ton cruisers, and one aircraft carrier. Congress has still to give its sanction to this report; and until a great deal more is known, it will be quite impossible to say what the final strength of the American cruiser fleet will be. The committee is silent about the eight ten-thousand-ton cruisers already authorised; but there is nothing to suggest that the programme now recommended supersedes all previous projects. The cruisers on the authorised list will presumably be taken in hand when the five years' programme, now recommended, is complete; and we may assume that the United States Government contemplate the creation of a homogeneous force of twenty-three cruisers of the largest and most powerful type. But this formidable force cannot be a pure addition to the cruiser forces of the United States. At the present moment their cruiser fleet is composed of :(a) Ten heavy cruisers of high speed and high gun power, laid down between 1907 and 1908;

(b) Eleven heavy cruisers of low speed and high gun power, laid down between 1904 and 1906;

(c) Nineteen smaller cruisers of very different ages, types

strength.

and

Some vessels in class (c), and possibly some in class (b) will be put out of commission as the twenty-three ten-thousand-ton cruisers come forward. Any examination of the final constitution of the American cruiser fleet must necessarily be subject to revision until it can be ascertained what part of the programme

now under contemplation is a programme of replacement, and what part a programme of expansion. This will only be divulged slowly. The Navy Department are not likely to state their plans in advance. It is, however, fairly safe to say that some ten years hence the American cruiser fleet will be made up of :

ΙΟ

23 heavy cruisers of 10,000 tons displacement armed with 8" guns 7,500 6" guns 10 older, reserve cruisers, of low speed but heavy armament. Relative naval strengths cannot, however, be examined independently of strategic duties. Tables of tonnage and armament, juxtaposed to one another, give no idea whatever of the forces which a particular country can or must concentrate at a particular place, and at a particular time. For some reason, which is difficult to understand, the American naval experts have shown an extraordinary reluctance to defend their proposals with strategical arguments. Ever since the discussion in America began, they have urged that nothing would be satisfactory but a cruiser tonnage equal to Great Britain's. Cruiser parity with Great Britain is an ambition, not an argument; their only argument was that the political status of the United States justified their proposals. This, it may be added, was exactly the argument that Tirpitz adopted when he placed his great navy bills before the Reichstag ; he spoke of the military power of Germany, and of the alliance value of a powerful fleet; but only in the vaguest possible way of trade routes and overseas communications. Opponents of the Navy Department's proposals followed the lead already given to them. They prepared paper after paper to show that the naval programme was a serious obstacle to disarmament; no single protest was based upon a reasoned survey of American maritime communications, of the direction and volume of American overseas trade, and of America's naval defence problems. And yet, unless some such survey is made, it is quite impossible to ascertain whether the existing naval programme is a programme for predominance, or parity, or less than parity, in cruiser strength. Cruiser strength is conditioned by strategic distribution; strategic distribution by overseas trade. The use which can be made of the American cruiser fleet, the purposes it can serve, can only be estimated by making some kind of a survey of America's naval defence problems.

It is generally said and believed that the United States are

self-sufficing. Self-sufficiency is, however, a very loose phrase. The United States, with their enormous mineral wealth, their immense production of food and industrial plant, cannot be wholly independent of foreign markets and foreign trade. The self-sufficiency of the United States must necessarily be a relative term; but if a military or strategic meaning only is given to the phrase, the United States may in a sense be regarded as selfsufficing. Their independence of sea-borne supplies for all those products and goods which are essential to warlike industries is truly remarkable. They produce fifty times more coal than they import, thirty times more than they export; their annual production of coke is about forty-six million tons, their total exports and imports just over one million; they produce one hundred and nine million tons of petroleum, and import and export about twenty-four millions.

The United States are equally independent of foreign supplies for the metals chiefly used in war. Their production of iron, pig iron, copper and lead, exceeds their imports many times over; more than that they have a large surplus of each metal available for export. Finally their internal supply of chemicals is more than sufficient for their requirements. The United States are thus self-sufficing in respect to the motive power and the essential supplies of all their principal war industries.

Their position with regard to cotton is so well known that it would be almost waste of time to quote figures. But, as it will be shown later that the sources of the United States' naval defence problems are their export markets, it is worth while here to note that the United States export just over half of their total production of cotton. Great Britain and France each draw about sixty per cent. of their total cotton supplies from America.

For food the United States are nearly as self-sufficing as they are for metals, chemicals and motive power. They produce annually some eighteen million metric tons of wheat; their exports and re-exports of wheat and flour amount to about a third of their total production. The position is exactly the same in respect to rye, barley, oats and maize; while the production of meat and bacon in the United States is sufficient to supply many lands and to fill many overseas markets.

This strategical or military independence of overseas supplies necessarily makes America's defence problem very different to