500.A15 a 1/322: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Chairman of the American Delegation (Gibson)
11. Your No. 27, June 23, 9 p.m. In my opinion your opening speech at Conference, and proposals circulated with it, set forth in their minimum figures this country’s lowest naval necessities;49 any revision upward of these figures is due to fact that our needs are relative to sea force which Great Britain and Japan desire to build. Any contention by British that they need large number of cruisers for the protection of their long trade routes carries the implication that they must protect them against some other nation. As the United States and Japan are the only two nations with navies large enough to be a threat to Great Britain, there does not seem to be any logical excuse for excessive tonnage demands.
Should the British insist on making an elaborate defense of demand for a high cruiser tonnage, you might, I think, content yourself with making a reiteration in accordance with the suggestion in your telegram. I am further convinced that insistence upon this point would not be misjudged in view of support which the parity with Great [Page 56] Britain has received in this country. The high limit suggested by Jellicoe was, possibly, merely a covert attempt to ascertain whether or not we were sincere on the subject of parity. On that point there can be no question; but it is certain, as well, that we should not care to sign a treaty increasing British cruiser tonnage by about 75 percent and requiring us to triple our effective cruiser strength. Should the British put forward such claims seriously, I think that the public analysis of them would more than justify failure to conclude a treaty, and might even have effect of stimulating zeal of Congress for competitive building.
You may in conversation with the British discreetly use any of the foregoing.
- See S. Doc. 55, 70th Cong., 1st sess., pp. 24 and 185.↩