500.A15 a 1/329: Telegram
The Chairman of the American Delegation (Gibson) to the Secretary of State
[Received June 27—2:13 p.m.]
33. Each delegation at the Conference has supplied the others with tonnage figures on the basis of the Washington standard ton, so that all three delegations might be able to begin their studies with the same statistical data concerning authorized programs and the tonnages of existing vessels. The American delegation were rather surprised when considering the British figures to find that the tonnage of the 18 capital ships exceeding the Nelson and the Rodney in age aggregated 49,000 tons more than the figures contained in the tables of the Washington treaty, this being due to the fact that they were based on the tonnage basis theretofore used by the British Navy, and not on the Washington standard-ton basis. The belief was generally held that figures based on Washington standard tonnage would prove less than the figures previously published, and such has proved to be the case as concerns the American figures, but the figures previously published by the British proved to be less than the figures based on Washington standard tonnage. Standard-tonnage figures have not yet been received from the Japanese for their capital ships, but based on the Washington standard ton their figures for destroyers and cruisers aggregate approximately less than previously published figures by 8 percent.
After the accession of the Rodney and the Nelson and the inclusion of 18,000 tons for the modernization of six American battleships, the difference in the total standard tonnage between American and British capital ships is about 96,000 tons instead of the 33,000 tons which appear in the tables attached to the Washington treaty. It would thus be 1953 instead of 1942, as agreed upon, before parity in battleships would be reached if the British proposals were put into effect. Also for the period 1934 to 1945, it would give the British an average advantage of 14,000 tons above that under the replacement scheme contemplated by the Washington treaty and between 1945 and 1953, an advantage of about 8,000 tons.
The above information is being telegraphed for the information of the State Department and the Navy Department to be used in connection with their comments to the press, and in order to give more force to the views previously expressed that nothing should be done by us to increase the advantage to be gained by the British by postponing [Page 59] replacements, which is suggested in their plan for the modification of the Washington treaty, and is not intended for publicity purposes nor as a criticism of the British tonnage figures previously published.