500.A15Franco–British/1

The British Chargé ( Chilton ) to the Secretary of State

No. 358

Sir: I have the honour to inform you, under instructions from His Majesty’s Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, that [Page 265] preliminary conversations have proceeded between His Majesty’s Government and the French Government in the hope of finding a basis for naval limitation which might prove generally acceptable and thus render fruitful the resumption of discussions in the Preparatory Commission for the Disarmament Conference33 whose failure to record any progress during the last eighteen months has been the source of universal disappointment. To this end the two Governments have agreed substantially to modify the positions which they held respectively at the meeting of the Commission in March 1927, and have worked out proposals on the following lines, which they are themselves ready to accept and which they hope will serve to promote general agreement.

The limitations which the Disarmament Conference will have to determine will deal with four classes of men-of-war:

(1)
Capital ships, i. e. ships of over 10,000 tons or with guns of more than 8 inch calibre.
(2)
Aircraft carriers of over 10,000 tons.
(3)
Surface vessels of or below 10,000 tons armed with guns of more than 6 inch and up to 8 inch calibre.
(4)
Ocean going submarines over 600 tons.

The Washington Treaty34 regulates limitations in classes (1) and (2) and the Disarmament Conference will only have to consider the method of extending these limitations to Powers non-signatory to this Treaty.

As regards Classes (3) and (4), the final Disarmament Conference will fix the maximum tonnage applicable to all Powers, which no Power would be allowed to exceed for the total of vessels in each of these respective categories during the period covered by the Convention. Within this maximum limit, each Power will indicate at the final Conference for each of these categories, the tonnage they propose to reach and which they undertake not to exceed during the period covered by the Convention.

I am instructed to inform you of the terms of the above compromise between hitherto divergent views and to express the earnest hope of His Majesty’s Government that it may prove acceptable to the United States Government.

His Majesty’s Government believe it to offer the best, if not the only, prospect of making an advance from the present position, and they are confident that the Governments of other principal Naval Powers will examine it with the utmost sympathy.

His Majesty’s Government will be grateful to receive a reply as soon as possible and at all events before the meeting assembles on September 3rd.

I have [etc.]

H. G. Chilton
  1. See pp. 235 ff.
  2. Treaty of February 6, 1922, for the limitation of naval armament, Foreign Relations, 1922, vol. i, p. 247.