500.A15a3/146: Telegram
The Ambassador in Great Britain (Dawes) to the Secretary of State
254. The following letter was received at the Embassy at 11:20 last night:
“August 30th, 1929.
My dear General Dawes: I am enclosing you herewith my comments48 upon the document, which I repeat is a very valuable one, presented to me last night in the form of a draft agreement.
We are all determined to bring something out of these conversations and to do it by the beginning of next week. But in our desire to do so we may make the mistake of committing ourselves to general statements which cover unsolved problems that when we face them may wreck the further stages of our agreements. That is why those of us who met today to consider the agreement felt that it was necessary to press for a little more definiteness regarding the parity program of the United States. We cannot afford to go into the Five-Power Conference with major difficulties between ourselves unsettled. If the figures could be supplied from your side in the same measure of detail as you have inserted for us in your paragraph 11 I would not suggest that either paragraph 11 or 12 would at the moment be published. It would be an agreement between ourselves which would guide us in our action at the Five-Power Conference. Only if we have those figures in our possession can we bring the persuasion and the pressure to bear upon the other powers which we must do if the Conference is to be a real success from the point of view of disarmament. If the President could meet us on this and the other points, we could still close not later than Monday morning.
I am very sorry about the 9,000 tons which I have had to add to the 330,000 which has been the hypothetical figure appearing in your notes. [Page 214] I strove hard to hold it undisturbed and we worked out tonnages and units in every possible way to enable us to accept it without any alteration. The hard unfortunate thing, however, is as I have stated in the note accompanying this—there is not a single naval power building, on the same lines you have assumed to be possible, 6-inch cruisers standard tonnage.
You will recognize that I am, once again, not against you at all, but against the rest of the world minus you. I need only add that the reason why I did not give you tonnage before was that my last note was written from Lossiemouth where I could not get the advice that was necessary nor indeed the figures themselves. If we can be met now on this note I can agree without any further reference to anybody.
I should like to explain a little more than has been done in the accompanying note what has been the result of our very thorough examination of the American proposal that for our fifteen 8-inch cruisers you should have twenty-three. The ratio 5–5–3.5 which Japan asks for would mean that in relation to the twenty-three Japan could build sixteen which would be one of a superiority over us. If you fixed your 8-inch cruisers at twenty, the ratio would mean that Japan could build fourteen. I am perfectly certain that the Dominions would reject any agreement upon that basis. If on the other hand you made it eighteen for you, Japan could build 12.6 which would be thirteen. In order to get a settlement, we might get Japan to accept twelve and to that we would agree. Even supposing we got Japan to be content with a cruiser ratio of 5–5–3, on an American strength of twenty-three that would mean a Japanese building of fourteen—at least two more than there is any chance of our getting our dominions to agree to.
One very important result of an agreement which would enable Japan and ourselves to fix our actual units at twelve and fifteen is that neither of our countries until replacement is necessary would have to build any more 8-inch cruisers.
I should be glad if you would treat this letter as for the information of the American Government only.
I am, yours very sincerely, J. Ramsay MacDonald.”