Papers relating to the foreign relations of the United States, 1929, Volume I

500.A15a3/170: Telegram

The Ambassador in Great Britain (Dawes) to the Secretary of State

London, September 13, 1929—8 p.m.
[Received September 14—7:50 a.m.⁵⁶]

269. The following is the text of the letter mentioned in my 268, September 13, 5 p.m., which has just been received from the Prime Minister.

“My Dear General Dawes: I have now had time to study the proposals which you left with me yesterday in three separate messages—one, a redraft of the proposed terms of agreement; one which conveys to me the opinions of the Naval Board; and one which gives me your President’s tentative views.

The delay in my answer is owing to the fact that the First Sea Lord is up in Argyllshire shooting and before sending you this reply I felt that I ought to get his concurrence which I now have.

1. The proposals of your Navy Board, if I understand it aright, I comment upon as follows: Your last despatch suggested, as parity with our program, twenty-three 8-inch, 10,000 ton cruisers (one of which you doubted if you could sustain on the application of a yardstick), plus ten Omahas of 7,000 tons each, equaling 300,000 tons. With a view to our international relationship we suggested that it might meet your requirements to take eighteen 8-inch cruisers plus five 10,000 tons, 6-inch cruisers, plus ten Omahas which also equaled 300,000 tons. An American strength of eighteen 8-inch cruisers is a very critical figure for us, not as regards you but as regards the rest of this world. We considered that our superiority of 39,000 tons was adequately set off by your superiority of three 8-inch cruisers, plus five 10,000 ton, 6–[inch gun] cruisers. Your Navy Board’s proposal is that you should reduce your 8-inch cruisers by two making them twenty-one and that you should also build five 7,000 ton, 6-inch cruisers and retain your ten Omahas. This amounts to a tonnage of 315,000; in other words that a difference of 24,000 tons in our favor should be set off by a superiority of six 8-inch cruisers in yours. In your despatch dated September 11, 7 p.m., it is suggested as a way of meeting us that you should use the tonnage of three 8-inch cruisers (the President’s message bringing your 8-inch cruisers strength down to eighteen) by building either four 6-inch cruisers of, I suppose, 7,500 tons each or three 6-inch cruisers of 10,000 tons each. That would give you a fleet of eighteen 8-inch cruisers, ten Omahas, and eight or nine 6-inch cruisers, the total tonnage being again 315,000.

2. On my side I am advised that a total tonnage difference of 39,000 tons barely compensates for the 33,000 tons superiority in 8-inch tonnage, plus the 50,000 extra 6-inch tonnage which I ventured to suggest for your consideration in my last despatch. The difference between us is only 15,000 tons or two 7,500 ton cruisers and I am prepared to leave this for adjustment as far as our relations to the United States alone are concerned. The figures of the Navy Board as regards 8-inch cruisers would present insuperable difficulties especially in view of international ratios.

3. As is remarked in one of your despatches, our conversations have brought the margin of difference to such a very small compass that it is unthinkable that it can prevent a settlement and now I am content to leave it as it is pending further conversations which in your last brief message Mr. Hoover suggests should be continued at the Five-Power Conference. I think however it would be a great pity if he and I did not exchange views on unsolved outstanding point when we are together and try to come to some agreement. We have never started a game of huckstering and these conversations would not degenerate into that. They would however tend to make the understanding between us more complete and more cordial and I am far more interested in that than in anything else. Unless, therefore, he absolutely prohibits it, I would like to conclude with him the conversations which for my part at any rate I have found so delightfully enlightening when we two were engaging in them. The danger of leaving any hiatus in our understanding to a Five-Power Conference is very great especially if we find that anybody is trying to drive a wedge between us. If either the President or myself found that a continuation of the conversations would become embarrassing in any way I am sure we could trust enough to each other’s friendship and good will to call a halt. For myself I do not apprehend the least shadow of such difficulty.

4. In order to leave both him and myself free for the Five-Power Conference I suggest that we should agree to review the agreement we may make together after that Conference has been had, lest in consequence of it some readjustment may have to be made. I do not anticipate that this will be necessary but it would assure opinion here if it felt that an arrangement which we were anxious to make with you would not seriously prejudice our relations with other powers.

5. I think that we ought also to agree on the lines of the Washington Conference decision that in 1935 we should review the situation of the world in relation to this agreement. To be perfectly candid with you it comes short of what I should like but at the same time my mind is perfectly clear that it is as much as I can consent to in the light of present circumstances. The world is not too comfortable a place for men of good will today and when they are composed of two parts—50 percent caution, 50 percent ideal desire—they have at the end of the day to admit that the good they would do they can not do fully. If we could have a really big influence on world policy for six years I believe that some of the things which we really must make provisional now will have been dissipated and a review of this agreement in 1935 would enable us to reduce some of these figures. It is going to be six years of hard political work to remove from the minds of the people of Europe the shadow of fear and until that has been done both America and us will have to accommodate ourselves to a disturbed world.

6. I am having prepared and will send you without delay the invitation which I think should go to the Washington Convention signatories. Would you be so good as to ask Mr. Hoover if he places any importance upon a December meeting? I have discussed that with the Foreign Office and the Admiralty and they both take the view that it is impossible. We must give time for despatches to go to and come from Japan by bag, as well as cable, for governments to set up committees, to consider accommodations and for delegates to come from Japan. Moreover it is not at all unlikely that I shall find it advisable to have preparatory conversations with some of the other powers interested so that as far as humanly possible we shall all be safeguarded against a failure. Finally, it is inadvisable to call a meeting which may be interrupted in the middle of its work by the Christmas holidays.

I should be glad if you would put these points to your President and tell him that the opinion here this morning is that the Conference should be called for the middle or latter part of January. I could then guarantee to take a hold on the business myself and give it more or less individual attention. Of course, before we send out the invitations I shall let you have a copy for transmission to the President so that he may make his comments before the issue takes place.

7. I cannot tell you how relieved I am that the way has been opened up for a visit to Washington. I know the delicacies which will have to be observed, but I am sure that with generosity and the forbearance of good will on both sides they will all be successfully overcome. I am confident that the feeling of Europe demands that we should see each other and that our meeting should be a signal to the rest of the world to think generously and behave decently.

When I have a little more leisure I really must put on paper an expression of some of the obligations we all owe to you for what you have done since you set foot on our shores. I feel that if this were to end one’s service for the world it would have been worth while.

In due course I shall send you what will appear to be, after the high importance of our previous conversations, some trivial matters—details which I propose for the distribution of my time in America.

With kindest regards, I am, yours very sincerely, J. Ramsay MacDonald.”

There was also a supplementary letter received reading as follows:

“My dear General Dawes: In the note herewith no reference is made to the issue of the memorandum. One or two expressions in it require consideration but you will have a separate note on it without delay.

With kindest regards, yours very sincerely, J. Ramsay MacDonald.”

Dawes

56. Telegram in four sections.