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

500.A15a3/387

The Secretary of State to the Japanese Ambassador (Debuchi)

[Washington, November 12, 1929.]

Aide-Mémoire

You have asked me for an expression of my opinion as to the proposed ratio for Japan in the several classes to be dealt with at the London Conference, and you have suggested that Japan desires a ratio not of 5–3 but of 10–7 in the cruiser class particularly as to the type armed with 8-inch guns.

You will realize that one of the great difficulties of the conference will come in the desires of France and Italy to keep certain ratios with each other and it may well be that the word “ratio” will be an unfortunate word in the London conference. It may be possible that the eventual settlement will be made as a result of actual conditions in ships rather than ratios.

I have not reached final opinions on conference matters and hope to go to the conference with no fixed positions on the topics that are to come up. I look forward to the personal meetings with your representatives to get a knowledge of your particular problems and wishes and recall the effective support for reduction which the Japanese delegation afforded our delegation both at Geneva and Washington. In that light you will understand my answer. You will understand also I am speaking what is in my mind with great frankness and not guardedly as if I were stating final positions.

I do not believe that a change in the attitude of the Japanese Government on its ratio in the cruiser class increasing it to 10–7 is likely to be conducive to the success of the conference. I desire to state quite frankly and at some length my reasons for my belief.

The Washington Conference was an attempt so to limit naval armament in order to remove the incentive of one nation to build against another. The formula which was proposed by that conference to end the competition was that Great Britain and the United States should agree that their fleets should be equal, the theory being that inasmuch as future building could not change that equality, the incentive to build would be gone. The formula between Japan and Great Britain and Japan and the United States was that a ratio of 5–3 would result in satisfactory naval strength in Japanese waters. If you will refer to the record of the conference you will find that the original formula proposed by this Government covered not only capital ships and aircraft carriers but also all auxiliary combatant craft, and specifically covered cruisers, destroyers and submarines. This proposition was accepted on behalf of Japan by Baron Kato.⁸⁹ He said:

“Gladly accepting, therefore, the proposal in principle, Japan is ready to proceed with determination to a sweeping reduction in her naval armament”,

and again he said:

“Japan has never claimed nor had any intention of claiming to have a naval establishment equal in strength to that of either the United States or the British Empire. Her existing plan will show conclusively that she had never in view preparation for offensive war.”

Later the position of Japan was greatly solidified by Article 19 of the treaty under which Japan, Great Britain and the United States undertook to maintain the status quo as to military stations in Pacific waters within a large radius from Japan.⁹⁰ The point I am emphasizing at the moment is that the net result gave Japan a naval position in the East which more than adequately protected her interests without any increase in the 5–5–3 formula. Under these circumstances it would seem that to increase Japan’s ratio to 10–10–7, would in view of these restrictions on American and British defenses in Eastern waters, tend to increase her strength beyond that which is necessary for defensive purposes. Therefore I had considered that I should accept the statements made on behalf of Japan at the Washington Conference, in view of the circumstances attending their utterance, as a considered and final statement of naval policy, largely dependent on the agreement as to bases, in the same way that the agreement as to bases is dependent on it.

After the Washington Conference, it is true, there was substantial building in the cruiser and submarine classes by various nations, and the race for armament seemed again to be forcing a needless and dangerous financial burden on the nations. To attempt to deal with that situation the Geneva Conference was called, and if you will refer to the invitations to that conference you will remember that it was called in an attempt to carry on the principles laid down at Washington. The Geneva Conference failed largely because of difficulties between Great Britain and the United States, and in that conference Japan always took the position that she desired to limit the tonnage in each class, and to put that limit down as low as other nations would agree. At that time Great Britain desired a large number of cruisers; the United States was not willing to accede.

Recently we have entered into the communications which you know about with Great Britain. In those communications and in our conferences with Mr. MacDonald we have not discussed the Japanese ratio or the Japanese position, feeling that it would not help to discuss such questions when the representatives of Japan were not present, therefore what I am now saying to you is in no wise a statement of the British position, nor am I informed whether or not the British agree with what I am saying.

The general range of our discussions with the British has been as follows:

We considered the submarine category together and found that both of us would be willing to abandon the submarine entirely. We felt doubt as to whether either Japan or France and Italy would so agree. We felt that, if submarines were not to be abolished we were willing to limit the building of them, and we expected that Japan would probably have the same idea as to submarines although we knew that Japan had, built and building, a very substantial submarine tonnage, probably above any ratio of 5–5–3.

When we came to discuss the destroyer class we found that the United States was at the moment possessed of a large number of destroyers, built for the purpose of the last war, which would become over sixteen years old by 1936, some of them are out of commission already. The United States probably would in ordinary course soon scrap a certain amount of this tonnage so that Great Britain and ourselves felt that we would be glad to put the limit of this destroyer class as low as practicable, and we talked of a limitation, between 150,000 and 200,000 tons.

In respect to capital ships, the United States suggestion was that there should be no replacements or a minimum of replacements other than those necessary to work out in 1936 the 5–5–3 ratio. That, we pointed out, would mean a large saving in money. Great Britain did not take any final position as to capital ship replacements but suggested that all nations should make some replacements in a smaller type of battleship perhaps 25,000 tons. We are not inclined to accord with this last suggestion as it is out of accord with our historic naval views. We have promised Great Britain to consider it. We regard the question as less important than the cruiser question and felt that it was a matter which could safely be left to the London Conference.

When we came to the more difficult cruiser class our effort was first to persuade the British to be satisfied with what we regarded as a smaller number of units and a lower tonnage than they asked at Geneva. They finally made a suggestion that they would be satisfied with about 50 units with a tonnage of about 340,000 tons in 1936 (this is about their present strength), with a replacement program of say two cruisers a year until 1936, making a total of 14 replacements. That would make their 1936 cruiser status fifteen 8-inch gun cruisers, a total of 146,000 tons, and about 192,000 ton smaller 6-inch cruisers, many of which would be old. Suggestions were made between us of some method of providing a common yardstick for measurement which would make due allowance for greater age and inferior gun calibre of the British fleet as compared with the American cruiser fleet which, Great Britain suggested should consist of 10 of our Omaha class (7,000 ton 6-inch); 18 of 10,000 8-inch class and a further number of smaller 6-inch gun cruisers to accomplish parity with Great Britain under such terms as we might agree on as constituting total cruiser equality. United States naval advisers on the other hand felt that the United States should have at least 21 of the 10,000 ton 8-inch gun type to make up for the disparity in displacement tonnage. When we reached this point we thought we were near enough agreement with Britain to leave the matter safely to the conference, and in that situation the matter has been left.

H[enry] L. S[timson]

89. See Conference on the Limitation of Armament, Washington, November 12, 1921–February 6, 1922 (Washington, Government Printing Office, 1922), p. 106.
90. Treaty between the United States, the British Empire, France, Italy, and Japan for the limitation of naval armament, signed February 6, 1922, Foreign Relations, 1922, vol. i, pp. 247, 252.