Papers relating to the foreign relations of the United States, Japan, 1931–1941, Volume I

500.A15A5 Documents/14

Press Communiqué, London Naval Conference, January 15, 1936³⁴

London, January 15, 1936

At the request of the Japanese Delegation the Committee, at the invitation of the Chairman, agreed to resume this afternoon the discussion of the Japanese proposal for a common upper limit of naval tonnage. After the Japanese Delegation had made a statement with a view to elucidating further the Japanese proposal, the Chairman asked each Delegation to express their full and definitive views on this proposal. The Chairman, in summing up the discussion, stated that most of the time of the Delegations had been devoted, both inside and outside of the Conference, to a very careful consideration of this Japanese proposal, but he noted that it had received no support. Furthermore, he observed that the Japanese proposal dealt in the main only with quantitative limitation, and quantitative limitation itself was only a limited part of the many problems before the Conference. In the circumstances he thought that the best plan would be to adjourn the meeting and to proceed at the next meeting with the other important work before the Committee.

34. Issued at the close of the tenth meeting of the First Committee.