500.A15A4 General Committee (Arms)/118: Telegram
The American Delegate (Wilson) to the Secretary of State
[Received March 5—3:50 p.m.]
1000. Among the amendments to chapters 2 and 3 of our draft, the Italian delegate proposes the addition of new articles reproducing [Page 31] articles 14 and 28 [18] of the Washington Treaty53 as adopted by the Naval Commission.
Following their presentation to the Committee today I explained that while I was entirely sympathetic with the ideas contained in these articles and while the United States is bound by the Washington Treaty I perceived difficulties surrounding the inclusion of any measures of qualitative limitation whatsoever in this treaty of limited scope. If one measure of this character should be included it might open the way to further limitation proposals and defeat the present treaty by broadening the scope indefinitely. I added, however, that I would consult my Government.
Unless you have decided views to the contrary I feel that we should continue to oppose the inclusion of these articles for the reasons sketched above. At the same time, in view of Italy’s attitude toward this convention, I should like to show every consideration possible to an Italian proposal. You may feel, therefore, that it would be worth while to explain our position to Ambassador Rosso.54
- Foreign Relations, 1922, vol. i, p. 247.↩
- Italian Ambassador in the United States.↩