Wardog Warnings

The Geneva conference on naval disarmament failed last summer because Britain and the U. S. could not agree as to why and how each should reduce its cruiser-building program. Britain held out for more cruisers than the U. S. thought seemed necessary.

The Geneva conference having failed, President Coolidge has been advocating such additions to the U.S. cruiser line as would have been made had no conference ever been held. Britain, on the other hand, ast fortnight announced that she would build only one of three cruisers planned for next year (TIME, Nov. 28). Last week, U. S. wardogs growled suspiciously at this announcement.

Pacing his room in a Manhattan hotel, Rear Admiral Bradley A. Fiske, U. S. N. retired, said he was so perturbed by the cruiser news from Eng land that he could think of nothing else. He quoted, without naming, a high U. S. official who viewed the British move as a British bluff, an effort to discredit and obstruct the Coolidge program in the 70th Con gress, which meets this week.

Boomed Rear Admiral Fiske: "The British interests demand that Britain shall continue to dominate the sea trade of the world and dominate it with British guns. Our interests demand an equal right upon the sea. We are rapidly coming to a point where, to use expressive slang, we've really got to put up or shut up."