"Common Upper Limit"

"Common Upper Limit"

Japanese public opinion was fatefully upheaved by disclosures in Manhattan last week, as in London the Naval Conference of the U. S., Britain, Japan, France and Italy resumed its labors after Christmas holidays.

The disclosures came in a book Powerful America* by Eugene J. Young, cable editor of the New York Times, who was fortunate in obtaining memoranda left by the late Adolph S. Ochs. On April 22, 1921, Mr. Ochs, as the potent publisher of the New York Times, was invited to breakfast at No. 10 Downing St. by Prime Minister David Lloyd George. Afterward he was shown into the office of First Lord of the Admiralty Viscount Lee of Fareham, secretaries were sent out of the room, the doors were closed. As palpitating Publisher Ochs afterward recorded in his memorandum, "I left this conference in a high state of elation, feeling very much complimented to be entrusted with so important and epoch-making a message."

The message, read by Japanese with absolute fury last week, was a British proposal to President Harding and Secretary of State Hughes for Anglo-U. S. naval parity. The Japanese Government had relied on Great Britain, as their Wartime ally, not to make any sub rosa deal with the U. S., and Washington's great Naval Conference was not yet thought of. Japanese editors last week filled their papers with wrathful recollections of how. after the Washington Conference opened in November 1921, the British delegation professed to be "surprised" when Secretary of State Hughes proposed what afterward was adopted as the 5-5-3 ratio with Japan at the short end and the U. S. and Britain sharing parity. One of the most surprised British delegates was Lord Lee, who, according to the Ochs memorandum, had himself proposed this particular surprise several months previously and had it transmitted to Washington by Publisher Ochs.

With the Japanese Press shrieking "Perfidious Albion" last week, Lord Lee in London gave a lie direct to the memorandum of the late Adolph S. Ochs and it seemed unlikely that Charles Evans Hughes would unbend as Chief Justice of the U. S. to tell what cannot be told by such dead men as President Harding, Publisher Ochs and Lord Balfour, who led the British Delegation at Washington. Said Lord Lee: "Lord Balfour and I found that plan a complete and absolute surprise."

This expression of surprise last week was the more remarkable because in 1933 the Ochs memorandum was shown to Lord Lee, received his approval in writing, and contains this epilog by Mr. Ochs: "I have told Lord Lee on several occasions that I hoped some day to place a wreath of laurel on his brow for having been the originator and promoter of this epoch-making event." In Cuba, tough Lord Lee was a Rough Rider with the late great Theodore Roosevelt.

Another section of the Ochs memorandum described Lord Lee as having proposed originally not only Anglo-U. S. naval parity, but also and even more vitally a division of hemispheres between the two Great Powers to the extent that the British Navy should guard the peace of the Atlantic while that of the Pacific should be guarded by the U. S. Navy. In Tokyo last week fire-eating Japanese Admiral Nobu-masa Suetsugu, a Washington Conference Delegate, was quite ready to believe that such an Anglo-U. S. arrangement not only existed in 1921 but still exists. Snorted he: "Its existence explains why during the Manchurian affair the United States felt safe in concentrating its fleet in the Pacific!"

Meanwhile last week in London the Naval Conference ran out of agenda. All proposals originally contemplated had ended in deadlocks (TIME, Dec. 16 et seq.}. Logical next move was for the Con ference to dissolve, a total failure, but at the British Foreign Office young men in striped trousers wittily said, "It really can't adjourn until Wednesday because all the Delegates are counting on a banquet Wednesday evening with the Prince of Wales."

In no mood to wait for a royal repast was Japan's Chief Delegate, round-faced and crinkly-smiling but dead-earnest Admiral Osamu Nagano. On the opening day of the Conference he announced that Japan could approve no action which did not begin by setting a "common upper limit" for the navies of Japan, the U. S. and Britain. It was not. Admiral Nagano said, Japan's demand or desire to build her navy up to parity with those of Britain and the U. S., but instead Japan hoped the "common upper limit" would be set so low that none of the Great Powers would be in a position to menace another with offensive attack while each would have adequate naval forces to defend itself.

Was not that fair all round? The Japanese last week insisted with redoubled firmness that it was. With Tokyo boiling against London, Admiral Nagano was suspicious that 1921 Anglo-U. S. solidarity behind the scenes was being repeated in 1936. He let it be said to London reporters that, after one more speech by himself to the Conference, the Japanese Delegation would walk out if their demand for a common upper limit remained unheeded.

President of the Conference Anthony Eden was just finishing up with 61 foreign representatives who had called to congratulate him on his appointment as Foreign Secretary. On the final day of these congratulations, Mr. Eden worked after hours, flinging himself into an effort to keep the Conference sitting. He let it be said and printed that, if Japan walked out, the Conference might invite Germany and Russia to walk in and have chairs.

Also Mr. Eden so conducted himself that the late Mr. Ochs's New York Times reported: "The British are awakening to the importance of William Phillips, United States Undersecretary of State." In a burst of belated hospitality Mr. Eden gave a handsome lunch for Mr. Phillips just before he sailed for the U. S. Guests recalled that Benito Mussolini was asleep to the importance of Anthony Eden when that young man went to Rome with an authority not unlike Mr. Phillips' (TIME, July 8), and that the scant honors II Duce showed Captain Eden have since cost the Dictator dear. In Tokyo this week, after a great battle inside the Japanese Cabinet between jingoes and moderates, the Son of Heaven, Divine Emperor Hirohito, approved secret instructions to Admiral Nagano. Then entire Japanese Press indicated that these instructions were not to quit the Conference. Few hours later Admiral Nagano thunderstruck London & Tokyo by announcing that his instructions were to quit "shortly" with his entire Japanese Delegation, leaving Captain Fujita, Naval Attache at London, to act as an observer.

* Stokes ($3), to be published Jan. 27.

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