Plus v. Minus at London

Two outstanding leaders the London Conference had last week: one positive, the other negative.

Negative Stimson. An engineer knows that the negative pole of a storage battery is exactly as useful as the positive. Growing satisfaction was evident at the White House as, day after day, the chief of the U. S. delegation in London did nothing un-negative.

For example, at the first plenary session of the conference, held at St. James's palace in the drawing-room of one of the most negative British sovereigns who ever reigned, Queen Anne, the address of Secretary of State Henry Lewis Stimson was kept in the spirit of his opening sentence:

"After careful consideration and consultation with my colleagues I have decided not to make any statement today as to the naval requirements of America."

In these words there was the leadership of a field marshal who sits firmly down and waits for the four opposing armies to make some misstep against his impregnable position. In a sense the U. S. position is impregnable. "Our requirements," said Mr. Stimson, continuing his remarks, "are well understood. They have been cheerfully recognized by the nation which is our host and which has, through its Prime Minister, agreed with us that equality in naval power between us is a basis upon which we can best promote the beneficent purposes of this conference."

Headlines in the New York Herald Tribune, closest news organ to the Hoover administration, after its correspondent had talked with the President:

CAUTIOUS TREND

OF NAVAL PARLEY

PLEASES CAPITAL

PRESIDENT GRATIFIED THAT NO PRECIPITATE ACTION CONFUSES

EARLY SESSIONS

Washington fears of broad pronouncements vanish

It was January last week and Messrs. Hoover and Stimson were understood, respectively in Washington and London, to be sanguine that the conference may be crowned with success in May or June.

Limping visibly, Ambassador Charles Gates Dawes emerged from one of the many sessions at St. James's palace, answered correspondents who had rudely asked: "What's the matter with you? Why the limp?"

"Diplomacy," replied General Dawes, "isn't too hard on the brain, but it's hell on the feet!"

Newsmen also asked Rear Admiral Moffatt, chief adviser on naval aviation to the U. S. delegation, why he was in mufti, why he had bought a shiny new silk hat.

"I was ordered to buy it," said Admiral Moffatt. "The order was mandatory. I expect I shall throw the thing overboard on the boat home."

Other evidence of discipline in the U. S. delegation and of leadership by Statesman Stimson: 1) Senators Reed and Robinson were overruled when they urged Mr. Stimson not to consent to the holding of conference sessions in secret, which became the rule after the first plenary session;* 2) After his initial reception of the press on reaching London (TIME, Jan. 27), Statesman Stimson held no more press conferences last week, though the chiefs of the other four delegations were accessible almost daily; 3) Asked for a Yes or No answer to the question, "Has Mr. Stimson any definite program in readiness to be submitted to the conference at the proper time?" the U. S. delegation's press spokesman (Minister to Switzerland Hugh R. Wilson) courteously replied, "I am sorry, but that is another question I cannot answer now."

Positive Tardieu. In a special radio broadcast, not to the World but to Frenchmen, French Prime Minister Andre Tardieu said:

"I predicted that the recent Hague reparations conference would succeed, and success came. I say now that the London conference will succeed. Success will come here also."

No one else made anything like so positive a statement at the conference last week. Positive, too, were a series of remarks which caused United Press Correspondent Pierre Salarnier to cable a story which began: "The British and American governments failed to reach an accord on naval policy as a result of Premier MacDonald's recent visit to Washington and today are farther apart than ever, Premier Tardieu of France told the United Press in an interview today.

"Assuming the role of a mediator between the two delegations, Tardieu said he 'must spend the day between MacDonald and Henry L. Stimson in an effort to reconcile American and British theories on several outstanding points.'

"Tardieu further insisted that the 'breach' between the two English-speaking nations actually had widened since the American navy department and the British Admiralty experts assumed a prominent part in the negotiations."

Normally stationed at Paris, Correspondent Salarnier has for a long time been on close terms with M. Tardieu, has received from him much information on various conferences of a perfectly proper but somewhat inside character. This his employers know. But Statesman Tardieu --possibly as a result of pressure from embarrassed Statesmen Stimson and MacDonald--soon issued to the Associated Press a flat repudiation of his statement to United Press. There were probably no hard feelings. In the diplomatic profession and the newspaper game it is mutally understood that indiscreet quotation will be followed by repudiation.*

On the assumption that the British and U. S. delegations actually were last week "further apart than ever," a great many things would become clear, including the need for negative statesmanship in public, and utter secrecy about all meetings between Statesmen Stimson and MacDonald until they had ironed out their differences.

Biggest point of probable difference: most British editors, powerful Laborite groups and the Admiralty put heaviest pressure on Chairman MacDonald of the conference, last week, to get limitation of capital ships placed first in the conference agenda, whereas Messrs. Hoover and MacDonald were once in harmonious agreement that limitation of cruisers is the prime business of the conference. There were hopeful signs that this "breach" was being successfully closed in secret. Meanwhile two retired admirals, one British, one U. S., openly said what many an admiral on active duty thought.

Rear Admiral Bradley A. Fiske (U. S. N. retired): "There is not one chance in a hundred of our achieving naval parity with Great Britain!"

Vice Admiral E. A. Taylor (B. R. N., retired): "Often I have heard people who ought to know better state that we accepted the basis of equality at Washington in 1922. We did nothing of the kind. We accepted equality in capital ships only; a very different thing. . . .

"My point is that all this talk of equality as a basis is fundamentally wrong."

Agenda Cyclone. On the seventh day of the Conference came its first down-to-brass-tacks session, when the delegates met to try and agree on their agenda--a term meaning "the things to be attempted, and the order in which to attempt them."

Ensued a three-hour secret session which one delegate later told reporters was "wasted in wind." He said that a French delegate "started a regular cyclone" by wafting across the table at an Italian delegate the zephyr: "Ha! So the egg [Italy] thinks itself more important than the chicken [France]!" Another delegate described the session in two words: "Exhaustive, exhausting!"

The exhaustion of the chief U. S. delegate was such that he went straight to his hotel (the Ritz) and, although the hour was not yet dinner time, removed his garments, pajamaed, retired.

Positions of the delegations:

British. It seemed clear that Statesman MacDonald had been persuaded by the Admiralty into an attempt to retreat from even his minimum concession to President Hoover, a concession which the previous British Cabinet (Conservative) had made half-heartedly in name, but which Laborite MacDonald was first to offer straightforwardly in part--the offer that Britain will accept naval parity with the U. S. in all classes of ships. As a headline sop to criticism the shrewd Admiralty last week cancelled contracts let to build the 10,000-ton cruisers Surrey and Northumberland.

France. Positivist Tardieu continued to repeat his positive offers: 1) France will agree to practically any scheme of naval reduction or limitation jointly proposed by the U. S. and Britain, providing they will sign a "security pact" pledging at least their active friendship and cooeperation in case she is attacked; 2) France will accept any naval arrangement with Italy ensuring her own safety, but holds that she can only be secure by possessing a larger fleet than Italy's, unless the Powers will sign a Mediterranean "security pact"; 3) France prefers to limit by global tonnage rather than by categories.

Italy. Spade-bearded Signor Dino Grandi continued to insist that "Italy will not accept less than parity with the navy of any other continental European power." Said he to correspondents: "I am not thinking exclusively of France. We must think of Turkey, which is not here, and of great Russia, which is not here."

Japan. Sunk in gloom and suspicion was the Japanese delegation, and most of the press in Japan. Tokyo editors freely charged that Statesmen Stimson and MacDonald were in cahoots to balk Japan of her great aspiration: a 70% ratio of Japanese cruisers to either British or U. S. (TIME, Jan. 20).

*Result: in the U.S. Senate blunt Democrat McKellar of Tennessee blurted: "I want to take this occasion to commend Senators Robinson [Dem.] and Reed [Rep.] for their stand in favor of having open season. . . . It will be recalled that the deliberations between President Hoover and Mc. MacDonald were secret. . . . Of all international covenants this particular one should be open and openly arrived at!"

*The late great Nikola Pashitch, founder and longtime Prime Minister of Jugoslavia, once gave an interview to the lady who is now Mrs. Sinclair Lewis, and when she indiscreetly let out in Budapest what he had intended for New York, he positively stated not only that he had never spoken to her but that he had never seen her--though there were at least a dozen witnesses to their handshake.

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