The Unsolved Naval Problems of the Pacific

Abstract

R. F. W. EGGLESTON, Chairman of the Australian Branch of the Institute of Relations, and former Minister of Railways for the State of Victoria, writing on Disarmament and the Pacific in the December, 1930, issue of PACIFIC AFFAIRS, advances two theses-first, that disarmament is both a world-wide and a regional problem, and second, that the problem should, in so far as it is peculiar to and primarily affects the regions, be discussed at the conferences of the Institute of Relations. On the first point there can, I presume, be no two opinions. I, for one, am in entire agreement with Mr. Eggleston. The second, as Mr. Eggleston himself recognizes, is open to controversy. In the present paper, then, I shall refrain from discussing whether or not the conference of the Institute could profitably and effectively deal with disarmament, but shall confine myself to the consideration of such aspects of the disarmament problem as are peculiar to the regions. Nor do I propose to cover all branches of armament, because the nations bordering upon the Pacific, except Japan and China, are separated from one another by vast expanses of water, and are therefore primarily interested in the navy as an international armament problem. And the naval problem in the resolves itself into one between the United States and Japan, as their navies in that water are so much larger than those of the other nations that by comparison the latter sink to Lilliputian proportion. Great Britain, by reason of her naval bases at Singapore and at Hongkong, enters the picture as a third naval Power. [863]