Tuesday, 22 April 1930: London Naval Conference Ends with Incomplete Results

London: 

The London Naval Treaty – focal point of the London Naval Conference which has been going on for the past two months -- is signed by the five participating nations: Japan, the United States, Great Britain, France and Italy.  The treaty marks a partial victory for diplomacy: all five nations agree to suspend expansion of their battleship fleets until 1936.  However, only three of the countries – Japan, the U.S., and U.K. – agree to limitations on their fleet sizes.  France and Italy could never resolve their differences with each other nor the rest of the participants, and so did not agree to fleet size limitations.  Perhaps indicative of the anticlimactic ending after 13 weeks of meetings, the U.S. delegation is already at the docks ready to board their ship home the same day of the signing. 

British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald says, “We have now gone as far as we can at present.  Compared with Washington and Geneva [earlier conferences], we have progressed far.  Compared with our desires, we have fallen short.  We part today in a spirit of active good will, prepared to take every means which offers itself to secure a five-power agreement on all points.  Our work has been but partly done, but all good work must be done in stages.”

London Naval Conference delegates

Cettinje, Yugoslavia:  A communist agitator guns down four people, including the chief of the gendarmes, and wounds three others, before being killed by police. 

Thursday, 10 April 1930

London: 

At the London Naval Conference, the U.S. delegation comes up with a scheme that will allow all five participants to sign something, thus preventing a complete conference failure, although most of what France and Italy will sign is of less consequence.  The idea is to break the treaty into three parts.  The first calls for a temporary suspension of battleship building.  The second will deal with the “humanization” of submarine warfare.  France and Italy will reportedly sign those two.  The third part will be trilateral between the U.S., Great Britain and Japan, governing broader naval quotas. 

Berlin: 

The new cabinet of Heinrich Bruening is already finding the going rough.  One economic measure after another is defeated in committee: yesterday it was the cabinet’s proposal to raise the beer tax 75%; today it is plans for funding unemployment insurance.  President Paul von Hindenburg has called another meeting of all political party leaders to try to find a solution.  If he doesn’t, rumors are he will consider again his earlier threat to dissolve the Reichstag and have Bruening run the country by the constitution’s emergency provisions. 

Elsewhere:

Washington:  More bad economic news: farm wages are the lowest since the government started collecting figures in 1923. 

Belgrade:  13 people are sentenced to prison on charges of belonging to a communist organization.