Negotiations
At the first plenary session held November 21, 1921, the US Secretary of State, Charles Evans Hughes, presented the US proposals. Hughes provided a dramatic opening for the conference by stating with resolve: "The way to disarm, is to disarm." The ambitious approach received enthusiastic public support and likely shortened the conference while helping ensure the US proposals were largely adopted. He subsequently proposed the following:
- A ten-year pause or "holiday" in the construction of capital ships (battleships and battlecruisers), including the immediate suspension of all capital ship building.
- The scrapping of existing, or planned, capital ships so as to give a 5:5:3:1.75:1.75 ratio in tonnage between the US, Britain, Japan, France and Italy.
- Ongoing limits on both capital ship tonnage, and the tonnage of secondary vessels, in the 5:5:3 ratio.
Read more about this topic: Washington Naval Treaty
Famous quotes containing the word negotiations:
“But always and sometimes questioning the old modes
And the new wondering, the poem, growing up through the floor,
Standing tall in tubers, invading and smashing the ritual
Parlor, demands to be met on its own terms now,
Now that the preliminary negotiations are at last over.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)