Both our Army and Navy have been maintained in a high state of efficiency.
The ability and devotion of both officers and men sustain the highest
traditions of the service. Reductions and postponements in expenditure of
these departments to meet the present emergency are being made without
reducing existing personnel or impairing the morale of either
establishment.
The agreement between the leading naval powers for limitation of naval
armaments and establishment of their relative strength and thus elimination
of competitive building also implies for ourselves the gradual expansion of
the deficient categories in our Navy to the parities provided in those
treaties. However, none of the other nations, parties to these agreements,
is to-day maintaining the full rate of construction which the treaty size
of fleets would imply.
Although these agreements secured the maximum reduction of fleets which it
was at that time possible to attain, I am hopeful that the naval powers,
party to these agreements, will realize that establishment of relative
strength in itself offers opportunity for further reduction without injury
to any of them. This would be the more possible if pending negotiations are
successful between France and Italy. If the world is to regain its
standards of life, it must further decrease both naval and other arms. The
subject will come before the General Disarmament Conference which meets in
Geneva on February 2.