<P> Katō Tomosaburō was finally able to persuade the Japanese high command to accept the Hughes proposals, but the outcome of the treaty was for years a cause of controversy in the navy . </P> <P> The French delegation initially responded angrily to the idea of reducing its capital ships tonnage to 175,000 tons and demanded 350,000, slightly above Japan . In the end, concessions regarding cruisers and submarines helped persuade the French to agree to the limit on capital ships . Another issue that was seen as critical by the French representatives was Italy's request of substantial parity, which was seen as unsubstantiated; however, pressure from the American and British delegations led them to give in . That was seen as a great success in Italy, but parity would never actually be reached . </P> <P> There was much discussion about the inclusion or exclusion of individual warships . In particular, the Japanese delegation was keen to retain their newest battleship Mutsu, which had been funded with great public enthusiasm, including donations from schoolchildren . That resulted in provisions to allow the United States and Britain to construct equivalent ships . </P> <P> Hughes proposed to limit secondary ships (cruisers and destroyers) in the same proportions as capital ships . However, that was unacceptable to both the British and the French . The British counterproposal, in which the British would be entitled to 450,000 tons of cruisers in consideration of its imperial commitments but the United States and Japan only 300,000 and 250,000 respectively, proved equally contentious . Thus, the idea of limiting total cruiser tonnage or numbers was rejected entirely . </P>

Negative consequence of five power naval limitation treaty