In this interpretation, the Washington treaty's 10,000-ton cruiser ceiling took the Hawkins design as its reference. Hawkins is treated as a large light cruiser in its original context, illustrating how treaty categories changed the meaning of cruiser labels. The London treaties then divided light and heavy cruisers while retaining an artificial restriction on the intermediate warship. A proposed alternative would have allowed cruisers of about 15,000 tons. That is a criticism of the treaty settlement, not a category the treaties actually adopted.
Notable Point · 30:32-31:13
The Hawkins-based limit and the missing middle-sized cruiser
The cruiser critique traces the 10,000-ton ceiling to Hawkins and asks whether a 15,000-ton category would have left a more useful gap below capital ships.