Giving cruisers a battleship-sized treaty ceiling

What if naval treaties gave cruisers the same displacement limit as battleships?

The categories would become distorted, so cruisers would still need a separate individual and aggregate tonnage regime.

The question exposes an ambiguity between an individual displacement ceiling and a navy's total permitted tonnage. Letting each cruiser approach the 35,000-ton battleship limit would erase the practical distinction between the categories. Putting cruisers and battleships into one aggregate allowance creates a different distortion, because a navy could trade a capital ship for several 10,000-ton cruisers. Under that approach, a British allowance might yield roughly fifty-two or fifty-three treaty cruisers. Cruisers would still need a separate category because their numbers and missions differed too much from the battle fleet. Treaty language must specify both individual size and aggregate force structure.