That argument is flawed if you look at the Italian and French lists, they're very incomplete in both existing ships needed to be scrapped and ships needed to be cancelled. The French even converted a ship needed to be cancelled into a carrier. Hell the French were over their capital ship limit quite a bit with nearly 50K tons according to the retained ship list.
The lists only seems accurate when it comes to the Japanese and US navy. Every other navy is missing capital ships.
The French were over their limits because they were allowed/forced by circumstance to include the surviving Dantons (called semi-dreadnoughts but actually pre-dreadnoughts.) They weren't classed as equivalent vessels to the Dreadnoughts. Italy was over by a lesser amount for the same reason.
You'll note that each retained 10 ships but that if they'd built their replacement tonnage to schedule they'd have theoretically been reduced to 5 each.
France and Italy have a much more generous replacement scheme than Britain, Japan and the USA (due to the disruption of WWI on their shipbuilding.)
As for Bearn the French had been considering converting her since 1920 if not earlier. The conversion's unrelated to the Treaty.
Flat out wrong, the Japanese had two more hulls suitable for conversion; Amagi and Tosa.
Amagi was scheduled to be converted to a carrier before she was too badly damaged by an Earthquake, which is why Kaga was substituted. Secondly, Tosa's on the article II list - from which you can only convert two ships.
I really think you need to frequent some of the warship enthusiasts sites out there if you're not already doing so.
And I said anything different?
Effectively, you did - you've stated, incorrectly, that no more than two conversions were allowed as an absolute limit (when that clause is actually limited specifically to article II ships) and that they got past this issue by being already under construction/conversion.
In which case, you've basically stated that they're governed by the conversions clause and article II, not the experimental warships clause.
The Japanese didn't invoke that clause so that argument makes no sense, the Japanese reported both Akagi and Kaga of 26.950 tons deplacement each.
They are article II listed ships, of which you can only convert two regardless of the tonnage - they invoked the clause to convert them. Otherwise they would have had to scrap them.
Glorious and Courageous are not covered under Article II - in fact, they're not directly covered by the Treaty at all. This was because most powers considered them to be "useless crap"; not worth the effort of arguing over. The same was true regarding the obsolete American Armoured cruisers that are also not directly covered by the Treaty.
[Indirectly the clauses regarding allowable improvements would have applied to them, as far as I am aware. Or, concerning conversions, the maximum allowable armament and tonnage clauses.]
With the benefit of hindsight I've seen several discussions on various Warship Enthusiasts forums as to whether or not the British should have left them unconverted as 8" cruiser killers.
The G3's weren't laid down. They were ordered but not laid down.
You're quite correct; I had it in my head that a couple of hundred tons of steel were actually laid down to prove they were "started" but that doesn't seem to be the case.
Do you think it's coincidence that the UK only did two conversions after the WNT?
List me the ships not covered under article II with suitable hulls that they didn't convert - or give me two ships listed under article II that they would have been willing to convert?
You're stretching the meaning of a clause from the Washington Treaty to explain British actions when it was actually due to a lack of opportunity and money.
Either the Glorious and Courageous falls under clause IX or it was an mutual understanding that they did.
And yet you can't quote one bit of source evidence that this is so. The Treaty, in fact, pretty blatantly contradicts you.
Again, if you're not already doing it, I suggest you have a browse around somewhere like the NavWeaps Discussion Boards. There's plenty of historical discussions of the Washington Treaty there.