NAVY ESTIMATES, 1902–3.

HC Deb 20 June 1902 vol 109 cc1257-326

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a sum, not exceeding £294,300, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Expenses of the Admiralty Office, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1903."

(12.8.) LORD CHARLES BERESFORD (Woolwich)

, who had on the Paper a Motion to reduce the Vote by £100, said he had placed the notice on the Paper in order to call attention to the state of the administration of the Admiralty, or rather the want of system, to which he attributed all their lack of preparation, as well as a great deal of the extravagance and the mismanagement. The Committee was well aware that on the sufficiency and efficiency of the British Navy the existence of the Empire depended. He should not enter into the first question, because he might be called to order, and also because he thought the Government were doing all that they could with regard to shipbuilding. He did not say for one moment that the fleet was strong enough, but still, under the conditions which obtained at the present moment, and in view of the fact that owing to the South African war they were spending large sums of money in other directions, he was prepared to admit that they were doing as well as could be expected. He had often spoken on questions of naval reform and naval efficiency, and up to now he had always asked for money, but today he did not ask for a single extra shilling. What he wanted particularly to call attention to was the want of organisation and the lack of efficiency in the force which we had paid for. He would like to impress on the members of the Committee that this was essentially a National, not a Party, question; and, indeed, the question of the efficiency of the Navy was one which they should approach calmly and deliberately, as free as possible from exaggeration. He had been charged with exaggeration, but nobody had ever said in what particular he had exaggerated, and he denied that he had ever exaggerated in any statement which he had put before the country. The system under which we laboured wan, he maintained, a rotten one, and that had been established by the inquiries which had been held. Whenever the experts' views had been made public, most glaring faults had been disclosed in our Navy. For this, however, he did not blame the Government or the people; the evil was due to the system under which the Navy was administered. If further proof that the system was rotten were needed, it was supplied by the fact that every increase and improvement of the Fleet had been brought about by public agitation and by the Press, and the outside pressure of public opinion. Curiously enough, the agitation had been about equal with both political Parties. Every one knew that if they got a large sum of money under panic, they got the worst article at the highest price. The first agitation was in 1877, when £6,000,000 were voted for the Fleet, owing to the Russo-Turkish war. The money was entirely for the preparation for war of a force which the Ministry of the day had said was efficient. That was an agitation under a Tory Government. The next agitation arose in 1884–85, in connection with the Penjdeh incident, when £8,000,000 were obtained. That agitation was conducted by city meetings, and the Press supported the agitation. A Liberal Government was in power, and a few days before the money was asked for, the first Lord of the Admiralty of that day stated that the Navy was so efficient that if he had £2,000,000 given him he should not know how to expend it. By the agitation of 1888–89, which was also started by commercial committees, the Press, and the public, £21,000,000 were got out of the taxpayers. This agitation was interesting, by reason of the fact that the First Lord of that day announced that all the statements made as to the weakness of the Fleet were grossly exaggerated; but within twelve weeks of that time he asked for £21,000,00, in order to put the Fleet, into an efficient condition of strength.

MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON (Dundee)

Is the noble Lord speaking of the Naval Defence Act?

LORD CHARLES BERESFORD

said he was referring to the Naval Defence Act. The Unionists were in power then. He believed that by the next agitation, of 1897, that the Navy obtained £11,000,000, although there was no clear documentary evidence to show what the Navy did receive. That agitation was also brought about by city meetings, the Press, and the anxiety of the public, and it was noticeable for the fact that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, a few weeks before, had declared that the Navy was thoroughly efficient, and he had to take back that expression, because the whole Board of Admiralty said they would resign if he did not modify what he had declared. The next agitation, that of 1901, was much derided by certain people in the country, who said it was a panic agitation, and was unnecessary, but it was a remarkable agitation. The Government of the day had been in power for five years, they had an enormous majority, and they had, what they had now, an Admiralty second to none in ability. The agitation was not for the expenditure of money, but for finding the essentials necessary to enable the Fleet to take action at all; the demand was for a larger supply of stores and for the strengthening of the Fleet in the Mediterranean. The statements in regard to the Mediterranean Fleet made by the people who took up this agitation were absolutely correct. That could be proved by comparing the strength of the Mediterra nean Fleet now, in June. 1902, with what it was at this time last year. There were now thirteen battleships in the Mediterranean against ten at this time last year, and six of those thirteen were modern ships. Those thirteen ships were all ready to fight an action; but at this time last year, although there were nominally ten battleships in the Mediterranean, there were in reality only eight, because one ship was always under six months' repair, and another was generally under six weeks' repair. Moreover, the torpedo catchers were more than double the strength now that they were this date last year. This was information which could be obtained from the "Navy List." He could not mention the question of stores, which were 80 per cent. better than they were, because he had obtained his information in his official capacity in the Mediterranean. But he mentioned coal in the speech he had made. The quantity of coal we had for the Navy was well known to every foreigner in the Mediterranean. The only people who did not know were our own captains of ships. He had some difficulty in getting the amount of coal, although he was second-in-command. While he was sitting in a club at Malta, one of the foreign Consuls said the Mediterranean Fleet was inefficient. As he was a foreigner he told him that the Mediterranean Fleet would beat any other fifty fleets. The Consul did not agree with that naturally, so he asked him in what particular our fleet was inefficient, and in reply he was told to one ton the quantity of coal that was in store at Malta. The fleet then in the Mediterranean would have exhausted the coal there in a few weeks; but in the event of war the number of ships would have been doubled, so they could imagine the state that the coal supply was in. That showed that the agitation was justified, and it certainly brought about certain improvements in the fighting essentials necessary to keep the fleet in proper condition. He had been told that coal deteriorated if it was put in store. The coal supply was made out, not according to the requirements of the Fleet, but according to the space available for storing it. Now the Government had bought up an enormous quantity of coal, and were going to put the store of coal into a proper state. If they kept enough for a year's consumption it would not deteriorate. His hon. friend would say they were putting more coal at Malta because they had a larger fleet, but he would find that the Government were, in proportion, putting a great deal more coal there than was justified by the increase of i.h.p owing to the increase of the Fleet. Only one battleship had been added to the fleets of foreign Powers in the Mediterranean since this time last year, and, therefore, our Fleet ought to have been stronger at this time last year. The fleets which might be opposed to us were in an extremely efficient condition at this time last year in regard to stores, and particularly in regard to coal.

He might be met by the argument—and it was not a very generous one—that he knew the Government were going to get things right, and, therefore, he took up the agitation. Well, all reformers must expect a blow on the nose, but he objected to that line of argument. Surely the country had a right to know what was going to be done. Of course, he knew that the state of affairs had improved, but the value of the agitation was, that it forced the Admiralty to supply the essentials to enable the fleet to go into action if required, and it was now in a much better condition. He knew, too, that the Government had taken up the question of constructing a breakwater at Malta, although he had said nothing publicly about it, for the simple reason that it would cost £1,000,000 or £2,000,000. It was very necessary, no doubt, but not half so necessary as the essentials of coals and stores for the fleet, on which he had said a great deal. What did the real responsible authorities in the Mediterranean Fleet say with regard to the fighting strength of the Navy? He was not responsible; he was exceeding his duty in mentioning the thing at all, even officially. He was only second in command, and he was there to obey. But hon. Members well knew that under our system in both services, officers had continually to threaten to resign, and had, more or less, to sacrifice themselves in order to get things put right. That was a very bad system. His experience of the service for forty three years had been that commanders-in-chief, at nearly every station, had spent more than half their time writing home to the Admiralty asking for some essential to enable them to fight their fleet at all. He hoped when his hon. friend answered, he would adopt his own method when he was an ardent reformer, and would not adopt the attitude—he had certainly not done it yet—of an apologetic official. All these increases had been clearly the result of outside agitation, and the system must be rotten on the face of it which required outside agitation for the attainment of the proper standard. As The Times had well said, it was a system full of "shams, unrealities, and makeshifts." He subscribed to that doctrine in its entirety. As to efficiency, if the fleet were ten times as large, and were not efficient, it would not be able to carry out its duties. Both the Front Benches always contended that the services were efficient; and the First Lord of the Admiralty had only recently asserted that the Navy was efficient. He demurred to that statement. The greatest danger to the country was a large and inefficient fleet, as it invited a confidence not justified merely by its numerical strength alone. It was an absolute waste of money, for it could not perform the duties required of it. Where were the Reserves for the Navy? We ought to have 80,000. We had really 20,000, for of the nominal 43,000 one-half would have to be drawn into the first fighting line to fill the ships. That was a crying danger to the State. One of our possible enemies had a reserve of 80,000 of the very best men, who had all gone through the Fleet. We were a nation which absolutely lived on the sea, as we were continually reminded, and yet this was the condition of our naval Reserves! Then, the state of the engine - room department was more dangerous than that of the Reserves. At this moment it was some thousands short of the proper standard at the three great naval arsenals. Instead of being short now, we ought to have an enormous engine-room reserve, because these were the men on whom the fleet would have to depend in case of war. Yeomanry and camel corps might be improvised, but these skilled artificers could not be improvised. We had new boilers which depended for their efficiency on trained stokers, as had been proved in the Mediterranean. Without trained stokers these boilers were not only use less, but dangerous. On the stokers and engineer officers an admiral must depend for putting his fleet in a position of advantage; and if he could not do that, however large the fleet, he would lose the action with the greatest certainty. In regard to secondary armament, we used to have the best in the world. But now the French had a 6.5 quick-firing gun, while the Americans ["Order, order!"]

THE CHAIRMAN

The noble Lord seems to be travelling over the whole field of the Navy Estimates. I fail to see how he can make that relevant to this Vote. What he must show is that there is some inherent deficiency in the Board of Admiralty which is responsible for the circumstances to which he refers. Otherwise the noble Lord cannot go into the question of the size of the guns, for example.

LORD CHARLES BERESFORD

said that it was by the very constitution of the Board that these things were allowed to occur. That was his contention. There was no one at the Board who was responsible for making out the full requirements of the service. Still, he thought he had said quite enough.

THE CHAIRMAN

said that, if the noble Lord had stated that at first, he should not have interrupted him.

LORD CHARLES BERESFORD

said that all the things which he had mentioned were the results of there being no one directly responsible for the efficiency of the Navy. A Navy four times as large would be of no use unless it was thoroughly efficient in all its details for fighting purposes. He would not be in order, perhaps, in referring to the Army. A Government was turned out because there was no cordite; and afterwards it was discovered that there were no guns. Who was responsible for the shortness of coal in the Mediterranean last year? No one. We should go blundering on in this way until some one was made responsible for the efficiency of the services. He could see the right hon. Gentleman opposite smiling at the idea.

SIR H. CAMPBELL - BANNERMAN (Stirling Burghs)

No.

LORD CHARLES BERESFORD

said he begged the right hon. Gentleman's pardon; he thought it was a smile. Though the occupants of both Front Benches were opposed to him, he could submit a plan in which they would admit there was some force. The Budget for Naval defence should be made up on three considerations—financial, political, and efficiency, based on the whole requirements of the service. But, though the first two were taken into account, the last was really not taken into account at all. The South African war glaringly proved that efficiency as a whole was never considered. With financial and political considerations the experts had nothing to do; but they knew what the requirements of the case were for efficiency. He wished to see some proportion observed between these three sets of considerations. If the latter were taken into account at all, the Army would not be found to be without cordite and guns, or the Mediterranean Fleet without coal and stores. Expert opinion given before the different Commissions proved what he said. Sir A. Hood stated the requirements necessary for a fleet to fight were never made out at all. Sir A. Hoskins stated in evidence that in the event of shortness of coal it would be an act of patriotism, but not an act of duty, to call attention to the deficiency, as the Cabinet was responsible. That responsibility was not worth a crack of the fingers in the face of disaster to the Fleet. He wished to see at the Admiralty a thinking department, or general staff, which would make out the whole requirements of the case and submit them to the political and financial authorities. He wished to divorce the business part of the Admiralty from that part on which the fighting efficiency depended. The administrative faculty should be absolutely separate from the executive faculty, but at present they were mixed up. The House of Commons must be the supreme judge, but now the House had not the facts to adjudicate on. Let the experts state all that they wanted, and why they wanted it; and submit the demand to the administrative portion of the Admiralty. That was not done now, and could not be, or there would not be a shortness of cordite guns and coal.

SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN

Let me interpolate this with regard to the question of small arms ammunition. The experts were satisfied in the case of cordite.

SIR CHARLES DILKE (Gloucestershire, Forest of Dean)

No, no.

LORD CHARLES BERESFORD

I am delighted to hear the right hon. Gentleman say that the experts were satisfied. But then, why did not you hang the expert that gave you the false information?

SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN

The noble Lord speaks of political considerations. I do not know what he means by that, I am not aware of any political consideration.

LORD CHARLES BERESFORD

I will explain that presently.

SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN

The noble Lord complains that the professional advisers of Ministers have now no opportunity of stating what they believe to be necessary for the services. I only wished to say that in the case he refers to, those requirements had been met to the satisfaction of the experts.

SIR CHARLES DILKE

No, no.

SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN

Not to the satisfaction of my right hon. friend, but he was not my adviser. My professional advisers were satisfied with the provision that was made. [Sir CHARLES DILKE: NO.] It was not for the right hon. Baronet to advise me. He was not my professional adviser. I state the thing on my own knowledge.

SIR CHARLES DILKE

If the Chairman will allow me presently, I will give the words used by the professional advisers as stated in this House.

LORD CHARLES BERESFORD

said that the right hon. Gentleman had rather strengthened the case he was endeavouring to make by the explanation just made. According to the right hon. Gentleman an expert gave false information and yet was not held responsible. He maintained that the point he was making was clear—that the experts in both departments had never been set down at a table and asked to make out the whole requirements of the case. This defect had been shown every time that we had been involved in war. He could not, of course, speak about the Army; but in respect of the Navy, both Lord Hood and Sir Anthony Hoskins had said so in their evidence before a Commission.

MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON

In what year?

LORD CHARLES BERESFORD

Oh, I wish that I had brought all my books with me. Before Lord Randolph Churchill's Committee on Naval Administration.

MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON

. Fourteen years ago!

LORD CHARLES BERESFORD

Yes; but he must go back to prove his case. The Leader of the Opposition had asked what he meant by political considerations. Well, he could give a very good illustration. Lately this country had entered into an alliance with Japan, and this was a political consideration which did not necessitate our having an enormously strong fleet in China. It was a splendid alliance, because it conferred upon us a great power in that part of the world with the fleet of another great nation, with its harbours and its stores. That was what he meant by a political consideration, and it was a necessary consideration with regard to the efficiency of the Fleet. Why were the two Front Benches so afraid of getting the opinions of experts? Was it because they were afraid that the experts would ask for too much money? Very likely they would; but under the plan which he submitted the administrative body could say, "This is too much money; you must take less money, but let us have as perfect a fleet as you can for the money we have to give you." The country might have a smaller fleet, but it would be more efficient, and it would be a better fighting machine. Personally, if he had to fight a naval action he would certainly prefer before entering upon it to have six battleships with all the auxiliaries and things necessary for the fight, which might take place tomorrow or a month hence, and he was certain that he would fight a hotter action than with ten ships without those auxiliaries. The one force would be efficient and the other would not be. He believed that the keynote of reform should be direct responsibility for efficiency. He hoped be had made himself clear. He did not want to put the opinion of the experts against the opinion of the politicians; but he wanted to see some high official or some department that would look at the whole requirements of the case, and then Ministers could come to Parliament and say, "These things have been looked into and so and so is responsible." This gentleman should then be cashiered the service, if he was in the position of the right hon. Gentleman's experts who told him that the supply of cordite was sufficient when it was not, with the result that the right hon. Gentleman was turned out of office. Where was this responsibility in the case of the fleet? Supposing the country had a disaster through want of stores, of coal, and the training of officers. The Government would be turned out, as was the case with the cordite, but the country not only lost the Government, but the Empire as well all in the same week. A disaster with the Fleet was irremediable, and its effect was eternal. No one was responsible now, for if there had been this responsibility they would not have witnessed the state of things in respect of the supply of coal in the Mediterranean to which he had drawn attention. He therefore wanted to see a reality established in lieu of a farce, and when that state of things were brought about they would not be in a state of efficiency and of constant agitation always seen at the most dangerous moment when war was declared. If war was likely to happen we should never be able, owing to the constitution of our Fleet, to put it in a state of advantage first as against the enemy. This had happened over and over again, and the system would obtain, for our possible enemies would be sure to get into a position of advantage first. The result would be that we would have to play an uphill game; and, therefore, it would be better to make the Fleet even smaller than it was in order to secure its higher efficiency.

The control of the Treasury as exercised now was fatal to efficiency. He had never been one of those who blamed the Chancellor of the Exchequer. What the country wanted was a Minister like the present Chancellor of the Exchequer, who might be described as more or less a stingy man. The right hon. Gentleman looked into the expenditure of every penny of public money; and this was his business. But the right hon. Gentleman had nothing to adjudicate upon. Under our existing system something passed to the Treasury from the Admiralty or the War Office, and subordinate officials cut off a details without seeing that that was absurd and nullified the efficiency of the whole. He had called attention in the House to the case of the right hon. Member for West Monmouthshire, who allowed the Navy 600 quick-firing guns, after a tremendous agitation in the country, and at a time when the French had 800 Hotchkiss one pound quick-firing guns. The Chancellor of the Exchequer of that time put his pen through the ammunition, and for fourteen months the Navy had those guns and no ammunition. What amused him at the time was the thought that the right hon. Gentleman did not see anything odd in this procedure, and the explanation given was that the ammunition could be made quicker than the guns. So they had the guns without the ammunition. In the Treasmy therefore, a detail was often cut off which jeopardised the whole plan. Why should not the Chancellor of the Exchequer say, "We can afford to spend £20,000,000, £30,000,000 or £40,000,000 on the Navy" instead of presenting Supplementary Estimates on the one hand and cutting of these details on the other hand? The country would have a better Navy if a certain capital sum was put down which the Treasury could afford and it certainly would be a better plan than existed at present. The question of economy was also another consideration. The national expenditure had risen with such leaps and bounds that Parliament ought to see whether it could not do something to stop extravagance. Panic agitation was always extravagant, and they should look further ahead. They could only do that by having some Department that would make out the whole requirements of the case and submit it to the authority that was responsible to the House, always remembering that the Cabinet and the House of Commons were the only authorities that could exercise the ultimate power in the way. How did a railway company manage its business? Provision had to be made beforehand for rolling stock, care of the permanent way, depreciation stores, wages and everything else, if it were not done the railway could not run a single train. Why should not the same system apply to the Navy? The Prime Minister told them that a strong and efficient Fleet was to be settled by the people, and it did not depend on the Government. How were the people to judge if they had no evidence upon which to adjudicate? They would get this evidence through the responsible head if he had the whole requirements of the case submitted to him; and this he maintained had never yet been done.

This question called for the most earnest consideration of the House and the country. He did not say that his plan was the best, but at any rate it was a plan; and he would accept any other plan that would get rid of the grave danger to the State in the want of efficiency in the Navy, and in the Army as well. Now was the opportunity, when the Government had an enormous majority and when peace in South Africa was assured. As far as he could, he would help the Government in this matter; and, if they were going to sleep, be would do what he could to wake them up. If they showed any apathy he would do all he could against them in the country, even to the extent of resigning his seat and fighting it again. The country was very nervous on this question. We were very much better than we were this time last year, but still we were labouring under the old system that had failed us over and over again and which would fail us again if we were unfortunately called upon to go to war. If he was wrong in his ideas his hon. friend on the Front Bench would put him right, but his hon. friend could not deny what be had said as to the strength of the Fleet and the state of the stores. There was one thing more. It was not the fault of the men or the officers. He supposed his hon. friend had read the essays of the younger officers on the strength and efficiency of the Mediterranean Fleet. Never was he prouder of his officers than when he read those essays. It was not the officer's or the men who would fail if we went to war, because they would not have the direct responsibility of the action of, the Fleet, but the governing body. He had to judge those essays, and so good, so clear, and so much to the point were they with regard to the question for which the prize was to be given that it took him days of very hard work to decide which was the best, Such thought, such care, such knowledge of strategy and tactics, he had no idea were in the brains of his younger brother officers. Every one of those essays pointed out strongly the weakness of the Fleet and its lack of stores. He was afraid he had detained the Committee a long time, but he would just say that he hoped as the result of the late war thinking people of all nations would begin to see what war means in these days; the enormous expenditure of money which no country could have stood so long and so cheerfully as we had done, and the enormous loss of life which in the future would be greater. Without our medical staff and the hospital arrangements our loss in this war would have been perfectly shocking. He was entirely in sympathy with the peace societies, but he did not think they went the right way to carry out the object which all of us had at heart. To ensure peace they must be prepared and efficient for war. He hoped the lovers of peace of all nations would feel that they had gone far enough in armaments; let them keep up the present standard if they pleased, but it was our business to keep our army efficient and our navy efficient, and if they had the departments for which he had asked the navy would very soon be efficient. Let us have the department, and do not let us go on with a great service which under the present circumstances would fail us in time of need. He believed that peace was the greatest interest by far of the Empire. The efficiency of the British Fleet and the system that would promote that efficiency would do more for peace than anything that could be conceived; he would go further and say what was stated to him by a very high authority in the Mediterranean—Do your people realise that not only the safety of the British Empire, but the peace of Europe depends upon the strength and efficiency of the British Fleet?

(1.5.) SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN

I am greatly surprised to find myself suddenly called upon to follow the noble Lord. I came into the House actually today with the view of listening to what the noble Lord had to say, because I understood he was about to develop some new policy antagonistic to that of the hon. Gentleman, but in the course of his speech he made such pointed references to myself that I am bound to take part in this debate. I am not here to smile at some observation of my neighbours, or raise my eyebrows, or do any of those things which afford us a little relief in the, I will not say tedious, but prolonged effort of listening to the noble Lord. The noble Lord has indulged in a common practice, the constants employment of a number of very excellent words—"efficiency," "businesslike principle," "economy"—these are excellent things, and there is no man in the House who does not desire them. The question is, how are we to attain them. To say we must have an efficient Fleet does not forward the matter one step. Of course the Fleet ought to efficient. What is the good of a Fleet if it is not efficient? The assumption is that as we have gathered the best talent of the Navy at the Admiralty we shall have an efficient Fleet. If it is not efficient I do not think the zeal or the ability of any outside person will be able to attain the efficiency. But the noble Lord said, and this was the main point that he made, that the competent professional advisers when they are gathered at the Admiralty, have not the opportunity of impressing upon the heads of the Departments what they consider necessary for efficiency. Now, from my own experience and observation at the Admiralty and in other Departments in this House, and as a member of the Hartington Commission, to which the noble Lord referred, and having studied this matter for all these years, I cannot say my opinion concurs with the statement of the noble Lord in any degree. I believe that the First Sea Lord has the most ample opportunity, not only formally and officially, but in daily intercourse and friendly conversation, of impressing his views upon any subject on the First Lord of the Admiralty. I do not believe the First Lord of the Admiralty would disregard the advice of the First Sea Lord so tendered, and I believe the same of the Secretary of State for War and his principal adviser, whoever he may be—call him commander-in-chief, adjutant-general, or any other name. Any representation the adviser may make, whether as to the money to be expended, the force to be maintained, or any point whatever, we may depend upon it will not be disregarded by the Secretary of State, or else he is unfit for his office. Reference has been made to the everlasting subject of cordite, out of which the Party opposite has made some political capital. From first to last, as a matter of fact, whatever may be said of the condition of things at the time, and I deny that there was any dangerous or serious deficiency even at that time, but, whether there was or was not, anything I did was done after consultation with the professional people whose business it was to advise, and, after the occurrence in this House which led to the happy result to which the noble Lord referred, and I was relieved of responsibility in these matters, they confirmed to me personally the truth and accuracy of everything I had said. What is there after that to justify the assertion of the noble Lord that the views of the technical professional advisers are set aside as of no account by an ignorant or foolish Secretary of State?

LORD CHARLES BERESFORD

remarked that he was not so impertinent as to say that a Secretary of State was either ignorant or foolish. He was abusing the system, and if the professional authority did say the cordite was sufficient, and it was not, he ought to have been responsible, and tried by Court-martial. Anyway, the guns were not there.

SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN

I do not know what guns have to do with small arms ammunition. That is another story; and, as the noble Lord has introduced the name of the Member for West Monmouth, I will allow my right hon. friend to answer for himself, as he is thoroughly competent to do. Reverting to the main point, the particular organisation of the Admiralty may not be the best that could be invented, but I have always thought it a very good arrangement. The professional members of the Board of Admiralty are on a footing of equality, but the First Lord is primus inter pares; he has a sort of primacy which constitutes him practically chief of the Staff and commander-in-chief for the Navy, if I might put it that way. So it is also with the Army. Changes have been made; but I do not suppose anyone could say yet whether perfection in the distribution of offices and duties has been arrived at in the War Office. But it is a matter of the best form of administration, and it comes to the same thing in the end. Either through two or three officers, or directly through one officer—which is in some respects the better plan—the best information and advice reaches the Secretary of State or the head of the Department, The noble Lord complained that the Admiralty had made mistakes. The members of the Board of Admiralty may not have conducted the affairs of the Navy, during the years the noble Lord was in the Mediterranean, entirely to the noble Lord's satisfaction. I am not sufficiently acquainted with the facts to pronounce an opinion upon that, but they had plenty of authority at all events. The members of the Board of Admiralty were not overridden by either the Chancellor of the Exchequer or the First Lord of the Admiralty. They have a full opportunity of stating their opinions as to the condition of the Navy, with a view to that efficiency which the noble Lord is not singular in desiring, for indeed every one out of a lunatic asylum must desire it. I am sorry I have been obliged to follow the noble Lord. The noble Lord commands the attention of the House and the country, because of his zeal in his profession, and his knowledge of it, and—if the noble Lord will permit me to say so—the extraordinary influence which he is able to exercise over those who come into contact with him, and which is an essential element in the success of a naval or a military officer. Therefore, we are always glad to listen to the noble Lord, and we generally profit by listening to him. We may have profited on the present occasion. But the main thing I have to say is that the particular point which the noble Lord set out to prove, he has not proved; and to the best of my ability and experience I do not think the noble Lord would be able to prove it if he tried.

(1.16.) SIR CHARLES DILKE

said his right hon. friend the Leader of the Opposition had been obliged to deal with a matter which, though not strictly in order, was raised by the noble Lord. He asked leave to digress from strict Rules of Order to try and explain what occurred in the matter at issue between the noble Lord and his right hon. friend the Leader of the Opposition, that of the supply of small arms ammunition. There were three debates on the subject, and in the second of these debates Sir Redvers Buller had been mentioned as the adviser of the Secretary of War at the time, and the words used in the House as having been used by him were— A sufficient supply, but not a full or an ample supply. He drew no inference from those words, he merely stated them. So far as he remembered the explanation given in the House it was admitted—it was not contested—that there was not the regulation supply. He entirely agreed with his right hon. friend the Leader of the Opposition, that that was not a case in which the opinion of the advisers of the Government had been overridden. But he could not agree with the statement that the Cabinet did not override the opinion of these advisers. He believed that under the system which had been condemned by the noble Lord, their opinion was overridden in many cases indeed. It was only yesterday that the Secretary for War informed the House in reply to a Question, that the opinion of the Commander-in-Chief and his own opinion had been overridden in a matter of supreme importance—the strengthening of the Intelligence Department of the War Office.

SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN

I understand that in that case the Secretary of State and the Commander-in-Chief were in the same boat. I Was dealing with the question of the action of the Secretary of State alone.

SIR CHARLES DILKE

said there were several cases connected with the Admiralty which also showed that the opinion of the advisers of the Government must have Been overridden, and he certainly thought that what the noble Lord had brought forward could be proved. It was a difficult matter, of course, because these things were things which were not generally known either to the House or the country. Instances could be given to show such a variety of conduct on the part of the Admiralty that the advice given could not have been tendered in a form satisfactory to the House or the country. He would give three examples. On the 18th of March statements were made in the House of Lords, both by the present First Lord and the late First Lord, as to the form in which advice had been given to them with regard to the acquisition of Wei-hai-wei as a naval base from which it would be seen that the arguments originally addressed to the House of Commons by the noble Lord the Member for Woolwich, and the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth, against the occupation of that place as a naval basis were actually the official opinion of the Board of Admiralty at the time, and yet the place had been occupied. That seemed to him to prove that the advice tendered to the Cabinet was not in the proper form. The Secretary to the Admiralty smiled as if there were some easy answer to that, but he could not see it. It was a purely Naval question. What they contended for at the time was, it had been proved, also the opinion of the Naval advisers to the Admiralty. Why was not that advice taken three years ago? The next case was the School of Naval Strategy. Three or four years ago Mr. Goschen, the then First Lord, stated that he was advised against the establishment of such a school. Now the Board of Admiralty appeared to be advised in an exactly opposite direction; for they congratulated themselves that, so far as the Treasury had allowed them, they had this year made a step in the direction of the establishment of such a school. The third case was that of Gibraltar. The Committee must also admit that, judging from the varying actions of the Government with respect to Gibraltar, there must have been the most extraordinary variation in the advice tendered to the First Lord. He could not but think that very often men who really knew, and who were not quite at the top of the tree, were afraid to press their views, or if they did press their views those views did not reach the Cabinet. To pretend that the present system was satisfactory was, he thought, impossible, in fact he had gathered from the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition that he did not think we had reached a satisfactory position of responsibility. What was true and what was, he thought, proved was that there was a certain absence of system both in the Navy and the Army. That there was room for improvement in regard to both services he was convinced, and he agreed with what had fallen from his noble friend. His right hon. friend the Leader of the Opposition said that as regarded the Admiralty perfection had been reached, because through the First Sea Lord everything came to the First Lord of the Admiralty, but he could not but think that the points put forward today by the noble Lord, together with the two or three cases with which he had endeavoured to supplement them, proved that the present system was by no means so perfect as it appeared to be in the opinion of the right hon. Gentle man. Another way in which this responsibility could be developed was the way in which at the War Office it had been developed with such great success. He believed the development of the Intelligence Department of the Naval Stall' ought to be supplementary to the position of the First Sea Lord; that the First Sea Lord should be relieved of a great mass of the detail duties which the Committee knew now took up so much of his time. That was the line they ought to press more and more. That there was room for this improvement in regard to both services he was convinced, and he agreed, therefore, with what had fallen from his noble friends. There was behind all the great question of the relations between the two services and the joint consideration by the Cabinet of the position of the two services. Under the forms of the House, that question could not be discussed in detail on any Vote whatever. The breakdown in the plan proposed was one which perhaps ought to have been foreseen. If there was a very strong man, or even one who thought himself very strong, at the head of either Department the present system tended to break down, because unless there was some joint authority in the Cabinet strong enough to control even a strong First Lord of the Admiralty, no joint consideration of the views of the two Departments could be obtained. They all knew what happened under Lord Goschen. He was a very strong First Lord, who thoroughly knew the Admiralty work and was a very able man. The result was that no outside authority had a chance with him, and he openly ridiculed the notion of any authority over the First Lord in naval affairs in the Admiralty. That was a very natural view, but unless there was a controlling authority over the heads of both Departments, that economy which he was sure his noble friend sincerely desired would never be reached. At the present moment the two services competed; the Treasury considered their demands as competing with one another, and in that competition the social influence which came into play sometimes told against the Navy, and in favour of the Army. That being so, he could not join with those who occasionally blamed his noble friend for raising agitation upon these points. As to how far he had raised agitation was another matter, but if he had done so, he (the right hon. Baronet) concurred with him. It was the only way in which anything was ever done. That used to be, and, he believed, must still be—though of course it was impossible for him now to confess it—the strong opinion of the Secretary to the Admiralty. He would not annoy his hon., friend by applying the view to the service with which he was now connected, but he might apply it to the other service in which he took an equal interest. His hon. friend must see from an answer given on the previous day that an ideal state of things had not yet been reached, and that the evil pointed out by the noble Lord did exist in both services. (1.35.)

(2.6.) SIR JOHN COLOMB. (Great Yarmouth)

said there were some minor matters in connection with Admiralty administration and policy which he Wished to raise, but he thought it would be a great mistake at present to deal with any matter that would take the discussion in Committee out of the channel of broad policy. His noble friend the Member for Woolwich, in his interesting speech, had given his views very plainly on the general question in which he was so deeply interested, and on the work which he had so much at heart. He agreed with what his noble friend said as to the present system being seriously defective, in the respect that it avoided attaching to anybody personal responsibility. That was the very essence of his case. He hardly agreed with the order in which his noble friend placed the considerations of the question from the point of view of the statesman. His noble friend placed financial first; political second; and requirement third. He believed absolute necessity was first, and that, after all, was a question for experts to deal with, if they were given sufficient information—political and financial. His point was that the general interests of the Empire, viewed as a whole, were not looked at at all. He would not now go, at any length, into the difficulty of dealing with that question, but he would say that the Empire must be taken as a whole, if we were going to defend it all, and then we must take in the order of necessity, the requirements of the Empire. After the experts and the statesmen had settled the question of the priority of the requirements of the Empire, it was from the bottom and not from the top that the cutting down of expenses must come. With regard to the 80,000 reserves he was not going into any dispute about it, but he pointed out that his noble friend did not give them any data whatever of forming the basis of his calculation. He would merely dismiss the matter of the reserves by observing that it had been referred to a Committee, and he trusted the Committee would investigate the subject on a scientific basis.

With regard to the engine-room department he was entirely with his noble friend. Our treatment of this question, which was so vital to efficiency, was deplorable. Under our present system he presumed that the First Sea Lord of the Admiralty was responsible, but he could not help thinking that it was very strange that adequate steps were not taken to rectify the evil which lay on the surface. We had not the personnel necessary to man efficiently His Majesty's ships as regarded the engine-room and the engine-room staff. While he differed from his noble friend as to any rule of thumb number required to provide for the duties, he was entirely with him in holding that we were shamefully deficient as a matter of policy when we neglected the question of the engine-room and the engine-room staff.

His noble friend had alluded to the treaty with Japan, and that, of course, was a question of policy. He could not admit that we should in any respect base our permanent policy on a temporary treaty of that kind. The stronger we were, the more likely we were to have allies. He did not agree with his noble friend when he said we should name the sum we could afford and then see what we could get for the money. It was not a question of money: it was a question of how to get the naval power which the Empire required, and it was the business of statesmen—a business which they could not neglect—to find the money for that. They might cut down other things. Therefore, any proposal in the nature of naming a sum was one he would always protest against. The right hon. Baronet the Leader of the Opposition had pointed out how good the present system was with regard to the Admiralty. The Admiralty having gathered together the best expert authorities in the shape of naval Lords, what better way, the right hon. Gentleman asked, could there be of ensuring the efficiency of the Fleet. Well, that was quite true, but the question was, had these naval Lords the time and opportunity necessary to make them the thinking department of the Admiralty? He did not think so. He knew that these naval Lords were so occupied in carrying on the ordinary routine work of the particular branches of the Navy over which they presided that they had no sufficient time to think. They should be relieved of much of their routine work by having post captains under them as deputies. They were overworked, and he did not think that the blame for that could be put wholly on the shoulders of the political heads of the department. He knew that when naval Lords were in office, they said that they got on very well, but the moment they were out of office, they declared that they had had no time to think. They must not put the whole blame on the political heads in this matter, because the naval Lords did not always understand administration sufficiently well to demand that assistance which was necessary for the public service. He entirely shared the views of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Forest of Dean. He thought the First Sea Lord of the Admiralty should be in the position of the man to think, and to generally keep together the various strings of the other Departments, and should be a man to advise on all questions. The Naval Intelligence Department also wanted development and extension in order to watch and collect all the necessary information to be put at the disposal of the First Sea Lord. He did not know whether his noble friend meant that the First Sea Lord should be a sort of Commander-in-Chief of the Navy. [An Hon. Member: Hear, hear.] He regarded the curse of the War Office as the mixing up of executive with administrative duties under one roof and in one Department. He should steadily oppose any attempt to introduce that system into the Admiralty. It had been fatal to the efficiency of the Army. The Admiralty was an administrative Department. It wanted strengthening, and improving, and developing, but the principle was right—that was to keep it to its administrative functions altogether. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Forest of Dean went on to illustrate the great loss and inefficiency produced by the present system of administration. He quoted Wei-Hai-Wei as an instance of the total absence of principle in determining those matters of high policy in regard to the defence of the Empire. In confirmation of what had fallen from the right hon. Gentleman he would give another instance. A First Lord of the Admiralty in 1896 came down to the House with a Naval Works Bill, and proposed a loan, the chief item of which was for the tremendous expense of Dover Harbour. He ventured to oppose that proposal, believing there were no good grounds for a large expenditure on Dover Harbour. The real grounds urged in favour of the expenditure in this Naval Works Bill were military grounds, and when told by the First Lord of the Admiralty that the harbour at Dover was a stragetical harbour, he ventured to say that if they were going to consider a stragetical harbour they must consider the whole question, and look a good deal further west than Dover, perhaps so far west as Berehaven; this was supported by hon. Members opposite. All he asked for was further inquiry. But what happened the nextyear? Down came the War Minister with a Military Works Bill, which provided for the erection of fortifications at Berehaven, and he urged its adoption on Naval grounds! Could any one imagine a greater confusion between two Departments because there was no controlling authority looking at the Empire as a whole?

There was another point which he wanted to introduce into the debate. They had been talking about the defence of the Empire; and he thought they were all agreed that the defence of the Empire should be looked at as a whole; but there was nobody really responsible in this country for thinking out this problem and dealing with it as a whole. This House was at this moment in a different position from any other House of Parlia-throughout the Empire. Communications had been sent to the various self-governing colonies inviting them to send representatives to a great Conference. The Ministers of these colonies had expressed their opinions on the points suggested for discussion, and their Parliaments also had expressed their opinion. But this Imperial Parliament had not got a scrap of information on the subject. He knew the delicacy of the situation and he trusted he would say nothing which would be prejudicial to or complicate that situation; but this he would say, that, looking to Colonial debates and the utterances of Ministers on the basis of these communications, the colonics had all come out very strong on the subject of preferential rates, but they were extraordinarily weak in regard to defence and particularly Naval defence. As this was a matter of policy at the Admiralty, he had a right to bring forward one or two observations on this very grave and important question, Representatives from all the self-governing colonies were about to meet the Imperial Ministers under conditions, and circumstances which would never recur so favourable, he ventured to think, for laying the foundations upon which they could build up a real co-operation for the defence and security of the Empire. But the Conference would meet under conditions which were adverse to the Admiralty considerations. Every colony from Manitoba to Australasia had a military craze; they were saturated with the military idea. That was a dangerous condition for an Empire that must mainly depend on naval defence. Therefore, he wished to warn the Admiralty that they must be most firm on this question and lay down true principles. The action at the present moment on the part of the colonies corresponded to that of this country twenty years ago, when chalk pits were dug at Portsmouth and mounted with guns to resist invasion. But the British public now knew that the whole defence of the Empire depended upon our being able to secure the freedom of the sea. Sir Wilfred Laurier was attacked in his own Parliament by the Leader of the Opposition because his reply to the Imperial Government—we did not know what that reply was, we had no information on the subject—was so weak-kneed, especially as regarded the Navy. As a matter of policy, and of the attitude of the First Lord in regard to this question, he had thought it his duty to bring it before the Committee. The proposition laid down by the Canadian Premier was that no system of defence could be devised which would be applicable to all the colonies alike. Now that was true in regard to military defence, but it was absolutely false in regard to naval defence. He wanted to press on his hon. friend the gravity and importance of enlightening the colonial mind, in their own interests, in a matter which it was essential they should under- stand; for the command of the sea was the one thing in which every colony had an equal interest. He was afraid that the difficulty would arise because the Lords of the Admiralty had not sufficient time to give attention to this problem. The thinking department was inadequate, and the First Lord of the Admiralty had not the power he ought to have. That was all the more dangerous, because the War Office had a military scheme of defence, which they were ready to plump down before the Conference. Whether they looked at it on economic lines, on the sea trade per head of the population, or on their sea security, or in any other way, the colonies, or most of them, were really as much concerned in the security of the sea as the mother country. Therefore, he trusted that his hon. friend would, at all events, be able to give him an assurance—he asked for no more—that the Admiralty would bring before the colonies three points—The gigantic interests they were piling up for themselves on the sea; that the growth of their sea trade was not towards the United Kingdom, but away from it; and that it must inevitably happen that the people of this country would wonder why they alone were paying for the Navy of the whole Empire. At present, the Navy in Australian waters was tied down by the most false and pernicious idea it was possible to conceive. The action of ships was limited to a space drawn on the map with the ruler, and the system was fatal to efficiency and naval strength. He implored the Admiralty to go no further in the direction of limiting the action of H.M.'s ships. His other point was that the Admiralty should not, on any account, be parties to the creation of a multitudinous naval reserve in the colonies, which could only give a false idea of naval security; and that the freedom and efficiency of the Navy should be the first consideration in the interests of the colonies themselves, and that no political consideration should be permitted, at this conference, to interfere with it.

(2.35.) MR. WILLIAM ALLAN (Gateshead)

said that in intervening in the debate he would not venture on the ground which the noble Lord the Member for Woolwich, and the hon. and gallant Gentleman who had just spoken, had taken up. He would confine himself purely to a few practical points which had been in his mind for many years, and which, with all deference, he proposed to submit to the Committee. It was all very well for hon. Members to speak of the efficiency of the Navy. Naturally, the use of that word implied that the guardians of the Navy—the Admiralty Board—must also be taken into account. The noble Lord mentioned a few points where the Board of Admiralty were very inefficient; and showed pretty conclusively that, as regarded these points, the Board was very far short of what it should be He proposed to deal with a few other points, where, in his opinion, the policy of the Admiralty was really at fault. He would rely solely on facts. The noble Lord spoke of the deficiency of the coal supply at Gibraltar, Malta, and elsewhere. It was, however, a well known fact that Welsh coal could not be stored in the open without deterioration. Its caloric depreciated to an enormous extent. In fact so much did it deteriorate, that the finest quality of Welsh coal had three, four, five, and even six times less calorific value after being stored, than if it had been used when it was taken from the pit. Accordingly, to store a great quantity of coal in these outports would, to his way of thinking, be very detrimental to the interests of the Navy. If a supply sufficient for a certain number of weeks steaming of a squadron was kept, that was about all that could be expected from any reasonable Board of Admiralty. He, therefore, did not complain of the Board of Admiralty not having an incalculable quantity of coal lying in these outports. It would be bound to come to grief, and if it were shipped on board a man-of-war, the most of it would come out of the funnel tops, in the form of coal dust. The hon. Member who represented the Admiralty would no doubt give his views as to the quantity of coal that should be stored; but they had no right to ask for that information, as it was regarded as strictly private.

There was another point in which he found fault with the policy of the Admiralty. The noble Lord alluded to the engine-room complements of the Fleet. They were going to have in a few days a grand sight. Hundreds of vessels, the pride of the British Empire, and the great strength of the Empire, would be brought together on the Solent. But what was the position of these ships? Were they fully manned or not? No, they were there with skeleton screws in the engine-rooms and in the stokeholds. Where he found fault with the Admiralty was that they had no reserves to man the engine-rooms and the stokeholds of these ships. If, at the present moment, these ships were called upon to defend the shores of this country, and if there were one or two naval engagements, what would happen? The Committee should remember that a naval engagement in the future would be a most serious matter. It would be something terrible. Ships would not float when pierced with big shot and shell; down they would go. It would be impossible in the future to plug shot holes, and the ships would go down with all hands. Then the Admiralty would be called upon for reserves, and they had no reserves. He did not want to exaggerate, although he was sometimes accused of exaggeration. He stood on facts. What were the facts? From the best information he had been able to obtain from naval authorities at the present moment, the Navy was short of firemen by 14,000, of engine room artificers by 1,600, and of engineers by 800. Why was that? He would explain to the Committee why the Admiralty were unable to get men. It was simply because of the system under which the Admiralty worked. Take the engine-room artificers. He himself had submitted a plan, which had been adopted in the East and West of England, for getting artificers, which had worked very, successfully. Many young follows who had served their apprenticeship in marine engineering shops went to be tested at Chatham and Portsmouth; and the Committee would be surprised when he informed them that not 20 per cent. of the men who presented themselves passed. What was the test adopted by the Admiralty, in this engineering age, to test men who had served their apprenticeship in fitting out marine engines? The man was given a piece of iron and told to cut it into a hexagon and he was given another piece of iron and told to bore a hole through it, and also cut it into a hexagon. That was not engineering, it was gauge-making. Not one in a hundred could succeed in such a test as that. It was childish and un-engineer like, and every engineer would agree that it was a farcical test to put to a young fellow who had served his apprenticeship in a marine engineering shop. The Admiralty would not get engine-room fitters as long as such a test as that was applied. Take the case of firemen. He had occasion not long ago to spend a few quiet days in looking round the naval arsenals. When he wanted to get facts, he went to the men themselves, and not to the officers, and he generally got to know the feelings of the men. What were the facts? Here again the policy of the Admiralty was bad, and he hoped it would be altered. The reason why firemen would not join was because on board a man-o'-war they were not placed under the engineers at all. When they were mustered in the morning they were sent to their various places under a boatswain's mate or a gunner's mate, not under an engine room artificer. A few weeks ago he went to the haunts of the men, and found out the truth. They said they ought to be under an engineer, not under a boatswain's mate or a gunner's mate. They wanted the engineer to be their boss, and consequently many of them deserted, their complaint being that they were not placed under the control of the engineer officers who were responsible for the efficiency and well-being of the stoke-holds. He was only dealing with what he might call the heart of a ship. The noble Lord referred to guns and other things, but he would confine himself to pointing out the deficiencies in the policy of the Admiralty in the engine-room department, and would perhaps point out a way in which the hon. Gentleman who represented the Admiralty would be assisted out of a very serious difficulty. After all, the fighting value of every ship depended on the stoke-hold and the engine-room. Yet the policy of the Admiralty Was so arranged that the Navy was weak there, and when a ship was weak there it was weak all over.

What was the policy which kept that Department in such a condition that there were practically no reserves? It required no effort of genius to be a critic, but he should like to make a proposition which he thought would do the Admiralty a great deal of good, and which might result in the Fleet being rendered really efficient. He would propose to the hon. Gentleman that they ought to have the same arrangements in the Admiralty as were to be seen in every large business undertaking. The Admiralty Board should be the board of directors with the heads of the departments divided in two bureaux—a constructive bureau, the head of which would have a consultative branch, and another bureau, also with a consultative branch, to look after the political aspect of the Fleet. These two bureaux should run the show. The First Lord of the Admiralty should be able to sit in his room and by touching a bell summon the head of each bureau and ask for information about guns, coals, and the number of men they were short. Why was not that system adopted? He would tell the Committee. The policy of the Admiralty was the growth of centuries. Ever since the initiation of the Navy the system pursued had been to keep in the hands of the purely sailor class the whole of the administration. They had not yet risen to the scientific nature of the case, especially to the value of the engineering aspect; and the only thing that would make them rise to that would be a thundering naval defeat, and then they would realise that they had blundered. He would recommend to the Secretary to the Admiralty that the present system should be broken up altogether, and instead there should be two bureaux, each with a consultative branch, and with the First Lord of the Admiralty in charge of all. The present system was entirely antagonistic to efficiency and also to economy, and ought to be abolished. The expenditure on the Navy was enormous, but they were getting the worst instead of the best for their money, because the Admiralty was not run on modern business lines. Every department was all right until a strain was put upon it, and then it broke down. The Navy was deficient of men for the stoke-hold and the engine-room, and he asked why was that? It was simply because the policy of the Admiralty was wrong, and their system of business was wrong. He had put his views forward on national grounds, and he would say to the hon. Gentleman who represented the Admiralty so efficiently and well—he knew the hon. Gentleman was a reformer—that the present system must be broken up altogether, and, if the scheme he had suggested were adopted, they would have their ships properly manned and ready for action at any moment. They were assembling 200 or 300 vessels on the Solent in order to show how strong they were; but that Was like the ostrich who buried his head in the sand. They could not man these ships, and again he would repeat that until the Admiralty was run on new and modern lines the fleet would not be fully manned or fully equipped in every department, or fit to maintain the supremacy of Great Britain on the seas.

(2.58). SIR FORTESCUE FLANNERY (Yorkshire, Shipley)

said that whether they agreed or not with the views of his noble friend, there could be no question whatever that both the Committee and the country felt that his noble friend had been justified, and that he had rendered a patriotic service by the agitation he had carried on, and which no other living man could have carried on with equal success. He was reminded of Nelson with his telescope to his blind eye when he read that his noble friend had transgressed the rules of the service by the action he took when he was second in command of the Mediterranean Fleet. His noble friend might have transgressed the letter of the rules, but that he was justified was shown by the sense of inquiry which had been aroused throughout the country. What was the gravamen of the charge which his noble friend brought against the present constitution of the Board of Admiralty? It was that responsibility was so divided and subdivided that it could not be brought home to any individual. The question was one of some contradiction and some difficulty. The Lord High Admiral of the Fleet was formerly a single individual, and accordingly their forefathers had the idea, which his noble friend had put so clearly before the Committee, that there should be one individual responsible for the sufficiency of war preparations, and one individual to blame if, in the result, the war preparations were found not to have been complete. Experience, however, showed that the burden of responsibility was too great for any single man to bear, and then the present system of putting into commission the duties of Lord High Admiral was instituted. The present Board of Admiralty were nothing more than Lords Commissioners for executing the office of Lord High Admiral of the Fleet. The system was sound in its conception, but they would all admit that it required very considerable improvement. If the Fleet were insufficiently provided, if, as they had heard, the stores of coal were insufficient, then it was difficult to bring home complete responsibility to any individual. They were told by the defenders of the Admiralty that the First Sea Lord was the officer mainly responsible for the efficiency of the Fleet as a whole; but the opinion and advice of the First Sea Lord was not heard outside the Board of Admiralty. The First Sea Lord might be entirely dissatisfied. He might have advocated provisions which were not accepted by the First Lord of the Admiralty; but no one knew what he had advocated, or whether the other Sea Lords agreed with him or not. The First Lord of the Admiralty took to the Cabinet the recommendations he had received from the Board and of which he approved; he did not take the recommendations of which he did not approve; and the Chancellor of the Exchequer might then cut and carve, and almost destroy, the very principle for which the First Sea Lord had been contending, and the country would know nothing about it. What was required was a system similar to that in Germany, under which a responsible officer, in the full light of public opinion, and with the full knowledge of Parliament and the country, stated what, in his opinion, was necessary for war preparation, having regard to the war preparations of other countries. If the Government of the day did not agree with the recommendations of that responsible officer, it would be for them to explain to Parliament what their grounds were for taking that course. The great object the Committee should have in view was to bring home individual responsibility, and the only means by which that was possible was by publishing the requirements of the Fleet on the authority of the expert advisers of the Admiralty.

As illustrating the truth of his contention, he would mention that some ten or twelve years ago the right hon. Gentle man the leader of the Opposition was a, member of a Government who were accused of insufficient naval preparation. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Monmouth, who was then Chancellor of the Exchequer, stated in the House, in answer to questions from the Opposition or implied that the advisers of the Admiralty were satisfied that the then existing naval provision was satisfactory. Next day, the right hon. Gentleman had to state in the House that he had misunderstood the views of the professional advisers of the Admiralty; and he withdrew the statement that they were satisfied that sufficient naval preparations existed. Could there be a more complete illustration of the danger, the falsity, and the insufficiency of the present system than that? A threat of resignation of the Board of Admiralty en bloc was necessary to make such a high and influential Member of a Government as the right hon. Gentleman then was withdraw his statement that the Board of Admiralty were satisfied; and if ever there were any doubt as to the necessity of having personal, individual and definite responsibility for the sufficiency of naval preparations, the mere recital of that fact ought to be sufficient to remove it. The Board of Admiralty, strengthened by the addition of another Sea Lord, or remodelled in such a way that the duties of the present Sea Lords might be changed so as to leave one senior Sea Lord free for these particular and special duties, for which he would be responsible, would he believed have in it a practically perfect and complete organization. He did not know what the hon. Gentleman opposite meant by two bureaux, or how the Chairman of a board of directors could be compared to the First Lord of the Admiralty; but instead of sweeping the whole system away, as his hon. friend suggested—[Mr. W. ALLAN: Altering it.]—instead of the radical change proposed by the hon. Gentleman, the proper course would be to proceed on existing lines, and particularly to have the requirements of sufficient naval preparation published and signed by a responsible officer, whose duty it would be to advise the Board in regard to that matter.

He desired to lodge a complaint against the action of the Admiralty in suppressing the Report of the Boilers Committee. He ventured to say that it was treating the House of Commons with disrespect to bring forward that debate when they had had no opportunity of considering the Report of the Boilers Committee, which had been rendered a fortnight or three weeks ago. That Committee was a House of Commons Committee, and would never have been appointed were it not for the action which had been taken in the House of Commons; yet the Admiralty had taken up a policy with regard to some of the largest cruisers in the Navy without allowing the House of Commons to have an opportunity of knowing what its own Committee had recommended, and they were now debating that great Admiralty question without information which they might easily have had, and which they ought to have had. He did not suggest any improper motive in regard to the matter, but it was exceedingly unfortunate, and exceedingly disrespectful to the House, that hon. Members had not been given an opportunity of acquiring that information before they were called upon to pronounce on the important question which had been raised by his noble friend.

His hon. and gallant friend the Member for Yarmouth referred, with a power and eloquence not often heard in this House, at all events in connection with naval questions, to the great question of policy which underlay the Conference of the Colonial Premiers. Not many weeks ago his hon. friend the Secretary to the Admiralty gave a definite promise that the question of naval preparation for the Empire should receive special attention at that Conference. He ventured to think that there was no question, not even the question of trading throughout the Empire, which deserved so much attention on that unique occasion as the defence of the Empire at sea. He did not entirely agree with his hon. and gallant friend that the military picture obscured the naval picture. He thought that their Colonial fellow-subjects understood the all-sufficient importance of naval preparation, not merely as a means of defending the Empire, but of uniting all its component parts. He trusted when the matter was brought up at the Conference that the principle would be established of responsibility for contribution from all the Colonies, however small the amount might be, so that every Colony should feel that it had an interest in the Navy; and he further hoped that the principle would also be, established that the guidance of the Imperial Navy, as well as of the Imperial Army should rest with the central authority, and with the central authority alone, acting as trustees, not merely for the mother country, but for all the daughter lands. He felt the debate was in some respects incomplete, owing to the absence of information; but as an expression of opinion on the part of his noble friend and other influential Members of the House of Commons, it might have a serious influence on the Conference, which was perhaps one of the most important for the future welfare of the Empire that had ever taken place.

(3.14.) MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON

said that this debate had ranged pretty well over the whole of the Navy Estimates; he did not complain, because they were nearly all incidental to the main thesis of the noble Lord opposite. He was not surprised that the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down should have expressed some wonder as to this debate being taken to-day. It had been taken to-day in spite of repeated protests from various parts of the House. The Vote was put down for discussion three weeks ago, in spite of similar protests. The Committee was told it was put down then at the instance of the noble Lord the Member for Woolwich, but the noble Lord joined in the protest against its being taken. It was suggested that it was again put down for to-day at the request of the noble Lord, who had, however, a few days pre- viously stated in terms that he wished it adjourned until later in the session. Vote 12 was the key-Vote of the whole of the Navy Estimates. He had no objection to its being discussed on this occasion if it was not counted part of the time allotted to Navy Estimates. He should insist on further time being given on another occasion to Vote 12. He would suggest, after this discussion terminated, that the Vote should be withdrawn until a later period of the session. Why the Report of the Boiler Committee was delayed he did not know. It was said that the Admiralty wanted time to peruse it. Well, there was no reason why they should not have such time as they required, but let the House, who also wanted to peruse it, have such time as they required also; he thought it was possible there might be within the four corners of that Report matters strictly relevant to Vote 12. There were some relevant to Vote 8, which was already half discussed, and he trusted before Vote 12 was agreed to, that Report would be in the hands of Members.

THE SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. ARNOLD-FORSTER Belfast, W.)

That will be done.

MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON

expressed his gratification at the statement of the hon. Member opposite. He reminded the Committee that with regard to the Naval works the Admiralty had pledged themselves to give the House an opportunity of discussing naval works annually; that when there was no Naval Works Bill the Admiralty were hound to furnish a statement.

THE CIVIL LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. PRETYMAN, Suffolk, Woodbridge)

said that could be discussed on Vote 10.

MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON

said Vote 10 always had to be taken early in the session; for departmental reasons this session it was taken with the full understanding that naval works should he discussed in the proper place on Vote 12. The promise of an annual Statement of progress was made in 1900. Was that Statement going to be produced? It was promised, and it was due. This annual Statement had been made over since naval works began; if there was a Naval Works Bill the particulars required were found in the Schedule; if there was no Naval Works Bill, as in 1900, then the annual Statement was made. In that year it was presented just at this time. He protested against this Vote being parted with until the annual Statement of the works carried on under the Naval Works Act was produced. The hon. Member for Yarmouth had alluded to the matters of Colonial policy to be discussed at the Conference of the Colonial Premiers. Colonial policy, it was obvious, must be entered into, and the policy of the Admiralty must be involved, and these considerations could only be dealt with by the House on Vote 12. Therefore, on these three grounds it was absolutely necessary that this Vote should not be taken now. The Government, at whatever cost, must find time to allow the Committee to consider all these questions.

He had made these preliminary observations before replying to the noble Lord. He had listened very carefully to the statement of the noble Lord, with some anxiety to know what question it was for the consideration of which this Vote had been set down today. He was as much at a loss at the end of the speech of the noble Lord as he was at the beginning, because in the course of that long speech he could I find no definite proposition to which Yes or No could be said. The noble Lord commenced by saying that the present system was a rotten system. What did that mean, and what change did the noble Lord suggest? How did he prove it Was a rotten system? By the most unfortunate argument a man could well use; by declaring that any improvement that had come into the Navy had come in at the instance of outside agitation.

LORD CHARLES BERESFORD

Hear, hear!

MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON

That was the proposition; he would deny it so far as the Admiralty, of which he was a member, was concerned, and he thought he could deny it in the case of the present Admiralty. The noble Lord said that in 1889 the Navy, through outside agitation, got £21,000,000. That was under the Naval Defence Act, but that £21,000,000 was really made up by spreading over seven years an average of £3,000,000 a year in ship building, which was a mere trifle compared with the £9,000,000 which was being spent this year in new construction. But it gave to other countries the impression that we were really spending £21,000,000 additional on the Navy.

LORD CHARLES BERESFORD

A very good thing too.

MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON

The noble Lord said it was a very good thing, but the Naval Defence Act had created a totally false impression at home and abroad. It created in this country the erroneous impression that £21,000,000 was being spent right off on the Navy, and it stimulated naval activity in other countries, which had not seen through the trick.

LORD CHARLES BERESFORD

said the hon. Gentleman was quite correct in saying that the money under the Naval Defence Act had been spread over a large number of years. But, all the same, it had placed the Navy for the first time in a state of superiority over other nations.

MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON

said he adhered to his statement that the Act did not add anything really to our expenditure on the Navy, and that it produced naval activity in other countries which had led to increased expenditure by us. That they were wrong about that was proved by the fact that no succeeding Board of Admiralty had over dreamed of repeating the policy. The House of Commons had always responded most willingly to any demands made on the responsibility of the Admiralty. The noble Lord then went on to say that in 1893 there was another agitation, and that the Chancellor of the Exchequer made statements about the views of the Admirals on the Board which he was compelled to withdraw by their resigning en bloc.

AN HON. MEMBER

Threatening to resign.

MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON

said he would like to have some authority for that statement. He was a member of the Board of Admiralty at the time; he had the full concurrence of all his colleagues, and he did not accept the statement of the noble Lord as to what took place in 1893.

LORD CHARLES BERESFORD

What did take place?

MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON

said the noble Lord would see in Hansard. The then Chancellor of the Exchequer, speaking in debate and not as representing the Admiralty at all, put an interpretation on certain figures in an official document for which the Naval Lords were responsible, which interpretation, no doubt, was not in agreement with the opinion entertained by them. It was a perfectly innocent mistake, and if the noble Lord inferred from that that the then Chancellor of the Exchequer was not in full sympathy with the Naval programme then in existence, he could only say he was completely mistaken. When that debate took place the programme of the following year had been practically decided upon, and the Government refused, on a Motion for the Adjournment of the House at the demand of the Opposition, and in anticipation of the ordinary Estimates, to lay there and then before the House, in order to relieve the distrust entertained as to their intentions, the whole programme then under discussion and finally submitted to the House in the following year. The agitation of which the noble Lord spoke had no effect on the Board of Admiralty as regarded that programme. One of the great features of the enormous programme of the following year was not so much the increase in the number of ships; it was the new Naval Works policy, which had received such portentous development in the course of the last eight or ten years. In 1894 the first modest beginnings were made; in 1895 it was really put on its final basis by the Naval Works Act which he had the honour of introducing and carrying in that year. That was a great policy. The hon. Member for King's Lynn and others had not been believers in it, but it was accepted by the House and generally admitted to be, whether a right or a wrong policy, a most tremendous development in the Naval policy of the country. He could assure the noble Lord that outside agitation had absolutely nothing to do with that programme. If reference were made to the back records of the Navy League it would be seen that they had no suggestions whatever to make at that time about Naval Works. Even the question of Gibraltar had not been raised in that way at the time.

MR. GIBSON BOWLES (Lynn Regis)

May I correct the hon. Gentleman? It had been raised constantly.

MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON

said he did not mean that the question had never been discussed, but what he did say was that the Admiralty was not influenced by outside agitation on the point, because outside agitation in those days did not contemplate a policy of Naval works at all.

LORD CHARLES BERESFORD

It was answered by the Prime Minister.

MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON

said he did not understand what the noble Lord meant by that remark. His reference to 1893 was certainly an unfortunate one, but it was astounding that he should complete his pretended proof of an unprovable and, indeed, unstable and unstated proposition by referring to the agitation of last year. That the noble Lord of all men should refer to it was amazing. About this time last year the Government of the day, in response to an appeal from one of their own supporters, set up this or some other Vote in order that the points raised by the agitation of the Navy League might be discussed. Those were the days of the message from the Mediterranean, formulated by a writer whom, he understood, the noble Lord now declared to be all the time a dangerous man. If the noble Lord had been a Member of Parliament at that time he would have admitted that a more complete fiasco than that debate never took place in the House. The whole agitation so far as it found utterance in the House was blown to atoms. It was an impossible thesis that was then put forward. It was an attempt to take the actual responsibility relating to the distribution of the fleet out of the hands of the Admiralty, and to have it settled by outside agitation in the first intance, and by Votes in the House of Commons in the second, and when the noble Lord said that it was a proof that reform could only be obtained by agitation, and also a proof that the present system was rotten, he could only say the noble Lord could not have followed the result with the attention he would have expected of him. He might say more about it, but he was disarmed by the explanation given by the noble Lord in an earlier part of the session of his own connection with it. There were many deplorable features about that agitation. The true inner history of it had not yet been made public; but he knew that statements purporting to come from officers in high command in the Fleet were circulated in the House, which appeared to him, if true, to be utterly inconsistent with the loyalty due from officers in high command to the Admiralty under which they were serving, and utterly destructive of anything like discipline in the Navy. He was astonished that the noble Lord should have referred to an agitation which had so many lamentable concomitants, and such an inconclusive result as that of last year.

But what did the noble Lord want? He complained that there was nobody responsible, that there was nobody at the Board to state the requirements of the Navy, and that certain considerations, which he called political and financial, were allowed unduly to interfere with the administration of the Navy. He thought the noble Lord had got hold of a real defect in the Constitution, he was going to say, of the country, rather than of the Admiralty, but he doubted whether the noble Lord himself quite realised how great that defect was. The noble Lord would not for a moment deny that in the Navy itself, there was a direct chain of responsibility from the humblest seaman to the Admiral in chief command, for the duty each was required to do. The Admiral then took all responsibility. The Admirals had full power, in the ordinary discharge of their duty, to call to justice every member of the Navy who failed to fulfil the duty required of him by his position.

LORD CHARLES BERESFORD

They ought to do so.

MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON

said they had power to do it; if they did not do it they were responsible to the Admiralty, and the Admiralty ought then to do its duty. But the Admiralty, in turn, were, responsible to whom? To the House of Commons, and that was the greatest responsibility of all. What he desired to prove to the noble Lord and to the Committee, was that this theoretical responsibility broke down at the very point where it was most important. The chain of responsibility was weakest where it ought to be strongest, and that was in the House itself. What was the vise of talking of the responsibility of Departments when they looked at what took place in the House on the discussion of the Estimates? If the noble. Lord wanted an example, there was one in connection with the Admiralty itself, which occurred last year. There was an administrative breakdown of the most grave description in connection with the building of the Royal yacht. He ventured to bring that matter before the House and he was supported by many hon. Members on that side. How were they treated? Were they granted even a fair hearing I He did not complain of anything that was said about himself, but an hon. friend of his who spoke on the subject was insulted by the Leader of the House for venturing even to refer to the matter. They were told that they were censuring absent men, as if it were not their business to criticise and, if necessary, to censure all the men responsible for the business of the country. They were beaten in the lobby by two to one, and no answer was ever made to the very moderate statement of the case. Not only that, but the House of Commons and the country were denied any opportunity of perusing the Report of the Departmental Committee which considered the matter. The noble Lord had got hold of a real defect if he only knew where it lay. The defect lay with this House, and not in the Admiralty. The defect lay in the imperfect means possessed by the House of making public servants responsible to it.

LORD CHARLES BERESEORD

Then the defect of which I complain does exist.

MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON

agreed, but it was a defect in the system of the House, and, to some extent, in the Members of the House. How was it to be remedied? He would tell the noble Lord how he thought his object could be secured. But his suggestion would apply not to the Admiralty alone, but to all Departments of state, because the mischief to which he referred was common to all. There was not the slightest use in submitting the conduct of any public servant to the House if Ministers were going to got up and treat it as a crime that officials should be criticised or censured. It was no good a man trying to do his duty in the House if such a random statement as that to which he had referred was to be immediately copied and repeated by an ignorant and unscrupulous Press as happened at that time. And what was the use of bringing up such matters on the Estimates? The Estimates had to be carried; the Parliamentary, majority had to be at the disposal of the Government of the day, or they must go out of office. What he wanted to see was a system of Parliamentary control which did not involve party considerations at all, and he knew of only one way in which that could be obtained. It was a system he had advocated for many years. First of all, he would have the Estimates of the year, after they had been carried into execution, submitted to a Select Committee, or a body like the Public Accounts Committee, who should have authority to call before them the men responsible for every defect they might discover. The Public Accounts Committee in vain attempted to extend its jurisdiction. It was the Public Accounts Committee which reported the Royal Yacht case to the House, and what was the result? The Government of the day, and' the House itself, gave the Committee the go-by. As a matter of fact, the Committee was really exceeding its functions in dealing with the matter at all. The Public Accounts Committee had to deal only with matters of account; it had nothing to do with matters of administration or efficiency.

MR. GIBSON BOWLES

Pardon me.

MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON

That is the view taken by the Government of the day.

MR. GIBSON BOWLES

But not by the Committee.

MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON

was aware that that view was not taken by the Committee, nor by the hon. Member for King's Lynn so long as he was a member of that Committee. But that was the practical result. The Public Accounts Committee might report until they were black in the face; the answer to anything said by them was simply that it was a matter of administration for which the Department concerned was responsible, and with which they had nothing to do. What he would suggest was either that the functions of the Public Accounts Committee should be enlarged, and definite instructions given to it to examine into administration and efficiency, or else that another Committee, supplementary to the Public Accounts Committee, should be charged with the duty of supervising the execution of the Estimates, in order to see whether or not the mandate of the country, which every Estimate carried to the Government, had been duly executed. But that of itself would not be quite enough. Not only should the Estimates of the year, after they had been carried into execution, be submitted to the survey of a Select Committee, but the Estimates for the current year, before they were even laid before the House of Commons, should be examined by a Committee from the point of view of administration and efficiency—he would not say of policy, because that was another matter. That Committee should call before it the departmental officer responsible for each proposal, ask why the proposal was made and why so much money was asked for, instead of a smaller or larger amount. The Estimates so surveyed should then be sent to the House of Commons, accompanied by such a Report as the Committee might think proper to make.

LORD CHARLES BERESFORD

It is a good plan.

MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON

Then the, noble Lord accepts that?

LORD CHARLES BERESFORD

Certainly.

MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON

wished that others would be equally complaisant, because he believed the proposal to be a sound one. The noble Lord would probably not differ much from him now when he said that a real defect had been pointed out, that it resided not in the Admiralty alone, but in the whole public service, and that the real fault lay with the House of Commons, which would not exercise the soverign powers given to it by the Constitution.

In spite of what he said at the beginning of his remarks, he hoped the debate initiated by the noble Lord would do good. There had been conspicuously absent from it all the sensational motives and excitement which had accompanied former agitations. Before the noble Lord made his speech he feared the Navy League were again in the business, but he was glad to say he had found no trace of it this, time. The Navy League, however, was on the war-path. He had received its last publication only that day, and his right hon. friend the Member for the Forest of Dean was one of the prominent contributors.

SIR CHARLES DILKE

I may perhaps say, in order to prevent any misapprehension, that I am not a member of the Navy League.

MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON

said he did not refer to his right hon. friend as a member of the League, but as a contributor to its last publication. In that issue, by way of complaint, the following astounding statement appeared with reference to the recent war— The joys of battle have been denied to the British Navy, and with them the glittering rewards which accompany them. The inhuman ass who perpetrated that statement—he did not in the least know who wrote it, so that he was not making any personal reflection upon him—but whoever it was, the folly and inhumanity of the statement were such that he did not believe the writer could have understood the nature of the words he was using. If he might congratulate the noble Lord on the result of the debate, he would venture to add also his congratulations on the complete absence from his speech of any such truculent and atrocious spirit as that contained in the words he had just read.

(3.52.) MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER

It is not easy for me to reply as adequately as I could desire to the many important points which have been raised in the course of this debate. I am glad to be acquitted by the noble Lord of the offences unjustly attributed to me in some quarters of being too optimistic in speaking of naval matters, or of withholding from the House convictions of my own different from the views which I publicly express. I hope I have succeeded—at any rate, I have endeavoured to the best of my ability, when I have believed the arguments adduced showed deficiencies in the Navy, to admit that they were well founded; and I have not attempted on any occasion to take too optimistic a line with regard to the service with the administration of which I am connected. I am, therefore, glad to have that admission from the noble Lord. In endeavouring to reply to the points he and other hon. Members have raised, I hope the noble Lord will clearly understand that, though I may differ from him in some particulars, I cannot reply to him without feeling that I am speaking in the presence of an exceedingly competent and experienced naval officer, whose opinion is entitled to great weight in this House, and for whose opinion I certainly maintain a sincere regard. At the same time, I think it is most important, as the noble Lord has put himself forward as the protagonist in this matter, that we should not overrate the value of the opinions he has expressed merely because he has had this exceptional experience. We must examine his views, even though we attach great weight to them on professional grounds.

I confess that if I were to appraise the speeches in this debate, I should be tempted to put the speeches of my hon. friend the Member for Great Yarmouth and the right hon. Baronet the Member for the Forest of Dean in front of that of my noble friend in the matter of value as real contributions to the discussion of the attitude and policy of the Admiralty. I listened to the noble Lord with great attention, but I challenge any hon. Member to deny that the impression left on the mind of the Committee as to what he really desired or what was really required to be done was an exceedingly vague one. If I were to submit hon. Members who heard the noble Lord to an examination, and ask them to write down what it really was that he desired should be done, I doubt whether they would be able to do so. The only thing he desires in the Navy is efficiency. Of course he does. But efficiency is not an absolute positive fact. There is no positive point of efficiency that will ever or can ever be reached. I entirely deny that the Navy is not efficient now. The Navy is efficient. But that it can be made more efficient I should be very unwilling to deny. I do not think, however, that we are helped very much on the road by assertions that the Navy is not efficient, and that the system is utterly rotten.

The noble Lord dwelt, as he has dwelt elsewhere, upon two or three concrete instances which he put forward as justifying the view that the administration of the Navy was rotten. I should like to refer to those instances, because when we have arrived at a decision as to their value, we can perhaps appreciate the value of some of the conclusions which were based upon them. The noble Lord said that a great deal had been done by this Board and by other Boards as the result of public agitation. That is a matter I am not proposing to discuss. I am concerned only with what has been done or is being attempted by the present Board, and on that I can speak with some knowledge. If the present Board have done anything as the result of public agitation, I should say the Board might be blamed, but the country was to be congratulated. The noble Lord spoke of the question of coal. Indeed, I think that question ran all through his speech. He has made statements with regard to the failure of the policy of the Admiralty in reference to coal not only here, but elsewhere. Those statements are very definite indeed; therefore, to those statements I invite the attention of the Committee, in order that they may judge whether the policy of the Board of Admiralty on behalf of which I am speaking, has been as inadequate as it is represented to have been. The noble Lord in March last made a very strong statement indeed. As an instance of the un business like proceedings of the Admiralty, he mentioned that when on the Mediterranean station, five years after the present Government came into office, he had reason to complain of the inadequate supply of coal at Malta and Gibraltar, and that he threatened, if the necessary coal were not sent, to haul down his flag and publish a letter in every newspaper in England. That was a gallant thing to say, and we heard then, as we have heard again, of Lord Nelson and his blind eye and so on. For days the newspapers of the country were ringing with that splendid declaration. But what happened? On 9th April—twenty-six days later, we had a second edition of that statement in a letter by the noble Lord, in which he said— I informed my Commander - in - Chief in conversation that I considered the danger to the Empire so acute that if the coal supply was not increased I should ask leave to haul down my flag. That gives a very different complexion to the declaration. That, however, is not really the important matter. What is important is the accusation in connection with which this declaration was made. The accusation is that in June, 1900, when the noble Lord was second-in-command in the Mediterranean, the coal supply of the Mediterranean Fleet was inadequate, to the knowledge of the Admiralty, and that, in consequence of some action taken by the noble Lord, that coal supply was increased.

LORD CHARLES BERESFORD

I never said that.

Mr. ARNOLD-FORSTER

I do not know what the noble Lord did say, then. The noble Lord has been telling us that in consequence of representations made by him there has been an increase in the Mediterranean coal supply. There is, however, a perfectly well-known and ordinary method of procuring supplies of coal, not only in the Mediterranean but in all parts of the Empire, and of seeing that they are adequate and sufficient. At the end of the year 1899 the officers charged with this duty, the Commander-in-Chief and the Admiral - Superintendent at Malta, called attention to the fact that, in view of the largo consumption of coal on the ships which the Admiralty were sending to the Mediterranean, the ordinary stock kept there would not be sufficient. That matter was fully discussed by the Board of Admiralty, and on the 5th of February, 1900, an additional coal supply was sanctioned. On the 9th of February the noble Lord hoisted his flag in the Mediterranean, and in June of that year he made the communication to the Admiralty in respect of which this change is supposed to have been made.

Incidentally he might say that the noble Lord was wrong to the extent of 20,000 tons—or 50 per cent. of his own statement—with regard to the quantity of coal which he believed to have been stored in Malta at that time. What I want to point out is that these reinforcements of the coal supply at Malta have been proceeding regularly and progressively as part of the ordinary routine of the Admiralty, and, as we have been able to get more storage space at Malta, coal has been added gradually, and we have now a very large supply of coal both at Malta and Gibraltar. It is an entire delusion to suggest that when those matters have been brought to the notice of the Admiralty in the ordinary way, and by our own officers, we have acted not on the recommendation of those officers, but in consequence of agitation. There is not the slightest foundation for that suggestion. But this is not all, for other reproaches have been thrust upon the Admiralty in respect of their policy in regard to the coal supply. We have been lectured with regard to the remissness of the Admiralty in reference to patent fuel. On the 25th of March the noble Lord said— The French, Italian, Russian, and Turkish nations are fully aware of the fact pointed out by Mr. Allan (i.e.…) that coal deteriorates by storage, but unlike the British, they have taken steps to enable them to have large stores of coal fuel which are not affected by time. Observe, please, the nature of this definite and public charge. We were lectured up hill and down dale for not doing what the French, Russian, Turkish and Italian Admiralties did in storing fuel that would not deteriorate. What are the facts? Four years ago the whole question of patent fuel was gone into at the Admiralty. A Committee sat upon it and reported upon it, and early in 1901 the manufacture of patent fuel of a character unsurpassed and unrivalled in the supplies of any nation in the world was begun, and thousands and tens of thousands of tons of this fuel have been stored at our naval stations throughout the Empire since that time. At the time the noble Lord himself was commanding in the Mediterranean there were at Malta thousands of tons of this patent fuel stored there.

LORD CHARLES BERESFORD

How many thousand?

MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER

I will not tell the noble Lord at the moment how many thousand, but there were thousands of tons. Nevertheless at the beginning of this year the noble Lord comes down and reproves the Admiralty for failing to take this elementary precaution of supplying patent fuel to the Navy.

Lastly, there is one other ground of reproach. It is suggested that the Admiralty have increased the Mediterranean Fleet since their attention was called to its inadequacy by some acute outburst of agitation. If it were true that the Admiralty had discovered for the first time from some outside source that the Mediterranean Fleet was inadequate, and had increased it in consequence, I confess that that would have been a matter of reproach and a matter of blame to the Admiralty. But as a matter of fact nothing of the kind took place. What did happen was precisely what I said in this House last year would happen. The noble Lord has suggested that because of some special agitation more battleships were sent to the Mediterranean, but the battleships sent there were not built in six months, and the particular ships sent out were sanctioned by this House, and laid down one, two, and three years before this agitation was heard of, and were sent to the Mediterranean then, because then, and then only, they became available. The noble Lord, I may incidentally say, was wrong in saying there has been no reinforcement of the Fleets of other Powers in the Mediterranean, because there have been very considerable and important reinforcements of the Fleets of other Powers in the Mediterranean. Speaking on behalf of the Board of Admiralty last year, I stated distinctly that it was the intention of the Admiralty as soon as battleships, cruisers, and destroyers became available, to strengthen the Fleet in the Mediterranean. Not only the Mediterranean Fleet, but every other portion of the Fleet has also been strengthened in this way. I remember the time when there was only one destroyer, the "Ardent," in the Mediterranean Fleet, but as destroyers have become available they have been added to the Mediterranean Fleet. I know that my right hon. friend opposite thinks that even now we might with advantage have more destroyers in the Mediterranean Fleet, but we cannot add vessels that we do not possess. All I can say is that as the ships became available they have been added in the first instance to the Channel Fleet and the Home Fleet, and in the second instance to the Mediterranean and China Fleets. These reinforcements have been made in pursuance of nothing but the ordinary policy of the Board of Admiralty.

We have had another rebuke, which I think has now fallen to the ground, we were told that the Malta breakwater was another of these children of the agitation. I think, however, that the author of that charge has now recanted. That step, like many others, was taken subsequently to the visit of the First Lord of the Admiralty and the principal Members of the Board to Malta last year. But although the effective prosecution of the scheme dates from this visit, the initiation of that very important work dates from a much earlier period, and only became operative on the advice we received before and of which we had approved. I have dwelt upon these things, I hope not unduly, because I think general charges of inefficiency may be distrusted when it is found that what have been spoken of as definite and concrete instances, produced in order to convince hon. Members, will not bear the light of investigation.

A fancy picture has been drawn of the Admiralty. It is said the First Sea Lord is so occupied with trivial details that he has no time for other and more important duties, and that some now personage to be styled a "War Lord" is wanted at the Admiralty. That picture of the Senior Naval Lord docs not coincide with any vision that has been vouchsafed to me; there is no foundation for the suggestion that the Senior Naval Lord, who is a man of much experience, and greatly trusted by the Navy, occupies himself in this way; and if there be any difficulty it will not be got over by calling the Senior Lord by another name. It has been suggested that the Intelligence Department should be strengthened. I said before, and I repeat it now, that we must never admit, with our grave responsibilities and the growing size of our Navy from year to year, that an organisation which after all—more's the pity—is really a comparatively new one is adequate to all the needs of the Navy; but, nevertheless, I believe that the Intelligence Department is a very important, and I think a very well-manned body. It has been strengthened, and already we have seventeen naval officers, assisted by an adequate staff of clerks acting precisely in the fashion in which it is said they ought to act—as advisers to the Senior Naval Lord in the performance of his very important duty of directing the movements of the Fleet and regulating matters of higher policy in regard to our naval strategy.

We have been told that our Navy is inefficient, but I wish to be told where that inefficiency exists and what is the nature of it. These grave charges of inefficiency ought to be localised. I have already admitted that the condition of the Navy is capable of being improved, but when we have these very grave charges of inefficiency made I think we ought to insist that the dots should be put upon the is. Is the inefficiency in the Mediterranean Fleet, the Home Fleet, the China Fleet, or in the squadron which has been keeping up the blockade in South Africa? Which of these squadrons is inefficient, which of them is incomplete in its organisation? These are all things which I think we ought to be told when these broad charges are brought against the policy of the Admiralty. We are told that we ought to get a pound's worth for a pound, and that we do not do so now. That may be true, and I suppose it is more or less true of every public department, and there are difficulties which must necessarily arise in dealing with the details of a great military service. I believe, however, that we have now got nearer the getting of a pound's worth for a pound at the Admiralty than has ever been the case in the past, and before we are attacked in this way I think we ought to have a little more detail given as to where we are squandering public money, and as to where we are administering the affairs of the Admiralty in a way in which we ought not.

The hon. Member for Gateshead spoke about a particular branch of the general naval question. He spoke of the part science ought to play and the respect it ought to receive in the Navy. I do not agree with him as to his policy of a sweeping root-and-branch change. We owe an incalculable amount to the Navy as at present organised, and any man would be foolish beyond words who lent himself to advocating a great and ill-considered change in the organisation of our Navy; but I believe it to be true in the Navy, as in every large department of the national life, that we have not yet fully realised the position that science has taken, and is bound to take to a still larger extent, in this country and in the world. I do not say that that is peculiar to the Navy. I think it is far less true of the Navy than it is of many other great departments of life. But I do not want to discuss this question at length; I only wish to say I am in agreement with the hon. Member to that extent.

The counsel given to us by my hon. and learned friend the member for Dundee, who has now left the House, does not commend itself to me, and I rather think it is a sinister agreement between the hon. Gentleman and my noble friend. I would venture to caution the noble Lord against so readily accepting such an auxiliary in such a cause. The hon. Member seems to think that we should benefit the Navy and the country if we entrusted the whole affairs of the Admiralty to a Committee of this House. I have been for ten years a Member of this House, and I have great respect for its qualifications and powers, but I have not an overwhelming respect for the capacity of Committees of this House to do administrative work of a very minute kind. Unless we can get our great public offices to perform their duties we shall be very unfortunate, because I am quite confident that the House of Commons can never perform the duties for them. I do not know what is the higher policy of the Government, but, as far as my experience of the work of the Admiralty goes, I believe it would be disastrous if we were to refer all these questions—questions of scientific detail—to a Committee of Members of this House, however excellently composed. Members of this House are not accustomed to deal with these matters, and would import into their decisions on these questions considerations alien to those which ought to decide the actual policy of the Admiralty. If you cannot trust the Admiralty you should say so, and get another Board of Admiralty. You may get another system if you like, but you ought not to try to take out of the hands of your appointed servants the work you have appointed them to do.

There is only one other matter, but it is very important. I ventured to say at the beginning of my remarks that I valued the remarks of the noble Lord, but attached still higher importance to the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Forest of Dean and my hon. friend the Member for Yarmouth. It is refreshing to find we are now permitted in this House—as we ought to be permitted—to discuss the affairs of the two services in conjunction; it has been nothing but an advantage to the conduct of this debate. The right hon. Gentleman opposite has quoted examples which seem to me to enforce the truth that there is a lack of organisation somewhere in dealing with the higher policy of the defence of this Empire. I do not think the lesson of the right hon. Gentleman's illustration is quite as cogent as he could have made it, because he quoted the divergence of opinion which undoubtedly existed in the case of Wei-Hai-Wei as an example of advice given by a professional adviser not reaching the political heads of the Board of Admiralty and members of the Government in the form in which they should have received it. That seems to be a misinterpretation of the lesson of that divergence. As the right hon. Gentleman said, there was a very remarkable variation in the advice tendered, but there is no foundation for the suggestion that the advice having been tendered, was not acted upon. I think the gist of the whole charge is that there was such a variation, not only in the advice tendered, but in the policy followed.

The right hon. Gentleman has also cited the case of the tardy establishment of the School of Strategy at Greenwich, and also that of the Gibraltar Docks; and he has refrained from quoting many other instances which he might quote. I recognise the force of these illustrations; I recognise their cogency, and I cannot but reaffirm the belief I held before I stood at this table, and since I have stood here, that there is a need for some reinforcement of the intellectual equipment which directs, or ought to direct, the enormous forces of our Empire. I adhere to all I have said as to the value, even in their present not wholly developed form, of the Intelligence Departments of our two great Services. But I feel that these questions, which are, and must be, outside the purview of either of those bodies acting independently, cannot be dealt with even by the highest officers in either of the services, or even by the highest political intelligences, merely by preliminary or casual examination. We have learned the lesson—it is an accepted axiom—that in almost every branch of the application of mind to matter, before we can adequately deal with the practical application of enormous forces, we must make a study of those forces and of the laws which govern them. That study cannot be made as a mere incident of professional life. There are great officers who have served, and are serving, this country, enormously to its advantage. They had devoted their great powers to the special avocations and duties which they had been performing, but many of them, and, indeed, I may say the majority of them, have not been called upon to specialise in the study of this exceedingly complicated problem of the defence of the Empire, and the preparation and utilisation of its great resources in the most economical, and the most efficient manner. I should be false to myself if I were to deny that I believe there is room for a greater amount of preparation in advance with regard to the defence of this Empire. I am not at all sanguine that we can improvise in a month, or a year, or five years, or even in ten years, an organisation which will enable us to do all we ought to do, and all we desire to do, in this direction; but it is certain that unless and until we take the initial steps the day of fruition will be indefinitely postponed. Feeling as I do on this subject, I need hardly say I have a great deal of sympathy and agreement with the views that have been put forward. Many of us have our own ideas as to how a commencement should be made, but, until a commencement is made, we shall be no nearer to the realisation of our hopes.

With regard to the general question brought before the Committee, I can only repeat that I honestly believe the present Board of Admiralty is aware of the deficiences of the Navy, as far as they exist, and is exceedingly alert in its endeavour to remedy them. I protest against the idea that there is a body of persons at the Admiralty who require a perpetual stimulus to put their activities into operation. I will not mention any names, but I do ask those hon. Members who are acquainted with the principal officers of the Board of Admiralty, and that smaller number of Members who know the subordinate members of the Admiralty staff, whether they can believe that these officers are spending their valuable time, at this important period of their careers, in any other way than in endeavouring to enforce the views they have always held outside that office—views which I know they now entertain, and views which, I am certain, they regard themselves as compelled by their duty to the country and to the great service to which they belong, to impress upon the policy of the Admiralty.

(4.25.) MR. GIBSON BOWLES

said the hon. Gentleman had made, as he had expected from him, a very handsome admission in regard to the force of the arguments addressed to him this afternoon; indeed, he thought there could be no better justification for the debate than the allowance of the hon. Gentleman that greater intellectual activity was required in the highest Departments dealing with defence, and that greater co-ordination was necessary in the elements of that defence. That was broadly the case which had been put before the Committee by the noble Lord the Member for Woolwich, by the hon. and gallant Member for Yarmouth, and by the right hon. Baronet the Member for Forest of Dean. He should not follow them into the high regions into which they had flown, but he wished to deal with the suggestions made by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Dundee. The Secretary to the Admiralty had suggested that the House of Commons was not competent to superintend the executive acts of the Board of Admiralty. No one had suggested that the House of Commons was competent to superintend the doing of executive acts, but it was competent to criticise executive acts after they had been done. If the House was not competent to do that, he did not know for what purpose it existed. The hon. Member for Dundee made two suggestions. One was that there should be a Committee on Estimates before they were considered by the House. He did not think that was practicable, because the end of the session would almost be reached before the Estimates came on for discussion. The other suggestion was that after the expenditure had been completed on the Estimates, there should be a Committee to examine the expenditure and the executive acts of those responsible for it. But such a Committee existed at the present time, in the shape of the Public Accounts Committee. That Committee extended its purview not only over the expenditure, but over the receipts, and, therefore, it went far beyond the Committee suggested by the right hon. Gentleman. Only last Friday they had a most remarkable illustration of the way this Committee went into administrative work, for they were able to put an end to a great waste which was costing the country £10,000 a year. If they had, as there was in the United States, a Committee on Foreign Relations, with power to call officials before them, to call for information, and to make recommendations, they would greatly add to the power of the House over expenditure and as critics of administration. It seemed to him that there was a want of spirit in the Committee to exercise even the powers which they already possessed in this respect.

His hon. friend below the gang-way had given the House the true history of the Board of Admiralty, without following it to the logical conclusion. The Lord High Admiral was an expert, he commanded the Fleet, and he was responsible for all connected with it. After a certain time it was decided, and in his opinion rightly decided, to replace the Lord High Admiral by the Board of Admiralty. About thirty years ago a change was made, with the result that, instead of having a Board presided over by the First Lord, the system became this—there was no person responsible except the First Lord of the Admiralty the members of the Board became not independent and co-equal, but assistants of the First Lord; and they were responsible to nobody but to him. What did that amount to? It amounted to the restoration of the Lord High Admiral in the name of the First Lord, without the guarantees which they previously had. It was from that time that any defects in the action of the Board must be held to date. He did not himself think that the defects in the action of the Admiralty had been nearly as great as might have been expected. The problems which they had to deal with were complex and diverse, and when he compared the Admiralty with other Departments, he believed it was one of the very best of all. But the Admiralty had its defects, and some of them were very serious indeed. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Forest of Dean said that when Lord Goschen was First Lord of the Admiralty he never allowed interference, but the Committee would remember that he did allow interference in one case of a most momentous character. The hon. Member referred to the release of the "Herzog." The most essential thing the First Lord of the Admiralty could have to deal with was the use of the Fleet after he got it. It was well to build, and engine, and man the Fleet, but surely the principal thing the First Lord of the Admiralty had to deal with was the use of the Fleet. The charge he had to make against the Admiralty was that they had recently given up so great a portion of the powers of the Fleet—that required in case of war—that their action amounted to a grave dereliction of duty. We undoubtedly had the right to stop contraband of war for the Transvaal entering by Delagoa Bay during the war now happily ended. Our ships were employed in the service, but they were placed in such a position, inconsequence of the faulty instructions from the Admiralty, that they made numerous mistakes which could not be avoided. They were placed in such a position, through the absence of true information and the abundance of false information, that they detained ships they ought not to have detained, and searched them in a way which was entirely contrary to the law of nations. They did capture one ship choke full of contraband of war consigned to the Transvaal at Delagoa Bay. It was captured by a British cruiser and handed over to the Prize Court, and the Court actually ordered the release of eight Portuguese officials who were on board. The authority of the Prize Court was exercised on their behalf, and although we know that the ship was choke-full of contraband of war it was promptly released by order of the Admiralty without any search being made. The result of that was to greatly discourage the captors to whom she rightfully belonged, and to increase the running of contraband of war into Delagoa Bay. Only last year Lord Kitchener complained of this still going on. That was a very striking instance of the want of the proper use of our naval power.

He wished briefly to refer to the subject of Gibraltar. He was not going to tell over again the lamentable story of the inquiry. He would only remind the Committee that he was not the first to call the attention of the Government to the matter, although he first called the attention of the public to it. For years the Government had been inundated with reports from the greatest authorities at Gibraltar, pressing upon them the fact that that place under the new system of works proposed on the western side would be untenable, and finally pressing upon them, in view of what could be done by modern artillery, that the, only way to hold Gibraltar and make it a safe station for the Fleet was to acquire some considerable portion of territory now belonging to Spain. The First Lord of the Admiralty, who was specially responsible in this matter, disregarded the unanimous Report of the Committee sent out by him—a Committee consisting of the highest experts in each department, the best soldier, the best sailor, and the best civil engineer. He disregarded their Report that it was absolutely indispensable that a harbour should be built on the eastern side, and the works stopped so far as they could be stopped on the western side.

MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER

indicated dissent.

MR. GIBSON BOWLES

said his hon. friend questioned that, but he had the document here which he could quote It was imperative that this harbour should be built, and it was to cost £4,800,000. That advice was set aside on the advice of a local pilot—a most estimable and admirable man for his own work, but absolutely incapable of answering the questions submitted to him. The Report of the Gibraltar Committee was rejected for one reason only—it was in order to prevent the lamentable result of having to admit that the Works Department of the Admiralty had made a mistake. That Works Department was an empire within an empire, and it ruled not only the rest of the Department but the First Lord, as with a rod of iron. What was the final result? Another engineer had been sent out—naturally a less eminent engineer than the last, who was sent as the best possible. The second best authority had reported, he understood, to the Admiralty. He did not know whether he was right—his hon. friend would correct him if he was wrong—but he was informed that this ridiculous result had been arrived at: where as our best and greatest authority in engineering reported that the new harbour should be built on the eastern side at the cost of about £5,000,000, the new engineer said the project would cost £17,000,000. Of course, that was ridiculous. That was only arrived at in order to make the House believe that the whole thing was impossible and could not be thought of any more. He did not know what sort of harbour they were going to construct at £17,000,000. Personally, he felt very sore on this matter. He took the trouble to go to Gibraltar and make inquiries. He regretted to say that the whole work of his Committee had been entirely overthrown and treated as if their opinion were of no value at all in competition with the opinion of a local pilot.

There was another matter not without importance. He could not in the least comprehend in presence of so important a conjuncture and so grave a crisis in connection with the trade of England as we had in the shipping "combine," how the First Lord of the Admiralty could have ventured to pay a new subsidy to the White Star Line. What was to be the character of these ships now that they had passed under the control of an American corporation?

THE CHAIRMAN

I think that ought to be raised on the question of the subsidies. It seems to be a very de finite matter which does not come under the present Vote.

MR. GIBSON BOWLES

said he thought he was strictly within the question of the policy of the First Lord. These ships might possibly be held to be neutral ships in time of war, and therefore it was extremely improper to subsidise them before that question had been considered and settled. In view of the great doubt at present attaching to the character of these ships, he thought it was a very great mistake on the part of the First Lord to have renewed the subsidy and paid one instalment.

(4.45.) MR. YERBURGH (Chester)

said he was not here to defend what had been written in the latest production of the Navy League, but he would say that every hon. Member who went to the Review would have the opportunity of obtaining an admirable guide to the Review by various members of the League who took a deep interest in Imperial defence. When the hon. Member said that the debate of last year on the condition of the Mediterranean Fleet dealt with the disposition of the Fleet in various quarters of the globe, he was entirely in error. There was no question of the disposition of the Fleet. That would have been entirely outside the bounds of the liberty and license Members of the House would allow themselves. The real point was whether the Fleet in the Mediterranean was strong enough or not for the discharge of its responsible duties. Since that debate, they had been told, the Mediterranean Fleet had been largely augmented in destroyers and in other directions. Now they were informed by the hon. Member that the increase of the Fleet was not due to any representations made by an outside body, but that it was part of the settled policy of the Admiralty. That might be the case. He did not doubt it was the case, but it appeared to him rather a dangerous thing to allow the Fleet to deteriorate so much in strength at that particular time as to require the strengthening that had taken place. He could defy contradiction when he said that it was then in such a state that it was not strong enough to face any eventualities that might arise.

MR. ARNOLD - FORSTER

That addition was common to every squadron in the Fleet.

MR. YERBURGH

said that what he understood from the hon. Member was that the increase in the Mediterranean Fleet was part of the settled policy of the Admiralty, and that it was not in any way a new departure of the Board or due to the visit of the First Lord to Malta last spring. There were other things which struck him with some measure of dismay. One matter was the condition of the Reserves. This was a point which had been remarked upon by foreign countries. There was no use having a large number of ships unless we had men to place upon them. He wanted to know why the Admiralty had been so long in appointing the Committee to deal with this important question, because the danger had been known to many for along time. It was no answer to say that a Committee had now been appointed, because a stimulus had to be applied in order to get the Admiralty to act.

A most important question in connection with the Navy was gunnery. There had lately been some attention paid to the subject, but when was the discovery made that it was one of importance? He held that the agitation for preform had been justified by the steps which were now being taken in connection with gunnery. It was obvious from their present attitude that the Admiralty were really intent upon acting up to their responsibility in this matter in the best way they possibly could. He saw an earnest of that in the fact that they had appointed to a responsible position in the Board Admiral Sir John Fisher, an officer who had held high command in the Fleet. The House ought to bear in mind that this great Commander had brought the Fleet to a degree of speed never attained before. He had increased its speed by five knots an hour, and that meant an enormous increase in the efficiency of the Fleet. He mentioned that in order that the House might gather what an acquisition of strength the Board of Admiralty had received and what confidence might be placed in their action.

With regard to the much larger question of Imperial defence as a whole, he was one of those who believed that far too much money was spent on the Army in comparison with the total expenditure on defence, and too little on the Navy. There was, therefore, some necessity for a controlling mind to survey the whole field of Imperial defence and to co-ordinate the two services, assigning what was necessary for each branch. The House should acknowledge the fact that the South African War could never have been brought to a successful conclusion but for the Fleet. The mere shadow of our Fleet lying across the sea enabled us to transport men to South Africa as safely as they could be taken along Piccadilly. Even at the present time we were spending millions more per annum on the Army than on the Navy. It was a serious situation that required the attention of the House. We never would have a satisfactory solution of the problem until we had some master mind looking over the whole field of Imperial defence. He hoped that in the Conference which was going to be held on the question of Imperial defence the Army would not be foremost in men's minds. On account of what had recently happened the Army was at present foremost in their minds, but when the Conference came to discuss questions of Imperial defence, the part to be played by the Navy should be the primary consideration.

(4.57.) MR. REGINALD LUCAS (Portsmouth)

said he would not have in-intervened the debate had he not been vigorously attacked by the Navy League. It had been made a charge against him that in the debate last year he initiated a debate on the Navy from false motives and reasons not altogether disingenuous. He thought it was germane to the question now before the Committee to ask whether the Navy Leagne, or any other association of a similar nature, was justified, or was to be tolerated, if it arrogated to itself the position of a dictator in a matter of so great importance as naval organisation. One of the officers of the Navy League gave the public to understand last year that so long as his noble and gallant friend the Member for Woolwich was occupied in the Mediterranean, it was his special duty to look after the Navy, and that officer thought proper to say in a public newspaper that the hon. Member himself had done all in his power to injure the interests of the Empire in the hope of personal political advancement. He cook leave to repudiate emphatically that assertion. Now that his noble friend was back from the Mediterranean he had stated that this official of the Navy League who represented him in his absence was a most dangerous man, and if they had to choose between such a body as the Navy League and the new organisation which his noble friend had advocated today, he, for one, threw in his support on the side of the new organisation. He listened with great interest to his noble friend's speech, but he was not quite clear as to the exact details of the duties to be attached to the office he proposed to institute. It would be impertinent on his part to air his opinions alongside of those of the gallant Admiral, but he should like to say that those who felt like himself were still in doubt as to the details of the scheme. His own opinion was that the weakness in Naval administration in this country did not altogether rest with the Admiralty. He had taken the opportunity of speaking rather strongly in regard to a body which claimed that they alone were responsible for the Naval administration of the country. Meantime, he did not deny that the intentions of that body were admirable, but he could not admit that they were the persons on whom we could depend for seeing that the Navy should be in a state of efficiency It was the House of Commons that was-responsible for that, but which failed to do its duty. When the noble Lord opened the debate that afternoon he addressed an audience of eleven! Hon Members went down to the country and made speeches on platforms saying that they would never oppose the fullest expenditure on the Navy, and that kind of thing was invariably received with enormous applause. Why was it that in this House they never saw the enthusiasm and interest displayed in regard to the Navy which they claimed to be shown throughout the country? He was sure that if greater attention and interest was displayed in Naval affairs there would be less need for a Navy League. When the Secretary to the Admiralty was replying to the noble Lord that afternoon there were twenty-one Members on the Benches opposite, and twelve of them were asleep; and he was perfectly certain that it was neither the subject nor the oratory of the hon. Member which caused this languid interest. There was an incurable sloth in the House of Commons as far as interest in naval affairs was concerned, and this weakness disqualified them very much from passing a severe censure on the Naval administration. He was persuaded that if they were to have it in their hands to do anything for the Navy, they must learn for themselves what were the requirements of the Navy, and display a greater activity in the House when naval affairs came forward for discussion It was a matter of congratulation that the noble Lord the Member for Wool wich had come back to the House, and as his disciple, he would try and assist him as far as he was able, in his effort to obtain the reforms he desired And nobody recognised more fully than he did what he hon. Member for Chester had done by zeal and activity in furthering the interests of the Navy.

MR PENN (Lewisham)

said that he wished to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty if he was satisfied that the efficiency of the Navy was now secured by the number of engineers, artificers, and stokers that were on the books at the present moment, in view of the very large amount of work that would shortly be committed to these men. If the present complements were sufficient for getting the ships along at full speed when necessary, why was it required by contractors to supplement the supply of men given to them by the dockyards by an enormous stock of their own, if they wanted to get a sufficiently good result during the trials? For instance, the full engine room complement of the "Goliath" was 142; on her trial the dockyards furnished 261, and that was supplemented by a large number of contractors' men, who, of course, were interested in getting satisfactory results. He was perfectly well aware that the staff on board ship would, after some experience of the machinery and boilers, get a better result than at first. In the event of war, there would be a large number of ships commissioned from the reserve fleet, and it would be absolutely impossible to get good results out of the machinery from men who were not acquainted with the idiosyncracies of the machinery under their charge, and that might be an absolute source of danger. He advocated the employment of a much larger number of skilled men below.

MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER

said he would like to take the opportunity of answering the point raised by his hon. friend the Member for Gateshead, who spoke of there being a shortage of 11,000 stokers, 1,000 artificers, and 800 engineers. There was not anything like such a shortage as that; and the hon. Member's statement had no relation to the fact. There was, he admitted, a shortage of stokers this year, owing to the large extra demand due to the recent additions to the Navy; nor was there an absolutely full complement of engineers for the Navy. He believed however that they would be able in the event of war to fall back upon large numbers of men who were now occupied in the stoking of merchant ships who were not members of the Naval Reserve. At the same time, the Board of Admiralty recognised that it was necessary to increase as early as might be the number of stokers available for the fleet.

(4.15.) MR. DILLON (Mayo, E.)

said that in order to crystallise the debate they had been listening to, he proposed moving the reduction of the Vote by £20,000. He really thought it was desirable to emphasise what had been said by the hon. Member for Portsmouth. They had been discussing from twelve o'clock a Vote on which the whole Naval policy of the country could be raised, and not a single Cabinet Minister had put his nose into the House. That showed a most extraordinary condition of mind on the part of those responsible for the Navy. There was one point to which he desired to draw the attention of the Secretary to the Admiralty. They were going to have in a very few days a Conference of the colonial premiers, and he urged on the Secretary to the Admiralty that the time had come to place before these colonial premiers the question whether the colonies were going to make any contribution towards the cost of His Majesty's Navy. The ground, or justification, for the enormous increase in the Navy Vote was that the, Navy was employed in the protection of a world-wide commerce, and to keep an open road on every sea on the face of the earth. Were they in these islands to be called, in the future as in the past, to bear the whole enormous cost of the Navy? If so, he did not think it was just or right. Those who talked of drawing closer the bonds between the colonies and this country should address themselves to the question whether the colonies were willing to pay a moderate share of the burden. It was a monstrous thing that they in Ireland, who had no trade to protect, should be compelled to contribute more than their full share of the expense of the Navy, while the colonies, who had a great trade, and millions of tons of shipping, paid no contribution. He could not address himself to a responsible mariner, because there were none there; but he asked the representative of the Navy to see that a strong appeal was made to the premiers. When these were calling for preferential rates, they should give a substantial proof of their loyalty to the Empire by voluntarily offering to take a share of the expense of the Navy. To his mind, the only way for the Colonies to do this was to pay a contribution to the Imperial Float, for local flotillas did not contribute to the strength of the naval defence of the Empire.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a sum, not exceeding £274,300, be granted for the said service."—(Mr. Dillon.)

COLONEL BLUNDELL (Lancashire, Ince)

said that the real reason, why hon. Members did not attend debates on the Navy, was that they had a profound belief in the sound condition of the Navy. He thought that military and naval officers at the head of the Army and Navy were put in rather an awkward position, because if they proposed certain things to their political chiefs, they were not in the position to resign if their proposals were not accepted.

MR. WILLIAM REDMOND

rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put;" but the CHAIRMAN withheld his assent, and declined then to put that Question.

Debate resumed.

COLONEL BLUNDELL (continuing)

said he believed that the real remedy for this evil was that the Commander-in-Chief of the Army and the First Naval Lord should have a proper power of resigning if they disagreed with their political chiefs; otherwise they were not in a position to state their case with firmness. As an old soldier, he firmly believed that the country had been entirely mistaken in regard to the Army.

THE CHAIRMAN

said the hon. and gallant Gentleman was out of order in the line he was taking.

COLONEL BLUNDELL

said what he wanted to insist upon was that we should keep an Army and a Navy sufficient for the protection of the whole Empire. With the growth of the Navy the routine work of the First Naval Lord had grown with it, and it was very desirable that the position of that officer should be improved.

It being half-past Five of the clock, the Chairman left the Chair to make his Report to the House.

Committee report progress; to sit again upon Monday next.