NAVY ESTIMATES, 1906–7. (Hansard, 7 March 1906)

§ MR. CHIOZZA MONEY (Paddington, N.)
rose to move to reduce the number of men by 5,000. He insisted that it was the duty of the Liberal Party to accentuate the fact that the verdict given by the country at the late election was largely returned on the question of extravagance and waste in the administration of the revenues of the United Kingdom. The figures in the Estimates, which only covered a period dating from the financial year 1897–8 to the end of the current year 1906–7, showed an increase within a few years in the number of men from 96,925 to 129,000. That represented a tremendous growth of the naval expenditure which demanded the attention of every man who had the welfare of the country at heart. While in favour of a large Navy, according to the two-Power standard, he asserted that this standard had long been exceeded and that we were building a Navy approaching to a four-Power standard of naval expenditure. In 1884 we were content with an expenditure of £10,000,000 a year, and in 1886, the year of Lord Randolph Churchill's resignation, the expenditure had risen to £13,000,000, representing half the number of men asked for by this Vote. In that short period of twenty years the number of men which the House was asked to vote had been doubled. The two-Power standard referred to by Lord George Hamilton was France and Russia. With regard to France, we were never on better terms with our ancient enemy. As to Russia, which was once the great bogey, because of which we built ship for ship and gun for gun, and voted man for man, the greater part of her fleet was at the bottom of the ocean. Lord George Hamilton, who had not the advantage they had of being wise after the event, did not then perhaps sufficiently realise that the fleet of Russia was split up into three different parts—one in the Black Sea, another in the Baltic, and the third in the Eastern seas. After the recent war, however, they should at least be wise after the event. In 1893 Mr. Gladstone resigned rather than submit to a Naval increase, in which year the Vote of men was 74,000, or 56,000 less than the House was asked to vote this year, and the Naval expenditure was only £18,000,000 sterling. At that 517 time the Army and Navy combined accounted for £36,000,000 expenditure, which was only £1,000,000 more than the gross expenditure on the Navy in the coming year. That was a very startling and significant fact. He did not urge that there was anything necessarily wrong in big figures. The better test was to make comparisons with the expenditure of other countries. Taking France and Germany together, they spent on their navies £23,000,000 per annum, as compared with our £35,000,000. That alone gave ground for the suspicion that we were a three-Power standard. Last year Mr. Pretyman gave some figures relating to the expenditure on new construction during the ten years from 1895 to 1905, and they were important because, to use the words of the Secretary to the Admiralty, they dominated the whole question of Naval expenditure. During the ten years the United Kingdom spent £70,000,000, France nearly £32,000,000, Russia £28,000,000, and Germany £22,000,000, so that even were the Russian fleet still in being, it would still be the case that our expenditure in those ten years was very little short of the combined expenditure of France, Russia, and Germany. As a matter of fact, the Russian fleet was not in being, and making a comparison with France and Germany alone, we had the fact that in ten years this country spent £70,000,000, while France and Germany spent only £55,000,000. He did not mention the United States, because any question of rupture between this country and the United States had been practically banished from the mind of every right-thinking man. There were two other vital considerations, the first of which was that because this country was a Free Trade country it could build ships better, more cheaply, and more quickly than any other country. That was a very great advantage indeed, and it should never be forgotten in connection with Naval armaments. There was also another point, namely, that dockyards in this country were often used by foreign countries for the building of their war-vessels, which really amounted to an investment of foreign money on behalf of this country, because we could at any moment take up these vessels when they were on 518 our stocks, and use them for our own purposes. All these matters pointed to the fact that the House could wisely and judiciously consider the question of reducing Naval expenditure. This constant increase in the first and last line of defence did not lead to a reduction or even keep stationary the number of men for the Army which the House voted year by year. Whereas in 1895–6 the number of men voted for the Navy was 95,000 and in 1905–6 it was 129,000, in the same period the number of men voted for the Army was 155,000 in 1895–6, and 221,000 in 1905–6, so that the money spent in connection with increased Naval armaments gave no relief as regarded the Army, and he ventured to say that it was the same waste and extravagance which caused increases in both cases. He did not ask for a weak Navy, but submitted that the two-Power standard ought to content the country. This House had a right to say to their naval experts: "We want our two-Power Navy. We will give you £25,000,000, £26,000,000, even £27,000,000, and we shall expect you to give us in return a two-Power Navy and a little more."That would be equivalent to a saving of £10,000,000 or £12,000,000 in the bloated Estimates. If they went back to the figures of 1898–9, they would be well justified and would earn the renewed confidence of the country. He asked the House to remember that when they voted 129,000 men for the Navy, it meant that other men had to labour to supply necessaries for those men. This was an important economic question which went down to the roots of poverty in this country. They were building up vested interests in waste. They were confronted with hon. Members who came to this House pledged to study the interests of towns which were supported by the spending of public money, and so it was that hon. Members got up in this House and said the Government was very extravagant, but would they kindly be extravagant in Ireland, or at Rosyth, Portsmouth, Woolwich, or some other place?

§ MR. CHARLES DEVLIN
said the complaint of the Nationalist Members was that, though Ireland paid towards the cost of the Navy, not a penny was 519 spent on Admiralty work in Ireland; and, further, that that country was already overburdened by taxation, and should not be taxed further.

§ MR. CHIOZZA MONEY
said he had no desire to misinterpret the remarks of hon. Members opposite, but certainly some things had been said in the debate coming from hon. Members representing constituents who were often men engaged in work furnished by the waste which was going on in this country. It was a serious consideration that when they had built up—as the late Government and its predecessors had been building up year after year—trades in waste hand over hand, the first effect of reduction should be to cause misery, and, perhaps, destitution, in certain places; but, unfortunately, the painful necessity was forced upon them. He would not plead for sudden reductions—that would be cruel to places like Portsmouth and Woolwich; but it must be done gradually, and it would not cause a greater dislocation of industry than was caused by calling men into these industries of waste. They were called in gradually, and let them be called out gradually. The final consideration was that a sound state of finance was the greatest strength in war, as it was in peace. Even prosperous Free-Trade England could not stand this drain, and he warned them that if they insisted upon a war expenditure in times of peace, it would go hard with this country when the next war arrived; and if they desired to make progress with the political and social reforms which had been actually promised, they must reduce unprofitable expenditure and divert the national wealth to truly national needs.

§ MR. SPEAKER
proceeded to put the Question that the House agree with the Committee in the said Resolution, and then called upon Mr. Byles.

§ MR. CHIOZZA MONEY
said he begged to move a reduction of 5,000 men.

§ MR. SPEAKER
The hon. Gentleman is too late. I asked him whether he wished to make a reduction, and he concluded his speech without doing so, and I have now put the Question that 520 the House do agree with the Committee in the said Resolution.

§ MR. BYLES (Salford, N.)
said he would move, if necessary, the reduction which his hon. friend had desired to move. They had voted a great deal of money for the Navy in the last few days, and he could not assent to the report of this large Vote without raising his voice. He had put before his constituents the view that the security of the country could be amply provided for by a much smaller expenditure either upon the Army or the Navy, and he did not believe that the poor people among his constituents desired to spend their hard-earned wages upon costly ships and munitions of war and for keeping thousands of men for the purpose of destruction. Lord Randolph Churchill, when Chancellor of the Exchequer a good many years ago, said that if the foreign policy of this country was conducted with skill our huge armaments would be quite unnecessary, and the taxation they involved unjustifiable. Yet we were spending twice as much now as at the time when those words were spoken. If our naval strength was to depend on our policy, then it was relevant to point out in the first place that the Russian navy had been practically destroyed, and that it would take ten years to restore it; secondly, we had now an entente cordiale with France, which had led the Government to reduce the strength of the Mediterranean Fleet; thirdly, we had friendly relations with Italy and the other Mediterranean Powers; and fourthly, our relations with the United States were so friendly that it was absolutely unthinkable that we should ever get into conflict with that great Anglo-Saxon Power. In these circumstances, was not the reason for this vast expenditure largely removed? If the Navy was in the nature of an insurance, then when the risks were lessened the premium ought to be lessened also. He acknowledged that the Government had been obliged to a large extent to put before the House the Estimates of their predecessors, and it might seem inconsistent on his part to make the observations he had done. He was disappointed that the Secretary to the Admiralty had 521 not encouraged them to look for a large reduction in naval expenditure. On the contrary, he understood the right hon. Gentleman to say that we must look for automatic increases in the Navy expenditure.

§ MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON
said that what he stated was that he had had a table prepared of the prospective naval expenditure of this country based on the assumption that new construction, which dominated the whole of our naval expenditure, was to remain practically at the level it had reached this year, and that no material change would take place in the other Votes. On that footing a calculation was made by his order in the Admiralty, which showed what the prospective expenditure in these five years would be owing to automatic increases which could not be prevented in annuities and in the non-effective Votes. The result was that the expenditure would rise by about £2,000,000 in the five years.

§ MR. BYLES
said he was glad the right hon. Gentleman had given the House some expectation that there would be a reduction in the expenditure. In addition to the reasons he had stated for believing that the expenditure on the Navy should be reduced there was the fact that in the Far East we had now a thoroughly effective alliance with a Power which had control of the Pacific Ocean. The House ought to expect from this advanced Government an indication that there was a prospect that the naval and military expenditure, which had grown so terribly in recent years, would be substantially reduced.

§ MR. VERNEY (Buckinghamshire, N.)
said it had been stated that the naval and military armaments should be regarded as a national insurance. It seemed to him that insurance required the observance of two great principles. In the first place they must consider the amount of property they had to insure, and secondly they had to consider the risks against which that property was to be insured. If they took into account only the amount of property, there was no doubt whatever that there was a strong reason for 522 increasing our insurance, because our property had increased in the last ten years by leaps and bounds. A few months ago Lord Avebury, a great financial authority, had made a statement of extreme interest in regard to the growth of the wealth of the nation, and the increase of extraordinary expenditure, which he thought was absolutely unpardonable from the economic point of view. Lord Avebury reminded them that in ten years our total exports and imports had risen from £702,000,000 to £922,000,000. From the point of view of the rise in the amount of our national property, we might be justified in increasing the premium of our national insurance.