§ SIR GILBERT PARKER (Gravesend)I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether his attention has been drawn to the Statement explanatory of the Navy Estimates, page 8, when the First Lord of the Admiralty gives the strength of the Navy as fifty-one battleships, as against sixty battleships given in the issued Return of Fleets (Great Britain and Foreign Countries), while unarmoured vessels are given in the Statement as seventy six, whereas the Return puts the number at ninety; and whether the Return appears to the Admiralty to afford as accurate a presentation of the strength of the Navy as can be given without entering into technical details.
§ MR. EDMUND ROBERTSONThe paragraph cited from the First Lord's Statement referred, as may be seen from the context, to ships with full or nucleus crews. The Answer to the second part of the Question is in the affirmative.