NAVY ESTIMATES, 1910–11.

HC Deb 14 March 1910 vol 15 cc38-147

Order for Committee read.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the chair."

4.0 P.M.

The FIRST LORD of the ADMIRALTY (Mr. McKenna)

The practice has now become well established that the opportunity should be afforded, on the Motion that you, Sir, do leave the Chair, for the introduction of the Navy Estimates of the year. No man who stands at this Table can present Estimates of such a gigantic total as £40,600,000, without a very serious sense of responsibility. Nothing but the imperative needs of safeguarding the security of our country could justify such a total, but if that justification be made I am sure that both this House and the country will be as willing to make the sacrifice for the coming year as they have ever been willing in the past. I do not for a moment expect to escape criticism. I expect to have to meet criticism from two opposite quarters. There are some who think all expenditure upon armaments superfluous. [An HON. MEMBEE: "No, no"; and an HON. MEMBER: "Who are they?] There are others who never think the expenditure upon armament sufficient. [An HON. MEMBER: "That is right enough."] In my observation it has always appeared to me that so far as answering representatives of those two schools of thought is concerned it is immaterial what the amount of the Estimates may be. There is nothing new in this. I came across the other day, in reading some correspondence of Sir John Hawkins, then Treasurer of the Navy, in the year immediately before the Spanish Armada, in 1587, a very remarkable letter. I shall venture to trouble the House with a quotation from it, because its terms are so perfectly apposite to modern conditions. The letter was written by Sir John Hawkins, and the passages I quote are as follows:— There hath been great services abroad these two years past, and the ships mightily supplied from time to time with many provisions. The expenses extraordinary have been great, and such as before this time hath seldom come in use; for the Navy is great and men more unruly and more chargeable than in time past. So as it doth not only amaze me to answer everything, hut I do grieve at the charge as such as if it were to proceed from myself. I have been careful to replenish the store, but I found it not worth £5,000; and now I think with this year's issuing it is worth £16,000. So likewise the ships, I found in weak estate, and now they are, as your Lordship doth see …yet I am daily backbited and slandered. But your Lordship doth know what place this is to hold that I am in. Many there are to receive out of this office, and among a multitude there are some bad and unreasonable. And although I endeavour myself to pay and satisfy all men with order and equity yet some be displeased. Here you have in the year before our greatest naval deliverance the Treasurer of the Navy having to confront exactly the two opposite kinds of criticism which I have to meet—those who said that his prepara tions were excessive, and those whom he described as backbiting and slandering him because he had not done enough. Between those two schools I hope to be able to recommend these Estimates as neither excessive nor insufficient. It is unnecessary for me to say that these Estimates have been the subject of the most anxious consideration by the Board of Admiralty. The responsibility of the Board of Admiralty may be viewed in three different aspects. They have a responsibility to the country for the safeguarding of our shores, our Empire, and our trade. They have a responsibility towards the Navy. It is their duty to see that the equipment, the matériel, of the Navy is of the best quality, and that a sufficient number of men are enrolled and properly trained. They have a third responsibility, a very peculiar responsibility to this House. It is the duty of the Board of Admiralty to see that their Estimates are framed with due regard to economy, and that, while they are sufficient, they shall be no more than sufficient for the purpose for which the Navy is maintained.

I can understand criticism coming from hon. Members of this House with a view to showing that the expenditure is excessive. It is only reasonable, as it strikes me, that hon. Members here, who are the guardians of the taxpayers' interests, should cross-examine me as to the absolute necessity of every item for which I ask them to pay. It is quite reasonable that anyone should address me and say, "You live in an atmosphere which is altogether professional. Your naval advisers, admirable as they may be, are nevertheless so much associated with war that they are apt to believe the danger of of war greater than it really is, and their sense of responsibility may very likely make them take precautions which are beyond the true needs of the occasion." It may be said to me that my naval advisors being professional men have a natural desire to aggrandise their own profession. I may be reminded that I have to take full responsibility for every penny which I ask the House of Commons to spend. I may be asked, Have I examined with the care which is my duty the information which I receive, and am I able to assure the House that these Estimates have been framed with the most absolute regard to economy when the needs of the Empire are borne in mind? That criticism I can understand, and I hope I shall be able to answer it. But there is a criticism of the opposite kind, which, I confess, I do not know how to meet. I do not expect to have to meet it in this House. I do not in the least anticipate that there will be said in this House anything like what has been said upon the platform. I have no belief at all that I shall have to meet the charges of criminal folly, of recklessness, of waste of the taxpayers' money, of having let down the Navy to such a degree that our safety is imperilled. I do not suppose I shall have to meet one of those charges; but if I do, let me remind hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite how the Navy is administered. The Navy is administered by a Board of Admiralty, the Members of which are Members of the Government of the day; but, unlike other Members of the Government, the naval Members of the Board of Admiralty do not go out of office on a change of Government. They do not hold their positions on political grounds. Every Government, no matter what its political constitution, desires to secure the best naval advice which it can obtain. I am happy to say that the present Government have been most fortunate in the ability and zeal with which they are advised by their Sea Lords. Is it to be supposed that the naval advisers of the Government are less well informed as to the development of foreign navies, or as to the state of our own Navy, than the man in the street? Can it be believed that, so long as the Board of Admiralty signs the Estimates for the year—and it must be remembered that the Estimates are signed by every Member of the Board of Admiralty—these reckless charges that have been made upon almost every platform in the country have the smallest foundation in fact? There are many questions of legitimate discussion and criticism—questions of naval policy upon which there is wide room for difference of opinion; but charges which amount to nothing more nor less than mere reckless abuse of the Admiralty ought not to be made, I submit to this House, in the interests of the country, in the interests of the Navy, and in the interests of the peace of the world.

The great bulk of the increase in this year's Estimates is due to the additional charge for new construction. The increase is from a little more than £8,750,000 during the current year to £13,250,000 fox the year 1910–11. I may as well here make an explanation of the figures for the new construction Estimates, which appear to have been a little misunderstood. It must be remembered that these Estimates of ex- penditure on new ships are framed in the winter of one year, and are to last for a period covering close upon fifteen months. I see three hon. Gentlemen opposite who have had experience of the Admiralty. As they know, it is always a difficult matter to secure the payment of all outstanding liabilities by 31st March. If payment is not made before 31st March the money has to be surrendered. In framing the Estimates for 1910–11 we had to anticipate that in the first three months of the year we should have a very large amount of construction work in hand. Consequently, unless we were to increase our permanent staff, the staff who give the necessary certificates before payment can be made, we should probably not be able to pay before 31st March, 1911, as large a proportion even as we have been able to pay in previous years in respect of work in hand. It will be observed that only a small amount is taken for each of the new ships to be laid down in the new programme. From that it has been inferred that possibly three out of the five ships would not be laid down in the course of the next financial year. The fact is quite otherwise. Two of the ships will be dockyard-built ships, and therefore they are stated in the statement which I have issued to the House as being laid down on a particular date. But for the three others, they being contract-built ships, the actual date of laying down cannot be named. All that we can give is the date of the order, the date of laying down, of course, being in the discretion of the contractors. Having regard to the difficulty which, I have said, we always meet with at the end of the financial year in making the payments then due, and knowing, as we do, that that difficulty will be largely increased in March, 1911, we have not ventured to take more than a comparitively small amount of money in respect of these ships, not because they will not be begun before March, but because we do not expect to be able to get the accounts through. That is the reason why no comparison can possibly be made between one year and another as to how far a ship will be advanced, according to the amount of money which is provided for it. With dockyard ships a comparison can be made, because we pay for our dockyard ships week by week; whereas, contract-built ships we only pay for periodically as an instalment becomes due, and the date at which an instalment will become due is not easy to determine in advance. I fear that my explanation is a little complicated, and not easy to be understood by those not familiar with Admiralty matters, but I hope the right hon. Gentlemen opposite have understood the explanation.

Mr. ARTHUR LEE

The right hon. Gentleman stated that the date of laying down the two dockyard ships was given in the Estimates. It does not appear to be here.

Mr. McKENNA

I thought I had given it in the statement. The two dockyard ships which are to be built will be laid down in January. The orders for the other ships will also be given in January, and they should be laid down then. But, as the hon. Gentleman knows, the date of laying down is determined by the contractor.

Let me remind the House that in the Estimates no mention, naturally, is made of the two ships which are to be built by the Australian and New Zealand Governments. Those two ships will be very shortly under construction, and they will be completed about the summer of 1912. I should like to take this opportunity of repeating once again the gratification which the Government feel at this co-peration of our two great dominions in Imperial Naval Defence. We feel not only the great advantage of this addition to our world naval strength, but we also recognise the evidence, if that were necessary, of the unity of our Imperial sentiment. The scheme of the Australian and New Zealand Governments, and the details of the new ships have already been stated to the House, and I do not propose to go further into the matter. I will only remind the House that in the summer of 1912 these two ships will be in European waters, and they will not leave European waters until the late autumn, certainly the autumn, of 1912. When they do leave, the five new ships of this year's programme will be approaching completion. The actual state of our Navy in home waters as regards ships and cruisers of the "Dreadnought" type will then amount to this: In March, 1912, we shall have twenty of these ships, and in the course of the summer of that year the Australian and New Zealand ships will be added to our twenty. By the time the Australian and New Zealand ships leave our waters we shall have the five new ships of the present programme approaching completion, so that we may rest satisfied that through- out the year 1912, and down to March 31, 1913, our absolute superiority in these, the latest type of ships, is secured. I hope the House will notice this fact. We shall have, at one and the same time, under construction eight ships which have been laid down or ordered in the course of the present financial year. Further, we shall have the Australian and New Zealand ships, and we shall have at the end of this next year at the same time the five ships of the new programme under construction. Thus, fifteen of these vessels will be in course of building at the same moment in the British yards. I hope that fact will reassure those who are under the impression that Great Britain is falling behind in its power of construction. Beyond this, of course, we shall have an incomparable fleet of ships of an earlier type. I do not think it necessary now to go in detail through the list of our large battleships and cruisers, but I can say this, that these earlier ships of ours are equal, if not superior, to the fighting power of any foreign ships built in the same period; they are much more numerous than the corresponding ships in any foreign Navy, and no matter what life you choose to give the battleships, no matter what the number of years after which you are going to declare these battleships and cruisers obsolete—at any dace which you like to choose—you will find that the British Navy maintains, in the strict sense of the term, the two-Power standard laid down by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. I hope that that is an assurance which will be accepted by the House as a sufficient safeguarding of our present and future security.

If the House will bear with me I should like to make a comparison with a period of forty or fifty years ago. I find that if you take a period of ten years when ironclad vessels first came into use, from 1861–71, that the total amount that was then spent upon new construction was £1,480,000 a year. In the ten years 1900–10, the average expenditure was £9,222,000. That is to say that in the forty years the cost of shipbuilding has increased more than sixfold. Bearing that comparison in mind, let us turn to the cost of the personnel. The average (Vote A) from 1861–71 was 68,000, and the cost of their pay amounted to near £3,000,000. In 1900–10 the average (Vote A) was 124,500, and the pay £6,600,000. Thus, while the cost of new construction was multiplied more than sixfold, thepersonnel was not doubled, and the pay was only just a little more than doubled. I recall these facts to the House, because I regret to say that they teach their lesson. That lesson, from the point of view of expenditure is not at all satisfactory. The development of mechanical power has enormously increased the efficiency of the individual seamen, but that development of power is only attained at great cost. It cannot be supposed that the last word has been said in mechanical improvements. The British Navy dare not be left behind in adopting the very latest inventions; the latest improvements in machinery, armour, and guns. It is true that we reap the advantage of these improvements, and that we do not have to increase our personnel at the same time as we should otherwise have to increase it. But the cost to the British people is enormous, and so long as these improvements are made the cost will inevitably increase. I fear that I cannot hold out any hope of a decline of any serious amount in the Naval Estimates. So long as foreign Powers avail themselves of the best material I do not think that Great Britain can allow itself to fall behind. Modern ships, modern machinery, and modern guns, which are daily becoming more effective are, I regret to say, daily increasing in cost.

A charge has been made against the Admiralty, not that they lagged behind in taking up foreign improvements, but that they have been too hasty in adopting improvements, and in setting the pace in expenditure. It has been said that the introduction of the "Dreadnought"—

Lord CHARLES BERESFORD

The advertisement.

Mr. McKENNA

The Noble Lord says the advertisement of the "Dreadnought" I prefer to say "the introduction of the 'Dreadnought," The "Dreadnought" was not a ship which could be built under a bushel. The introduction of the "Dreadnought," it is said, is the illustration in support of the charge. I hope the House will bear with me for one moment while I endeavour to clear up a certain misapprehension in regard to the supposed extravagance of the Board of Admiralty in hastily rushing into new expenditure. The "Dreadnought" was laid down in October, 1905. She is a ship of 18,000 tons, and a material advance on the "Lord Nelson," which at that time was the largest ship, having a tonage of 16,500. Size means expense, and it is supposed that Great Britain, in laying down the "Dread- nought," led the way in expenditure. As a matter of fact, in May, 1905, five months before the "Dreadnought" was laid down, the Japanese had laid down the "Satsuma," a ship as much larger than the "Dreadnought" as the "Dreadnought" is larger than the "Lord Nelson." So that so far as the question of mere size went—and it is size which involves expense — it is the Japanese who have led the way and not the British Admiralty. It must be remembered that the Japanese had at that time the experience of their own war, and from that war they learned certain lessons which justified them, as they believed, in concentrating strength in the big ship. The British Admiralty were not behindhand in learning the lessons of the Russo-Japanese War—the "Dreadnought" was started. The "Dreadnought" was not like the "Satsuma." It was not as big a ship. The essential qualities of the "Dreadnought," an all-big-gun ship with turbine machinery, were not to be found in the "Satsuma." The British Admiralty may, I think, legitimately claim that perhaps it learnt some of the lessons of war as rapidly as the Japanese themselves. The British Admiralty certainly did not lead the way in expenditure. The bag ship had become a necessity five months before the "Dreadnought" was laid down.

Mr. GIBSON BOWLES

Not before she was ordered.

Mr. McKENNA

Yes, before she was ordered. The "Satsuma" was laid down in May, 1905, which was before the "Dreadnought" was ordered. I do not think the question can be disputed, but while the "Dreadnought" has all the elements of novelty which we admire, the mere question of size, which involves expenditure, was settled by the construction of the "Satsuma," built by the Japanese. I turn now to the smaller programme. As I have said, the larger vessels are five in number, all to be laid down and three to be ordered in January, 1911, and to be completed by January, 1913. Now I turn to the smaller vessels of the new programme. We propose to lay down five unarmed cruisers of the "Bristol" and "Boadicea" types. We had six in our programme last year, but the House will not have forgotten that the British Imperial Navy is being strengthened by the building of three cruisers of the "Bristol" type by the Australian Government. We shall have a total Imperial addition of eight cruisers, and our estimate for only five falls due. When the three Australian cruisers are completed, some of our cruisers which are upon the Australian station will be relieved, and will be able to come home for service in home waters. In the coming year five "Bristols" and one "Boadicea" under construction will be added to the existing fleet. In 1911–12 a further number of four "Bristols" and two "Boadiceas" will be provided for, and in the summer of 1912 five of the present programme will also be ready for commission.

As regards destroyers it is proposed to lay down twenty in the course of the coming financial year for service in home waters. I regret in the statement furnished to the House I did not refer to the three other destroyers we are building which are for service in New Zealand waters. They appear properly in our Estimates because we pay for them, but in our arrangements with the Australian Government we propose to send these three destroyers to the Pacific, and they will not be replaced by any corresponding boats from the China station. In consequence we are to regard these three destroyers as not an addition to our Home strength, as we can, in the case of the three "Bristols" which the Australian Government are building, because when they go out to the Pacific we shall get other cruisers of our own back again for service in home waters. The period allowed for construction for our destroyers is eighteen months, and the order will be given in June next. By the end of June, 1911, we shall, in consequence, have the whole of these 200 destroyers completed.

The Admiralty has to meet from time to time a considerable amount of criticism upon the subject of destroyers. [Cheers.] I notice that hon. Gentlemen opposite cheer that and I hope to claim all their attention while I endeavour to explain to them that much of the criticism has been founded upon insufficient data. The Admiralty have a certain difficulty in meeting that criticism because every critic has his own idea as to the type of destroyer or as to the age of the destroyer, which alone would justify its being included in counting the boats. We have destroyers of many types varying in size, in speed and in design. Now I would like to get upon common ground with hon. Members opposite upon this subject. I think it is common ground that destroyers with a high freeboard forward and good fuel capacity are alone suitable for service in the North Sea under all conditions. I hope hon. Gentlemen will observe that I use the words "under all conditions." It is also true that destroyers which do not satisfy the conditions as to high freeboard forward and as to fuel endurance, may, nevertheless, provided that they are good sea-boats and have a good speed, serve a very useful purpose even in the North Sea. They may not be able to keep the sea, as long as others; they may not be as suitable, consequently, far from their base as destroyers of the other kind I have named, but they may not be disregarded in counting our total strength in destroyers even for North Sea purposes. They are confined mostly, in the first instance, to I destroyers of the high freeboard forward and good fuel capacity, boats of the river class, the tribal class, and those produced in 1908–9 and 1909–10 and the 1910–11. We shall by the end of 1911 have 102 such destroyers. Behind these we have sixty-four known as the 30-knotters and thirty destroyers known as the 27-knotters. We have, further, thirty-six boats known as coastal destroyers of quite recent construction. All these, which although comparatively of small size, are soundly built, fairly fast, and have a good radius of action. I may tell the House I have the very best reports of the usefulness of these boats for the service they are required to perform. Now I am quite prepared to allow these figures to speak for themselves. I ask those who consider them an excess, or those who consider them insufficient, to compare them with the corresponding figures given for foreign navies in the Return which stands in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for the Forest of Dean (Sir Charles Dilke). I firmly believe that such an examination will show that the present programme of destroyers is both adequate and not excessive.

I will only make reference to the submarines and remind the House that we are taking £750,000 for this kind of boat in the present Estimates. Part of this will be expended in the building of the boats now being constructed, and part in laying down a certain number of new boats of this kind. Not including the whole of the Holland boats, we have upwards of fifty-five submarines in commission. Such is the naval programme for the new year. It is sufficient; it is necessary; in framing it the Admiralty have been guided by the considerations of the existing programmes of foreign countries. I hope the House will not expect me to enlarge in detail on these programmes.

Mr. ROBERT HARCOURT

You did so last year.

Mr. McKENNA

I did last year with regard to one country, but I find myself confronted with this difficulty. If I state, however moderately and however much I may avoid every kind of exaggeration, the facts which are known to the Admiralty they are immediately seized upon by a section of the writers in the Press and they are made the foundation of a new naval scare. If, on the other hand, I did not state the facts, I am liable to be charged with making a demand upon the House for money the grounds of which have not been sufficiently explicit. In these matters I am obliged to ask the House to take the statement as sufficient that there has been no decrease in foreign naval programmes during the present year.

Mr. THOMAS LOUGH

There has been.

Mr. McKENNA

I maintain there has been no decrease in foreign naval programmes during the past year.

Mr. LOUGH

There has been a decrease on the number stated in this House as likely to be the naval programme of Germany for the year 1912.

Mr. McKENNA

No, there has not. I have frequently invited my right hon. Friend to read the words I used last year. He has not seen fit to do so; If he did do so he would find that there is no justification for stating that less happened last year than I said would happen.

Mr. LOUGH

I quoted the Prime Minister.

Mr. McKENNA

We have to look to the safety of the country, and we have to consider the strength of our Navy from year to year, and to take the necessary precautions. In no year have the Board of Admiralty failed to have regard to the actual requirements of the moment. It must be remembered that as every programme deals with a period of years in advance of the time when the programme was announced, necessarily there must be a great deal of conjecture as to what we may have to meet two years hence. We can only deal with the actual programmes we know of at the moment. Last year I stated to the House as facts what I knew to be the facts—that is, what had occurred at the time. I gave my anticipations as to what I believed would occur in the course of the next two years, and I stated to the House what might occur, what was within the region of possibility, even of probability, but I did not include anything in my statement as to what necessarily would occur. As regards the statement which I made last year, I have nothing to withdraw. And our programme this year is framed now upon our actual knowledge of what is completed, or in the course of being completed, and what we know the foreign programmes are for the course of the next two years to come. As I have said, I hope the House will not think it necessary to go in detail into the development of foreign navies. The Return standing in the name of my right hon. Friend gives most of the essential facts, and I am sure that examination and comparison of the development of the British Navy with the development of foreign navies will justify the Board of Admiralty in the programme which they ask the House to agree to. I am sure that a comparison will justify the Admiralty in the programme they are asking the House to confirm.

Mr. ROBERT HARCOURT

Does the right hon. Gentleman propose to say nothing on the special point of the thirteen or seventeen German "Dreadnoughts" to be ready by March, 1912, which was the cardinal feature of last year's Debate?

Mr. McKENNA

At the present moment Germany has got thirteen ships of the "Dreadnought" type under construction. She has in her programme four more ships to be laid down in the course of the year 1910–11. Under the German law those ships may be laid down without regard to the actual financial provisions on any day in the year 1910–11; that is to say, they may be laid down on 1st April, 1910. These are the facts. Now as to possibilities or conjectures.

Mr. GIBSON BOWLES

Surely the right hon. Gentleman can tell us how many German "Dreadnoughts" are now flying the pennant?

Mr. McKENNA

I am coming to that point. In August, 1907, four German "Dreadnoughts" were laid down—the "Nassau," "Westphalia," "Rhineland," and "Posen." Of these four the "Nassau" was built and completed and commissioned in two years and two months from August. J907, the date of laying down; the "Westphalia" was commissioned almost immediately after; the "Rhineland" and "Posen" are not yet commissioned, but they are capable of being commissioned, and could have been, had there been any need for it, some time Ago. These are the four "Dreadnoughts" which I know were laid down in August, and could have been commissioned in two years and two months. Very well, the four ships of the 1910–11 programme may, under the German law, be laid down on 1st April.

Mr. ARTHUR LEE

There is an important point arises about the financial year. Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us when the German financial year begins?

Mr. McKENNA

It is the same as ours, 1st April. The four ships of the 1910 programme can be laid down on 1st April, and if there was any necessity or any determination to do it, I presume they could be completed as fast as the "Nassau" and the "Westphalia."

Mr. GIBSON BOWLES

Do I understand that these four ships are already in the water ready for commission, and are they in addition to the thirteen ships under construction?

Mr. McKENNA

No. It is thirteen "Dreadnoughts" altogether, including those four. The four others may be laid down, or might be laid down by 1st April, and might be in commission, judging by previous experience, in two years and two months from that date.

Mr. LOUGH

Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us what was the date of the order?

Mr. McKENNA

The date of the order is immaterial. The date of the official order is more important, because the notification to the contractor that the order will come may precede 1st April, and has in fact preceded that date. What we have to regard is the date of the official order. We know that from the date of the official order, or the date of laying down the ship, there are two years and two months to completion. We are making adequate provision against any contingency, and I hope that in what I have said I shall not be supposed to have given ground for any scare or that a friendly Power is anticipating next year's programme with any hostile design against this country. But we have to face facts, and we take precaution now with a programme of five large armoured ships to ensure ourselves against any possible risks in order to maintain the supremacy of the British Empire upon the sea.

Let me clear up a misunderstanding or a misapprehension under which the Leader of the Opposition is labouring. I am sorry I do not see him here, because I should have preferred not to criticise what he has said in his absence. Speaking at Hanley on 4th January this year, and referring to the period during which the Liberal Government had been in office, he said:— How stood our naval position at the beginning of those four years? We left the present Government with an overwhelming strength in battleship and an ample supply in naval stores. In the four years that have since elapsed they have been living upon these battleships and consuming these stores. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] Well, even now there are some hon. Gentlemen opposite who credit the statement of the Leader of the Opposition. His argument was this. He admitted that the country was perfectly safe at the time at which he had spoken, but he said that was owing to the virtue of the Government over which he had presided, and that we had done nothing but live upon the good things he had left us. When the right hon. Gentleman made his speech I had not the figures with me, and I could not at the time contradict his statement. I knew that it was erroneous, but how far I could not say. I have since had the figures made out, and I find the following to be the true statement of the case. The total tonnage in the four last programmes of the Conservative Government—that is to say, from 1902–3 to 1905–6 —amounted to 385,000 tons. While the total tonnage of the four Liberal programmes to 1910–11 amount to 437,000 tons; that is to say, the programmes of the Liberal Government actually undertaken were 52,000 tons in excess of the Conservative programmes. Moreover, the Liberal programmes had a larger tonnage in respect of every class of ship. In battleships and armoured cruisers the Liberal programmes show an excess of 1,700 tons, in small cruisers an excess of 29,600 tons, and in destroyers 21,600 tons. These smaller cruisers and destroyers about which we have heard so many complaints levelled at the Liberal Government were actually 29,000 tons in excess as regards small cruisers and 21,000 tons as regards destroyers. Whatever the Leader of the Opposition may have left to his successors we supplemented it in the first four years we were in office by a larger amount than he provided during the last four years he was in office. I hope after this we shall hear no more of the Liberal Government having lived upon the ships left them by their predecessors.

Sir FORTESCUE FLANNERY

Will the right hon. Gentleman state the relative cost of construction in the two periods he has compared?

Mr. McKENNA

I could not state it from memory, but the relative cost would be much higher under the Liberal Government. The cost of shipbuilding has increased in cost as the hon. Member knows. Now as to stores, which we are supposed to have lived upon. When the Leader of the Opposition was Prime Minister a decision wits come to by the Board of Admiralty, of which two Gentlemen opposite were members, to reduce or close down certain foreign yards and depots. Those actually closed were Halifax, Esquimault, Trincomalee and Jamaica; whilst those reduced were the Cape and Bermuda. These changes were made in consequence of a reorganisation of the distribution of the Fleet, under which our Fleet was very much more concentrated in the home waters. This policy was approved by Parliament when the Leader of the Opposition was Prime Minister, and if I may be allowed to express an opinion upon it, I think that policy was very sound. One of the results of this policy was that all the stores in those yards which were closed or reduced had to be brought home. What was to be done with the stores? It is not a good thing to keep too large reserves, and I think it will be agreed that we could not throw the stores into the sea. What were we to do with them? Just like our predecessors in 1905 we consumed the stores, and as they formed no part of the ordinary home reserve we consumed them without replacing them. Whether it was right or wrong thus to treat the stores, it was the policy of the Leader of the Opposition, it was the policy of Lord Selborne, Lord Cawdor, and the policy of the two hon. Gentlemen whom I see opposite, and yet because we have carried out that policy strictly we have been attacked for consuming stores without replacing them and for weakening the resources of the Navy. I ask this House to accept the statement that the consumption of stores, without, replacing them, which figured so largely as a ground for attack against the Liberal Government, has only been done to the extent and upon the precise lines approved by the late Conservative Government.

5.0 P.M.

Before passing from these controversial topics, let me now allude to the question of personnel. We are asking for an increase of 3,000 men. A part, something over 1,000 out of the 3,000, are required for an increase of the complements in our existing ships, and this has become necessary owing to the use of cooling magazine plant. The rest of the 3,000 are needed for the complements of two ships as they come into commission. Much criticism has been directed against the Admiralty owing to the belief that we have not provided a sufficient number of men. I think in that criticism one very important fact has been overlooked. During late years there has been a strict revision of Vote A. We have, without increasing Vote A, been enabled to make certainly not less than 3,000 men available for war service who were not available before. The policy, I think, dates back to the year 1902–3. In 1902–3, if anybody looks at the Estimates for that period, they will see, for instance, among the personnel of the Navy, the number of 1,280 pensioners employed in home establishments and ships. Already, by reductions in that year and subsequent years, that number has been brought down to 300, with the result that, without increasing Vote A, on that item alone 980 more men have been made available for war service. There is another item, though smaller in amount. Formerly warrant officers had servants who were specially borne on Vote A. Now officers' servants are supplied by seamen and stokers. Consequently, we are able to take into Vote A an additional number of men without increasing our total figure.

It is with the Marines that the greatest increase of our available war service has been obtained. The House must remember that before the reduction in the Marines, and even still at this moment, their peace numbers are larger than would be required in war. They are overborne for war service. We keep up our Fleet not for peace service, but for war service, and every branch of the Fleet ought to be so adjusted that when war requires it the whole power of our Navy shall be brought into play. We keep up more Marines for peace purposes than we should require for war service. They have been reduced and they are still, though only to a small extent, overborne, but every Marine that has been reduced has enabled us to enlist a seaman in his place who will be available for war service, I cannot take the credit for this reform, and my predecessor cannot take it; it belongs, as so much else, I readily admit, to right hon. Gentlemen opposite. Hon. Gentlemen shake their heads, but the reform was begun in 1905. It is a proper reform—it is a real, businesslike reform to put your numbers upon the basis of war requirements, and not upon peace requirements—a sentiment in which, I am sure, I shall have the support of the Noble Lord the hon. Member for Portsmouth (Lord Charles Beresford), What you have to look to is war, and not to peace. We have thus been enabled to acquire another addition, approaching 2,000 men, who will be available for war service, without adding a single man to Vote A. Thus, in spite of a large increase in new construction, we are able to content ourselves with asking, for the present, for 3,000 additional men only.

There are a large number of other topics upon which I will refrain from wearying the House at the present moment. I am fortunate in having to assist me my hon. Friend, the Financial Secretary (Dr. Macnamara) and the Civil Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. G. Lambert). I hope each of them will bear his burden in explaining to the House these technical subjects. I certainly hope my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary, who has given very special attention to many matters which have from time to time been brought before the Admiralty, will explain to the House the changes we have made with regard to the system of detention barracks, with regard to the benefits granted to the lower deck and to certain improvements affecting the schoolmasters, writers, and others; and I hope my hon. Friend the Civil Lord will deal with the subject of docks. I know the House has a special interest in the subject of docks to which the name "Dreadnought" is more particularly applied. As the House knows, we are building two large floating docks, and a new graving dock at Portsmouth; we have so lengthened the existing dock at Haulbow-line to make it capable of taking "Dreadnoughts," and I can assure my hon. Friends from Ireland that in consequence of this extension there is a prospect of a steady increase of work taking place in that dockyard. It is not yet completed, but I hope it will be completed in the course of the coming financial year.

There remains only one subject to which to refer before I close, and that is the serious loss which the Board of Admiralty have suffered by the retirement of Lord Fisher. I will remind the House that Lord Fisher has served his country as First Sea Lord under four successive Governments, and his service has received the approval of the House of Commons again and again. The Administration of the present Leader of the Opposition, the Administration of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, and the Administration of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister have had occasion many times to be grateful for the splendid services which Lord Fisher has rendered them. I very much doubt whether, without the extraordinary ability and energy which he displayed, it would have been possible in so short a time as has happened for the British Navy to have been reorganised on quite a new footing, ships to have been brought home, that we should have seen our power in home waters developed in the manner in which the modern distribution of international strength has required it, or that we should have been able at anything like the same price or cost to have carried out the enormous development of power which the Fleet has made during his administration. Reforms with which his name is connected will live for many years, and I think that, as the Governments who have been brought into direct contact with him have known how to appreciate and value his services, so the public at large when they better understand will also recognise the immense debt of gratitude which the country owes to Lord Fisher. The loss the Admiralty have suffered would have been beyond measure but for the fact that we have been able to secure as his successor Sir Arthur Wilson. At a time when most men would have been unwilling again to take on the labour of office Sir Arthur Wilson has come forward, and we have every hope that, with his assistance and by his advice, we shall be able to maintain the splendour of the British Navy untarnished and its glory and its strength unimpaired.

Mr. ARTHUR LEE

The right hon. Gentleman closed his remarks with a well-merited tribute to the work which Lord Fisher has accomplished at the Admiralty. Whilst it would be an impertinence on my part to embark on any words of commendation of so great an officer in the discharge of his duties, I may perhaps be allowed, as one who was associated with him in a very humble capacity during the time I was at the Admiralty, to join with the right hon. Gentleman in expressing from this side the appreciation which everyone must feel of the immense energy, knowledge, and capacity which Lord Fisher threw into his most arduous and responsible duties. We may also, perhaps, be allowed to congratulate the Admiralty upon the choice of his successor. This is largely a personal matter, but Sir Arthur Wilson, if I may say so, is a national institution, and we are therefore entitled to join in the satisfaction which, I am sure, the whole House and the country feel in having enticed him from his well-earned repose and retirement, and enlisted his services in the greatest, as I think, office in which a citizen of this Empire can possibly serve.

Now I come to the beginning of the right hon. Gentleman's speech. He began with a note of apology at the size of the Estimates, and he said he was, I will not say between the Devil and the deep sea, because I might be required to state on which side these respective perils are situated, but he began by stating that he was between two classes of critics. There was, he said, a certain class of critic who thought all expenditure superfluous. I have not yet met that critic, but I have met a good many who thought a reasonable amount superfluous, and I have also met the critics who thought the Government are not spending enough. I venture on this occasion to range myself with that latter class, to the extent of saying that I think the Government have not spent sufficient for the Navy during the years it has been in office. Then the right hon. Gentleman went on to develop an argument in which, referring to this latter class of critic, he said:— If we are attacked for not doing enough, why then I would remind the House and right hon. Gentlemen opposite that there are on the Board of Admiralty a large number of very distinguished admirals and professional men who are in no sense politicians, and surely it is enough that we have their support in the measures and provisions we make. I think the less said about professional advisers on the situation the better. I do not think the right hon. Gentleman has any right whatever to attempt to shelter himself behind professional opinion.

Mr. McKENNA

I did not.

Mr. LEE

He has no right, as I contend, to even quote it unless he is prepared to get up and say that the professional advisers have been given every detail for which they have asked.

Mr. McKENNA

I ought not to let that pass. I limited what I said to the single act in which the Board of Admiralty had come into direct conflict with the House of Commons—I mean their signature to the Estimates. I stated that it cannot be supposed that when they sign the Estimates they are ignorant of foreign Estimates or the state of foreign navies.

Mr. LEE

That is my whole case. By putting their signatures to the Estimate they give their approval to everything in the Estimates, and the right hon. Gentleman has no right whatever to bring forward their authority unless he is also prepared to say, if challenged, that they have been able to get everything they have asked for. I think it better that their names should be kept out of the question. After all, it is the Government who are responsible. It is the right hon. Gentlemon who comes before this House to defend his Estimates. He is responsible, and we are attacking him and the Government, and not his professional advisers.

With regard to the Estimates, as a whole, they are better than we feared, but I am by no means prepared to admit that they are satisfactory. The chief criticism which I consider it my duty to direct against the right hon. Gentleman's proposals in these Estimates is not so much against the extent of the programme, as it appears on paper, as against its unreality, no proper provision being made for various items set forth in the Memorandum. It seems to me that the money asked for is in no sense commensurate with the programme—that is, if the Admiralty means business. I will admit this, that the programme which they have brought in this year shows some sign, at any rate, of a tardy realisation of the perils of the situation. In so far as the programme is satisfactory, the right hon. Gentleman will admit, I think, that he has at last refused to turn a deaf ear any longer to the advice he has received from this side of the House. For years past we have urged on the right hon. Gentleman and the Government the need for further exertions, and we have been told again and again that ample has been done, but the programme brought in this year by the Government is an absolute refutation of the assurances given in the past. I am aware that the Government has had to face difficulty on both sides, and that while we on this side have urged on it the necessity for a larger programme they have been assailed below the Gangway for departing in some way from the principles of international brotherhood. For the first two or three years it was in power the present Government yielded to pressure below the Gangway, but I venture to think that during the last twelve months it has yielded to pressure from this side of the House. We are very glad that the change has taken place. There have been such bewildering changes in the policy of the Government in regard to this matter that I hope the right hon. Gentleman will forgive me for saying that its position has been something like that of a gyroscope, which is only able to maintain its equilibrium by turning round. As far as the paper programme is concerned, the Government is turning somewhat in our direction, and that is an agreeable change. I understand there is to be no active rebellion from the Reduction of Armaments party this year, and for that relief much thanks. While it will not be in order to refer to general politics, I think one redeeming feature in the political situation is that it has forced the Peace-at-any-Price party to prefer party to peace.

I should like, before I come to the actual proposals contained in the programme for the current year, to ask the House to consider—and here I am speaking entirely for myself—to consider for a moment whether it would not be better, or possible, at any rate, to avoid these annual recriminations between the two parties and between ourselves and foreign countries—whether it might not be possible for us to adopt a policy such as that which is adopted in other countries—notably by our chief friends on the Continent, France and Germany—the policy of fixed armaments. We might thereby get rid of a great deal of inflammable material which is inevitably thrown about in the course of these discussions. I hope that that idea may commend itself to future Boards of Admiralty, and that we may, at no distant date, see a settled fixed programme or organic law adopted for the Navy of the British Empire It became perfectly clear in the right hon. Gentleman's speech—though he tried to avoid it—that it was inevitable, under present conditions, for us to make comparisons with rival Powers. On this occasion I have no desire whatever to question the conclusion which the right hon. Gentleman laid before us a few minutes ago with regard to the progress of the German shipbuilding programme. If the right hon. Gentleman gives us any information on the authority of the Admiralty we are bound to accept it, because he must know better than we do, but our present system makes it inevitable that these comparisons must be made in this House. I quite agree that it is unfortunate that comparisons of this kind are made, particularly when they are made on the authority of the Government, because they may affect the good feeling-which should exist between rival countries, but as long as we maintain a nominal standard of strength we are bound to have these comparisons. I must say I think it is absolutely necessary we should have a fixed standard of strength. There is a controversy on the point. There are two standards—the two-Power standard and the two-keel to one standard. I am one of those in favour of maintaining the standard hallowed by precedent and adopted by the Government of this country for many years past. In the course of the Debate we had in this House as to the two-Power standard last May or June the Prime Minister, in a moment of temporary aberration, introduced a qualification which appeared to have no meaning, and which I do not intend to dwell upon to-day. I want to come to the practical point in connection with the two-Power standard, and that is whether, as a matter of fact, we are maintaining it now. After all, that is a matter of much greater importance. Let us take the two next strongest Powers at the present time —Germany and the United States. What do we find if we apply such broad tests as we can apply to these cases? During the present year the German Navy Estimates amount to £22,000,000, and, as the right hon. Gentleman knows well enough. £22,000,000 by no means represents the German naval expenditure. Again, the United States are £28,000,000. Thus we have a total for the two strongest Powers of £50,000,000. That certainly is not maintaining the two-Power standard when we remember that our own Estimates are £40,000,000 only.

Mr. GIBSON BOWLES

£42,000,000.

Mr. LEE

Even if we take the figure at £42,000,000 we are not maintaining the two-Power standard. Then, if we come to the figures as to large armoured ships, again we find we are not absolutely maintaining the two-Power standard in battleships. While it is easy to tell in the case of some Powers exactly what is being done, it is very difficult in the case of others. The right hon. Gentleman has made it clear that it is by no means easy to tell exactly what a Power like Germany is doing with regard to its battleship pro- gramme. One thing is indisputable with regard to the German Navy, and that is the amount of expenditure. I will ask the House to consider for a moment the amazing growth of that expenditure. When I was at the Admiralty some five years ago the total German Estimate was £10,000,000, £5,000,000 representing new construction and armaments. Now the total German Estimate is £21,750,000, the sum for new construction and armaments being £12,000,000. Our Estimates have not increased in anything like the same proportion. In fact they have hardly increased at all. If you count in the Loan expenditure on naval works, which is in addition to our Estimates, you will find that it has not increased at all, and, in addition to that, we know that the German progress with regard to the large armoured ship programme has been much greater than was anticipated even by experts when the German Navy Bill was introduced. That has been made clear during the last few weeks by an eminent authority (Colonel Gadke), who pointed out that the twenty large armoured cruisers which were provided in the German Navy Bill have now been developed into super-"Invincibles"— into first-class battleships of over 20,000 tens, carrying 12-inch guns, which must therefore be added to the strength of the battleship fleet. It is a great question where to draw the line between large armoured cruisers and battleships. Lord Fisher, in a celebrated conundrum, put this knotty point, "When does a kitten become a cat?" and nobody could answer. In the same way, no one can say in these days when a large armoured cruiser becomes a battleship. It is not necessary to suggest that Germany or any other Powers are exceeding the authority conferred upon them by law. It is quite true that in this case the Germans are proceeding within their law. We have no right to complain because their law is so elastic. The real dangers we have to face with regard to foreign competition are, particularly in regard to Germany, in the first place the elasticity of the German Navy Bill, and in the second, the potentialities of German capacity. The German law permits an almost unlimited development and expansion of individual ships in the actual programme provided by the Navy Bill, and the realised shipbuilding capacity which the Germans have been building up during the last few years makes that expansion and development feasible. It is these two points which constitute the great danger, and while there are some Gentle- men in this House who are quite satisfied that no more is to be done after you have had a Ministerial assurance from abroad as regards the future development of the Navy, I can only say, with regard to that matter, that I attach about as much importance to a Ministerial statement abroad as I do at the present time in this House, and it must depend upon the circumstances. No Minister can forecast the future, and I am quite certain that there is not a single Gentleman sitting on that bench who can tell what is going to happen during the next few months, either with regard to their own existence or anything else. Therefore, these assurances are valuable as evidence of good will, but for the purpose of forecasting the programme of ships which must take two years to build, they really should not play any part in our calculation at all. It seems to me that the only sound view of a situation like this is one which has been expressed by what, I am sure hon. Gentlemen opposite will recognise as quite an impartial authority. I take it from the leading article of one of the greatest of American newspapers, "The New York Times." Writing under date 10th January last, that paper said:— The determining factor in the situation for Great Britain is the steady deliberate building up of the German Navy, at a cost out of all proportion to the available current resources of the nation, and on a scale entirely beyond any visible or plausible defensive requirements. And the article went on to say:— Now the very life of the United Kingdom depends on the humanly unquestionable superiority of its Navy‥ ‥ Against the possibility of a disaster that would be ruin. Great Britain cannot safeguard itself solely by the peaceful professions of the ruler, who could if he would inflict that disaster. It is the part of common sense to make the disaster impossible, whether his intentions be peaceful or aggressive. And it concludes by saying:— Great Britain has the equal right to guard herself, and it is her simply inevitable duty to do so. As has been said, this in all human probability would prove a policy not only of patriotism but of peace. I think that statement of opinion, coming from a foreign country, which is itself included in the calculations of the two-Power standard, is one that I am entitled to ask the attention of the Committee to. This question of capacity, of potentiality, has loomed very large in all our discussions during the last twelve months, and the Government told us last year that they were going to make a great increase, that they were going to build up and prepare plant for gun-mountings, etc., to turn out a larger given number of ships in any year which was necessary. What have they done? I think we have some right to- ask that, and I think the right hon. Gentleman ought to tell us. I put this point to the right hon. Gentleman, and I gather from his gesture that he claims that the Government have done a great deal to develop our shipbuilding power.

Mr. McKENNA

Not the Government. I did not claim it for the Government, but I claimed that the contractors have done it.

Mr. LEE

I did not mean in our dockyards, but that the Government have given such incentives or encouragement to the contractors as would induce them to make a great development. If the Government disclaim any credit for it, I do not, of course, desire to force it on them.

Mr. McKENNA

I do not think it is quite fair to the contractors for me to claim credit for doing it, as the credit is due to them.

Mr. LEE

The only point that I make is this—that the Government said last Session they were doing it.

Mr. McKENNA

Seeing that it was done.

Mr. LEE

They said last Session that they were seeing it done, and that brings me to my point. Why do they not use it? If they have built up this great increase, why do not they use it? Our chief complaint is that, while the Government have put forward an extensive programme, they are starving the building Vote, postponing the commencement of that programme, and not making use of the greatly increased capacity which the contractors have now built up. I take the case in the first place of the large armoured vessels. The right hon. Gentleman said a good deal about those, but he does nothing to explain the farcical first instalment which has been taken for the first of these large armoured vessels. He said that really these instalments meant nothing; that it was only a matter of the staff being overworked; they would not have time to make up the bills before the end of the year, but the ships were going on being built just the same. Does he really ask us to believe that the Government, having put down certain sums in round figures, different sums calculated in hundreds or tens in the Estimates, as to what they are prepared to spend, that this means nothing, and that the staff have not had time to make up the bills to the end of the year, and in reality a very much larger sum has been spent?

Mr. McKENNA

I did not say that; I said that a very much larger sum will be earned by the contractors, which is always the case.

Mr. LEE

That is a good deal like what the Government said last year, and that means that they are deliberately bringing forward these Estimates with the intention later on of also bringing forward a Supplementary Estimate.

Mr. McKENNA

No.

Mr. LEE

How is it possible to avoid it? If he says a great deal more money will be earned by the contractors, is he not going to pay them?

Mr. McKENNA

Yes; but, as the hon. Gentleman knows, when the work is done by contractors there is a process of examination, and we are always in debt to our contractors throughout the year, and it is very difficult at the end of March to bring up the total amount. Consequently, it is undoubted that we shall not be able to get all the payments that we might wish to make in.

Mr. LEE

That makes it clearer than ever, as far as the shipbuilding Vote is concerned, that these Estimates are fallacious Estimates, and do not represent the expenditure which is going to be incurred. We shall have again, I have no doubt, supposing that the present Government are in office the same situation that we had at the meeting of Parliament this year. The same situation will arise, and we shall be required to pass a Supplementary Estimate, and the only reason that the right hon. Gentleman gives for all this is that his accounting staff is incomplete to make the payment of the money earlier.

Mr. McKENNA

It is not the accounting staff.

Mr. LEE

I think there is another reason, and that is that the right hon. Gentleman is very anxious to make his Estimates look as small as possible, but I do not mind that so long as the ships are got on with. Let us come to the facts with regard to them. As a matter of fact, in the Estimates there is only a sum provided for five of the large armoured ships, quite half of what was provided in last year's Estimates for these large ships. Is there any reason why the ships should not be laid down earlier this year? I quite agree that the Government cannot lay down ships in July, because the slips would not be ready, but the slips in the dockyards at Devonport and Portsmouth will be ready in September, and the right hon. Gentleman knows that is the case, and yet he is going to let time elapse until January without any ships laid down, and, according to the Estimates, he is putting off building and the commencement of these first two ships till January, and the slips will remain idle for several months. Of that we have a right to complain, because we consider that, having got your shipbuilding plan, the new ships should be got on with as soon as possible, as the right hon. Gentleman is aware, that there is urgent need for them.

Mr. McKENNA

I am not aware that there is any urgent need of the new ships.

Mr. LEE

The right hon. Gentleman says there is no urgent need of the new ships, but then I say he is condemned out of his own mouth; because he says that the Government will have to go to the length of borrowing two Colonial "Dreadnoughts" and retaining them in these waters after they have been supplied during the summer of 1912, retaining them here until we have ships ready to take their places.

Mr. McKENNA

I never said any such thing.

Mr. LEE

The right hon. Gentleman told us that two of the Colonial "Dreadnoughts" would be retained here during the summer until ours were ready.

Mr. McKENNA

I said no such thing. These ships will be completed in September, the two of them, and they will leave these waters about November, 1912. The time they are in these waters will depend, not upon the necessity of their safeguarding our waters, but upon other arrangements which will have to be made for the escorting over of the other ships which will go out with them. It has nothing whatever to do with safeguarding our waters.

Mr. LEE

If the right hon. Gentleman will look at his remark to-morrow in the OFFICIAL REPORT, he will find that whatever he meant that is what he said, and I am in the recollection of the House. We complain, and I think we have a right to complain, that having increased our shipbuilding capacity during the last twelve months the opportunities which have been given us have been frittered away, and we are clogging our capacity in the future in the case of an emergency. That in itself is dangerous because no one knows—the right hon. Gentleman himself told us that it was impossible to tell what any one Power or combination of foreign Powers would do. He told us last year that they had the power and the capacity to make a sudden spurt, and we know now that we have it, and yet he is not going to take advantage of that additional capacity, but is going to put off the building of the necessary ships, with the result that he will have our capacity again strained. If this Government have to build ships, and if a sudden emergency should arise, we should be unable to extend our programme. Then, as to the delay in extending the number of our cruisers. With regard to that, I will only say that we are building too small a number and that the number of them which are proposed in his programme are insufficient. A great deal more on this subject I have no doubt will be said by my hon. and gallant Friend behind me (Lord Charles Beresford), and I will therefore pass away from it and will come to the question of destroyers. Here I think we have the most serious deficiency in the whole of our naval service. We are glad, of course, to see that the Government are making a push with regard to this matter and that they are speeding up last year's programme and are hoping for the completing of the whole of the vessels in their programme in, I think, eighteen months. Also that a large proportion of the Shipbuilding Vote for this year is intended for a new destroyer force, but it is impossible to get rid of the fact that last year the right hon. Gentleman again and again told us that the number of destroyers ready for sea was perfectly satisfactory. It cannot have been perfectly satisfactory if it is necessary to add twenty to it now.

Mr. McKENNA

Why not?

Mr. LEE

The right hon. Gentleman has told us what our strength of destroyers capable of service in the North Sea would be by July, 1911. He said we should have eighty-three. He also told us that on the same date Germany would have seventy-two of that class Does he really contend that a strength of eighty-three to seventy-two destroyers for service in the North Sea is sufficient for our needs?

Mr. McKENNA

I said eighty-three was all we had suitable for service and suitable for all conditions of weather and distance.

Mr. LEE

Then are we only to contemplate the possibility of war in fine weather?

Mr. McKENNA

The hon. Gentleman has made this charge before. He is really not justified in twisting my words to a meaning which, in the ordinary understanding, they have not got. I have stated it would depend on the services the boats were called upon to perform, and how far they were asked to perform the services from their own home ports. They would be suitable for service in the North Sea under some conditions but not under all conditions.

Mr. LEE

I think the right hon. Gentleman will get a very sufficient answer on that point in a few minutes. It is a matter necessarily for naval experts. We dealt with it at some length on the Shipbuilding Vote during the last three years, and we claim that the minimum compatible with safety is at least two to one in destroyers of this class, and probably a great deal more, and there is no sign that the Government is building up to that standard, and the only authoritative statement we have had with regard to the destroyer standard was from the Beresford Committee which sat some months ago, and which said the standard was a highly controversial question. They reported that they were satisfied that there was no such deficiency as to constitute a risk to the safety of the country. Would it be possible to have, said less without impeaching the Board of Admiralty? It is quite true we have said it again and again, and we shall have to go on saying, that in this class of vessel we are lamentably behind, and we make the additional charge against the Government that, although they bring in programmes of destroyers, they do not press on with them and they build them in very much slower time than is the case in Germany. The right hon. Gentleman has given no explanation at all why it is that our destroyer programme should be so greatly delayed. He has not told us why it is that we have only just completed the" 1906–7 programme. I think the last ship in the 1907–8 programme has just been delivered. None of the 1908–9 programme are completed, and the orders for the 1909 programme were only given a few months ago. If we contrast that with the German practice, we find that the whole of the German 1907–8 boats were completed in. 1908, the whole of the 1908–9 boats were completed in 1909, and of the 1909–10 boats, one ordered last April was completed in December—the right hon. Gentleman has no official information of that, but he knows it to be the case—and the others are far advanced. It has become quite clear that the whole of the German boats of the 1909–10 programme were completed as soon as or before our boats of the 1908–9 programme. That is a very serious situation.

Mr. McKENNA

indicated dissent.

Mr. LEE

Then will the right hon. Gentleman tell us what are the facts? He has always refused to do so. Will he deny that it is the fact that the Germans have completed their destroyers in less than twelve months, while our time has only just been shortened from nineteen or twenty months to eighteen. Why should it be beyond the resources of British shipbuilders to turn out destroyers in twelve months if the Germans can do it?

Mr. McKENNA

It is not. The lion. Gentleman states what he alleges to be what the Germans are doing, but he has no ground for saying it. He has not the slightest knowledge when the orders for these German destroyers were given.

Mr. LEE

Does the right hon. Gentleman deny that the Germans have as a matter of fact built their destroyers in less than twelve months?

Mr. McKENNA

Certainly. If the hon. Gentleman means, have the Germans ever built a destroyer under twelve months, it is possible they may have done, but if he asks if the Germans are executing their destroyer programme year by year, or any material portion of them under twelve months he is quite mistaken.

Mr. LEE

The only inference we can draw from the right hon. Gentleman's remarks is that the orders for the German boats are given in anticipation of the Estimates.

Mr. McKENNA

The hon. Gentleman must not draw that inference. When he says of a particular destroyer that it was ordered in April and completed in December I am only saying he does not know the date when the order was given. But as for the German programme of destroyers as a whole, no inference can be drawn from the case of an individual destroyer.

Mr. LEE

I must remind the right hon. Gentleman that he told us last year that the trouble is that we do not know what the Germans are doing, or what is their rate of building.

Mr. McKENNA

Will the hon. Gentleman quote my words?

Mr. LEE

(reading):— The difficulty hi which the Government finds itself placed at this moment is that we do not know, as we thought we did, the rate at which German construction is taking place. We do not know the rate at which the provisions of this law are to be carried into execution. That is the same thing.

Mr. McKENNA

No, it is not.

Mr. LEE

I will not press the point. I think the House can sufficiently judge of the right, hon. Gentleman's meaning. We on this side do not feel in the least inclined to regard these Estimates with anything but very modified rapture. They suggest that the Government are alive, to a certain extent, to the perils of the situation, but they also show that the Government is unwilling to make the financial sacrifices which are logically demanded as the result of the situation. Right hon. Gentlemen opposite have often referred scornfully to what they call paper programmes abroad. Theirs is a paper programme to-day as regards their new construction. If they really mean business with regard to this development of our naval strength, if they really wish to avoid the suspicion of subordinating the interests of the Navy to the party game, I hope they will make adequate provision to carry out the programme which they have outlined. They have certainly not done it now. They have not brought in sufficient money to make this programme which they have outlined the programme for 1910–11 at all; they have pushed it over into the year 1911–12, and I think we are entitled to press that point upon them and ask them that, if they mean business, they will at any rate make it clear that these Estimates are not final, and that at a later date in the Session they will have to bring in very substantial Supplementary Estimates.

Mr. G. N. BARNES

I rise to offer my contribution to this Debate with a desire, nay, with a determination, to free myself at all events, from any share of responsibility for the expenditure involved in these Estimates, but only with a faint and glimmering hope of being able to say anything which may affect the issue in the Division Lobby. It seems to me quite evident that this country has got into the hands and under the control of panic mongers, and I am borne out by what has taken place this afternoon. A Liberal Government has surrendered its whole policy of economy, and has surrendered it to the opposite side. It is somewhat remarkable to hear a Gentleman from the Front Opposition Bench complimenting the Government upon having accepted the advice given to it from that bench. The hon. Member (Mr. Lee) has, if I am not mistaken, definitely put forward for the first time the principle that the interpretation of the two-Power standard is to be the strength of the American and the German nations.

Mr. LEE

We have always maintained that the two-Power standard applies to the two next strongest Powers, whatever they are and wherever they are situated, and that definition was accepted by the Prime Minister himself.

Mr. BARNES

There are, differences of opinion on that. I remember quite well several questions being put to the Prime Minister last year covering that very point. I do not remember it being put authoritatively from the Front Bench, and I am quite sure of this, that the Prime Minister very carefully guarded himself last year as to accepting that proposition.

Mr. LEE

The hon. Member is quite mistaken. The questions were put from this bench by myself with the authority of the Leader of the Opposition, and they were not qualified by the Prime Minister on that occasion, although six months after they were.

Mr. BARNES

Then, to put it another way, the Prime Minister unguardedly may have accepted the next two Powers as the two-Power standard basis, but ultimately withdrew them and guarded himself in the manner I have suggested.

6.0 P.M.

I think that is a true statement of what happend, and I simply want to warn the Government that, however much they may give in to the Opposition with a view to peace and quiet, the more they will be expected to give in. I believe that this country is not only in the hands of panic mongers, but that it is being pressed forward in a course —I will not say of destruction, because I believe the same financial interests that are to some extent responsible for these huge armaments would very likely, if it came to the point, prevent the use of them —but I believe this country is being pressed forward in a course of expenditure which is altogether beyond the reasonable requirements of the situation, and that the country is being led into a frame of mind in which social well-being is being subordinated to what I call national and Imperial vanity.

I wish to leave the main theme for a few moments to make reference to two or three points without dwelling on them in detail. In the first place, I think, it is a matter of satisfaction—at all events I am glad to know that the Government are asking the country to pay its way without any resort to further borrowing. To resort to borrowing would, it seems to me, be like the action of a man who, having run through a course of riotous living, took a sleeping draught, and left the responsibility of his maintaining his wife and children to others. After all, our troubles are of our own making, and we have no right to throw them on posterity. I say that with all the more emphasis, because I believe these vessels we are now providing, whether ashore or afloat, will long before another generation takes our place be neither good for use nor ornament. The old wooden ships of an earlier period were something pleasant to look at, but it cannot be said that the warships of the present day will form picturesque memorials of bygone times. As long as they are afloat they will simply be ugly and monstrous reminders of the time when man's greatest power in naval construction was signalised by devilish ingenuity in providing weapons of destruction. I am glad that the Government have the common honesty to make the country pay for the ships straight away, and not throw the cost on anybody else. I am glad that power is being taken for the construction of two floating docks. When we are building great ships we have to make provision for suitable dock accommodation in order that they may receive necessary repairs. I am glad to find that money, somewhat belated, is to be used for floating docks instead of inland docks. I think they will be more suitable, and also that they will cost less money. I am glad to know that the Government are making provision for the decent housing of the work people who are being removed from Woolwich to Greenwich. It is satisfactory to know even the official mind, which is sometimes the last to leave off old customs, is being penetrated with the idea that it is wrong to allow house jobbers to exploit public needs for private profit.

I want to ask a question in regard to engineering officers, a subject in regard to which something was said to-day on the Front Bench. I think if the hon. Gentleman (Dr. Macnamara) will look at the Navy Estimates, page twenty-five, he will find that there is a considerable shortage of engineering officers this year. That is not unexpected. It is due largely, if not entirely, to the fact that Keyham College is now dried up. I think the last of the men have been, or soon will be, shifted from there. Between the drying up of that college and the bringing into operation of the new scheme, there will be a considerable interval. I think the First Lord of the Admiralty said there were to be no men available for the engine room until 1915. That is more than I expected, and I am very sorry to hear it. I should like to say here parenthetically that I believe the new scheme is a bad one. I have said so before, and I hope to have opportunities of saying so again. It is a scheme by which an endeavour is being made to remove a grievance by jockeying the old type engineer out of his place in the service altogether. It is proposed that the engineers should be lumped with the ordinary executive officers. It is proposed that the whole of the officers of the Navy in future —engineering officers and other officers— should be drawn from a class of the community amounting at the very outside, to not more than 5 per cent. That is to say, the whole of the officer class will have to be drawn exclusively from those people who are in a position to pay £100 per boy, in order to send him at twelve or thirteen years of age to Dartmouth or some other place. That in itself stamps the scheme as a bad one. I wish to know how the hon. Gentleman is going to make up that shortage which will take place between the drying up of Keyham College and the bringing in of the new men under the new scheme. That period will extend over two or three years. I wish to know if he is going to take men temporarily from the outside, or whether it is intended to promote men from the inside.

I come to the main point in the Estimates, namely, the amount of money we are asked to sanction. That amount is about twice the amount of the Estimates thirteen or fourteen years ago, and I think nearly four times the amount of the Estimates twenty-six or twenty-eight years ago. Moreover, the true significance and full increase, as a matter of fact, is not in these Estimates at all because we are asked by these Estimates to sanction the beginning of a certain additional programme which will land us in considerably increased expenditure under the shipbuilding or construction item next year. We have, I suppose, now the two "Dreadnoughts" which were ordered last November. We have also the four to be laid down at the beginning of next month. We shall have by this time next year other five for which power is now taken by these Estimates. That is to say, by this time next year we shall have eleven "Dreadnoughts" on our hands, and to these will be added the brood of next year. I suppose it is probable that next year we may have twelve or fifteen "Dreadnoughts" on the stocks. The £5,500,000 additional for which we are asked, of course, hinges very largely upon the additional programme sanctioned last year, and therefore we are driven back fairly, I think, to the consideration of what led up to that additional programme last year. I have no hesitation in saying that all or at all events most, of the alarming statements and journalistic jeremiads indulged in have in the main been found out to be mere baseless fables. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] I shall proceed to prove it. I go further and say that the Government at this point would be quite justified in asking the House to reconsider the whole thing in the light of full information with the view, not to an increase, but to the lessening of this year's programme. I submit to the House that in view of the full information we have, and which ought to be available to the Admiralty, they would be quite justified in taking off part of this year's programme. And may I remind the House that there are precedents for such a course?

The Government of 1904–5 dropped an armoured cruiser and some torpedo boats from the programme of the year, the same Government dropped a cruiser the following year, and the Liberal Government lessened the programme of the year by a battleship and three destroyers. There is ample room for like treatment now.

We were also led into this additional expenditure by certain statements which were put forward first by the Front Government Bench, and then by the Front Opposition Bench. These were added to by what I have no hesitation in saying were crazy statements from the back Opposition Benches. [An HON. MEMBER: "And the crazy Front Bench."] Yes, those on the Front Bench were almost as crazy.

What were these statements? It was stated by the First Lord of the Admiralty that Germany was accelerating her programme, and that the result would be that the Germans might have thirteen "Dreadnoughts" next year and seventeen two years hence. The First Lord put that forward last year in starting the scare which spread over the House afterwards. Then the Leader of the Opposition took up the running and told us that the Germans would have—there was no conjecture about it—thirteen "Dreadnoughts" by the end of the year 1910, and probably twenty-one "Dreadnoughts" by 1st April. 1912. He significantly added that if thy Germans imitated the policy of the Government in demanding more money for shipbuilding they would have twenty-five "Dreadnoughts" by 1st April, 1912. The hon. Member for Fareham (Mr. Arthur Lee) essayed to point out, so as to allay any doubt as to the Germans being able to perform these miracles, that the firm of Krupps, under the fostering care of the German Government, were in a position to turn out more of certain armaments than all our Government and private shipyards together. Then we have the hon. Member for Ecclesall (Mr. Samuel Roberts), who told us that the German Emperor had made arrangements with the firm of Krupps to turn out armaments for ten battleships in one year. In July last year I suppose the Government found it necessary to make, or, rather, to keep our flesh creeping, and they started another bogey. We were told that Italy and Austria had each decided to build four "Dreadnoughts." It seemed then as if the British Empire was going to be crumpled up in a race of "Dreadnoughts" of its own starting. That is how the matter presented itself to many in this House. These were the statements which were made and on account of which we launched upon this additional programme.

How do they compare with the logic of events? It seems almost incredible, but nevertheless it is true that not a single thing stated to be a fact has turned out to be a fact, and not a single one of the predictions made has been realised or can be realised. That is the actual position to-day. We have been told recently by the German Ambassador and by the chief of the Admiralty in Germany that they will have only thirteen "Dreadnoughts" in 1912. But we are not dependent on these gentlemen. On 2nd March the Firs! Lord of the Admiralty stated that there were only thirteen "Dreadnoughts" on order in Germany. He has repeated that statement to-day, and, so far as I know, he only qualified it by saying that the ships are not officially ordered. But whether officially ordered or not, it seems to be manifestly absurd to expect Germany to have all the seventeen ships by March, 1912, or April, 1912, because, in point of fact, the yards would not hold them. Therefore we may take it for a fact that these thirteen ships now on the stocks or afloat in Germany will be the whole of the fleet of German ''Dreadnoughts" this time two years hence. Therefore all those alarmist statements made under that head last year have turned out to be pure myths, and the plain fact remains that Germany will have thirteen ships in 1912. She will have some more on the stocks, it is quite true. She will have the three or four, whatever it may be, ordered this year. But she will only have those thirteen ready in 1912. As against those thirteen ships we shall have twenty-one, so far as I can see, actually finished. There will be four more upon the stocks, in addition to those that may be authorised as between now and then, and in addition we shall have the two from Australia and New Zealand, so the position is that by the end of that year we shall actually have twenty-seven "Dreadnoughts" as against the German thirteen plus the addition of this year.

Where then is the fine flower of Liberal economy? This is the fine fruit of all those high-falutin phrases which we heard in the last Parliament, and which were spoken on so many Liberal platforms, of what would be done in the way of economy and saving for social reform. In fact, the seventeen "Dreadnoughts," the twenty-one and the twenty-five "Dreadnoughts" of the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition are blown into thin air. Not a single thing has come out as was expected or predicted. And now, fore-sooth—this is now the most amazing thing of the whole business—not a single word is said about these predictions of last year either from the Government or the Front Opposition Benches. They are, so to speak, away in the regions of forgotten things, after they have served their purpose in compelling the Government to I adopt a certain programme. But I can promise hon. Members on both sides they will not pass away from my mind. They will stop there as a guidance to me in estimating the reliability of statements made either on one side or the other. The hon. Member for Ecclesall told us that the Emperor of Germany had some arrangement with Krupps. That is too absurd for serious treatment. But there was a statement by the hon. Member for Fareham which is serious only because he has occupied a position of responsibility in our own Admiralty, and I suppose hopes to do so again; therefore his statement is invested with some degree of importance. He has already withdrawn part of the statement quoted against him as regards the capacity of Krupps as compared with the capacity of the yards of this country. But, so far as I know, he has never withdrawn his statement made to this House as a fact that Krupp's firm employed last year 38,000 men more than the year before.

I have twice alluded to this matter. I have given last year information which I received from friends in Germany—Englishmen, by the way—and I quoted only a few weeks ago figures taken from a trade report in Berlin but copied from the books of the firm; and I also quoted a letter from the chairman of the firm to "The Times" last December. Now I want to give the hon. Member another chance. I have got figures from the Chambers of Commerce at Essen, and they show that at the very time last March when we were discussing this matter Krupps employed at Essen 33,917 men. At the end of March, 1908, they employed 33,086 men. That is to say, as between the end of March, 1908, and the end of March, 1909, there was an increase of 821 men; and I was informed by my correspondent that at least one-half of the factory is employed, not in the production of war material at all, but in the production of rails and plates and other things for peace purposes. I have got the figures of the total number of men employed by Krupps at Essen and elsewhere, and I find that there is an actual decrease. The position in 1908 was that there were employed by the firm of Krupps altogether 63,191 men last year, as compared with 63,540 the year before, so that there was I an actual decrease of 349 men, instead of the increase of 38,000 men which we were told about by the hon. Member for Fareham.

I come to the scare of July. We were told by the Chief of the Admiralty—a new bogey had to be started; we had to be frightened afresh, the old one having lost some of its power—we were told, and, in fact, it was put in the forefront of the speeches in July, that Italy and Austria had agreed each to build four "Dreadnoughts." I put a question the other day as to how these "Dreadnoughts" are progressing, and I found, just as I expected to find, that Italy had laid down one of these four "Dreadnoughts," but had not provided money to last beyond the end of next June. So it is clear that the four "Dreadnoughts" of Italy will be a long time materialising. But the seriousness of the statement of the Chief Lord of the Admiralty was in regard to Austria, having regard to the pan-German feeling on the Continent and the possibility, or the probability, as some people think, of a close alliance of Austria with the Germans. The seriousness of the position was the statement in regard to Austria. What do we find now? Only last week, in reply to a question which was put to the right hon. Gentleman, he said that not a single penny has been granted towards these ships, and not a single one of these four keels has yet been laid. These ships of the Austrians and to a large extent those of the Italians have turned out to be pure myths so far, just as the statements as to the accelerated German programme have turned out to be myths.

The plain fact remains that, so far as Germany is concerned, Germany has only just kept to its programme, and, as a fact, if one reads into that programme, made first in 1900, the subsequent alterations made owing to the difference in the lifetime of ships to-day as compared with then, I think that the German programme has not even reached its due fulfilment at the present time; because, if you adhere to those subsequent alterations in the programme, I think you will find that there ought to be thirteen "Dreadnoughts" finished next year. I will just read to the House here a little bit of a statement made by the First Lord of the Admiralty last year in regard to the lifetime of ships. He said that all improvements in the design of ships which increased their fighting capacity necessarily shortened the life of the earlier ships, just as in the case of any other machinery. Now, so far as there has been any alterations at all, I put it to the right hon. Gentleman that it has been due entirely to the fact that by the year 1905 it had been found that the lifetime of ships was shortened owing to improvements in battleships, and it was owing to that fact that there was any alteration at all.

That is to say, the Germans have put into operation those principles laid down by the First Lord of the Admiralty him- self, and, as it seems to me, they are perfectly within their rights in doing so. So fax for what might be called the position on our side. Now what of Germany? In Germany I suppose they have their fire-eaters and their talking admirals, their experts and their contractors' touters, and all the others whom we know—[An HON. MEMBER: "And their Socialists."]—and their Socialists; but, in spite of all that, let me submit to the House that this very year in Germany there is a reduction in the amount asked by the German Parliament for the construction of ships. [Several HON MKMBKRS: "NO."] According to the statement of the Admiralty themselves. I am sorry I have not got the paper with me, but an hon. Member behind has handed me some extracts which I may read from proceedings in the Berlin Parliament. One member criticised what he, regarded as the too lavish expenditure of the German Administration, and pointed to the financial policy of British Naval authorities, who paid for their warships, while Germany threw the burden of the ships on future generations. The speaker urged that serious efforts should be made to devise a method of putting an end to rival armament. Admiral Von Tirpitz said that the Government had endeavoured to adapt their needs to the financial position of the empire, with the result that the present Estimates fell short of those of last year by 24,000,000 marks, or £1,200,000.

Mr. LEE

Is the hon. Member aware that the First Lord of the Admiralty told us to-day at Question time that the German estimates for new construction and armaments have been increased by nearly £2,000,000?

Mr. BARNES

Possibly that may be so, but that does not include the whole expenditure, and I think I am right in saying that the expenditure of last year as compared with this year was in excess by £1,200,000.

Mr. McKENNA

That must have been incorrectly reported. I think it will be found that the German naval estimates for 1910–11 are materially in excess of the estimates of the previous year.

Mr. BARNES

That matter can be looked up before Wednesday, and I hope it will be seen, before this Debate is closed, as to whether we are right or wrong. I am now going to quote from the German Official Report of last Monday's Debate, which was opened, I think, last Saturday and continued over Monday, and on one of those days Admiral Tirpitz delivered himself of words which showed the German Government's willingness to meet us halfway. The Admiral stated that they had not accelerated their building of ships, and they had kept strictly to the programme which had been known to the whole world for years. Dr. Ledebour had accused the Government of untruthfulness with regard to the proposals for these armaments, but he refuted this accusation in the most emphatic way. He added:— England has never made any definite proposals, never made a formal and official proposition which could he regarded as a proper basis for official negotiation. This statement might be at all events taken as an invitation that such an official or formal proposition should be laid down, and I think if that were done it would probably ease the burden both upon ourselves and upon Germany. In fact, it seems to me that both in Germany and in this country the Governments are frightened by fire-eating newspapers and Navy Leagues into building these ships without any regard to their usefulness, while, of course, the people have to pay. A word or two as to the principles which underlie all this at ray of "Dreadnoughts." I submit to the House that political boundaries have lost a good deal of their significance in recent years owing to what might be called the interdependence of countries in trade and commerce, which, of course, includes banking and finance generally. I think that carries with it certain consequences. War, for instance, between Germany and this country would result in injury to this country, and to Germany as well, more than anybody else. It would injure the victors scarcely less than the vanquished. Each country has property in, and is concerned in, the credit of the other country. Each country, on the whole, is a customer of the other country; and, in short, as has been pointed out recently in a somewhat remarkable book called "Europe's Optical Illusion," international finance is simply making the weapon of war almost impossible. If the House consider and agree with us in that it will see that all the statements that have been made both here and elsewhere as to what happened in 1870, when the Germans made a raid upon France, or what happened in regard to the earlier exploits of Germany with Belgium and other countries, are absolutely beside the mark. I have a quotation here from a speech made by the German Ambassador in London on 28th January. He puts a point much better than I can put it. He says:— In view of the high development and great sensitiveness of the modern system of credit, the increased facilities for investing capital abroad, and the extensive use made of these facilities, it is impossible to conceive the idea of the forcible suppression of a commercial competitor without the conqueror injuring himself almost as much as the other. Values would have disappeared in a few days to a larger amount than a fortunate war could make good. I say if these words are true— I believe they are true—it seems to me wantonness and waste to build all these "Dreadnoughts" and these terrible engines of destruction. I believe that those most intimately acquainted with the facts well know that they can never be used, but the consequence is that the average man is made to fear war far more than he ever did before. I submit that money lenders and financiers generally will have a great deal more to do with war and the making of war than ever had your Bismarcks and your Von Moltkes in times gone by. There appear to be only what might be called sentimental reasons and treaty obligations as any justification in the way of armaments. I do not know to what extent this country is involved in treaty obligations, but I think—I daresay it will be considered an extraordinary statement to make—we are not concerned in regard to how Europe may be arranged or rearranged. If any hon. Gentleman can show me how I should be interested, or how a single one of my constituents would be concerned if Germany gobbled up Belgium, I am quite willing to consider it, but, so far as I can judge of the situation, we are not at all concerned in it. Therefore, all this talk which has been indulged in, and which I have heard repeatedly about the protection of our commerce, and about the cost of insurance amounting to only 3 or 4 per cent., or whatever it may be, is pure moonshine, and the amount of the insurance might almost as well be thrown into the sea for any good it does in that direction. People will buy from us only so long as we can supply their needs better and cheaper than others. I know that these views are shocking to hon. Gentlemen opposite, but I am here to state my own opinions and what I believe to be those of my constituents. [An HON. MEMBER: "Patriotic?''] That is my view of patriotism. It is a poor sort of patriotism which seeks some advantage at home with calamity abroad. I am here to voice what I consider to be the right view of the situation in the interests of my constituents. I thank the House for having listened to me so patiently and courteously, while I have been expressing what doubtless to them appeared to be heterodox and unwelcome views. In conclusion, I want to say a few words about the distinctive labour view of the situation. We believe that this expenditure on "Dreadnoughts" arises from an insular, a paltry, and pernicious view of the situation. We, as a Labour party in this country, are interested in social reform, nay, we are interested in social reconstruction. We know that our fellows in Germany are also interested in social reform, nay, that they are also interested in social reconstruction; but they know, and we know, that nothing of that sort can take place so long as the two countries are pledged to spending these sums of money, and so long as the eyes of the two nations are being turned to the ends of the earth instead of the vital needs of their own people. That is why the Labour parties throughout the whole world have steadily set their faces against the expenditure of large sums of money in this way. That is the reason why the German Social Democratic Party, which is a party corresponding to that of hon. Members who occupy these Benches here, have steadily refused to vote credits for these purposes during the last few years. They still maintain that policy, and I quote in conclusion a few words uttered only last week by Dr. Sudekim in the German Parliament. Speaking on behalf of his party, speaking in the spirit I have just enunciated, he said:— '' Not a man and not a farthing shall we vote for this policy. The position in this country is the same as it is there, only from our point of view it is worse, much worse. For my part, I associate myself to the full with what Dr. Sudekim has said, because I think he expresses the spirit of labour everywhere. Therefore, I shall cheerfully walk into the Lobby against the Estimates now before the House behind my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington if he goes to a Division, as I hope and trust he will.

Lord CHARLES BERESFORD

I am perfectly certain that the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down is as anxious as I am to maintain the old flag flying and the British Empire intact. That is my belief. He was perfectly earnest in the idea that he expressed as to the Estimates being too big, Will he study the result of the economies of the Government for four years, for if he is in his seat next year he will be perfectly appalled at what the Estimates will be then. That is the result of false economy. To show how curiously difficult it is to represent questions of naval service to the public, we must take what the hon. Member said about the "Dreadnoughts." He talked about nothing but "Dreadnoughts," but he does not suppose for one moment that they mean the whole Fleet. If I took him down to Aldershot and showed him heavy artillery, and no cavalry and no infantry, he would probably think it strange if I said that was an army; but that is just the position when you are talking of the whole Fleet. "Dreadnoughts" would no more be effective without cruisers, stores, etc., than artillery could be utilised without cavalry and infantry. The hon. Member spoke of social reform. We all want social' reform; it is absolutely necessary that we should have social reform; but where would social reform be if our defences should not be equal to our needs? Then a word or two with reference to what the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Admiralty said. He is quite incorrect—I am afraid this is not the first time —in regard to what he brought forward as to the value of the Naval Lord's signature on the Estimates. I was in the Admiralty, and I would never sign the Estimates, and I never did sign the Estimates. Within twelve weeks after I went out I brought before this House the necessity for £20,000,000 being added to the taxation of the country for seventy ships. Within twelve weeks the same Lords and their colleagues wrote a paper to say it was absolutely necessary, or else the country would be in danger. What was the value of their signature?

Mr. McKENNA

I do not agree with the Noble Lord's statement of the history of what occurred in 1884.

Lord CHARLES BERESFORD

It seems likely that the right hon. Gentleman will not agree with me in anything, and I am certain he will not agree with many of the remarks I shall make before I sit down. That was the fact, as I was in the Admiralty. The right hon. Gentleman also spoke about "Dreadnoughts," and said, as I understood him, that it was on this side that the "Dreadnought" was advertised. It was nothing of the sort. This side laid down a "Dreadnought." and a very wise proceeding. The "Dreadnought" was laid down as a ship superior to the ships that preceded her.

That was very wise; but the "Dreadnought" never was so much superior over the "Lord Nelson." and "Agamemnon" as they were over the "King Edward" class. Who advertised her? She was taken up, and she was advertised in every way in the world, and hon. Members on the other side of the House will support me in this because it is true. She was advertised by telling the German nation that the "Dreadnought" could sink the whole of her fleet, and that was the beginnning of this vast expenditure of money. That is so. All the neighbouring nations began to look then at this country. As long as she held the warden of the seas, and kept the freedom of the seas open for all countries, because it is necessary that we must remain supreme at sea, no nation said a word about that. But directly we began to be the bully of the seas then that expenditure in other countries —[Laughter.] It is all very well to laugh, but it is the opinion of the Navy. It is the fact. That is what started all this enormous expenditure of money, and, as I said the other night, you will have to pay £60,000,000 more or less for this before you finish.

The country will be very glad to give any amount of money for the Navy, and what we have got to look at is at the facts of the case. I am not the least bit astonished that hon. Members opposite question the necessity of spending this money. Why, the Prime Minister in the middle of the General Election went down and told the country that the Navy was unassailable now and for the future, after the scare made on that Bench opposite last year, the scare created there, and nowhere else. Supposing the Prime Minister had added a postscript to that sentiment, and said it is unassailable for the future, because we are going to ask you for £40,000,000 this year, and £60,000,000 the year afterwards, do you think the electors would have regarded that with the calmness they did when he said it is unassailable for the future. I am sure they would not. Then there is another point I wish to bring forward, and it is that the money which they are going to spend this year on new construction is so small. It shows that the ships will be put off till next year, exactly the same as the four contingent ships were. The country should not forget that the words "new construction" includes ships under construction. The ships under construc- tion have already been approved by this House and are an old programme. New construction proper is for the new programme of thirty vessels—very different to the money spent on ships under construction already. When you put down "new construction" a great number of people think that these £14,000,000 are being spent over and above the ships that the House has already approved of. I am very sorry the right hon. Gentleman does not understand what I mean. The whole of this money, or nearly all of it, is going to be spent on ships that, this House approved of last year. On the thirty ships you are going to build, the five new "Dreadnoughts," etc., you are only going to spend £1,400,000. That is new construction. The Hon. Member for the Blackfriars Division (Mr. Barnes) said very truly that is a new commitment, next year you will have another commitment, and Estimates will go to £50,000,000 or £60,000,000. [Laughter.] You may laugh, but you would have laughed very much last year if you had been told this time last year that the Estimates would be £40,000,000. I appeal to the House, would anybody have been more amused than the right hon. Gentleman if he had been told this time last year that the Estimates this year would be £40,000,000, and that they would have to be from £50,000,000 to £60,000,000 next year.

I say that all this enormous expenditure of money has been brought about by false economy, and for want of the adoption of the most elementary tactics of prudence and forethought. First of all, you have the four years' reduction of the Shipbuilding Vote, and all the time while we were decreasing our Vote this side was continually warning the Front Bench relative to the Germans increasing their Vote. All the time the right hon. Gentleman paid not the slightest attention, and laughed, as he does at some of my remarks now. There is no excuse, in saying that we were waiting to see what the Germans were going to do. That policy of waiting to see what the Germans were going to do has resulted in their having better and bigger ships, and heavier armour ships, with auxiliary armaments we have not got. Remember that these economies were all effected in face of the German Navy Law Extension Act of 1899, of the shortening of the life of battleships from twenty-five to twenty years in 1906, while for three successive years there have been loans of £40,000,000, most of which has been devoted to the fleet. In face of all that, during three years the Government reduced the expenditure very heavily, and the result is these £40,000,000 Estimates to-day. They do not know anything now that they did not know before. It is the result of false economy that an hon. Gentleman wants to see practised again, and which would jeopardise our supremacy, cause a panic in the country, and enormously increase the Vote next year or the year afterwards.

I quite sympathise with the right hon. Gentleman as far as this goes, for he has on one side people saying your Estimate is too little and on the other side people saying your Estimate is too much. What I should like to put before the House and to indicate as clearly as I can is our exact position and let the public outside decide as to what should be done. As regards new new construction proper, we are only going to spend £1,400,000, against £2,285,000 last year, so that though the crisis is here in the near future, and which the Prime Minister showed clearer than anybody else last March, we are actually going to spend less on new contraction to meet this crisis in two years' time than we did last year. I find, then, that we are going to spend £321,000 on the whole five new armoured ships in the year. I cannot complain of the armoured ships, because in my programme, which I hope to be allowed to read presently, I only wanted six, and with the five ships proposed by the Government and the two by the Colonies, we shall have seven of those heavy ships. In the country at the moment which is critical, which the Prime Minister pointed out as being critical, and the Foreign Secretary amazed the whole of the Dominions and the whole world, because he said that at that time it was so critical, as Germany might produce twenty-three "Dreadnoughts," instead of seventeen, what, then, are we going to spend? The whole cost on these ships is going to be the fifth of the cost of one ship. Is that enough? It is not enough. They ought to have spent a large sum of money on those ships and removed these sudden panics and these sudden scares. I quite sympathise with what the hon. Member said just now with regard to these, scares, and these panics, and these comparisons with another nation. It is irritating, and not the way to make nations friendly with each other.

7.0 P.M.

As a matter of fact, the Government are going to spend this year less than they spent last year on the four contingent ships, which shows, though I cannot say it is dishonest, it is not straight. They are going to put these ships on to next year, just the same way as they put the contingent ships of last year to this year, and then the First Lord of the Admiralty says that if we fall behind German acceleration it will be difficult to make up the leeway. I find fault with the First Lord of the Admiralty in this, the same as the hon. Member for Fareham. Why did he tell this House that the reason for the contingent "Dreadnoughts" was Austria and Italy? It was not the cause, and he knows it was not the reason. The reason was German acceleration. Why did he not tell the House the fact, instead of getting out on the thing that was not the fact? He knows perfectly well Italy did not lay down two ships and Austria is not thinking of laying them down. The ships are necessary on the grounds of German acceleration. I turn to the cruisers, and I find they are going to spend £120,000 less this year than last year. I come to torpedo boat destroyers, which is the one little bright spot in the whole of these Estimates. They are going to spend on the torpedo boat destroyers £512,788 more than they spent last year. That shows that this bench has always been right, or why do they spend more than ever before if this bench is not right? The right hon. Gentleman said we would have 102 next year. We shall not have 102. Without being egotistical, I may say there is nobody in the whole Service who has worked these torpedo-boat destroyers like, I have. I tell the right hon. Gentleman these boats are not suitable for the North Sea, not one of the 27-knotters or the 30-knotters; and you have only got eighty, to ninety of the Germans. You ought to have three to one, and I will tell you why. The whole utility of torpedo craft depends on the health and vigour of the officers and of the crew, and anybody who has ever been in one knows that they cannot possibly last physically more than three or four days. There is an officer sitting behind me who commanded three of them. He will tell you what he thinks of them directly. There is not one of these boats fit for the North Sea. The First Lord gets up and says: "On certain occasions," but whatever you have got in this country in the way of armoured ships should be ready for any sort of occasion. That, however, is beside the point. You have only got eighty. To work out your plan you may have work on the enemy's coast, and you may be two nights there, if it is not too rough. You have got to give the officers and men one, two or three nights' rest, or else they cannot work. Even if the right hon. Gentleman's own number was accurate it would not be anything near what is wanted; and if he does not know it he ought to know it. Then there is the question of stores. It is easier for the right hon. Gentleman to tell us about stores than it is for us to find out about them. He knows perfectly well that there are a large number of stores that were denuded, outside what he speaks of as the stores that came home. I had one torpedo destroyer laid up for six months because there was not a plate to repair her with in England.

Mr. McKENNA

That statement is not right.

Lord CHARLES BERESFORD

How does the right hon. Gentleman know? I commanded the ship.

Mr. McKENNA

I know because the Noble Lord made the statement on a public platform; I investigated the facts, and I discovered that it was not six months but six weeks.

Lord CHARLES BERESFORD

It is perfectly true that it was six weeks before they got the plate, but it was six months before the boat was repaired. There are many stores that I have been short of, and which have had to be bought outside the yard instead of their being in the yard, as is necessary for efficiency. I have a list of them, and I will bring it out on the Stores Vote, if we ever get to it.

Then take the question of floating docks. The right hon. Gentleman said on 5th July, 1909, that there was a serious want of docks on the East Coast. He has only put down £25,000 out of £100,000 required for providing accommodation for the dock at Portsmouth, and he is not putting down anything at all for the Medway. But it is satisfactory to observe that two docks are to be started this year, and two next. I want to say, however, that if the crisis which the bench opposite told us existed last March does exist, we want the docks at once. There is a general confusion about docks, it being supposed that we want them only during war. We want docks for ships before war breaks out, to get their bottoms, valves, and so on cleaned in order that the ships of the Fleet may have the same speed. If you have one ship out of dock fourteen months and another three months, there is a difference of four knots in their speed, and that will mean a difference of four knots to the whole Fleet, because the speed of the fleet is the speed of the slowest ship. Therefore the right hon. Gentleman ought to hurry up with these docks, but he does not appear from the Estimates to have the slightest intention of doing so. Portsmouth as a naval port is very much behind, both in docks, coal, and coaling arrangements. That ought to be put right. I will refer to it again on the Vote.

I come now to the personnel. I must refer to a speech made by the right hon. Gentleman on 27th July last, in which he said that he was perfectly satisfied with the manning, but that it had nothing whatever to do with the availability of ships. I have read that over very often, but I cannot for the life of me understand what it means. How can ships be ready or efficient for war unless they have got the men? If they have not got the men, they are not available; they cannot fight. The First Lord says in his Statement that they are joining 3,000 men. They are doing nothing of the sort. They are joining 2,394 men — they have not subtracted from the Marines and the Coastguards the numbers by which they have reduced certain parts.

Mr. McKENNA

The Noble Lord is mistaken in his view. So far as, the Marines or any other rating are reduced, we have added seamen to compensate for the reduction. There is a net increase of 3,000.

Lord CHARLES BERESFORD

I beg the right hon. Gentleman's pardon. I did not read it that way. Take the question of Marines. We ought never to have less than 20,000 Marines. With the nucleus crew system, which is an excellent system worked as it is now, as a reserve, but ludicrous, and more or less of a fraud if one is told that the nucleus crew ships are ready for instant action without an hour's delay, you ought to have the Marines up to 20,000, because in a great emergency you can have, in a hurry, 200 drilled men, who have always been together on a ship, instead of getting men drafted from all sorts of places. I protest with all the strength I can command against the Marines being reduced. I see that the Coastguards are not to be reduced any more. That is satisfactory, although there are 147 taken off now. I do not think the explanation, "Due to revision of complements of ships of war," was at all clear, and when we get to the Vote I shall ask the First Lord for a more definite and clear statement. With regard to the men, if the Admiralty are going to use the Special Service vessels, I believe they are 19,000 men short for present and future requirements. A short time ago there was no idea of increasing the men at all. The right hon. Gentleman was perfectly satisfied with the personnel, as he was with the strength of the Fleet. We want £40,000,000 to get it right now, owing to those deferred liabilities in shipbuilding. It is the same with the men. I am certain they ought to be joining 5,000 this year. I imagine that the difficulty was in the schools. To take 6,000 to make up the wastage and to join 5,000 more would have been very difficult. But the right hon. Gentleman is making a move in the right direction, though I do not think he is joining enough. It takes much longer to train men than it does to build a ship. To train a first-class man takes about six years. A ship can be built in two.

All parties are agreed that the safety of the Empire depends upon our supremacy at sea. Whether certain hon. Members opposite agree or not with that I do not know, but I am perfectly certain that those whom they represent do. Supremacy at sea depends on two conditions. One is the total strength of the Fleet with all its units complete, and the other is the Fleet's proper organisation for war. I maintain that the Fleet is not strong enough at the present time owing to the shortage of units, and that the provision in the Estimates for future additions is not adequate to maintain our supremacy. I also maintain that the Fleet has not been, and is not now, properly organised for war, and that such a condition is impossible unless there is a proper war staff at the Admiralty. With the permission of the House, I should like to examine this question of supremacy at sea, not from the lawyer's or the politician's point of view, but simply from that of a naval officer who has studied this question ever since he was a lieutenant. There is no question that we are face to face with a crisis in naval affairs, as the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary, and the whole of the Front Bench opposite saw last March. Why are we face to face with that crisis? First of all, I repeat that it is due to the advance of a neighbour in ship- building; secondly, to our own dangerous arrears of shipbuilding, which it is attempted to make up with great celerity in the ships already voted, but with nothing whatever, or very little, for the new commitments; and, thirdly, to the neglect of a proper organisation for war. Remember, with reference to those warnings that Ministers gave, they were in far more serious terms than anybody on this side of the House has used. Another point to be remembered is that those Ministers are responsible, and they must have based those statements on something that they knew, and that nobody outside the Cabinet could have known. Therefore, I say that the advance to £40,000,000 is not commensurate with the remarks they made.

What have the Government done since? They lost a whole year with the "Dreadnoughts," and they are going to lose another whole year with the thirty ships they now propose. The present Administration failed to keep the Navy up to the necessary requirements, and that is why we have a big increase now. I maintain that when you get the commitments for next year, plus next year's programme, next year's Estimates will be appalling. Forty million pounds will be nothing to what those Estimates, will be. It has been continually pointed out that when the Government came into office they had a two-Power standard, although, as a matter of fact, some of the units were short; but they were four times the strength of a neighbouring Power, which since then has gone up by leaps and bounds, increasing its shipbuilding vote while the Government have decreased theirs. We do not want a return of scenes in the House. Very strong opinions are given on both sides—on what? On what is necessary to maintain our supremacy. I agree with the hon. Member below me (Mr. Lee) that we should do what a neighbouring Power has done—we should lay down a programme that should be bigger, better, and quicker than that of that neighbouring country. I am perfectly certain that that neighbouring country would not go on; her finances would not allow it. I speak of that neighbouring country with the greatest courtesy and respect, because I do respect her. We have no right to say anything whatever irritating about her. She has a perfect right to do what she likes. She would respect us for appreciating the position, and making ourselves secure at sea, because she knows just as well as we know, and as the whole world knows, that unless we keep the command of the sea it will be the end of the British Empire. The preamble of the German Navy Bill of 1900 is a distinct threat to British supremacy at sea. It says:— Germany must have a fleet of such strength that even for the mightiest naval power a war with her would involve such risks as to jeopardise its own supremacy. Can there be anything clearer than that? We have also the utterances of distinguished and responsible German statesmen and officials. Count Reventlow last year said:— We in Germany must not be blind to the fact that in naval warfare the period of straightforward, honest declarations of war or of open preparations for war has gone for ever. It is not merely naive, but extremely erroneous to suppose that war could not break out without a formal declaration. The next war will begin with such a breach of international law and at a moment when the enemy least expects an attack. Well, then, there is Professor Trietsche, who says:— We have settled our accounts with Austria-Hungary, with France, and with Russia. The last settlement, the settlement with England. will be probably the lengthiest and the most difficult. Now, how were these other countries settled? By sudden declaration of war— with the bayonet and the bullet! Von der Goltz says:— The material foundations of our power are broad enough to warrant the thought of successful opposition to British supremacy. Germany must meet this war if it comes, and lose no time in making her preparations. I come to the point of appeal to the benches opposite. The British people and the German people hate and detest war, and they do not want war, but will you remember that the German people have nothing whatever to say as to a declaration of war. They are entirely under a bureaucracy. We in this country can have something to say of war. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] You say "No." [An HON. MEMBER: "NO."] Well, there is one hon. Member who can say "No," but I say that this country does not want to go to war, and if you will be advised by those of us who have studied it, to make yourselves strong enough, you cannot have war. That is the only way to keep the peace, and not fiddling about with driblets as we are doing now. Lay down a big programme like the Germans have done in a businesslike and common-sense way, and put down the money to pay for it, and then you will have no war. The matter now is that we have got no policy, and as we have got no policy, we have got no standard. If we go on as we are going on troubles will be recurring over and over again, until irritation will set in because we are getting closer to each other, and we shall have war, which I want to prevent in my way; but you will never prevent war in your way, but for these economies you will only get panics and scares, and the enormous expenditure you have this year, and will have next year.

The First Lord of the Admiralty on 21st July last seemed to take pride in the fact that there was "no continuity of policy." He said:— There is no such thing as continuity of programme. That is what I want to get—a continuous programme. Let other nations know we are going to hold the sea, without being insolent or arrogant, because it is our life, and we die if we do not hold it.

Let me turn to the two-Power standard, and give reasons why we should have it. The Prime Minister said that he meant by a two-Power standard:— An equality in capital ships with the two next strongest Powers, plus a margin of 10 per cent., whichever they may be or wherever they might be situated.? That was a definite, clear policy. It was accepted, as has been pointed out by the hon. Gentleman below me. But on 26th May the Prime Minister repudiated it altogether, and brought in an emasculated standard which nobody can understand to this day. It is not a standard; anyway, it is not a standard to make it evident to other countries that we are going to keep command of the sea. Then he suggested that oversea navies situated in different geographical conditions should not be counted. What I want to ask the Prime Minister is: Where is the geographical position on the face of the globe where British interests or British territories do not exist? Do you suppose that geographical position removes the responsibility from that Front Bench for defending the whole of the British Empire, no matter where it may be, or where its scattered units are? I quite agree if our interests were only in the North Sea that there would be some justification for this emasculated two-Power standard, but our interests are in the uttermost parts of the earth, and their defence still remains, though you have an emasculated two-Power standard. You are already committed to a defence of the Empire as a whole because you have accepted from the dominions these offers of men and money. Therefore you cannot take geographical position into account. It is unsound. It cannot hold water, and you must come back to your two-Power standard. Why take the geographical position? Steam, speed, and wireless telegraphy have altered distances very much. Take the two distances from England to Port Said and from England to Canada, and Canada is only about 800 miles further than Port Said. You have to be ready to support the whole of British interests, no matter where they are. Yes, we must stick to the two-Power standard, as laid down by the Prime Minister. However small a British possession is, or where or what it is, you have to defend it, if attacked, with the whole might of the British Empire ! Does anybody repudiate that on the benches opposite? No ! We have got too much of the best stuff that England can produce in her Dominions, and we have got to take care of them until they can take care of themselves. We cannot do that unless we have the two-Power standard, for we might have a combination against us without our knowledge. We have got to view the possibilities. Supposing a European country made some arrangements with an Asiatic country, and the Asiatic country was to take the Cape, or Australia, or New-Zealand—and it is perfectly possible, where are you without your two-Power standard? You have to have a Fleet which will be ready to go to the uttermost parts of the globe in defence of British interests, as well as one for the defence of the heart of the Empire. It would be more difficult for us if there was a large hostile fleet at the other end of the world than it would be if there were two hostile fleets in European waters, because we could then concentrate against them. Remember, the fleet abroad will have to be stronger on account of reliefs, supplies, and keeping its units. But you must be prepared to have two fleets unless you observe the two-Power standard.

The problem is not new. Rodney fought out in the West Indies. He did not fight in Home waters. Hughes and Suffren Fought in Asiatic waters. The present Government kept a fleet out in China in 1906 in view of eventualities. We maintained a large fleet in Far Eastern waters owing to the Russian fleet which might have become a menace. Then I take Spain and the United States. The United States fought Spain in Cuba, and Spain had to make peace. That war was not fought in the home waters of Spain. Look back to the time of the American Colonies. Cornwallis was kept in Yorktown because we could not get force enough there to relieve him, but we were perfectly strong in home waters. We lost the American Colonies because we had not on the American coast a fleet large enough at that time. Under these conditions we have got to keep to the two-Power standard that the Prime Minister laid down last year, and we shall not be able to defend our Empire without it. At the present moment we are not living up to it, and the Estimates do not provide enough security to live up to it in the future. The result of all this, in my humble opinion, is because we have no War Staff at the Admiralty. I shall have the sympathy of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War, because he knows the vast improvement, which we on this side of the House recognise, that he has made in the Army is largely due to the War Staff that he instituted at the War Office. We have got nothing of the sort at the Admiralty, as I shall presently show.

With regard to the two-Power standard, we must not forget the question of the Dominions. The Dominions have come to our assistance, remember, through speeches made by the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary. The Dominions thought we had got into a very great crisis, and they came with their aid quickly. We must not forget, however, that we will be very foolish to count on the Dominions helping until their fleets are ready. Until those fleets are ready we must assume the responsibility for the defence of the Empire. Those fleets will take some years to be ready because, however good the ships and the men may be, no fleet is really ready for war unless it is properly trained in tactics and strategy. Until it is ready we must not for a moment think we are divorced from the responsibility of the defence of the Empire.

The two-Power standard, with all its units, to carry out the functions of the protection of the whole Empire, to carry out the defence of the whole of the coastline, and the mercantile communications— a two-Power standard would be strong enough to command peace, but if there was war, it would give us an immediate victory. We should be so strong that no other countries would dare to attack us. What would £1,000,000 be in order to secure peace absolutely of the world, instead of peace with scares? Why, the Front Bench is nervous, or it would not ask for £40,000,000 ! The Navy was unassailable during the election. There is a great deal of comparison made about tons, guns, and prices, and one hon. Member, always on that tack, is the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It is very unfair, and has nothing whatever to do with the point, whether we are three to one or four to one. We have to calculate what we have got to defend. Take the coastline of the British Empire. It is 49,690 miles. The coastline of the German Empire is 4,910, and 2,000 miles of this are for islands in the Pacific. Our mercantile shipping is half the rest of the world put together. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] Quite so. Do you not want to defend it?

Mr. McKENNA

Equal to the rest of the world, not half. [HON. MEMBERS: "The same thing."]

Lord CHARLES BERESFORD

The point was that I wanted to compare ourselves with Germany. We have 11,565 ships, with a tonnage of 18,826,422 tons, against Germany's 2,171 ships, with a tonnage of 4,266,713. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] Yes, but we exist upon the food that is water-borne. Our workmen exist, and we ourselves exist on the raw material that is brought home. Germany could lose the whole of her fleet, and the whole of her Mercantile Marine to-morrow, and still feed her people on her home produce, and import raw material over her frontiers. All our frontiers are sea-frontiers, and all our roads are sea-roads.

We are bound to protect them and to see that they are not interfered with, whether in peace or war. I say that the Chancellor of the Exchequer was talking about three to one, but there is no comparison of three to one or four to one. The question of tons and guns and prices has nothing whatever to do with it. It may be all very well for a Radical platform in Wales or anywhere else, but it has nothing whatever to do, from the naval point of view, with the state of the Question. If you have a nation which has four times or ten times the amount of defence to attend to you must have more materials for carrying out that defence than the person who attacks you and has very much less to defend. The Home Secretary seems to be enormously amused at that. I do not see that there is any case for humour at all. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, in his speech at Reading on 2nd January, instead of dealing with this great Question as I should like to deal with it, prefaced his remarks with a totally misleading announcement. He said our naval force, as compared with Germany, is three to one, and he suggested that if Sir Francis Drake made any similar demands of the British people in his time that were being made now he would be sent to the Tower, for he would be found guilty of treason, and he would probably be beheaded. The Chancellor of the Exchequer's allusion to the history of an Elizabethan war was very unfortunate. Queen Elizabeth never showed any resentment for any of her admirals if any of them called attention to any weakness in her Fleet. On 13th April, 1588, Drake wrote asking for Four more of your Majesty's good ship. And added: God increase your Majesty's forces both by sea and land daily, for I think there was never any force so strong as is now ready and making ready against your Majesty. Drake could not have used better language than that if he was living on the present occasion, and I am perfectly certain the Chancellor of the Exchequer and some more of the Gentlemen on the Front Bench would have called him a panic monger and other names of that description which I do not think would have been merited. Let me point out this. The Government talk of scares. Will you tell me one single so-called scare in this country that has not been justified by what came afterwards? Turn to the scare created by the Front Bench. What has been the result of it? Forty million pounds sterling this year.

May I turn for a few minutes to the question of trade routes? Now the weak spot is the defence of the trade routes. It was never so weak as now. We talk of invasion, we talk of the defence of the home waters, but we neglect precautions necessary for the outlying parts of the Empire, and for our communication and our trade routes, which are not properly defended. There is no nation but has got some weak spot as we have, but their weak spots are not of the same magnitude, for we are absolutely dependent upon punctual and certain delivery of our food and raw materials. We have no margin for food and raw materials. We have seen, from what was said by Count Reventlow, that war will be sudden, and that the enemy will be prepared in every detail. The removal of the small ships from the trade routes is a very serious question. In that I am borne out by the First Lord of the Admiralty and by the Secretary to the Admiralty. On 16th March, 1909, the First Lord of the Admiralty said:— Our commerce if undefended in war in remote seas would be bound to be attacked by armed merchant vessels, specially commissioned for the purpose as ships of war. That would be exactly the case. We have taken the small cruisers off the trade routes while we ought to have kept them there. The trade routes will not be attacked by cruisers. If a cruiser goes out we send a cruiser to shadow her. If war comes it will be organised on a certain day; it may be months, or it may be weeks, and these tramps will come out of harbour without anyone knowing them. Why do you put a policeman to walk up and down the beat except that his appearance there stops incidents? What is the use of sending out the policeman after the incidents have occurred, and I say that the small cruisers that we scrapped should never have been scrapped or brought home until others were put in their places. The Secretary to the Admiralty on 17th March, 1909, said:— What would become of Free Trade when you have lost the free sea highway of the world? And then the hon. Gentleman went into the total value of imports and exports, and said all the wealth of the United Kingdom depended upon the free and safe delivery of the raw material, and he asked, What would become of the great industrial centres that are dependent for their living on these supplies if this trade is dislocated from its proper locality? Why, want and destitution would set in all over the land. I quite agree with the Secretary for the Admiralty, but I say that the fact is this, that the trade routes are not properly looked after, and are not properly protected now. If something happened with Belgium or Holland, or something of that sort in which this country was interested, we should send an expostulation from the Government, and it would probably be taken as a declaration of war. That is a possibility. Do you think other people do not see it as well as you; and we have to guard against these possibilities by being thoroughly efficient.

I have handled the Britisher in all sorts of circumstances, and he is the best fellow in the world, and he will follow you anywhere you lead him, but it is very difficult if he has an empty stomach. Keep his stomach full, and he will follow you, and I say there are great difficulties if you stop the food supply, not perhaps in the first week or three weeks. I suppose when I refer to this some hon. Members are thinking of some political question of Free Trade or Tariff Reform, but I assure them I am very serious upon this question of trade routes. These trade routes are not defended. The right hon. Gentle- man the First Lord of the Treasury knows perfectly well what I am telling the House about these armed tramps.

Mr. McKENNA

I know nothing of the sort!

Lord CHARLES BERESFORD

Then the right hon. Gentleman forgets what was communicated to him at that Committee to which I am not at liberty to refer.

Mr. McKENNA

I cannot allow that statement to pass by. The Noble Lord has ascribed to me information which I have informed him before is not true.

Lord CHARLES BERESFORD

Does the right hon. Gentleman not remember that he had it in black and white from two distinguished officers about the trade routes?

Mr. McKENNA

No, Sir; there has been no communication to the British Admiralty by distinguished officers or undistinguished officers stating that tramps are armed with guns.

Lord CHARLES BERESFORD

There were two letters informing the right hon. Gentleman that the trade routes were not properly protected.

Mr. McKENNA

The Noble Lord is not justified in saying that either here or on the platform.

Lord CHARLES BERESFORD

I am justified in saying it, and I wish the House to understand I am justified in saying it, and I defy the right hon. Gentleman to produce the letters that went before the Committee from distinguished officers who wrote about the trade routes, and one of whom was sent to a foreign station because he called attention to it.

Mr. McKENNA

The statements of the Noble Lord are absolutely without the slightest foundation.

Lord CHARLES BERESFORD

I am perfectly astounded at what the right hon. Gentleman says. He knows perfectly well that in the report to the Commission, if you read the Report of the Commission on the Trade Routes, that it is all of a most secret character. So it is all of a secret character. I cannot say exactly what it was, but I say that there were letters brought before that Committee showing that the trade routes were not properly defended, and I stick to it, and it is a very serious question, too—a most serious question. Let me show how the trade routes are protected. The business of the British Fleet is to be so organised that the supplies of the country, both of food and raw material, are kept free from interruption, either in peace or war. None of the British trade routes are adequately protected, and two of the most important trade routes have no cruisers at all stationed at or near them. For instance, the East Coast of South America and the West Indies and the East Coast of America are totally devoid of local defence. I tell you that trade routes can be cut and that these trade routes are the arteries of this country, and a man or a country can just as surely be killed or demolished by having the arteries cut as by being stabbed over the heart. All we have thought of is the heart. We ought not to have scrapped the cruisers without having put something in their place. There is no cruiser to look after the enormous amount of water-borne trade passing Pernambuco. At the Cape station at the present moment we have only the following three ships, the "Forte," second-class cruiser; the "Hermes," second-class cruiser, and the "Pandora," third-class cruiser. Gold to the extent of three-quarters of a million leaves the Cape every week or fortnight, and it is not protected in the event of its being attacked by armed tramps coming there in times of war. Look at the banks of this country. Insurance would go up to prohibitive prices, and security would go down to zero. If your ships containing supplies are stopped, I see an appalling catastrophe occurring to this country before your battleships would have put to sea at all.

I proposed the programme which, I believe, we ought to have. I would cost us £68,000,000 sterling, to be paid off in twenty or thirty years, but it would give us all our ships for the 1914 programme. Instead of five second-class cruisers, we ought to have eighteen; we ought to have twelve anti-torpedo-boat destroyers, which is a new class I would suggest, because we are lamentably short of in-shore cruisers. In Home waters we have only thirty to Germany's forty. We ought to have twenty-six torpedo-boat destroyers—the Government are going to build twenty—floating docks are going to be built, and floating coal depots. It is well known that the recent manœuvres were nearly stopped on account of the coal strike. Under my proposal we should have 128 ships by 1914, and £68,000,000 would pay for it over and above present commitments. Of course we must take the thirty off for the ships which the Government are going to lay down this year. That programme, with the assistance of the dominions, would restore the two-Power standard and make us safe from attack not only at home, but throughout the Empire. I believe a loan would be far better than finding the money every year, although I know it is unsound finance. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."]

Hon. Members opposite say "Hear, hear," but you have run into debt, and an individual or an industry when it runs into debt has either to go bankrupt or borrow money. The reason for this state of things is that we have not had a proper War Staff at the Admiralty, and we did not have one at the Committee. The First Lord says there is one now, but that is a mistake, because we have at the Admiralty exactly the same as we had before, only it is called by a different name. We want a War Staff to make out in peace what is necessary for war, such as plans of campaign, ready to meet any emergency, and everything should be ready to carry out those plans. If we had had a War Staff we should not have been building eight "Dreadnoughts" one year and two another year, and sometimes no cruisers, and we should not have been "scrapping" a lot of our ships and not replacing them. All this has happened because we have not had a War Staff to consider our requirements, the same as the Germans. The Germans have done their work very much cheaper. They decided what they wanted, and then they put down the money to build it. We should not have had a ship like the "Swift" if we had had a War Staff. As to the Committee they did not take me into their consideration, although they could not have found more strongly in my favour unless they discharged the Admiralty. The Committee found in my favour on almost all the points I brought before them. In strategy, tactics, and fleet organisation a commander-in-chief can do as much as he likes. Look at the many changes in the Channel Fleet during the last few years, when it was split up from a condition of homogeneity to the time it went back to a condition of homogeneity, exactly as it was before. With a War Staff this chaos would not have occurred. Take the last manœuvres. They were delayed by the coal strike. One of the most difficult things for any commander to have to do in war is to handle a big fleet. Now the big Fleet, with the exception of an hour, has never been handled together since October, 1907. Does the right hon. Gentleman deny that?

Mr. McKENNA

I did not catch what the Noble Lord said.

Lord CHARLES BERESFORD

Well, I will write him a letter about it.

Mr. McKENNA

Perhaps the Noble Lord will repeat his statement.

Lord CHARLES BERESFORD

I have no objection to that course. What I said was that the big fleets under one man require immense practice to handle. Every morning at sea I worked my ships with a lieutenant taking the captain's place, and every morning I learned something myself. What I say is that the big fleets have never been handled under one man, except for a period of an hour, since October, 1907. Does the right hon. Gentleman deny that?

Mr. McKENNA

Oh, yes.

Lord CHARLES BERESFORD

I am talking of the whole Fleet. They were not handled in 1908, and 1 was not allowed to do it in 1909.

Mr. McKENNA

Surely the Noble Lord does not mean the British Fleet all over the world, but if he means by the whole fleet the Home Fleet, the First and Second Divisions, and the Atlantic Fleet, well, they have been exercised together much more than one hour, as the Noble Lord knows.

Lord CHARLES BERESFORD

The right hon. Gentleman does not understand. I am talking of the fleet you have out in the great manœuvres once a year, which you will have out in war, and it requires a great deal of practice to handle the whole of these ships under one man, and that is what I say has not been done for more than an hour since October, 1907. I am not talking of the Atlantic Fleet of twenty, thirty, forty, or sixty ships, but I am talking of the great fleet that runs up to 200, and that has never been exercised for more than an hour since 1907. The difficulties of realising our true position in regard to national defence are immensely increased by the evasive and ambiguous replies so constantly given by the First Lord of the Admiralty to questions on naval matters, in which he endeavours to score a party point. Furthermore, I should here like to point out that whenever a Minister or any Member of this House is led into making a statement confirming any other Member which is not borne out by facts, when that statement, moreover, is obviously an erroneous one, and is in no way repudiated by its author, that it has hitherto been the practice to withdraw such a statement, whilst apologising for the erroneous impression it has conveyed, more especially when it impugns the veracity of an hon. Member, combined with an attempt to discredit his views. The First Lord shows a constant reluctance to observe these honourable traditions.

Mr. SPEAKER

I do not see that this has anything to do with the Navy Estimates. That would have been a matter of procedure for me. If such a thing happened as the Noble Lord refers to it would have been a case for an appeal to me, but it is beside the mark to discuss it on this Motion.

Lord CHARLES BERESFORD

I may remind the House that as recently as 10th February the right hon. Gentleman wrote a letter from the Admiralty to a correspondent, which appeared in the public Press, in which he refers to my charges regarding the condition of the "Invinvincible" as "mere nonsense." That expression, in my opinion, is, I maintain, neither accurate nor courteous.

Mr. McKENNA

If the Noble Lord will allow me to remind him, he stated with regard to the "Invincible" that the Admiralty had been guilty of criminal folly, and it was with reference to his charge of criminal folly that I ventured to state in a private letter that the statement was mere nonsense.

Lord CHARLES BERESFORD

What I said was that the Admiralty knew perfectly well that that ship would have to go alongside the yard; and if there was war, to send her out to fight when she could not fire her guns was criminal folly, and I stick to that. I say that it is chiefly owing to the attitude which the right hon. Gentleman has always thought fit to adopt with regard to these matters that his utterances do not inspire that respect and confidence which should pertain to his high position.

Mr. GIBSON BOWLES

moved as an Amendment to leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to insert "the constant and vigilant maintenance of Naval Forces adequate to overcome upon the seas all probable enemies is essential to the safety, honour, and welfare of this kingdom."

The speech of the Noble Lord leaves me disappointed and almost hopeless. When he rose in his place I thought he was going to make all those most tremendous disclosures he has so long promised us, and probably going to impeach a Minister. At any rate, I thought he was going to tell us how we were to make ourselves for ever supreme at sea. Now, what has he done? He says you are going to spend so little, that you are fiddling about with trifles, and he suggests that what you require to spend is about £100,000,000, but in the end he says that tons and guns are of no use to us, and that in order to preserve our insular safety, all we want is to provide a War Staff at Whitehall. I expected something more from the Noble Lord, and perhaps on some other occasion he will say more. As for my own Amendment, I hope the Government will accept it. They may easily do so, because, as a matter of procedure, all they will have to do will be to renew the Motion that you, Mr. Speaker, leave the Chair. If this Question goes to a Division I shall not run away from the flag I have hoisted, and I shall divide upon it. Let me preface my remarks by a criticism upon the First Lord having again adopted the modern practice, or what I call the modern abuse, of taking up the time of this House making a statement which he ought to have made on Vote A in Committee. It is not fair to hon. Members of this House, and especially to new Members who are waiting to illuminate the House and the country with very important oratory. What happens is that the Minister in charge makes an hour's speech, then the hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Lee) makes an hour's speech—

Mr. ARTHUR LEE

No, only half an hour.

Mr. GIBSON BOWLES

Well, it was a very liberal half hour, but two hon. Members opposite between them have taken up two hours. My complaint is that two hon. Members on this side and two hon. Members opposite make three or four great speeches; they smile at each other like Roman augurs, and when they have done there is no time, or only the dinner hour, for other hon. Members who want to bring forward substantial grievances. I am particularly disappointed with the First Lord. I knew he would attain eminence, not as a seaman, but I expected him to attain it as a financier or as a constitutionalist. When he sat on one side of the House and I sat on another, we used to make constitutional and financial conspiracies together, and I had hoped in this he would have been now, as he was before he came a placeman, with me. I trust this protest may have some effect upon some future Minister of some consequence. In the statements circulated by the First Lord I find a paragraph to which I want to allude. He said:— Since the London Declaration was signed, an International Committee, presided over by the Earl of Desart, King's Proctor, has revised the Naval Prize Manual, with a view to the issue of it to the Fleet when the Legislative and other action necessary to give effect to the Motion has been completed. I do not like this revision at all. I do not think it is adequate to put a Desart to revise what a Stowell has pronounced. I only allude to this to say that the word "when" is important, and I earnestly trust there will be no attempt to issue this new code of Prize Law and International Law until Parliament has pronounced upon it. Indeed, I would remind the First Lord, and I would remind any Minister who may be here, that, in fact, the Government have no right to issue a revised Prize Law until it has been accepted by Parliament. They have no power by the use of the Prerogative to change a part of the Common Law of England, which embodies the law of nations. It cannot be done without the consent of the Parliament of this Kingdom. When these proposals, which would deprive us of the power of blockade, of the right of search, and even of capture of contraband, and which would certainly take away from us the practical power of the capture of an enemy's property at sea, come before Parliament for ratification, I earnestly hope the House will pause before giving that ratification. These are the rules of the ring, and upon the rules of the ring everything may depend. Let me make the rules of the ring and I defy Castor and Pollux and Hercules and the Nemean Lion on the top of them. If you accept rules of warfare which practically deprive your Fleet of its power, your Fleet itself becomes a mockery.

8.0 P.M.

I observe that landsmen, Tariff Reformers, and other persons of a similar character constantly forget the special character of this Kingdom. They talk of it, and they would deal with it as though it resembled all other countries, whereas, in fact, it is different from all countries— different in the extent of its territory, different in the conditions of its life, and different above all in this, that it has not for its frontier an imaginary line, but it has for its frontier the very unimaginary, practical, actual sea. The sea is not only our frontier, it is our barrier; not alone our barrier, it is our road. Through the sea alone can we conduct that trade whereby we live. By the sea alone can we be attacked or approached, and by the sea alone can we conduct that offensive attack which is the true defence for this country as well as for others. Then for trade these islands are situated in the most admirable manner. They have the whole four quarters of the world grouped around them in their one hemisphere. They are situated in the sea and at the crossing point of all the sea roads, which are the chiefest and ever the best roads. They are like Tyre "in the seat of God, in the midst of the seas." The strategical situation of these islands is unmatched. They divide the North of the continent of Europe against the south; they can be used to prevent the joining of Northern and Southern enemies; they can be used, they should be used, as I believe, for rallying the centre Powers against those forces of the North, against the Goths and the Vandals which may well strive to make another eruption in Europe to overcome its civilisation.

When I speak in this matter, and in the sense of the Resolution which I have put down, I speak not only of our home defence. I must have in my mind the defence of the Empire which we have achieved and not only that. I think the Leader of the Labour party spoke of the treaty engagements, and perhaps not with any great respect. Perhaps he does not know how great and strong our undertakings are. We have guaranteed Belgium, we have guaranteed Switzerland, we have guaranteed Greece, Turkey, and our ancient ally Portugal and all her colonies.

An HON. MEMBER

More fools we.

Mr. GIBSON BOWLES

The hon. Member says, "More fools we," but I cannot agree with him. There are considerations of public policy, considerations of the balance of power in Europe which it is extremely necessary to have in our mind, and it is because of this that these treaty engagements have been entered into. Whether right or wrong, there they are, and I am sure no Member on any of these benches would desire to see the country of which he is a citizen repudiate the solemn pledges she has taken. I hold that we have a great burden of defence laid upon us, and I speak not even of the cost, although, indeed, £42,000,000 is a sum enough to appal the most reckless spendthrift—a sum just three times as much as the Naval Estimates were when I first entered this House. Our problems are all sea problems. From the sea we gained our prosperity, by the sea we must make our living, and on the sea we must defend ourselves.

What, then, should be the measure of our sea forces? It has been suggested that it should be the measure of two keels to one of any probable enemy, but that measure, I think, has been rejected even by the Noble Lord opposite (Lord Charles Beresford). He says it is the measure of the wild men, and I agree with him. It has been suggested, and there the Noble Lord agrees that we should have what is called the two-Power standard—that is to say, a standard of the next two strongest Powers with or without the 10 per cent, margin. I repudiate both those standards. With the Noble Lord, I repudiate the two-keel standard, but, contrary to the Noble Lord, I also repudiate the two-Power standard. The two-Power standard is a mere hollow formula. It is the kind of notion which a man desires who wishes to relieve himself from thought and action and to put his mind into a pigeon-hole and leave it there once and for ever. A two-Power standard at one time may be excessive, and at another time it may be deficient. You may need a four-Power standard, you may need a four-keel standard. No, the standard of efficiency for our Navy, I submit, is this: You must first find out who all your probable enemies are going to be, and then provide such a Fleet, so manned and so handled, that you may be sure you are sure to beat them. This, and this alone will suffice, and more than this you need not have. To arm against the whole world, against your friends as well as against your enemies, is foolish and unnecessary.

How, then, shall we ascertain the basis I have ventured to lay down? How shall we ascertain who are our probable enemies? By the most incessant, vigilant watching, not of the North Sea alone but wherever an enemy of England is capable of being found. We have an organisation for that purpose. We have a diplomatic service; we have ambassadors abroad—in fact, nothing else but gilded spies, or who should be; we have a Secret Intelligence Department, and it is in the power of the Government to keep itself informed, nay, it is their duty to keep themselves informed so well of foreign affairs and of the doings of foreign nations as always to be aware who the probable enemies of England are. It is the Government alone who can tell that. No Admiral can know that. Admirals are good for certain things, for leading Fleets, and some of them for making speeches in popular assemblies, but the admiral does not know, and he cannot know, who are likely to be our probable enemies, nor the probable amount of their forces, nor consequently the proper provision to make against them. That, I repeat, the Government alone can know. That it must know. If that the Government does not know, impeachment would hardly meet the case. The block on Tower Hill would not be too much.

The Member for the Fareham Division of Hants (Mr. Arthur Lee), like the Noble Lord, says we are starving the Shipbuilding Vote in these Estimates amounting altogether to £42,000,000. I do not agree with them. I think we are gorging that vote. I believe that the provision for ships and shipbuilding, for the guns and the tons that the Noble Lord so much despises, so far from being too small, is rather too big, but I recognise that I am no more competent than other persons outside the Cabinet to estimate what the exact amount is that is necessary, and, since I must rely upon somebody to tell me the standard, I confess I would rather rely upon the Government which has the information than on any Member sitting on this or any other bench who cannot have the information. There is this also to be said, that if the Government have made an error, at any rate it is an error on the right side. Who then are our probable enemies? Scarcely France, and hardly Russia. These are the two great nations with whom we have that political entente, which is so much praised, and which, in my opinion, is of so little value. Scarcely the United States—our kinsmen and cousins. Hardly Japan, with whom we have a treaty, an offensive and a defensive alliance. Is it then the Triple Alliance, the Triplice? Are they our probable enemies? Italy is halting, and Austria has given up the race of Dreadnoughts. No, you may go over the nations of the world, and you will find that in the minds of the greatest alarmists our probable enemies are not among them. There is but Germany. The Leader of the Opposition, the Member for the City of London (Mr. Balfour) is very frank about this. He made a statement at Hanley on 4th January of a most remarkable character. I am only surprised attention has not yet been called to it. He says:— Consult, the Statesmen and diplomatists of the lesser Powers, and I am perfectly confident you will find among them an absolute unanimity of opinion that a struggle sooner or later between this country and Germany is inevitable. These are the words of the Leader of the Opposition. I am bound to say I think that is an extremely improper statement— it is not only extremely improper, but it is grossly unfair to the statesmen and diplomatists of the lesser Powers to say that they are unanimous. I absolutely deny it. There are thirty-eight such statesmen and diplomatists in this country and seven Ambassadors, and if the right hon. Gentleman adheres to his statement he is bound to name the statesman or diplomatist representing a lesser Power who holds that opinion. I dare assert there is not one. If he says there is, let him name him. The right hon. Gentleman goes on to say:— They are all unanimous that there will, sooner or later, be a struggle, and they have come to the conclusion that in that struggle we are predestined to succumb. Not content with that, he gives us the occasion of the struggle in the same speech, for a little further on he says:— I have known of Germans, not connected with the Government—men of position and character—men engaged in great affairs, who, if you talk to them about the adoption of Tariff Reform by this country actually say, ' Do you suppose we should ever allow Great Britain to adopt Tariff Reform?' Therefore the struggle is certain to come whenever we adopt Tariff Reform, because Germany will not allow us to adopt it. But the Leader of the Opposition is pledged to introduce Tariff Reform as the first constructive Act of his Government, and, therefore, the first thing that will happen should the right hon. Gentleman come into office will be, following on Tariff Reform, a struggle with Germany, in which we shall succumb. I believe the right hon. Gentleman to be wrong from beginning to end. I am convinced that the country will never have or show a desire for Tariff Reform, that therefore, if he himself were again at some future period to come into power it would not impair the peace we at present enjoy with Germany, and that peace would survive even his administration.

Next I come to the rate of building. Comparisons have been deprecated, but the whole of our naval preparations depend on comparisons with other countries. If there were no possible enemies we need have no Navy, and therefore the strength of our Navy turns on the comparison with other countries. There has been, I think, an unfortunate lack of knowledge on the part of the present Government, as well as an unfortunate avowal of knowledge, the effect of which has been to produce a scare which might and should have been avoided. If the Government did not know last year what the rate of German progress was there was one Member of this House who did, and that was the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition. Really his statements are most amusing and most interesting—I should say they are almost verging on the. marvellous. They resemble the Ginn, the character who emerged from the fisherman's bottle and grew till he filled the whole horizon. The right hon. Gentleman said that in December, 1910, we shall only have ten "Dreadnoughts," while, the Germans will have thirteen; on 1st April, 1911, we shall have fourteen and the Germans, if they build, seventeen. There are a good many "ifs" in this matter, because he goes on to say that if the Germans continue the programme in April, 1912, they will have twenty-one "Dreadnought's" to our twenty; if four are laid down in 1909 there will be seventeen on 1st April, 1912, and if eight are laid down this year—as eight have been laid down last year—there will be twenty-one on 1st April, 1912, to our twenty, and "if" the Germans imitate the policy of the present Government and lay down not only their eight in this financial year, but also demand a new group of four when the Government begin their new group of four on 1st April, 1912, they will have twenty-five. So here you have a growing picture. At the time the right hon. Gentleman was speaking there was not a single "Dreadnought" flying a German pennant. But first he gives us thirteen to seventeen, and then twenty-one to twenty-five, and finally he draws a picture of twenty-five German "Dreadnoughts" raging over the seas in April, 1912, ready to devour our poor twenty. It is all purely fantastic; it is pure invention, and I think the right ton. Gentleman will recognise it to be so. There will be, there can be, no such thing as twenty-five German "Dreadnoughts" In 1912. No doubt there is much virtue in your "if," and if it is suggested that there will be twenty-five German "Dreadnoughts" in 1912 I will undertake to find an admiral who will undertake to eat them, guns and all.

With regard to the rate of building, the right hon. Gentleman does not tell us all he knows. You must not allow yourself to be confused with dates—the date when the keel is laid and the date when the ship is launched. In dealing with the rate of building, there are only two dates—one when the first order is given and the other when the pennant is hoisted. Take these dates and compare the English and German progress, and I confidently believe that in the matter of "Dreadnoughts "—I do not say for a single ship, but, on the whole, we can give Germany twelve months' start and beat her. I shall not, perhaps, be accepted on this point by the right hon. Gentleman, but the "Dreadnought" from the first order (not from the laying down) to the hoisting of her pennant was completed in seventeen months. On the whole, I am prepared to allow not seventeen months for a "Dreadnought," but twenty months, and I say that in time of stress probably we should be able to build other "Dreadnoughts" in twenty months, almost certainly in twenty-four. [An HON. MEMBER: "The Prime Minister said in twenty-three."] The Prime Minister, it is quite true, said in twenty-three months, but I say twenty-four months, and I am quite convinced that Germany could not build "Dreadnoughts" for any purpose in anything less than thirty-six months. [An HON. MEMBER: "Why?"] Simply because she has not the private resources and the yards. If the hon. Gentleman will remember the extreme dates that I have fixed I venture to say that from the date of the order which we have not got—we have only got the date of the laying of the keel—if he will remember those dates I think he will find that that is the period. I agree with the Noble Admiral opposite it is not ships or guns that matter most, it is the personnel of the men, infinitely more than ships and guns that tells. Ships and guns are but steel, and the thing that informs them is the spirit, the training, and the capacity of the man and that of the officer who commands, and the Admiralty which directs.

I believe that our officers and men are still the best the world commands, but I do think that there has been a want of wisdom shown by the Admiralty. The new system of officers' training introduced in 1902 in. this House I strongly opposed, and I think it involves an extremely bad entry for the cadets who are to form the future officers of the Navy. It gives them too much of sitting on forms and studying formulas, and too little of standing on deck and acting independently, and that seems to be pursued to an extent which will very much impair the character of our naval officers as it has been up to this time. In this I think I must be right, because I have consulted many naval officers, and I will venture to say that every naval officer and every admiral with one exception, whom I will not name, all condemn the system of training, and say that it is calculated to produce a number of badly trained officers. It is a very serious thing if it is so. By 1912 the first batch of these newly trained cadets are to come, whether interchangeable or not—I do not know whether that is the least or the gravest of all the mistakes —they are to come into the Navy, not trained in the old admirable, practical way, which made, of all men, the naval lieutenant the most practical, but trained in 'isms and 'ologies, and their heads filled with formulas. They will come in after 1912 as sub-lieutenants.

In 1915 there will be a full batch of them going to sea as lieutenants, and from thence onwards they will go in, trained not under the old good system but under the new bad system. Therefore the whole of the new variety of lieutenants, if I am right, and if the admirals who agree with me are right, and if those who are in the service are right, will be of an inferior order. Not because they are worse boys—they are the same boys—but because they are of an inferior and worse training than their predecessors; and inasmuch as lieutenants are the backbone of the Fleet, and it is upon them that the real service afloat must depend, this is a very serious outlook indeed. Another mistake was that reconstitution of the Board of Admiralty, which was begun in 1902 and ended in 1904, which destroyed the Board of Admiralty as it had existed up to that time, with all in an equal position and simply the First Lord, who was primus in primis. Instead of that, it set up a dictator to whom everything was to be referred, even the courts-martial—it set up a dictator where there had been a First Lord, and when I remind the House that that dictator was then Lord Fisher, it is only necessary to say that that dictatorship was very effective.

Another mistake was the choice by Sir John Fisher of an ally even more venturesome than himself to be a kind of power behind the throne, not responsible to this House, but assuming to form policies and organisations, not only for the Navy, but for the Army, likely to have some very dangerous effects. From this mistake grew what I hold to be the mistake of the "Dreadnoughts." I believe it was an error to embark upon that megalomania which was represented by the policy of the biggest ship with the biggest guns and nothing but the biggest ship and the biggest guns. It has led to the competition of other nations at increased cost for them and increased difficulty for us. Having got it, we must face it; but we are facing it at a time when the big ship is more exposed than ever it was before, when the danger of putting too many eggs in one basket is greater than ever it was before, when the big ship is exposed to the torpedo and the submarine, and that which may prove the greatest danger of all, the loose floating mine, left in its path. These are mistakes—they are very great mistakes —and they are the mistakes not of the present, but of the late Government; for they were made in 1902 and completed in 1904. I myself always regretted them, and never ceased to denounce them, so far as I could consistently with the loyalty I then owed to the party sitting on this side.

On the other hand, it is right to remember that the Navy has made very great advances in gunnery, due, I believe, mainly, or to a great extent, to Lord Fisher— certainly the practical part of it almost exclusively due to that great man, Sir Percy Scott, who has improved British gunnery in a way past belief. There have been great advances in torpedoes, submarines, and great advances, perhaps the greatest of all, in our system of wireless telegraphy, which is perhaps the most important of all the nerves of war, and upon which, very likely, the issue of campaigns and battles may depend. I beg the House to observe this— that all the mistakes that have been made with regard to the Navy are mistakes which have been made by Governments—mistakes resisted by the service, protested against by the service, but which they had to accept because imposed on them by the Government. On the other hand, all the improvements of the service have been made by the service itself, generally against the desire and against the will of the Government, and it has only been by great pertinacity on the part of the service that it has been dragged in the true and right direction. But on the whole, as I say, the men and the officers are the best in the world, and for real improvements in the Navy I look rather to the service itself than to any Government or Admiralty Board. I do not say I do not share the apprehension of the Leader of the Opposition. I do believe that there is danger, and danger for which we should be prepared in the Navy in the only possible way, namely, by Naval preparations. We cannot be blind to the fact that for the last fifty years an unbridled ambition has been striding through Europe. We cannot be blind to the fact that the greatest immorality in policy and the greatest insincerity in diplomacy has marked the course of that ambition, and it is not possible that we should not have it suggested to us to imagine that one day it may be directed against ourselves. Up to the present I see no reason for fear. I believe our Navy is strong enough to deal not only with the one probable enemy that alone is suggested, but with two or with three such, and if it is to be a competition in these costly vessels of war and in the costly arrangements connected with them, at the end the advantage must be on the side of the strongest purse. Therefore, at last the issue of competition in armaments depends on the ability of the Government to keep its finances in proper order and provide itself with the sinews of war. At present I refuse to quake. We have been called upon in our history to fight, and we have always succeeded in beating the greatest nations of the earth—Spain, in all her pride, Spain at her strongest; Napoleon when he represented not only France, but the whole of Europe, including this Germany of whom we are called upon to be so fearful at the present date. [Mr. REES: "It is a different Germany."] No doubt it is a very different Germany, but still you will hardly even now compare Germany with the whole of Europe. In 1810 we had not a friend in Europe. The Prussia that we had subsidised had turned against us, and there was not a friendly port for an English ship from the North Cape to the Ionian Islands, and, nevertheless, we came out of that struggle triumphant. We came out of it because, while the sea can coerce the land, the land can never coerce the sea. We came out of it because we held on the seas the ultimate line of all communications, because we stopped those communications, because while we ourselves were flourishing we made the French pay 6s. a pound for their sugar while we were paying 6d. That is the way to beat your enemy. No need to cut his throat; make him pay more for his sugar.

I believe that war with Germany is neither imminent nor probable. Our alarmists believe in the invasion of these islands by Germany. They expect another Hastings and another William the Conqueror. German alarmists believe that we, in time of peace, shall make an attack upon them, and that we shall fight another Copenhagen and destroy their fleet. I see neither. If it is to be a Hastings, I do not see the William the Conqueror. If there is to be a Copenhagen, I do not see the Nelson, even on those benches. I believe our Navy is now more than sufficient for all our probable enemies. I go so far as to say that I believe it to be now capable of meeting all our conceivably possible enemies. It must be so maintained. It is being so maintained. It can always be so maintained. But to these defects that I have pointed out—defects in training and defects in the constitution of the Admiralty—I think attention should be given. Attention may easily and gladly be given to them by the present Government, for they are only the faults of the previous Administration. I trust it will be given and remedies applied. And now let me recall what was said 300 years ago by that greatest of all our sailors, statesmen, seers, and prophets—Raleigh:— Whosoever commands the sea, commands the trade; whosoever commands the trade of the world, commands the riches of the world, and consequently the world itself. The ambition to command the world itself we may leave to others, but we do command one-fifth of the land of the globe and one-fifth of its inhabitants. We do command the trade of the world. We must command the sea, because in this alone is our life, our preservation, our very national existence.

Amendment not seconded.

Mr. W. F. RICE

I cannot help thinking that the reason for the naval question having come into the political arena, which I deeply regret, is that the Government have not maintained the policy of the two-Power standard. When, last November, the Prime Minister stated that the Government accepted the two-Power standard as meaning a preponderance of 10 per cent, over the combined strength in capital ships of the next two strongest powers there were a great many throughout the country who rejoiced at that statement, but they were not so satisfied when, on 27th April, 1909, the First Lord of the Admiralty, speaking on behalf of the Prime Minister, repudiated the two-Power standard by refusing to calculate in the Navy of the United States. I deeply regretted that statement, as it was bound to introduce most acute and differential feeling, and I am afraid, was very much inclined to make a great Power on the other side of the North Sea come to the conclusion that our Fleet was being built against her, instead of, as it is, being built solely for the defence of the Empire. The question we have to ask ourselves is: Have we got a two-Power standard now, and shall we have a two-Power standard in 1912? It is quite obvious at this moment that we have not got a two-Power standard. Shall we have it in 1912? Taking the return of battleships under the age of fifteen years, which the First Lord of the Admiralty gave last July, we find that Great Britain will have sixty-five battleships, Germany fifty-one, and the United States fifty-five. Germany and the United States will havs a total of 106 battleships, as against sixty-five of ours. That means that we will be forty-one short of the two-Power standard, not counting anything for a margin of safety. I must own that we must add the four "Dreadnoughts," which up to now were called the "contingent 'Dreadnoughts.'" Germany may also add more to her total. The issue is a great one, and it is especially great when we remember the words spoken a year ago by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. He said:— A new situation in this country is created by the German programme. When that programme is completed, Germany, a great, country close to our own shores, will have a fleet of thirty-three ' Dreadnoughts.' That fleet would be the most powerful the world has ever yet seen. That imposes on us the necessity, of which we are now at the beginning, of rebuilding the whole of our fleet, apart from the' Dreadnoughts ' which are in existence already. We have got to rebuild, according to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, the whole fleet. In fact in the future only "Dreadnoughts "will count, and we have to remember that the effect of the advent of "Dreadnoughts" is to reduce the life of pre-" Dreadnoughts," and make them shorter and shorter as more "Dreadnoughts" are built. The Prime Minister last January made a speech at Bath, in which he is reported to have said that we are more completely secure, so far as the defence of these shores is concerned, at this moment than at any time within the memory of living men. I cannot help thinking that the Prime Minister was a little optimistic on that occasion. If he would carry his memory back to the time when the Govern- ment came into power in 1906 he would remember that the Navy was in a better position as regards the two-Power standard than at present, or will be in 1912.

Let me turn for a moment to the Estimates before us. I say candidly I welcome them, although not satisfied. I could certainly wish that more money was to be spent on the large armoured ships. We have it that they will not be laid down until the end of the financial year. I think the right hon. Gentleman mentioned the end of this year or beginning of next year. I am glad to have it from the First Lord of the Admiralty that our destroyer programme is going to be pushed on with all speed. He told me in answer to a question that our destroyer programme of 1908–9 was not yet completed. But I understand from him, and I welcome the statement, that the Admiralty are going to push on with all speed in future. I wish I could have had some assurance from the First Lord of the Admiralty that the four "Dreadnoughts" of the German programme were not going to be finished as early as he stated. He said there was a possibility that they might be finished two months after April, 1912. When we remember our five large armoured ships are to be laid down at the end of the financial year, it is quite obvious that ours will not be ready until probably April, 1913. The First Lord of the Admiralty, speaking in this House last year, very nearly about the same date as the present, stated that no matter what the cost, the safety of the country must be assured. These words were very welcome, and we felt really that he realised the position, and that we ought to be, but were not certain that we were going to be, in a-position of absolute safety. Therefore, I cannot help expressing regret that the Government have not considered it right to go in for a Naval loan. I know that loans with the Government are not popular things, but we have certainly seen within the last few days that they are not so adverse to a policy of borrowing. When we realise what supremacy on the seas means to us, and what defeat on the seas would mean, what is the question of a few millions for a naval loan compared with the war indemnity we should be called upon to pay if we were defeated? That would amount probably to hundreds of millions. It might even amount to thousands of millions. I am aware that you cannot go to an insurance office and ask them to insure this country and the Empire, but you can insure your Empire by means of having an absolutely supreme Navy. That is the policy I am sure the whole country wants. On a supreme Navy rests the security not only of this country and its trade and commerce, but the security of the whole Empire, and I sincerely hope that steps will be taken to ensure that our supremacy on the seas will never be in danger.

Mr. T. E. HARVEY

The Noble Lord the Member for Portsmouth (Lord Charles Beresford) was good enough to credit all parties in this House with a sense of patriotism, and one welcomes such generosity on his part. But though the Noble Lord set out to cast oil on troubled waters, he seems to have been unable to resist the temptation to pour his oil on to the party bonfire and dance round its cheerful flames. Yet I think all Members of this House must feel, in discussing such a Question as this, that the issues are far too grave for us to look at them from a party standpoint, and if we remember the results of the Naval discussion last year, we feel how serious a thing it is to speak in a party spirit of such tremendous issues. It is not easy for one who speaks for the first time in this House to have, in doing so, to raise a protest against the action of the Government he supports with his whole heart. But I should not be faithful to my highest duty if I did not endeavour, not merely to protest against the line of policy which results in Estimates like these, but also at the same time to appeal to the Government and the House to see whether there is not a better way than this terrible bloodless war of armaments. It is in no niggardly or parsimonious spirit that one objects to the enormous cost. One would gladly give £40,000,000 and more for the urgent need of the nation if we felt that the money was absolutely necessary, but when one remembers at the same time that we are asked to pass this enormous Vote we are being asked for a small increase of less than £500,000 on the Education Vote, and that we have waiting the vast problem of unemployment, which must involve immense expense if it is to be dealt with in an adequate way, one feels that it is indeed a serious thing that the Treasury should be drained in this way, and that the wings of social reform should be clipped before there is an opportunity of undertaking measures that we all in our hearts feel to be absolutely necessary. It is because of that that one hesitates most of all; but one hesitates, too, because one believes that this is not the best way of dealing with the grave situation with which we are faced.

The Noble Lord the Member for Portsmouth said, and said truly, that it does not merely depend upon the goodwill of the German people whether we shall have war or peace. We have to deal in both countries, and not in Germany alone, with a great and powerful bureaucracy. Surely it should be the first duty of a democratic Government to go above the heads of the bureaucracy and to make a daring appeal to the imagination not only of this people but of the people of Germany; and I believe that if we were willing to go with a definite offer and to make that offer formally so that all the world might know it we should get a worthy response. We have not had the courage to make that offer, and because of that this enormous Vote is rendered necessary. Surely it is not too late to make a beginning. We shall be told that the path is difficult, and, indeed, it has been made difficult through our own action in the past. We may regard the growth of the German Navy, which now seems such a danger to so many here, as the direct result of our refusal to abandon the right of capture of private vessels. If we could take that step, which humanity demands, and prove our earnestness by coming to Germany with that offer, saying, "We are willing for the sake of humanity and the interests of civilisation to abandon a relic of the barbarous warfare of the past," we should give an earnest by that offer of what we meant.

We shall be told that our expert advisers are against us; but again I would plead that it is the duty of a democratic Government not merely to think of what Departments advise, but to think of great principles, and to make permanent Departments, not the Government of the country, but an instrument by which the general will may express itself. We should remember that a great soldier like Wellington, in the past, considered that the loot and pillage of a captured town was a necessary incident in war, and, if it had been left merely to the soldier to decide, the soldier still might have felt it necessary to continue that practice, though reluctant to do so. Surely this, again, is a case where the general conscience must dictate to the particular service: and for the sake of civilisation, for the sake of the future of our country, we have a right to ask a democratic Government to take a step which would be justified in the eyes of all right-thinking men. It might be said that we should fail, but I wish to appeal to the Government whether it is not worth while to make that attempt even if the immediate issue should be failure. We should be building foundations of success hereafter for another Government on some more propitious occasion, and the Government that took that step, although it might be misunderstood by its opponents, and although it might fail at the moment, would gain the gratitude of generations yet unborn.

9.0 P.M.

Mr. REES

I did not second the Amendment of the hon. Member for King's Lynn (Mr. Gibson Bowles), because, although I have great sympathy with it, I thought that this programme could not properly be described as the Noble and gallant Lord said, as a programme of driblets, but, as I think, it is a fair meeting of the requirements of the case. I did not think it right to join in putting forward any Amendment whatsoever, and though agreeing in many respects with the hon. Member for King's Lynn, I could not by any means agree with all of the arguments which he put forward, though I do very heartily express the strongest concurrence with him when he says that all these conferences and conventions for mitigating, as it is supposed, the horrors of warfare are always arranged to the detriment of this country. It is this country, which is the strongest on the sea, that has to lose by all these restrictions upon naval action in time of war. I heartily agree with the hon. Member there, and I sincerely hope that when the International Committee to which he refers does come before the House it will be very severely scrutinised before being allowed to pass through. I do not at all agree with him in his remarks in reference to Lord Desart and the Committee, as there is no one more fair or more capable than the Noble Lord. But the principle is a bad one. We who have the best Navy should be the very last to give away any advantage we have at sea.

I also disagree with the hon. Member for King's Lynn in the remarks in which he brought in a party point in his speech. He took the point of Tariff Reform or Free Trade. I think we should leave all that completely out of our Debate, regarding the Navy, as I do, as being absolutely above all these party points and a subject which both sides of the House should approach in precisely the same spirit. Besides, whether the fiscal policy of this country were Tariff Reform or Free Trade, it would be none the less necessary that most of the supplies of our country should come across the sea. For that reason it is equally imperative that we should have command of the sea, and I repudiate for my part the party point made by my right hon. Friend in his speech. He also alluded to the time occupied in building "Dreadnoughts "; but, as I understand, the Prime Minister distinctly said it took us twenty-three months to build a "Dreadnought" now, and, if so, that rather impairs the argument of my hon. Friend. Nor can I follow him where he says that the British Navy at present is strong enough to meet any two or three other navies. I believe that to be a line of argument which leads to disaster. The accidents of the sea to which he himself refers, from mines, submarines, and all these other engines of destruction, are such that it is not safe to count upon superiority of ships in the way in which he did, and I believe that we should not act as if we were equal to two or three of our competitors, but that we should do, financially or otherwise, what we can to keep our own Fleet larger than those of the two next strongest naval Powers. That, I believe, so far as I can make out, to be the object of the two-Power standard. The hon. Member I think rather misled the House in referring to the time of the Napoleonic wars and to Germany. But it was a different Germany from the Germany of to-day—wholly different from the Power which has disposed of Denmark, Austria, and France. I do not think we should be wise in taking comfort from what happened in those days, but that we should rather be occupied in adapting ourselves to the present serious position. It has been admitted by the chief Ministers who sit on that bench to be an extremely serious position. The First Lord of the Admiralty said that the programmes which had been carried out by foreign Powers were no less than those which were anticipated when we had what is called the naval scare of last year, which has been referred to. I am bound to say that I cannot reconcile that with the facts, as I understand them, regarding the action of Austria and Italy, because I believe their "Dreadnoughts" have not been laid down.

Mr. A. LEE

Two of the Italian ones have.

Mr. REES

But none of the Austrian?

Dr. MACNAMARA

No.

Mr. REES

I do not suggest for a moment that this is any reason for cutting down our programme, but there seems to me some slight disparity there, because I certainly understood, when this matter was debated in the last Parliament, that the Austrian four ships were a considerable factor in the possible combinations from the pan-Germanic point of view—a probable combination which this country in time of war might possibly have to meet. Possibly the Secretary to the Admiralty will enable us to know how exactly to reconcile these two statements. However that may be, I accept altogether the position of the First Lord, who said that what this country has to do is to provide in any year for the requirements of that year, and it is for the purpose of dealing with the present situation that this programme is proposed. I, for my part, shall give it my hearty support. I am greatly in favour of a strong Navy—I belong to that school— but I could not accept altogether the policy of my Noble Friend the Member for Portsmouth. The objection which is taken that the policy of the Government is too expensive can hardly be regarded as evidence of a perfunctory performance of one of the greatest duties of the Government. The First Lord of the Admiralty referred to the increase in the personnel, which I take to be 3,000; and I see from a statement he made in March last year that between 1904–5 and 1909–10 there was an actual decrease of 2,490 men, so that when these 3,000 extra men are engaged there is really no more than absolute equality between the number of men for the present year as compared with the number for 1904–5. During that period the German Government have increased their personnel by 15,790, the French by 4,860, and the United States by 15,305. I should like to refer for a moment to a very interesting speech made by the hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Labour party. I cannot understand why he attached such signal importance to the figures which he employed. Even if they are allowed, even if every figure that my hon. Friend put forward is accepted by the Admiralty, that does not seem to me to prove the position he put forward. Why should we go behind the actual facts? Everybody knows what the Germans have done; everybody knows the acceleration of their programme and their ability to build these monster ships as quickly as we can. Why, then, go behind those facts and base the argument on the mere fact that there is not a large increase in the number of men employed at Krupp's. The theory is that we are disregarding the signal advance which Germany is making in construction. I cannot understand why my hon. Friend speaks as if there was only one great building firm in Germany. After all, though Krupp's is the greatest, there are others, and unless we have these figures tabulated and certified, I do submit it is impossible to base anything upon them.

Mr. JOHN WARD

was understood to say that the figures in regard to Krupp's were correct.

Mr. REES

My point is that even if all these figures are correct in regard to Krupp's, it is merely a side issue, and even if the figures were established, they would not be at all material to the question before us, which is whether or not the construction provided this year is or is not required. I cannot understand how there can be any doubt as to its being required. I would not have ventured to address the House on this subject except that in the last Parliament, when strong action was taken by the "Reductionist group," if I may give them that name, I was connected with another group which opposed them, many of the members of which have been scattered, many of whom are missed very much, and I feel like a Whip without a party, for which none the less I must speak.

I only mention this to explain why it is that I feel so concerned in this matter, and why I venture amongst experts and admirals to make a few remarks to the House. The Leader of the Labour party said that political boundaries were now obliterated by the requirements of commerce and the general union of hearts which prevails all over Europe. I think political boundaries are obliterated in a very different way, and one is that which should prompt us to keep our powder dry and have the fleet ready. Looking at the map of Europe one sees that political boundaries are obliterated far more by conquest and ambition than by the march of commerce and general brotherly love, of which I do not see in the daily papers or in other directions, the slightest possible sign. The argument is that there can be no war because the people of one nation will not fight the people of another. There was no quarrel between the Japanese peasant and the Russian mujick, but they came to have the greatest war in history—a war which no other has approached in magnitude. The same thing may happen any day again, in spite of the present fair prospects. A great deal is made in the speeches which have been delivered of the speech of His Excellency the German Ambassador—a very admirable and very patriotic speech, full of the best possible feeling towards this country, which, I have no doubt, His Excellency and the country from which he comes really possess. But I cannot see there is anything in it bearing the construction that is put upon it by hon. Gentlemen who have referred to it. For instance, the Ambassador said that the German fleet was the outcome of their national aspirations. So it is. Those aspirations have led Prussia from the position of an ordinary Power to the hegemony of the Continent of Europe, and have already made her far and away the greatest military Power. The hon. Member for King's Lynn (Mr. Gibson Bowles), when I ventured to interpolate a remark, said that Germany was not overawing Europe. I am not so sure that that is not so as regards the Continent of Europe. National aspirations, the Ambassador went on to say, brought Germany into the proud position she now occupies. They are admirable remarks, but there is nothing in them to give this country such confidence that it should hesitate at all to take the steps to reinforce the Fleet by at least such measures as are proposed to the House to-day.

The hon. Member for Blackfriars also said it does not matter who "gobbled us up," who "gobbled up" any nation, and he objected to our insular view. But it does matter who gobbles whom up, because if we are not prepared, we may be one of those gobbled up. I use the hon. Member's expression, but I confess I cannot understand how that argument can be seriously laid before the House. Then he said money spent upon our ships in the programme which is before us to-day was like money thrown into the sea. I should like to know how that is so. Whenever it is proposed to reduce the number of workmen at Woolwich or any other dockyard we hear immediately the strongest objections by hon. Members on the Labour Bench. It is said it is unproductive expenditure, but everybody immediately concerned objects to the slightest reduction of it. I will go further, and say, How is this money wasted when the whole of it is spent on British labour and on British materials in Great Britain? For every "Dreadnought" that is built it takes from 1,000 to 1,500 British workmen, it costs £1,950,000, of which 70 per cent. goes in wages. Is it a bad thing for the country that ships should be constructed 70 per cent. of the cost of which are spent in British labour. That is an argument I cannot understand. Hon. Members use it collectively, but individually every one of them abandons it the moment it touches his constituency, and cries economy, economy, but not, Oh ! not in my constituency. If this money went abroad it would matter, but here we make all materials in this country, the whole of the construction is done in this country, and all the labour provided, and how can it be said of money spent in that manner that it is equivalent to being chucked into the sea. If the hon. Member were here perhaps he would be so good as to explain this. I am bound to say I entirely fail to understand it. I see that the German Admiral Von Tirpitz said that their programme is an industrial and financial business as well as a naval business. He also said, "We must prevent the works from decreasing, or from decreasing the workmen on a large scale because of the insufficiency of work." After all, the late hon. Member for Woolwich (Mr. Crooks) and Admiral Von Tirpitz arrive at pretty much the same conclusion. But why do not all the hon. Gentlemen who take that line in regard to their own constituency agree and own that money spent in building British ships by British labour in British dockyards is money not thrown in the sea, but is practically productive expenditure.

Mr. JOHN WARD

Of course it is not.

Mr. REES

Is not anything that supports the homes of this country and promotes the safety of this country productive? I should like to hear somebody meet this point. The Member for Stoke (Mr. John Ward) will be ready, I am sure, as he has on previous occasions, to crush me like an eggshell. I remember lying in wait some time for an hon. Member who, though he sat on this side, I thoroughly disagreed with. He was a scholar, and one day, above all things, he misquoted Tacitus. I said the Lord has delivered him into my hands. I lay in wait, but could not get called. One day, with some ingenuity, I was about to get in my shot, when the hon. Member for Stoke got up just in time to stop me. He said, "What has this Latin got to do with the subject before the House." The hon. Member is always ready. I have no doubt he will get up and crush me directly I sit down. I hope he will. I hope he will devote himself to elucidating this point about unproductive expenditure, and how it is collectively his friends take the different view from that which they take individually. I really should be extremely glad if he would, and I daresay other Members, too.

As regards these ships, the point to which we are looking is, what is the relative position of Germany and Great Britain by a given date in "Dreadnoughts," because it is admitted that as time goes on the Fleet will have to be evaluated in terms of "Dreadnoughts." I think it is pretty generally allowed that when once the majority of ships are "Dreadnoughts," that however fine the fleet of a previous date might be, its ships will be of no more use than those of the catalogue of the ships in Homer, once you are outclassed in this respect. So far as I understand, by the spring of 1912 there will be a German maximum of fifteen "Dreadnoughts," as against a certain twenty British "Dreadnoughts." I do not think that is at all too great a preponderance. I think there should be at least that difference, but I believe as a matter of fact that is the difference, and if it is the case I do not think for the present the Estimates are insufficient, or that the requirements of the case are not met. I sincerely hope there will always be that difference, because, although it might be thought that with our large pre-" Dreadnought "fleet we could tolerate an equality of "Dreadnoughts," a moment's consideration will show that this is by no means the case, because the Germans might have all their fleet of "Dreadnoughts" in the North Sea, whereas ours has many duties all over the world. Thus they might very well outclass us in the North Sea, although we had a greater number taking our total strength. The Noble Lord the Member for Portsmouth (Lord C. Beresford) said that we lost America through having lost for the moment the control of the sea. Some dissent was expressed from that statement, but I believe the Noble Lord was perfectly right. There were defeats on land, but if we had not lost the command of the sea those defeats could have been retrieved. I would reinforce the Noble Lord's argument by pointing out that, while the history of India is continually read and taught in this country, the fact is entirely ob- scured that the victories won by small numbers of British troops over large numbers of natives were only possible because we continually had the command of the sea.

I had put down a Motion referring to the necessity for a War Staff at the Admiralty. All sides of the House praise the Secretary of State for War for having created such a staff at the War Office, and I believe the opinion is held by those who, unlike myself, are competent to deal with this matter, that a similar step should be taken at the Admiralty. I do not intend to move that Motion, but I should be glad if the Secretary to the Admiralty would refer to the question when he replies. It is difficult to say anything with regard to what has been stated in reference to the present naval position without being accused of scaremongering. That induces me to abstain from references which I had intended to make to the speech delivered by the Foreign Secretary when the Naval Estimates were last before the House. I may say, however, that the right hon. Gentleman referred to the German programme as contemplating thirty-three "Dreadnoughts," and stated that eventually we should have to rebuild the whole of our Fleet. In the face of such a statement from so moderate a statesman as the Foreign Secretary, I am at a loss to conceive how anybody could speak about scares. It seems to me that we have there a very temperate statement by a responsible statesman, and I, for my part, am quite content to base what I have to say upon what he said.

The leader of the Socialists in Germany has stated that English anxiety, though it might be exaggerated, was perfectly genuine. I do not see any justification there for treating as trifling, and altogether ignoring, considerations which most of us feel should weigh with the House in considering the Estimates for the year. A National Liberal statesman in Germany, Herr Basserman, says that Germany can as little conclude an agreement with Great Britain regarding Naval Construction as a man could agree with a boy regarding their rate of growth. I have shown that the rate of growth of men in the German Navy was an increase of 15,790, as against a decrease of 2,490 on our part in a period of five years, which seems a very instructive commentary upon the remark of that Liberal statesman. Nor can I understand the ground on which the hon. Member for Glasgow disregarded the argument that the present expenditure on armaments is only about 3½ per cent, on our total annual income, which is not a very great insurance to pay for the safety of a great Empire.

One of the most remarkable military Writers of modern times, General Homer Lea, refers to the danger in time of war of a large proportion of foreigners who share the power without necessarily sharing the patriotism of the citizens of the country in which they are for the time domiciled. That also is a matter that we should never leave out of our minds in connection with this matter. This gentleman also calls attention to the fact that the debt of England is less now by £124,000,000 than the debt which 15,000,000 fewer population cheerfully bore half a century ago. The inference I draw from that is that, heavy as these charges for armaments are, greatly as I wish they could be reduced, much as I wish more money could be available for all the objects which my hon. Friends here have so much, although not more than the rest of us, at heart, I do not believe that the programme put forward by the Government is beyond the necessities of the case. On the contrary, I think it is perfectly clear that if this is to remain a great Empire, as its wealth, size, and population increase, it is absolutely inevitable that the cost of its insurance must go on increasing. I hope, however, it will not be to the extent foreshadowed by the Noble Lord (Lord C. Beresford), and that the Estimates will not be £60,000,000 next year. However that may be, the amount must obviously go on increasing unless we are to fall out of the race, and retreat from the position of pride and pre-eminence which we occupy in the world, a position which is due, under Providence, far more to the Navy than to any other arm or power that we have.

Sir FORTESCUE FLANNERY

I rise to offer my congratulations to the Secretary to the Admiralty that hon. Gentlemen on the benches behind him are now giving their support to the policy of the Admiralty. I must say that I felt a great sympathy for the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Admiralty in the position in which he was placed to-day. He told us the sorrow he felt in reading to us the quotation from the words of that ancient mariner two hundred years ago who was beset, as the right hon. Gentleman is beset to-day, by two contending parties. One states that he has not been supplying sufficient for the Navy, and the other states that he has been supplying too much. I must say that the position of the First Lord is one that arouses the sympathy of many hon. Gentlemen on this side of the House, because we believe, rightly or wrongly, that it is an open secret that the right hon. Gentleman advocated on behalf of the Admiralty a very much larger Naval Supply a year ago than was concurred in by the other Members of the Government. Whether that be so or not, it is not a secret, either open or closed, that the right hon. Gentleman was the first to frankly state to the country the position in which we were placed in consequence of the great preparations of another Power. Whatever be the differences of opinion in the House, I think even my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth will agree with me in saying that the country should be grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for the very frank and complete disclosures which he made a year ago, in telling us how Germany's policy was to commence building ships first and then to see about the Vote for them afterwards—when they had made such progress that foreign competitors could not overtake them after the public knowledge was first made.

There are some points in the printed statement of the right hon. Gentleman, which I think are well worthy of support, and I should like to refer to one of those points which I think reflects the greatest credit upon Admiralty administration. In the statement referred to under the heading of "Quickness of Repairs," we find it said:— The collision in which the 'Sappho' was badly damaged gave an interesting opportunity to one of the dockyards to show that celerity in repair work which might be expected under war conditions. That was a very modest statement indeed of the facts. I happened to have the duty of surveying the "Sappho," the vessel that was damaged, and I should like to state the facts to the House. The "Sappho" was beached off Dover with a hole in her side, literally large enough to drive a coach and four through. That was on 22nd June. On 24th June, two days later, she had been salved by the dockyard officials and men at Chatham, and had been brought round to Chatham; and on 29th June—that is to say within a week of the time of the casualty—the vessel had been docked, repaired, undocked, and was ready to rejoin the Fleet, as strong and as good as ever she was. I say that was a most creditable performance, and the First Lord has not at all exaggerated when he says that such a performance as that indicates very clearly what the nation may rely upon in time of war in the way of replacing vessels which are damaged, provided, of course, always that proper facilities are given by the Admiralty, and proper preparation is made in the way of docks.

There is another point upon which I should like to imitate hon. Gentlemen opposite in supporting the First Lord of the Admiralty. I do not remember that this point had been mentioned in the Debate. It is the fact that very much larger progress has been made with two of the "Dreadnoughts"—two at least— the "Hercules" and the "Colossus," than was estimated in the Estimates of last year. There was allotted £518,000 to be spent upon these two ships. As a matter of fact, over three-quarters of a million, that is to say, £768,000, have been actually spent upon them; so that we find that the acceleration of the progress upon these two important vessels has been just 50 per cent, over what was intended and voted by this House a year ago. I feel that that progress—true, in contract ships —should be noted to the credit of the Admiralty, and I will later on draw a deduction from the fact as it stands.

I find, in looking through this statement by the right hon. Gentleman, these words:— Tenders have also been obtained for the two armoured cruisers for the Government of the Commonwealth of Australia and New Zealand. A year ago Sir Joseph Ward, the Prime Minister of New Zealand, cabled — he did not write — to the Government offering them a "Dreadnought" at the cost of New Zealand. Today, twelve months afterwards, what do we find? The Admiralty are getting tenders ! Twelve months have passed, and we have reached the state, the remarkably advanced state, of getting tenders for expenditure which was offered to us a year ago by the patriotic Colony of New Zealand. No wonder that the Colonial Governments of Canada and the Commonwealth of Australia have determined to administer themselves the navies that they propose to create. Whilst the Admiralty have been getting tenders for the New Zealand naval expenditure, the Commonwealth of Australia has not only ordered, but it has actually gone so far as to launch, the first vessel in this country that it has ordered, although, unless I am very much mistaken, its policy of having a navy of its own originated about the same time as the telegram which came from New Zealand. I will recall to the recollection of the House what happened when, a year ago, the Estimates which are now expiring were introduced. A good deal of boasting was made from that bench opposite. These Estimates were £3,000,000 more than the previous Estimates, or nearly £3,000,000 —in fact, £2,800,000. And then was first disclosed that which the First Lord of the Admiralty has referred to by way of defence to-day—the starvation of the naval stores in the present Administration. These were the words which were used by the Admiralty a year ago:— For some years surplus stocks have been utilised for replacement. That was rather a euphemistic method of explaining the fact. The method of assisting in the supplying of stores by drawing upon stocks which were not replaced has evidently, according to the present year's Estimates, come entirely to an end. I find that the present year's Estimate at page 1 are these words and figures:— The value of the stores drawn from stock without replacement in aid of staff expenditure—in 1906, £1,024,000; in 1907, £1,294,000; in 1908— And here we are coming to the end of the stock:— the value is £551,000. So that the total of £2,870,000 of stores were drawn and not replaced in aid of fresh expenditure and applied to the defence of the right hon. Gentleman. And in reply to the defence of the right hon. Gentleman we have actually a statement and the testimony of an eye-witness—a witness of fact—the Noble Lord the Member for Portsmouth (Lord Charles Beresford) that there was at one time in consequence of this lack of stores a delay to one of His Majesty's ships which amounted to six months. If the Noble Lord experienced one incident of that kind how many may have arisen of which no testimony has been given? Nearly £3,000,000 of stores accumulated by the predecessors of the Government against the sudden emergency of war were used up by the present Government without replacement because they were too cowardly to go to the country and state in the eye of the country that they required the money which these stores represented in order to maintain them in case of emergency.

The First Lord of the Admiralty said that the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition was not justified in what he said in criticism of this selling of stores the other day. I venture as a humble supporter of the right hon. Gentleman to say that I believe what he uttered was absolutely and entirely justified, and that no more scandalous abuse of the functions of the Government is recorded in the history of the Admiralty than that which is shown by its stealing and taking away of the stores, which were never replaced, and which is now unblushingly described as having been done to aid the cash expenditure. We have heard a great deal to-night about the Germans. We must of necessity in discussing the naval situation hear a very great deal about the Germans. My hon. Friend the Member for Black-friars Division of Glasgow (Mr. Barnes) referred to the discussion of this subject of the German and British preparation as something of a challenge to Germany. Why, last year there was in this House a discussion so frank that it exceeded all precedents as to the possibility that might arise from naval competition between Great Britain and Germany. The German Emperor, a little later, or perhaps about the same time, said in public that he must have the Trident of the Atlantic in his fist. No offence was taken by Germany at the discussion in this House, and no offence was taken in this House at the statement made by His Majesty.

A good many years have elapsed since the epoch-making speech, which I heard in the Stranger's Gallery, made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Forest of Dean (Sir Charles Dilke). His speech was described as an epoch-making speech, and it was an epoch-making speech, because it was the speech which originated what has been described as the two-Power standard as the only standard of safety by which Great Britain could judge whether or not she was protected with regard to her naval affairs. We have had that standard confirmed, with the addition, I believe, of a 10 per cent, by the right hon. Gentleman who is at present at the head of His Majesty's Administration. That was at the Guildhall—not at the Albert Hall. Both the right hon. Gentleman's speeches at the Albert Hall and the Guildhall are alike for the misunderstanding which seems to have arisen as to what the right hon. Gentleman meant by the expressions which he used.

No public man of repute would ever dare to say anything less than a two-Power standard for Great Britain would be safe or make British interests feel that they were in a position of being properly protected. I for one do not care much for the two-keel standard. That seems to me to be in fact a challenge. If you say, "We shall have a two-Power standard with 10 per cent, addition or any other addition," our comparison would be with the two most powerful fleets for the time being of the world. Then you are indicating no particular country; but if, on the contrary, you fix one country in the national mind, and say we will watch that country, and our standard shall be two keels to her one, you are establishing a perpetual challenge which must sooner or later excite the antagonistic feelings of the people whose country you are singling out in that way. Therefore I do not support for one moment the idea of making our standard a two-keel standard in comparison with Germany. But what we are to-day debating is not as to the two-Power standard, but as to a one-Power standard. I want to give the House this little instance of personal testimony. It is twenty years or more since I first had an opportunity of seeing the German dockyard at Kiel, and even then the amount of organisation that the German Government applied to their naval preparation no man could fail to admire. It was an organisation of exquisite skill. Throughout the dockyard there were separate houses, each house on its own ground, with a name above it of the particular ship, and in each house every equipment, every munition of war that that particular ship should require, so that in fifteen minutes everything could go on board the vessel, and she could be mobilised in a few hours. Even the constructors were trained to go into the fighting line in case of need, and in all these intervening years the same system of carefully organised preparation has distinguished the German Navy as it has distinguished everything else that German people have undertaken. We heard from my Noble Friend about the armed tramps. I do not think the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Admiralty appreciated what was meant by that reference of my Noble Friend. Over all these years Germany has increased her mercantile marine by subsidies and by special Government assistance, so that the mercantile marine of Germany is now larger by far. It has bigger ships— ships more powerful than could possibly have been the case without Government assistance. Government assistance was given, so that every vessel flying the mercantile flag of Germany would be a reserve vessel in time of war. There is scarcely a tramp steamer belonging to Germany which does not carry several officials, officers or men, belonging to the German Naval Reserve. There is hardly a tramp steamer, however small, that has not got her gun fixings marked out, most of them stored ashore, so that at a moment's notice the vessels of the German mercantile marine could be fitted out and made to perform the functions of cruisers of small power to play havoc with the mercantile navy of any power with which they might be at war. What my Noble Friend (Lord Charles Beresford) meant was that in an emergency, and in the case of war breaking out, those armed tramps that happened to be in port would immedilately be fitted out with the fittings, and could be sent at once on our trade routes and would interfere enormously and dangerously with our food supply.

Mr. McKENNA

Would the hon. baronet give his authority for that statement?

Sir FORTESCUE FLANNERY

My authority is the general knowledge which exists throughout the trade to which I belong. Will he deny that all the vessels in the Hamburg American and North German Lloyd lines are not available as reserve cruisers?

Mr. McKENNA

The statement was that every German tramp had got its guns ashore.

10.0 P.M.

Sir FORTESCUE FLANNERY

My statement was that nearly every German tramp had got preparations, and nearly every such vessel had got men on board who were officers belonging to the German Naval Reserve. I make that statement believing it to be absolutely true, and if the right hon. Gentleman can disprove it either as regards the large vessels of the different lines I have named, or the smaller or more humble vessels, by all means let him do so. Reference has been made to the German Act of 1900. To show the policy of Germany in regard to her naval preparations and the comparative inanition with which we have met German naval preparations, it is only necessary to consider the expenditure upon new construction in the two countries. The First Lord of the Admiralty will remember that I ventured, in the course of his speech, to interrupt him with a question as to the cost of new construction in the comparative statement which he placed before the House. I will compare the figures as to the relative expenditure upon new construction in Great Britain and Germany. In 1904 Great Britain was spending £13,500,000 upon new construction. In the same year, Germany was spending £4,600,000; that is to say in that year Germany was spending about one-third of the amount upon new construction that Great Britain was spending. In 1905 our expenditure had gone down on new construction to £11,300,000, whereas Germany's expenditure went up to £4,900,000. In 1906, the first year that the Government of which the right hon. Gentleman is a member had charge of our expenditure, it again went down to £10,800,000, whilst Germany's expenditure had gone up to £5,300,000. In 1907 our expenditure had again fallen to £9,270,000, and Germany's had again risen to £6,280,000. In 1908 Germany's expenditure for the first time was practically equal to Great Britain's expenditure on new construction. We were spending £8,600,000 and Germany was spending £8,300,000. Those figures indicate how gradually in the course of five years Germany had crept up from a state of things when she was spending one-third of what we were spending till she was spending an equal amount.

I do not know what information the late Government had in 1905 as to the intentions of Germany, but they did leave in the Cawdor Memorandum a programme, which I cannot say was for the guidance of their successors, but which was certainly a suggestion for their successors. In that Memorandum they foreshadowed the building of four additional "Dreadnoughts" each year, and the very first administrative act in connection with the Navy of the Government opposite was to cut down that programme of "Dreadnoughts." I remember the late Secretary to the Admiralty standing at that table and stating that the Government had determined to reduce that programme, and to-day the country stands with at least three, and possibly four, "Dreadnoughts" less in being and in course of construction than would have been the case had the policy of the late Government been carried out.

Mr. McKENNA

The hon. Member is mistaken in that. There are under construction at this moment precisely the same number of "Dreadnoughts" as there would have been if the Cawdor programme had been carried out in its entirety. The only difference is that the four ships which are to be laid down by the present Government are far more powerful than the earlier ships would have been under the Cawdor programme.

Sir FORTESCUE FLANNERY

Does the right hon. Gentleman include the four "Dreadnoughts" which are to be laid down on 1st April?

Mr. McKENNA

Certainly. The hon. Member for King's Lynn (Mr. Gibson Bowles) drew attention to the fact that the date of the laying down of the keel is quite immaterial; the real date of the construction of the ship is the date when the orders for the gun-mountings and material and machinery are given. Those dates are already long passed, and a great deal of money has been spent on those ships.

Sir FORTESCUE FLANNERY

The House understands that, but let me point out that, in order to justify the statement the right hon. Gentleman has made, and in order to contradict the statement I made, that we are four "Dreadnoughts" less in being and in building, he has to take refuge in ships which, according to programme, are not to be laid down until April next, and are scarcely advanced at all. If, then, the keels are not yet laid—

Mr. McKENNA

The building of the hull is not the part of the building which takes the longest time. That is a material factor in building ships.

Sir FORTESCUE FLANNERY

I knew that quite as soon as the right hon. Gentleman. I would say, in parenthesis, I compliment the right hon. Gentleman upon the eight months during which the slips had been occupied in the case of two vessels. I quite appreciate the great advantage of preparing everything beforehand and occupying a slip for as little time as possible. But I want to say that in consequence of the reduction by the Government of which the right hon. Gentleman is a Member, of those four "Dreadnoughts," which were projected by the Government of 1905, when they went out of office, we stand to-day with four "Dreadnoughts," less in being and in construction, unless you include amongst them the four that are to be laid down on 1st April next. Although preparations are advanced, they are not yet laid down. I do not see how the right hon. Gentleman can contradict that. I am not seeking to bandy words with the right hon. Gentleman, but the essence of my point is this: one "Dread- nought" was withdrawn in 1906; otherwise to-day it would be flying the flag, and now you have to find, as a substitute for her, a vessel which has not yet been laid down. Again, for the vessel which would have been laid down in 1907, and would to-day be flying a flag you have to find a substitute in a vessel on the 1st April not yet laid down. Therefore I say we should have had two additional "Dreadnoughts" flying the flag at the present moment had the programme of 1905 been carried out. Some reference has been made by the hon. Member for the Blackfriars Division of Glasgow (Mr. Barnes) to The Hague Conference and to the efforts of the Government on behalf of a mutual reduction of armaments. I do not believe that the Government are in the least degree to blame in that matter. The late Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, with whose humanitarian sympathies we all agree, advocated a scheme of mutual arrangement for disarmament, and he sent to The Hague Conference the fullest possible representation in the hope that some mutual arrangement might be brought about. But although the Government were thoroughly to be supported in that, they ought to have taken, as I hold, more active steps when their overtures were refused, as they were refused, in the frankest manner, by the German Government, who refused to limit their armaments under any system whatever. On the contrary, the Government continued their policy of ordering ships first and then having the guns, gun-mountings and other appurtenances got ready, instead of doing as the Germans do, without public sanction or knowledge, advancing enormously the construction of their vessels, and then asking Parliament to vote the money. Our system is just the reverse. We come to this House, talk about the ships, and, after we have voted them—some months afterwards—we proceed to get in tenders. I am not speaking of what the right hon. Gentleman has done latterly, but I am speaking of the general practice. Some months after the voting has been accomplished we begin to build the ships. In this we present an extreme contrast to the German system. I do not want to refer further to the question of the vessels that have already been mentioned, the battleships which are outclassed—the obsolete vessels—but I do believe that there is a great consensus of opinion that vessels of the "Dreadnought" class, plus the "Invincible," are the only vessels which can form a standard of comparison of naval strength. The present Director of Naval Construction, Sir Philip Watt, had the genius to evolve a vessel—a "Dreadnought"—so far in advance of any previous design in power of defence and of offence that in the opinion of the whole of the Navy no comparison and no doubt whatever can exist as to a vessel of that class overcoming a battleship even of the most advanced type built immediately before it. That is the consensus of opinion in the British Navy.

I want to ask the right hon. Gentleman for a piece of information which no doubt he has in his possession, but which, so far, has not been brought out in this Debate. What is the size and power of the later German "Dreadnoughts "? A rumour goes about that they have a displacement of 22,500 tons. I have no source of official information about that, but I do know that the largest vessel that is named in the Estimates of Great Britain is 19,900 tons displacement. If it be the case that Germany has a vessel building which will advance to a displacement of 22,500, and one of 19,000, and two of 20,000, then it is evident that, in addition to the outclassing and out-pacing as to progress about which the right hon. Gentleman told the House last year, we have this year been outclassed in regard to size. That, however, is not a statement which I have any authority for making, but no doubt it is the duty of the right hon. Gentleman to advise us whether the rumour is justified or not. A good deal has been said as to the comparative state of the two countries in the years 1912 and 1913, and I have to the best of my ability compared the "Dreadnoughts" of the two countries. To my mind it seems that the time of anxiety is not so much 1912 or 1913, but really is 1911. According to the best computation that I can make, England at the present time has commissioned eight "Dreadnoughts" plus one "Invincible," and she expects to commission this month two additional vessels, the "St. Vincent" and the "Collingwood," and she expects to commission about twelve months from now between January and March, 1911, two vessels, the "Neptune" and the "Indefatigable"; that is to say, in twelve months from now there will be twelve capital ships flying the British flag. The hon. Gentleman the Member for King's Lynn (Mr. Gibson Bowles) asked the right hon. Gentleman as to the progress of the German vessels, but his inquiries did not push the matter to the full extreme. May I be permitted to push my inquiries to the full extent? I suggest that the four vessels, the "Nassau," the "Westfalen, the "Rheinland," and the "Posen," are either in commission or ready for war. Four other "Dreadnoughts" are to be completed this month, and then there are to be completed in March, 1911, three vessels, two of them not named, the "G" and the "H" and the third the "Von der Tann." So that, if this list is right, against the twelve capital ships flying the British flag this day twelve months, there would be eleven capital ships flying the German flag, and if that is a fulfilment in practice of the two-Power standard, having regard to the fleet of the United States as well, I should feel very doubtful if the country would be satisfied. I should be only too glad if the statement I am suggesting is not correct, but it is right that the country should know whether it is correct or not. I noticed that in his statement the right hon. Gentleman jumped from the present time to the year 1912, and seemed to be very carefully skipping the year 1911.

If the advice which was tendered to the Government a year ago by the Leader of the Opposition at the Guildhall had been acted upon, the public mind would to-day have been very much better satisfied and very much more at rest. My right hon. Friend said, when this disclosure of last year's Estimates was made, that the only safe policy was to build without a day's delay. Let these four contingent "Dreadnoughts" be started at once instead of practically being started on 1st April. If that had been done, we should to-day have had four "Dreadnoughts" more, half-finished, than there are at the present time. We should, a year hence, when this comparison between the two countries becomes acute, have had four more "Dreadnoughts" practically complete, probably sufficiently complete to be of service in case of emergency, than we shall have, and the public mind would have been far better satisfied, and the feeling of the House, I believe, would be very much quieted and encouraged in comparison with what it is at present.

I should like to be informed why there is not to be greater progress upon the five vessels which are in this year's Estimates. Is the limitation of £1,400,000, which is to be spent on them, due to financial or to physical causes? Is it because the right hon. Gentleman does not think he ought to ask this House for more money in respect of these five vessels, or is it because the possible provision of guns and gun-mounting is not sufficiently great to advance in the same ratio as the greater expenditure on the hulls of the vessels? If that is the explanation, then I think the right hon. Gentleman and the Admiralty are to blame for not having made better provision by enlarging the gun-factory possibilities of the country. I have tried to be as fair as possible. I have not sought to make a point against the Admiralty which was not justified, and if the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues can give an assurance that the reasons for not advancing these vessels further were merely financial reasons, and not because there was not sufficient provision for guns and gun-mounting, I am sure the House will receive such a statement with perfect satisfaction. Prince Henry of Prussia, who recently visited this country, is reported in this morning's papers to have said:— I spoke with many persons of authority, and can aver that I gained the impression that sincere and honourable fueling prevails towards us in England, and that there is absolutely no idea of aggression in English Government circles. In my opinion this feeling is mutual. Every attempt should be made to strengthen mutual confidence between the two Powers. The expression—confidence for confidence—applies here. Those who stood shoulder to shoulder with the English out in the Far East will have learned that the interests of both sides can only be promoted by mutual confidence. These words are worthy of record in the archives of the British Parliament, and by their quotation they are recorded in the archives of the British Parliament. Mutual confidence between the peoples of the two countries is the basis of peace, and added to that basis must be that mutual confidence which arises from respect proceeding from equal and adequate preparation for the worst that might happen.

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Dr. Macnamara)

Perhaps I may be permitted to endeavour to reply to some of the criticisms which have been offered during the Debate. First of all, with regard to the comment of the hon. Member for Fareham (Mr. Arthur Lee) that the Estimates, although better than he feared they would be, did not in some respects come up to what he thinks necessary. I confess that I do not think there is any reason for apprehension, and it appears to me that the use of the word "fear" is a little out of place. It has been suggested that there is an air of unreality about the Estimates, particu- larly with regard to the five new ships, and that the financial provision is of a somewhat farcical nature. The hon. Member seemed to desire to put them into the category in which last year's four contingent ships were placed, having regard to the provision made for them. He and the Noble Lord the Member for Portsmouth (Lord Charles Beresford) and the Member for the Maldon Division of Essex (Sir Fortescue Flannery) all questioned very much indeed the provision we are making in these Estimates for the execution of the new programme of this year within the financial year. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that the provision we are making for these five new ships has nothing whatever to do with failure of guns and gun-mountings to keep pace with the other provisions for the ships. I think we are meeting the situation clearly and fully and with a view to getting the very best expenditure and the most scientific development, which he will understand, for every penny we spend on these ships.

With regard to the proposition that we really ought to put more money for the construction of these ships in this year's Estimates, let me point out to the Noble Lord particularly, that the total estimated cost of the ships in this new programme when they are all completed will be £14,183,950—that is the total cost of the new programme, and of that we shall spend in the present financial year 10.1 per cent. If that is said to be too scanty and farcical, and not to meet the situation I would ask the House to look back. Take 1901–02. Of the ultimate total cost of that year's programme there was provided, in the financial year, money to execute 5.1 per cent, as against our 10.1. In 1902–03 there was provided 10.7 per cent, of the cost of the total programme of that year. In 1903–04 the proportion was 9.5, and in 1904–05 the proportion was 8.4 per cent., while in 1905–06 the proportion was 13.8 per cent. I do not wish to put this matter at all in a party way, but we have had a good deal of party recrimination, and I am bound to point out that during the last five years of the late Government the mean provision made for the execution in the year of the programme of the year was not 10.1 but 9.5 per cent., so that by way of contrast it will be seen that the provision now made is not so farcical as has been said. There have been some remarks about the two-Power standard by the hon. Member for Fareham and the Noble Lord. I really should like the position as between them and others cleared up. The hon. Member for Fareham promptly contradicted me the other day in the Debate on the Supplementary Estimate when I referred to him as an advocate of what is called the two keels to one standard. I confess I was surprised, but I accepted the statement. I have refreshed my memory by turning to the Debate of 13th July, 1908, and I proceed to read the statement of the hon. Member:— His personal belief was" — he has never carried it beyond that, I admit— that the two-Power standard was best translated as the twice one-Power standard, and that, the only safe course for us was to lay down, or, what was more important, to complete for service, two capital ships for every one that our chief naval rival might be possessed of at any given time. I really thought when I said he was in favour of laying down two keels to one that I was fairly paraphrasing his statement.

Mr. ARTHUR LEE

I think the two keels to one standard is a very excellent standard, but the standard officially adopted on this side of the House is the two-Power standard and, therefore, I support it.

Dr. MACNAMARA

But what I said— and it is within the recollection of the House—was that the hon. Gentleman had undoubtedly considered and supported, so far as he was concerned, the policy of two keels to one, and he flatly contradicted me. I have read what he said. Now I proceed to the Noble Lord the Member for Portsmouth. He made a calculation in his historic programme before the London Chamber of Commerce on 30th June.

Lord CHARLES BERESFORD

It will be adopted by and by.

Dr. MACNAMARA

We shall see. The Member for Fareham's statement was that we ought to lay down and complete for service two capital ships for each capital ship of our chief naval rival. The Noble Lord, in setting forth his programme took the position on 31st March, that in 1914 we shall have in "Dreadnoughts" and pre-" Dreadnoughts"sixty-six, as against Germany's forty-one "Dreadnoughts" and pre-"Dreadnoughts," and he regarded that as sufficient.

Lord CHARLES BERESFORD

I beg your pardon. I never said anything about two to one, and I described those who advocated that policy as "wild men."

Dr. MACNAMARA

I accept what the Noble Lord states, but what he said was that when we collected our "Dreadnoughts" and pre-" Dreadnoughts" in 1914 we should have sixty-six as against Germany's forty-one, and he regarded that as sufficient. He went on:— What do the wild men want? They want us to lay down two to one for every ship of the ' Dreadnought ' class Germany laid down. Then the Noble Lord added what he has not added to-night:— There is no lunacy I have ever heard so great as that. You had better make it up among yourselves. I confess the Noble Lord's speech a little disappointed me, for, if I may say so, it had many splashes but not many hits. After the statements which he made in the country I do not mind telling him that I came down to this House to-day with something approaching fear and trembling as to what his utterances might be, and I felt that Ministers were in for a very bad time when he got up. Because he said at North Shields, on 14th December, 1909, the Navy had been run for four years in the interests of personal and party motives. Shortly afterwards, at Tonbridge, he said—and the two statements are a little in conflict—that it was a question of keeping an efficient Navy and forgetting their rotten politics. Then the Noble Lord, afterwards, at Dorset, on 27th January, said he wanted to pulverise Ministers who stated that the Navy was in an efficient state; and at Lowestoft he said he hoped to get all the frauds out presently. I must say his speech to-night leaves something to be desired in the way of pulverisation. I do not think his torpedoes had their war-heads on to-night. That is the only explanation I can give. We have in this programme five battleships, and the Noble Lord in the course of his speech seemed to think that was insufficient. At the London Chamber of Commerce he said:— I want ten battleships by the 31st March, 1914, and if the contingent four battleships are laid down I want six. The four vessels have been laid down, and they are no longer contingent. Therefore the Noble Lord only wants six.

Lord CHARLES BERESFORD

Read on. I said that is not subject to any German acceleration, in which case I wanted ten. I wanted six this year, six next year, and the four that ought to have been built last year. We are one short of what I wanted.

Dr. MACNAMARA

I will read it from the Noble Lord's programme:— My programme is as follows: Ten battleships—I put battleships, they are what are called 'Dreadnoughts.' In that ten is included the four which the country is asking for now when they ask for eight, the Government have now suggested four. If they put down eight I only want six. If they do not put down eight I want ten. That is all. We put the four down and there are only six left. There are two programmes to get that in—1910–11, 1911–12 —so that the Noble Lord's programme would be secured by laying three down each year. We have got five in one year and he is not satisfied.

Lord CHARLES BERESFORD

Oh, no.

Dr. MACNAMARA

Really, the Noble Lord must remember this is in black and white.

Lord CHARLES BERESFORD

Yes, there it is in black and white.

Dr. MACNAMARA

I am quoting from the report in "The Times." Let me put this to the Noble Lord, this great programme of 30th June, 1909, provided for twenty-four ante-destroyers, but if I heard his speech rightly he now wants twelve ante-destroyers.

Lord CHARLES BERESFORD

Twelve in each year, or twenty-four altogether.

Dr. MACNAMARA

The same applies to the fifty-two torpedo-boat destroyers.

Lord CHARLES BERESFORD

I want twenty-six each year.

Dr. MACNAMARA

Twenty-eight.

Lord CHARLES BERESFORD

Twenty-six.

Dr. MACNAMARA

All I can say is that certainly the Noble Lord has no cause whatever to complain of this programme of our Battleship Commission.

Lord CHARLES BERESFORD

No. I do not complain.

Dr. MACNAMARA

I am rather relieved to hear that.

Lord CHARLES BERESFORD

I said so.

Dr. MACNAMARA

All I hope is that we shall have no more statements on the public platform that we have let down the British Navy. A charge like that is extremely odious to men who love their country quite as much as the Noble Lord. The Noble Lord referred to stores. Statements as to stores are made on the platform and are extremely misleading. It has been generally suggested that in our rather nefarious sort of way we have been living on stores, depleting stores to the vital detriment of the fighting efficiency of this force. Let me put the facts about the stores and I think the Noble Lord will be obliged. At the close of 1904 and the beginning of 1905 a very great change was made in Admiralty policy. There were 150 ships scrapped.

Lord CHARLES BERESFORD

No; only eighty-eight.

Dr. MACNAMARA

The Noble Lord had better read Lord Cawdor's statement. In a speech at Glasgow on 12th January, 1905, the Leader of the Opposition referred to it, and when I say scrapped, I mean they were taken off the Active List.

Lord CHARLES BERESFORD

Eighteen of them were put on again.

Dr. MACNAMARA

They were withdrawn, but; the term is not mine. The Leader of the Opposition certainly went to Glasgow, and he said—I do not quite remember the number—but I think it was 130 ships scrapped, and by a "courageous stroke of the pen "was the phrase. I quite recognise the fact that some of them were afterwards put on. When the Noble Lord complains, as he did, about the weakening of the trade routes, amidst cheers, let them remember that if those trade routes are weakened they were weakened by that policy. The Noble Lord agrees with that, I think?

Lord CHARLES BERESFORD

assented.

Dr. MACNAMARA

Then hon. Gentlemen amongst whom he sits are subject to condemnation. They certainly cheered his denunciation of work which was done by their own party. One hundred and fifty ships were withdrawn, though some of them were, I admit, afterwards returned for other purposes, certain foreign stations were closed, certain others were reduced, and the standard of reserves of certain stores was reduced. Respecting that policy I should like the Noble Lord to hear this, because he has said in public that it is we who scrapped these ships—

Lord C. BERESFORD

Never.

Dr. MACNAMARA

I think I have the Noble Lord's speech.

Lord C. BERESFORD

I could not say what was not true.

Dr. MACNAMARA

At Pembroke Dock, 20th December, 1909:— This Government— —that is the present Government— scrapped 150 ships.

Lord C. BERESFORD

I never said anything of the sort.

Dr. MACNAMARA

I am quoting from "The Times," 1st January, 1910. Again, at Grimsby:— They— —that is this Government— had scrapped 154 vessels.

Lord C. BERESFORD

No, I never said that.

Dr. MACNAMARA

I believe the Noble Lord took exception in some journal to "The Times" report of the Pembroke Dock speech, but not of the Grimsby speech, as far as I know: They had scrapped 154 ships—

Lord C. BERESFORD

I never said that.

Dr. MACNAMARA

And that was a policy of the Unionists also— Did the Noble Lord say that? —which was a mistake.

Lord C. BERESFORD

It was the Unionists who scrapped them.

Dr. MACNAMARA

Now we have it definitely from the Noble Lord, and it will be a great advantage to us to know that it was the Unionists.

Lord C. BERESFORD

It was the Admiralty. Read the whole Report.

Dr. MACNAMARA

I do not think the Noble Lord corrected the Grimsby report.

Lord C. BERESFORD

I never said what was not true. "They" meant the Admiralty.

Dr. MACNAMARA

With regard to the policy of the scrapping of ships, the closing of certain stations, the reducing of others, the redistribution of the Fleet, and the nucleus crew system, the Leader of the Opposition went to Glasgow on 12th January, 1905, and made this statement. Remember, we have been denounced for living by depleting stores without replacing— I think myself that a great reform. I do not think its magnitude has been yet fully realised by the public, but, as time goes on, I think they will feel that of all the reforms that have taken place since the time of Nelson this is perhaps the biggest that has yet been made. I think it is a little severe that we should be charged, as we undoubtedly have been. If the Noble Lord says that he has not made the charge against us I accept his statement at once, but, at any rate, it has been made by persons of less care and accuracy than the Noble Lord. With regard to the value of the stores drawn without replacement, these are the facts:—In 1905–6 there were £786,850; in 1906–7, £1,024,200; in 1907–8, £1,294,802; in 1908–9, £555,125; while for the present year I have not got the complete figures, but for 1909–10 the Estimate is £156,000, and in the present year's Estimate we propose to draw without replacement £20,800. With regard to the reduction of the reserve stores, that, again, is a matter upon which complaints have been made. Lord Cawdor's statement, on 30th November, 1905, gave an exposition of Admiralty policy. He said:— A general revision of reserves has taken place, and clearance of obsolete stock is in progress. Arrangements for the supply of essential stores in time of war or other emergency have been developed, and the saving of the storage of large reserves in Government buildings for emergency in quantities out of all proportion to turnover is thus avoided. We show in the Appropriation Account on 31st March, 1909, the value of the stock that we then had. I say that the Admiralty policy of Lord Cawdor in 1904–5 was enthusiastically agreed to by the Leader of the Opposition at Glasgow in December, 1905. The value of the reserve stores was fixed on the recommendation of the Naval Establishments Inquiry Committee, and that recommendation was approved by the Board in November and December, 1905. With one exception which Lord Tweed-mouth made with regard to the victualling stores, we are to-day following the policy then laid down. The Noble Lord opposite (Lord Charles Beresford) took part in the discussion at the Royal United Service Institution on 26th February, 1902. He said this:— Then there are the stores. There is not a ship in the Service now that does not carry tons of stores that the officers know they will never be able to use; never use after action, and never probably use unless they went to dockyard to test them. Why do they carry these in their ships? The stores will not save you going to the bottom; they will probably send yon to the bottom quicker through having them on board. That is our case, or part of it. That was Lord Cawdor's case. He reduced the standard of reserves of stores, and we here had the felicity of agreeing with him and of carrying out his policy.

Lord CHARLES BERESFORD

I will explain it.

Dr. MACNAMARA

I should rather have thought that Lord Cawdor, in his 1905 Navy Estimates, in the matter of the reserve stores, might possibly have had the Noble Lord's comment in his mind. I have only one other thing to say; that is when the House has agreed that the Speaker do leave the Chair, that in Committee upon the Vote it has been the general practice of having a general debate. Ample opportunity will be afforded on Vote "A" to continue the general discussion on these rather interesting problems to-morrow, and I hope, therefore, I may now ask the House to agree to the Motion that Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair.

Question put, and agreed to.