§ The whole of the material for shipbuilding and the particular specifications required are rolled and allotted in accordance with the fluctuating demands of shipbuilding, of the various other War industries and of our Allies, and the actual sections and plates required either for manufacture or repair jobs, either in this country or abroad, have to be ordered for the yards by a central department when required, but not long in advance, otherwise stocks accumulate. There must be a central control. There is not enough to go round, and all this has to be co-ordinated. Without this the shipbuilding community would be entirely powerless. The same thing applies to practically all raw materials, machine tools, and machinery, and I am sure hon. Members who have had experience of existing conditions will know that it is totally out of the question to leave any industry to run by itself today. The chronological demands of our yards have to be synchronised with output and import, with the demands of our other War Departments, and with the demands of our Allies' yards abroad for materials, spares, and machines—for marine engines and auxiliary machinery—and such central control, though irritating and vexing, is absolutely unavoidable. A shipbuilder expecting and promised a bit of plant or ship's auxiliary machinery fails to get it, and immediately assumes incompetence and maladministration, and he says so very plainly. But the truth is that a counterpart has possibly been sunk en route to, say, Malta, and a battleship is awaiting completion of refit, so the transfer is made. The Department which is accused of incompetence cannot even give its reasons, because, if it did, the enemy would know that a certain battleship was out of commission. I give this as an instance to show the House the sort of difficulties to be met and the ramifications of the control which is absolutely essential.
§ So far for the figures: though I think and hope they are better than was expected, they are not sufficient to meet the concern of the country at the present time; and although up to the end of last year I claim that the state of affairs justified my confidence that matters were going well, the disappointing results—and I would lay stress upon the fact that I have deliberately explained those disappointing results to the House before—the disappointing results in January and 1027 February give justifiable cause for anxiety and inquiry. I fully realise, however, that when extra efforts are called for from employers and employés, the organisation at the top should command the confidence of this House and the country, and without that confidence the best results cannot be obtained. It is my endeavour, as I shall show later, to obtain that confidence, even if I cannot admit that the lack of confidence was justifiable.
§ I would ask the House to allow me to go a little into the history of this matter. At the beginning of last year, when the intense submarine warfare began, and the shipping position was obviously becoming one of great and increasing importance, the production of shipping was placed in the hands of an Advisory Committee of Shipbuilders attached to the Department of the Shipping Controller. It was found, however, at every stage that there was a competition with Admiralty interests. The Admiralty were represented in almost all the shipyards; the Admiralty had a very large staff and control over ship-plates and angles, and over material, including engines and auxiliary machinery. The Government therefore decided not to duplicate staff and create competing Departments, but to bring the two together and make one authority responsible for the production of warships, including auxiliary craft and merchant ships. That was done in order to give merchant ships a fair chance with warships, so that the two Departments should not compete. In order to safeguard merchant shipping, however, competing programmes had to be adjudicated by the War Cabinet, and the Controller of Shipping and Admiralty Controller had the right of direct access to the Cabinet on matters connected with output of merchant ships.
§ There is a suggestion that the Navy and Board of Admiralty is an ungenerous stepmother to merchant shipbuilding. That is really entirely unjust. I wish I could give the figures and facts without giving information to the enemy, but I can only assert most emphatically that the Naval Service, since I have been at the Admiralty, now nine months, has consistently given great interest and assistance to merchant shipbuilding, and has voluntarily on occasions subordinated its own naval interests to the merchant shipping problem. I would like still further to impress upon the House the deep and 1028 active interest the Board of Admiralty takes in merchant shipbuilding by reciting recent events. As the House knows, the high-water mark of output of November was not reached in December last year, the drop being from 158,000 to 112,000 tons. I would ask the House to observe what happened On the 14th January the Maintenance Committee, which, at its weekly meetings, consider the main features of merchant ship production, steel supply, etc., called the attention of the Board to the drop in output for December, the Controller most strongly urging the necessity for publication of figures. Thereafter the matter was considered by the Board and special Committee meetings on the 17th January, 24th February, 3rd February, 7th February, and 8th February; and after most exhaustive consideration of the whole question, a statement was forwarded to the War Cabinet recommending the publication of the actual figures, and recommending the War Cabinet to approach the Allies forthwith. As the House now know, that was done. It was not, however, until the Supreme War Council meetings in London last week that complete unanimity was arrived at and that I was enabled to-day to give the figures. I hope I may be forgiven for having quoted what has happened in this case. I have done so merely to show that the Admiralty has consistently taken an interest in merchant shipbuilding.