§ LORD STRICKLAND rose to ask whether His Majesty's Government will consider favourably a recommendation submitted by the Government of Malta, that plans and estimates for breakwaters at Marsa Scirocco Bay, Malta, prepared by the chief engineer of that Administration, may be checked and revised as proposed by experts selected by the Admiralty as a step towards—what was described by the Minister for Air last year—making Malta the Clapham Junction of the Air; and to move for Papers.
§ The noble Lord said: My Lords, in a debate last year my noble friend the Secretary of State for Air recorded the happy phrase that Malta was destined by nature to become the Clapham Junction of the Air, and he hoped that this consummation would some day be realised. It may interest your Lordships to hear what has happened in the interval to bring that consummation more within the range of practical politics. The estimate of £25,000,000 for converting Marsa Scirocco Bay into a suitable landing place for flying boats, which was probably prepared by a facetious bureaucrat to adorn as it did the pages of Punch, has been checked most carefully by the chief engineer and the staff of the Malta Public Works Department on data ascertained in the building of a breakwater on the neighbouring Island of Gozo, and it is now established that the correct estimate is not £25,000,000 but £3,012,000, after allowing for contingencies, machinery, roads, quarries, and so forth.
996§ Another factor in bringing this work more within the range of the works necessary for Imperial Defence is the so-called Naval Agreement, conspicuous for the disagreement which it has brought into prominence between two great Mediterranean Powers. If that disagreement, which centres upon the natural wealth of Tunisia as a desirable place for the over-flow of European populations, leads up to a crisis through the pacific penetration of the rapidly breeding flow of emigrants from Southern Italy overwhelming the non-multiplication of French colonists, we may have the making of a war and when that danger comes we shall either have to become belligerents or neutrals. If belligerents, we shall find that Malta is, hopelessly unprepared. If we are neutral we shall find that Malta can only be approached through the air by flying-boats; because other craft heavier than air will be unable to cross France or Italy.
§ Flying boats have now reached the stage of development when they can carry as many as a hundred passengers, and there is one on Lake Constance, built by the Germans, with 12 engines. On the other hand, other aircraft have to alight on three points, which must also be resilient, and experiments have shown that fifteen tons is the maximum weight that can be put upon the three points. Flying-boats can land on four-fifths of the area of the world. Other aircraft have to land on selected and specially prepared places, and therefore it is evident that, if Great Britain is to hold in the air any position comparable to her place as the greatest maritime Power, then we must be alive in preparing for the landing of flying-boats at strategic centres, and above all in one principal place of arms outside England. It takes time to prepare and adapt these suitable alighting places. It will take ten years to build the breakwaters at Marsa Scirocco Bay.
§ Another point of interest in the consideration of this question is the decision to go on working on the naval base at Singapore, or rather to go on spending a little money from time to time by way of not dropping this scheme. If the Singapore base can as facing the Pacific be compared to Southampton in reference to the Atlantic and if Malta is to be compared to Clapham Junction in reference to Singapore, it is of little use 997 spending money on Singapore when Malta, as the Clapham Junction of air-communication, is bereft of protected alighting areas and overcrowded with shipping. The Naval Agreement has not diminished the overcrowding of the harbours of Malta. The Naval Agreement or Treaty, or whatever else it may or may not be, has shifted the principal centre of naval strategy, and Air Force strategy goes with it, back again to Malta. The harbour of Malta is as crowded now as it has ever been, and so we hope it will continue for some time. The pressure is so great for mooring space that, with the best of goodwill, waters hitherto set aside by cherished agreements for use for commercial purposes are constantly and inevitably encroached upon by naval craft. The building of the breakwater at Marsa Scirocco Bay would put an end to that really serious and otherwise burning grievance, and would provide an anchorage for destroyers and other craft now crowded together in the harbours at Valetta.
§ There is a twin necessity in this matter. There is a naval necessity as well as an Air Force necessity. It is perfectly true that to ask for money from either Navy or Air Force Votes to the tune of £3,000,000, or £300,000 a year for ten years, is not a proposition likely to obtain a favourable response today from my noble friends on the Treasury Bench, and to-day I shall be satisfied if the scheme is not excommunicated. It is too good to be damned, and it should be remembered that there are certain features in the communications between the nations that are based on the configuration of the earth. The preeminence of certain centres is ordained by nature, and depends upon the law of the survival of the fittest. There was 3,000 years of talk before the Suez Canal was constructed. A Pharaoh of Egypt had to give up digging because the sand absorbed the water, and "to save his face" he bargained with a Phoenician admiral to bring his Red Sea ships round into the Nile. Heredotus says of the Admiral who asserted that, when going round the Cape, the sun was on his right-hand side, that if others believed the lie ho did not. It would be equally incredible to-day if the present Government were to show too much sympathy, and much less produce the money for the 998 immediate construction of this breakwater, but it is one of those things, ordained by nature, which is to be.
§ Great Britain will have either to go on with naval and military defence on an established and adequate basis, with a reasonable appreciation of modern inventions, or we must give it up; and whether we continue to be a naval and military Power, or whether we lapse into the position which satisfied Portugal 150 years ago, or Holland achieved a little later, the expenditure on making Malta the Clapham Junction of the air would not be wasted. The £3,000,000 spent on making Malta the principal Mediterranean centre of air traffic will produce prosperity and reward the outlay of capital. It will add to the glory of England to the end of time. The cost will be less than the cast of a cruiser, which twelve years hence, when this breakwater is finished, would have to be scrapped.
§ In conclusion, I have only one point to repeat and emphasise, which is that the future development of long distance air traffic must be by flying boat. We have neglected that branch of aircraft construction, but that branch of aircraft construction when it receives due attention will be useless, unless we provide places where alighting is easy and safe. We have neglected all these things in comparison to other nations, closing our eyes to expenditure which is inevitable. A few days ago I flew from England to Tunis. There I observed most businesslike flying boats subsidised by the French and Italian Governments—only 210 miles from Malta but without any air line. We can fly to Marseilles at no greater cost than travelling by the P. & O. express, and the ticket to Tunis by air is less than £20. And so far on account of diarchical difficulties in Malta we have done nothing, nothing, nothing. There is a naval school of thought which holds that Malta is indefensible in wartime against air attacks, except by counterattack by air. Where are our preparations for that sort of defence? They are very inadequate. We have few flying boats, none of which is able to fly to Tunis. If Malta becomes the Clapham Junction of the Air there will be on the spot much of the material for a rapid development on the outbreak of war. But 999 the policy of our Governments has of late been never to prepare for war, to wait till the eve of wax, to accumulate perhaps credit and sinking funds in time of peace, and to be able to tax and to squander money like water in hasty preparation when war comes. I hope that, as far as the flying boat base in Malta is concerned, there will be foresight and imagination and that the support for that project will year by year increase as its necessity is better understood.
§ THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR AIR (LORD THOMSON)My Lords, the request of the noble Lord, Lord Strickland, may, I think, be divided under two headings—the Clapham Junction aspect, and the Imperial and strategical aspect. I will deal with the Clapham Junction aspect first. It is perfectly true that I said to the noble Lord on one occasion, and I think in this House, that Malta might well one day be the Clapham Junction of the Air, but if that happy state of affairs should eventuate the principal beneficiary will be Malta itself and the inhabitants of Malta, who should therefore be prepared to contribute handsomely to so desirable a consummation. I notice in the communications put up from Malta through the noble Lord that there is no reference to Maltese participation in paying for this Clapham Junction of the Air. On the contrary, whereas I was wrong in stating that this breakwater would cost £12,000,000, I find that an Admiralty figure puts it at £3,000,000, and I find that the Maltese surveyor puts it at £3,012,451 10s. 10d. While that figure is set down with such meticulous care, I find that the Maltese contribution to that large sum is only £100—a fee to the surveyor. I am most desirous of assisting the development of aviation throughout the Mediterranean, and I am one of the first to recognise the important part that Malta might play in that development; but I think it would be more becoming on the part of the inhabitants of Malta if, while expressing this passionate desire to improve themselves, they were also prepared to put their hands in their pockets to a somewhat larger extent than £100 out of £3,012,451 10s. 10d.
Now for the strategical and Imperial aspect of the question. That, if I may say so with all respect to the noble Lord, has been somewhat misrepresented. It 1000 is perfectly true that Malta possesses very great intrinsic value from the strategical point of view, and the matter is being investigated. But the noble Lord himself has brought up this question already once, and on that occasion he stressed the economic side rather more than the strategic side. Whether it would be worth while to spend this large sum of money merely to have a seaplane base—an additional seaplane base, I should point out—in Malta is a matter for very mature consideration. You cannot plunge into expenditure of that kind merely as a luxury: the necessity has to be proved. And, though it would be highly convenient for visitors to Malta to be able to land by seaplane, I do not know that that should really influence His Majesty's Government in reaching a decision.
I can say this. Admittedly there is congestion in Malta. There are not sufficient aerodromes, and it would be very convenient to have an extra seaplane base. But from expressing that opinion to being able to assure the noble Lord that the money would be spent at the rate of £300,000 a year for ten years is a very great way. And, though I cannot promise him that he will get an answer to his question in the immediate future, I can assure him that he will get it before 3,000 years are past in any case, and that the matter is now being considered from its strategic and Imperial aspects. The noble Lord has asked for Papers. I really do not know what Papers I can lay which would satisfy him. He has had access, I have no doubt, in the past to most of the Papers in this connection. If there is any further information I can give him I should be delighted to do so, provided it is in the public interest.
§ LORD STRICKLANDMy Lords, the Papers that I hoped would be selected for publication are the plans and estimates for converting Marsa Scirocco Bay into the Clapham Junction of the Air. I do not mind if in the Estimate the 10s. 10d. is left out. The argument of the noble Lord is, may I say, of a somewhat captious character. We are told that Malta offers to contribute towards this great scheme nothing but £100. The £100 may be compared to a sprat to catch a whale.
§ LORD THOMSONHear, hear.
§ LORD STRICKLAND£100 is offered by the Government of Malta to obtain through the Admiralty a critical and, were it possible, a destructive report upon the plans and estimates prepared by the chief engineer of the Government of Malta. When the breakwater at Valetta was about to be built the same procedure was followed. The Admiralty accepted the offer of £100 and obtained the advice of Messrs. Goode, Sons and Mathews, then famed as breakwater specialists of high repute, and upon that report the interest of members of both Houses of the Imperial Parliament was awakened to the necessity of building the Valetta breakwater, which was invaluable during the Great War. It is a step on the hard road we have to tread to get rid of the difficulties—or, may be, the obstructions—on the road to achievement. But if the Maltese are told that they are contributing nothing but the plans and £100 the popular reply would be: "We are contributing the magnificent site known as Marsa Scirocco Bay." It is true Malta belongs to the Empire as much as it belongs to all or any of His Majesty's subjects, but nevertheless the fact that nature has endowed that Island with an invaluable site is held by the sons of the soil to be a gift which is most uncommon and unique in the whole Mediterranean, for the facilities it offers for being transformed into the Clapham Junction of the Air. Such a contribution is, in the opinion of the exponents of popular thought in Malta, a contribution of inestimable value. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion for Papers.
§ Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.