HL Deb 11 February 1936 vol 99 cc512-29

LORD STRABOLGI had given Notice that he would move to resolve, That in the opinion of this House it is desirable that there should be a full inquiry by Royal Commission, or other suitable body, into the organisation, equipment and control of His Majesty's Fighting Forces especially in view of the proposed increased expenditure on these Forces; and would move for Papers.

The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion that stands on the Paper in my name. Whatever other result it has, I believe we shall have the pleasure of the maiden speech in this House of the noble Viscount, Lord Mon-sell. I begin my few remarks with the customary salute on these occasions and welcome him to our Chamber, which I am sure he will adorn. Indeed it is quite like old times to see him sitting opposite again. As this Motion also concerns the other noble Viscount who has been recruited to our ranks, Lord Swinton, may I also welcome him on behalf of my noble friends and myself? Certainly, from my own point of view, it is a good thing to have two Defence Ministers in your Lordships' House, and I am sure both noble Viscounts will be of great assistance in the very important debates we have in front of us if all one hears is true.

I can relieve the anxieties of any one who thinks I am going to speak too long, by saying that my explanation will not raise the question of the need for a Ministry of Defence, which has been debated in your Lordships' House before. It will not raise the question of the Chiefs of Staff Committee or anything of that kind, not even the reorganisation of the Committee of Imperial Defence, because I consider at the present time the urgency is too great for us to wait for any such great constitutional change. There are serious anxieties felt outside as to whether the proposed rearmament, which will entail, I understand, a very large sum, is going to proceed on the right lines. There was a remarkable leading article in The Times of yesterday which no doubt the First Lord of the Admiralty saw. The Times is not a paper that supports me and my friends as a rule, but that article really contains the motive of what I have in mind in moving this Motion. This is What the article said: It would be a mistake to disregard the widespread uncertainty among the public over the value of the different Services and arms. For years they have been subjected to a bombardment of arguments concerning the effect of the newer means on the older—on 'bombs and battleships,' on battle and blockade, on air attack and air defence, on gas and high explosive. No large-scale programme can now be adopted without raising large questions of a broadly technical nature; and vital issues depend on the answers. I must also mention there was a remarkable series of articles in another paper with which I do not usually see eye to eye, the Morning Post, dealing with the three Services, pointing out great defects in them, and urging drastic reorganisation of them.

No reorganisation of Cabinet Committees will really satisfy this body of opinion for whom I am trying to speak to-day. Our anxieties will not be relieved by the appointment of that great strategist and master of precise English, the Lord President of the Council, as a kind of super co-ordinating Minister. That will not satisfy those who feel anxieties about the trend of this rearmament programme of the Government. Why is it that we cannot be satisfied with the old methods of procedure? Because of three great changes which have been brought about. First of all, in the development and growth of the air arm. I need not dwell on that point. I have only to mention it for your Lordships to grasp what we have all in mind. Regarding the role of the Army in any future trouble, the application of the petrol engine, the internal combustion engine, to land fighting and the development of mechanical weapons—the tank and so on—as well as to military transport has brought about a decisive change. My military friends assure me that the application of the internal combustion engine has altered the whole func tion and method of using an Army on land. Thirdly—this is both a political and strategical question—there is the development of the collective system through the League of Nations.

I submit that it is no longer true to say that we have to consider ourselves as a unit and defend ourselves alone against any possible attack. We are now part of a vast alliance of fifty-nine nations. I accept the Government's plea that they are supporting the League and all that the Covenant of the League stands for, and therefore in that case we can rely on allies if we are attacked. For example, in the Mediterranean, according to the White Paper recently issued, we ought to be able to count in ease of trouble, on France, Turkey, Greece, Spain and Yugoslavia as allies, and on the benevolent neutrality of the other States Members. I suggest that that third development has altered the whole problem of Imperial strategy and has created a new state of affairs altogether. The danger that alarms so many people is that we are about to be committed in the next few weeks to a vast expenditure on so-called rearmament, either by loan or taxes—I do not know which and I am not going to inquire at this stage—or by a disguised inflation in the form of the manipulation of Treasury Bills and so on, and there will be grounds for doubt as to whether the money will be expended to the best possible advantage.

I am making no sort of attack on the two noble Lords who speak for their two great Departments of State in your Lordships' House. I am sure that they and the Secretary of State for War will give the best advice they can to the Cabinet on these problems, but I do suggest that, with the best will in the world, accepting the views of their carefully chosen professional assistants, that advice is not unbiased as things are to-day. I go further and suggest that there is a terrible responsibility on the Defence Ministers to-day, which I am sure they realise as much as any of us. They take the advice of their professional advisers, and I am not suggesting that they should do anything else; but it is also a fact that there is a convention to-day amongst the hierarchy of the three Services that they never criticise each other's proposals. It simply is not done. It would be unthinkable, for example, for the Chief of the General Staff to criticise anything proposed by the Board of Admiralty or the First Sea Lord (the Chief of the Naval Staff) or the Chief of the Air Staff. They do their best, each in his own sphere, but they support each other, and it is not etiquette, if I might put it that way, for these high officers to question any proposal or any suggestion made by the heads of sister Services.

I am speaking perfectly impersonally, but suppose I myself were a member of the Cabinet to-day, not the head of one of the Defence Ministries, I would welcome, with this terrible responsibility, an independent inquiry such as I propose in my Motion. It comes to this, that what I propose is something on the lines of the Esher Committee after the South African War, to inquire into the three Services together and decide on one or two problems which I will briefly describe to your Lordships. I want the strongest and ablest Committee available under an independent Chairman, and I believe that you have the wealth of experience, of prestige and of knowledge in this country that could man a small strong Committee of the kind I have in mind. I consider that we ought to make this inquiry before we commit ourselves to a great programme of rearmament.

I am not talking about filling up certain immediate gaps this year. The Admiralty, for example, have a year's grace before they have finally to decide to lay down the keels of new battleships. Under the present Treaty I think they are precluded from doing that until the end of the present year. That gives a year's breathing space. As your Lordships know, it is usual to order equipment before you lay down keels. I do not want to see ourselves committed to vast sums ranging from £200,000,000 to £300,000,000 or £400,000,000 (figures stated freely in newspapers which support the present Government) spread over a period of from five to seven years. In fact, I have seen it stated in one influential quarter that it is proposed to spend £300,000,000, raised by loan or by manipulating Treasury Bills, to be expended in, I think, three years. If we make such a vast expenditure and then find that part of the money has gone in wrong directions, or might have been better spent in other directions, it will be nothing short of a grave national disaster.

On what is it proposed to spend this money? I am not in the secrets of any-of the Service Departments, and I can only gather what I can from pronouncements of Ministers and from statements in the Press. The Admiralty is proposing to replace the ships now growing obsolete or considered obsolete, by new and similar vessels and to increase the cruiser fleet. The Air Council is committed under their programme, which has been adopted by successive Governments for a number of years now, to create a striking force equal to the nearest Air Force within flying distance. This may be to-day France or Germany—I do not know which has the strongest Air Force. It may be some even stronger air power in the future. But in any case that will mean very great expenditure. The Army Council, I understand, is going still further to mechanise the Army and to provide more anti-tank and antiaircraft artillery. What all this is going to cost I certainly do not pretend to know. The only figure that I will hazard to your Lordships is what a mere policy of replacement would cost for the Royal Navy and the addition to the cruiser fleet which the Admiralty are now claiming to make up for the drop of the programme of twenty extra cruisers when the Labour Government were in office.

Suppose we simply replace the present vessels with vessels of equivalent size and power. I do not want to anticipate any results of the present Naval Conference because I know nothing about it. All I have heard is that the noble Viscount, Lord Monsell, makes an excellent Chairman of Committee A. But simply to replace the existing fleet that has grown old would run us into figures something like this: Eleven capital ships at about £8,000,000 each; twenty trade route cruisers at about £2,000,000 each; fourteen new cruisers to replace obsolete vessels, say about the same amount, £2,000,000 each—this depends of course on whether we can get a reduction in size by agreement; this is only an illustration—forty torpedo boat destroyers at about £500,000 each; and forty-five replace destroyers at about the same figure each. That works out at £198,500,000, nearly £200,000,000. If the sum required for replacement is of that order, I submit that we really should consider cer- tarn problems before the country is committed to them. It may be said: "Well, the Government are issuing a White Paper in a month's time and they will tell us a good deal in that White Paper." But when that White Paper is issued it will be too late; it will be chose jugée; the Government will have committed themselves and, without great loss of prestige, they will not be able to alter their programme, And that figure of replacements does not include submarines—I still hope that the First Lord will persuade the nations of the world to give up that abominable weapon—nor aircraft carriers nor mine sweepers. Therefore it is a very conservative and modest estimate. You need, in addition, more personnel to man your extra cruisers, and there is to be expenditure on naval bases also. Altogether the figure is colossal. And that is for the Navy only.

I do not venture on any estimate of what the proposed expenditure on the other two Services will be; but I would like to say very seriously indeed to your Lordships that as far as I have been able to make out the present tendency is to prepare to defend ourselves in case of a war. What kind of a war? A war, I am afraid, like the last Great War. Now if there is one thing we can be absolutely certain about, it is that if another great war comes to plague the world it will be utterly different from the last war. We have a national habit of always preparing for the last war. When we started the Crimean War there were bitter complaints that we were using tactics developed in the Peninsular War. When we began the South African War we were using the tactics of the Crimean War, and in the Great War we began, at any rate, with equipment and ideas very largely based on the South African War. We are still doing the same thing in our preparations. If another great war does come to plague the world, I am afraid that unless we alter we may have a rude awakening.

Now the noble Viscount, the First Lord of the Admiralty, may counter this by saying: "Oh, yes, but your Party"—meaning the Labour Party—" always oppose any armaments and you are responsible for the present weakness of the Forces." It is the sort of thing we hear on the hustings, although of course it will not be put quite so crudely here as on a political platform. Let me deal with that briefly but, I hope, completely. The official policy of the Labour Party, which I am authorised to state on behalf of the Leader of the Party in another place, the policy which has been supported by the great majority of my Party over and over again, is that we are prepared to vote for the credits for the necessary armaments to enable this country to play her part, but no more than her part, in a system of collective security. We are prepared to do that, but we want to be sure that the expenditure is in the right direction. For that reason I venture to make this suggestion to your Lordships, that we should have either a Royal Commission or some other suitable body to inquire into the whole question and report the facts.

It will be admitted that there are very acute differences of professional opinion, not confined to any one of the three Services or to any one nation, on this subject. I do not propose to give any opinion of my own on those differences, and I do not want the noble Viscount to think that I am suggesting this or that type of armament. I would not be so presumptuous. But I think he will admit that there are considerable differences of opinion, respectable differences of opinion, not confined to one Service and not confined to one nation. Let me deal first with naval weapons. There are acute differences of opinion there between our own Naval Staff and the Americans. The Americans, from what I can gather, demand a battleship of a minimum tonnage of 35,000. They say that is the minimum size which can be efficiently protected against air attack. I understand that our Admiralty has been prepared to recommend a limitation of 20,000 tons. The Japanese, who, after all, are efficient seamen and certainly efficient strategists, were prepared to agree to the abolition of all ships of the line above 10,000 tons in size. There at once is a very serious difference of opinion. And there is in this country a school that would agree, if everyone else agrees, that 10,000 tons is quite enough for a ship of the line.

Now with regard to air attack. On April 4 last year the noble Viscount made a most interesting speech, if I may say so, in a very sympathetic atmosphere at the annual dinner of the naval architects. No doubt they cheered him to the echo. If I may summarise what he said, it was to the effect that the air menace against warships, particularly battleships, was exaggerated, and that the battleship was still the pivot of our defence. I do not think I have misrepresented the noble Viscount's argument. He was not alone, of course, in putting forward that opinion, for the White Paper issued last March, Command Paper No. 4827, which has been debated in your Lordships' House, says that the capital ship—a horrible and misleading expression which really means nothing— remains the essential element upon which the whole structure of our naval strategy depends. That is what is said in the White Paper. But if the pivot has to be kept out of the range of aircraft, I suggest we are in rather a bad way.

In the same speech the noble Viscount quoted the American Naval Board findings after the 1925 experiments in the United States—namely, that the battleship had not been rendered obsolete by air attack. The extraordinary thing about these experiments is that they are used both by the airmen to justify their contention and by the Admirals to justify their contention. In the Congressional Report this conclusion is stated: It will be difficult, if not impossible, to build any type of vessel of sufficient strength to withstand the destructive force that can be obtained with the largest bombs that aeroplanes may be able to carry. Great experiments were carried out by the United States in 1921 and 1925. As far as I know they are the only really large-scale experiments that have been attempted. Since then there have been great advances in aeronautical engineering. I should like to ask the noble Viscount, if he feels able to answer the question, whether we have carried out any large-scale experiments under practical conditions. I certainly have not heard of them. We have carried out practices, but nothing like the sort of experiments carried out by the Americans. If we have not done that I suggest that we might use up two or three of our aged battleships, which are due for scrapping, in making such experiments. It may be cheaper in the long run.

There is much talk about the latest anti-aircraft guns, and I am quite pre- pared to believe that they are wonderful weapons. I can only take my information from the published catalogue of Messrs. Vickers, which goes all over the world. They illustrate a wonderful gun and give its performance. It sounds marvellous. I would like to ask your Lordships to consider these figures. A Super-Dreadnought costs £8,000,000. A large multi-engined bombing aeroplane, with a three hundred miles radius, costs £8,000 or thereabouts. Therefore, for the cost of one Dreadnought battleship you can build one thousand very large aeroplanes. I admit that the battleship lasts much longer, but, on the other hand, you can build new aeroplanes much quicker, and if you have the personnel and the organisation you can replace your Air Force again and again before you can begin to make progress with a new battleship. Suppose a squadron of six battleships was attacked by 6,000 bombing aeroplanes, or even by only 4,000 bombers with a thousand other aircraft to lay smoke-screens and a thousand fighters to guard the bombers. I do not know how skilful our gunners might prove themselves, but if they could bring down one quarter of the attackers I think they would be doing marvellously well. I can imagine that a squadron of battleships, however powerfully armed, would be obliterated by such an attack with modern bombs filled with the explosive and incendiary substances now available. As I say, there may be a very good answer to this, and it may not be in the public interest to give that answer publicly. Very well, but let the matter be investigated by an absolutely impartial and strong body so that it may be ascertained where the truth lies. I do not ask for the true information myself. I only want the Cabinet to be informed of the truth.

I will only deal briefly with the other questions of acute professional difference which should be investigated impartially. In the first place, there is the defence of bases, and that applies not only to the Navy but to the other Services as well. Is it really possible to defend your bases against determined air attack, and, if so, how? My latest information is that we are not in the future to rely so much on fighter and interceptor aeroplanes to shoot down attackers in the air as on anti-aircraft guns mounted on land. I do not know, but it is a fact that six months after the happy speech of the noble Viscount to the naval architects our Mediterranean Fleet left Malta, and the general opinion of the man in the street in this country was that it was healthier for our ships to leave Malta because of its exposure to air attack in case of trouble. Remember the Italian Air Force is not very formidable as yet. The Italians have spent a great deal of money on the older weapons. As for the alleged threat to our ships in the Eastern Mediterranean, I ventured in our last debate on Abyssinian affairs to state that I thought the danger was much exaggerated, and I could give reasons here again. But, however that may be, the alleged threat seems to have brought about a sudden change of course in our high policy which ended in the helmsman, Sir Samuel Hoare, being put on the beach. Whatever the foundation for the optimism of the First Lord on this whole question of the defence of war vessels against air attack—and I am sure it is well founded and that he honestly holds it—there is at the same time both respectable and well-informed naval, military and air opinion which combats this optimism.

I hesitate to say anything about this, but there are also acute differences with regard to the Army. There is certainly apparently something very wrong with the Army, as I shall show in a minute. In the last ten years, Army Votes have been between £36,000,000 and £44,000,000 a year, and yet we are told that the Army is lacking in the most essential equipment. I do not propose to express any opinion with regard to the professional debate as to how far we should mechanise or whether we are justified or not in still spending a million pounds a year on the cavalry. There is no doubt a very good case for cavalry; in fact, I rather think that the recent experience from Abyssinia seems to show that an Army can be over- mechanised. But I think there is something very wrong indeed when a member of your Lordships' House of such great military experience as Lord Allenby could write in the public Press last November the following extraordinary statement.

This is what the noble Viscount the Field Marshal had to say: The majority of our tank units are still equipped with vehicles which cannot be regarded as fit for a modern European war. The Army is lacking in anti-tank weapons. The same is true of other items of equipment. And then may I draw your Lordships' attention to these words, because so many of you have played, and are playing, a great part in building up the Territorial Army? The state of the Territorials is immeasurably worse. The Territorial Army to-day possesses no tanks at all. This is from Lord Allenby. I think that is an astonishing state of affairs, after the money that has been spent year after year on the Army. We are also told on very high authority that the Air Force is relatively weak, and there has been an outpouring of statements from Ministers, from the Prime Minister downwards, to the effect that the Navy is weak, obsolete and inefficient.

I am not proposing this Commission with the intention of seeking ground for the impeachment of His Majesty's Ministers. I want to make that perfectly clear. I see the former War Minister in his place, and the noble Viscount on the Woolsack was a War Minister before him; I want to make it immediately clear that I have no intention of seeking to impeach them. Indeed, they may have a most excellent defence; but I should like that defence made before the sort of Commission I have in mind. This question is too serious to be left to be settled by the present methods. Before we rush into a vast programme of increased armaments, I hope that we should be sure that the money will be spent to the best advantage of this country as a State Member of the League of Nations, and therefore in the interests of world peace. I beg to move.

Moved to resolve, That in the opinion of this House it is desirable that there should be a full inquiry by Royal Commission, or other suitable body, into the organisation, equipment and control of His Majesty's Fighting Forces, especially in view of the proposed increased expenditure on these Forces.—(Lord Strabolgi.)

THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (VISCOUNT MONSELL)

My Lords, it is with considerable trepidation that I address the House for the first time, especially from this Bench. Since last November, when I made what I may call a bowing acquaintance with your Lordships' House, I have been occupied as Chairman of the Naval Conference, and my time has been rather more than completely occupied. I have therefore not had any opportunity of studying the manners and methods of your 'Lordships' House, and so I beg, if I transgress, that you will grant me clemency.

The noble Lord whose Motion we are now discussing has made a speech of great topical interest. He has covered a great deal of land, sea and air, but what he wants to do is, I think, what His Majesty's Government want to do: to get the closest co-operation possible between all the Services, and to get the greatest efficiency possible in those Services themselves. I am sure, however, that the noble Lord will not be surprised when I tell him that the Government cannot accept the extremely wide Commission of inquiry for which he has asked to go into "the organisation, equipment and control of His Majesty's fighting forces." The noble Lord opposite instanced the Esher Committee, but a much better analogy is the Hartington Commission that was held in 1889. That Commission only dealt with a portion of what the noble Lord wants dealt with, and yet it took a year and a half to report. I do not know whether the noble Lord realises how long this Commission, with its great width, would take to report: I think it would be at least two or three years before it rendered its report to the Cabinet. And, my Lords, in the opinion of the Government we cannot wait for our deficiencies to be made good. I think it will probably be the opinion of this House as a whole that we have delayed too long already. We have stayed our hands after the eleventh hour, in the hope that other nations would follow our example. They have not. We are bound to put our deficiencies right, and I think the great majority of people in this country think we have already taken sufficient risk in so delaying. That is the first reason why the Government cannot accept the Motion of the noble Lord: because we cannot have any more delay.

The second reason is the question of personnel. Where are you going to find the men who could usefully sit on this Commission and tell our professional sailors, soldiers and airmen what equipment they should have, how they should be organised, and how they should fight? We must remember that these professional sailors, soldiers and airmen have risen to the top of their professions and are able to command the best talent of their respective Services on their staffs. They have at their backs our incomparable Civil Service, and they can and do seek the knowledge of the best brains, the best scientists, the best technicians in the country. Moreover, they are the people who will have the supreme responsibility of directing and operating our Defence Services in time of war. Sir William Robertson once remarked to Sir Maurice Hankey during the last War that he could invent a hundred ways of winning the War so long as he had not to be responsible for carrying them out. The Royal Commission which the noble Lord suggests would, I submit, divorce advice from the responsibility for carrying out advice, a divorce which has been proved over and over again to be fatal.

The third reason why the Government cannot accept the Motion is that the work which the noble Lord asks for has been done, and the inquiry that he asks for has been carried out, by the proper people—namely, those responsible for it. They have been continually engaged—not merely during the sittings of a Royal Commission but continually engaged—in the study of our defensive problems. This morning I tried to make out a list of the number of meetings that had been held on this subject since I had been at the Admiralty. The figures are very big. Apart from the Cabinets, which I have not counted and upon whose agenda defence very often figures, there have been over 120 special Cabinet Committee meetings dealing with defence problems. The Committee of Imperial Defence and its numerous Sub-Committees have held over 880 meetings on these defence problems; seventy-four of which have been dealing with the very important business of the principal supply officers and industrial organisation. Your Lordships will see that altogether over 1,000 meetings have been held dealing with the very subjects upon which the noble Lord is asking information, and which have been dealt with, I submit, by the people who have got to use these weapons and who must have the responsibility in a war.

LORD MOTTISTONE

What is the period to which the noble Viscount refers?

VISCOUNT MONSELL

The period of the last Government—four years. My Lords, the noble Lord opposite mentioned several things as examples of his reasons for wishing to have an inquiry, but I think he made his principal example a question to which he says reference was made in The Times yesterday—that old controversy of what he called bombs versus battleships. I think it is a bad example for the noble Lord to bring forward, because nobody is able to give a final answer to-day. There can be no realistic test, no final decision on this question until—please God we never have it—we have a war because, until aircraft carrying personnel are fired at there can be no realism at all in this matter What one can safely predict is that from a, modern fleet—I would draw your Lordships' attention to the fact that in this controversy a battleship is assumed to be alone and isolated, whereas in fact it is nothing of the sort—there will be a terrific concentration of anti-aircraft fire. This controversy, I submit to this House, if it is a controversy designed to see whether we should have battleships or aircraft, is a barren controversy, because we are absolutely obliged to have both—both for our defence and for any contribution we may make to collective security.

I think, my Lords, there are few people in this country who would advocate this country alone abolishing capital ships. The noble Lord, I understand, does not like the term, but capital ships includes battleships and battle cruisers. No country shows the slightest sign of doing away with capital ships, and I would remind your Lordships that at this moment there are seven of these vessels being built in Europe, four of them of the largest size allowed under the Washington Treaty. If I may give your Lordships just two examples why it is impossible to do away with the capital ships I will take the example of the last War. Our Battle Fleet in the North Sea was able to prevent the German Fleet from getting out into the Atlantic on to our trade routes. If we had had no battleships nothing on earth could have prevented the German Fleet from getting out into the Atlantic and destroying our trade and lighter forces at leisure. We, with our lighter forces, would never have been able to bring theta to action. That is an example from home waters. With regard to the question of wider defence, and the defence of our Empire in any distant waters your Lordships may like to think of, if we had not capital ships in those distant waters our lighter forces, our bases, and our territory would be at, the mercy of the enemy who had those capital ships.

We certainly do not underrate the immense offensive power of aircraft. We realise very well that they greatly add to our problems and that they must hamper our movements just as mine fields and submarines hamper our movements, but all I say and all I said at the naval architects' dinner was "please do not exaggerate." Let us look at these matters in the right perspective. As a matter of fact the potency of the latest weapon invented has always been exaggerated. If we go back to the Middle Ages we find that at one of the Lateran Councils the crossbow was solemnly outlawed as a weapon hateful in the sight of God. Later, we have had the torpedo boat, the destroyer, and the submarine, and as each has appeared the British fleet has been completely sunk on paper by the amateur experts, to their complete satisfaction. The modern battleship can discharge, in rough figures, about 1,000 shells weighing nearly a ton in one and a half hours. And a modern battleship therefore has to be built to withstand this tremendous attack. A modern battleship has also to be constructed to stand great explosions of the highest form of explosive under water. And so the bomb is not really a new problem. It simply means a re-arrangement. It means that where vertical armour did in the old days you now want horizontal armour. It means that where horizontal guns in the old days were sufficient you now want gulls that fire vertically. And I can say that we are more than satisfied with the progress we are making in anti-aircraft guns.

The noble Lord referred again to my speech at the naval architects' dinner, and to the finding of the United States Naval Board, and he quoted something from that. Well, it must be a curious document, and no wonder that both sides in this very barren controversy find comfort from it, if it was quoted correctly by the noble Lord. But I have never seen that portion in the Navy Board's Report that was quoted by the noble Lord. I have here some quotations from the Report that appeared after those experiments, published in April, 1925. The Board, after full consideration of all the experiments, actually recorded its conclusions in the following terms: It cannot be said therefore that air attack has rendered the battleship obsolete. It also said: The battleship is the element of ultimate force in the Fleet, and all other elements are contributory to the fulfilment of its function as the final arbiter in sea power. And that is the opinion of America today. It is the opinion also of all other countries; we are not alone in thinking that. And it is interesting to note that when the French laid down their two new battle cruisers the other day M. Piétri was then Minister of Defence; the Italians have laid down two new ships, and, as everybody knows, the three Services in Italy are under the head of a single Minister; while Germany is building battleships to-day, and Germany also has a Minister of Defence.

The noble Lord asked what experiments we have been carrying out, and he admits that we have perhaps been carrying out some experiments; but I noticed in a very interesting article which he wrote, I think in the Nineteenth Century of this month, that he stated that we had carried out no experiments at all, and that the last experiments on a large scale were carried out by the United States a great many years ago.

LORD STRABOLGI

No large-scale experiments.

VISCOUNT MONSELL

No large-scale experiments. I am sure that the noble Lord was quite unintentionally misleading the public, and incidentally he paid a tremendous tribute to the secrecy, or the non-talkativeness, of a great number of people in the Navy, in the Civil Service, and in the Air Force, who lately have taken part in a great number of large-scale experiments. I agree with the noble Lord that the public have a right to know if the Admiralty have carried out sufficient experiments to enable them to provide adequate protection against the air menace, both by anti-aircraft armament and by hull construction. These experiments have been carried out. They naturally have been secret experiments, but in the opinion of the Admiralty we have now by those experiments adequate information for the construction of the modern battleship. There were a great many other questions that the noble Lord opposite raised. I think they would be best dealt with when we get the White Paper on defence matters. I hope that the noble Lord will think that his speech and my reply have adequately ventilated this subject for the moment, and for the moment only, and that he will not press his Motion.

LORD MOTTISTONE

My Lords, I do not wish to detain your Lordships except to say, first of all, with what pleasure we listened to the First Lord making his first speech in this House—one of the best speeches I have ever heard on this subject, either in this House or the other. We hope we shall very often hear him. The only point I would make is that I think he got the best of my noble friend who moved this Motion in pointing out that a Royal Commission or other appropriate body would of course delay what we all now know to be so urgent, so of course that is not a solution. But I feel bound to say—and I know that the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, will agree—that there is an uneasy feeling in the public mind that, though it may well be that the Chiefs of Staffs Committee and other bodies have got co-ordination between the Services to a better pitch than before, the fault lies without a doubt at the very top. The head of the Committee of Imperial Defence under our Constitution at present is the Prime Minister. I claim—and I know that Lord Salisbury would claim, because he has said so in this House again and again—that at the head of all this we must have a man who gives his whole time to it. It is a whole-time job, and we must have a man, and he must be a Minister, who will give his whole time to it. Having said that, I hope that my noble friend will not press his Motion to a Division, because I think that a good answer has been made by the First Lord of the Admiralty.

LORD STRABOLGI

My Lords, I should like to be allowed also to congratulate the noble Viscount the First Lord of the Admiralty, on his maiden speech in this House, and I am sure your Lordships ought to be most grateful to me for having instigated it. I also desire to thank him for the very full and adequate reply, from his point of view, that he gave to me, and for dealing with toe questions I have raised. I will follow the advice of the noble Lord who has just sat down and will not press fie Motion. May I just be allowed to say this? I did not intend that this Commission should tell the soldiers and sailors what they needed, but I wanted a Commission with adequate time to examine the programmes and the plans of the Defence Departments and to have them justified; because, if I may give only one example to your Lordships, it should be a Commission with plenty of time and the necessary knowledge of affairs and experience to get the noble Lord and his advisers to explain how they propose to use the large battleships in certain possible wars with certain allies and so on. I think that would be a most interesting study. I do not know whether the noble Lord can reply to me, but I would very much like to know how they propose to do it.

The fact that all these other Naval Staffs also propose to go on building big battleships does not answer the question at all A very gallant Admiral and an old friend of mine, who said at Geneva at the world Disarmament Conference that to the British Navy battleships were more precious than rubies, was really telling the whole truth. They are like the Peeress's rubies, used on a special occasion perhaps once a year, and the rest of the time kept in a safe. But, because she has rubies, all the others roust have rubies, too. Fashion is followed in these matters also. As to the fighting justification for large battleships, I should like to have had the whole subject thoroughly thrashed out, but that is a very large question, and we need not go into it now. I desire leave to withdraw my Motion.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.