HL Deb 26 July 1937 vol 106 cc967-80

Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.

THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (EARL STANHOPE)

My Lords, your Lordships will remember that the Treaty of Naval Limitation, signed at Washington in 1922, and the London Naval Treaty, signed in 1930, came to an end on December 31, 1936. In order to carry out the terms of those two Treaties it was necessary to pass an Act requiring firms engaged in building warships to obtain a licence from the Admiralty before undertaking such work and to furnish to the Admiralty full particulars of the warships upon which work was being undertaken. Such an Act was passed in 1923 and again in 1930. The Bill now before your Lordships' House imposes a similar obligation in regard to the London Naval Treaty of 1936. If the House approves of this Bill, the Government propose to ratify forthwith the London Naval Treaty of last year, and therefore the debate on this Bill enables your Lordships to discuss the London Naval Treaty if you so desire. The Treaty was first of all published sixteen months ago in Command Paper No. 5136, and it was also explained in a memorandum, Command Paper 5137, at the same time. I should therefore imagine that your Lordships would not wish me to go into its details or to give any further information about it, although I shall be very glad to try to answer questions which may be raised during the debate.

Perhaps, however, the House might like to know the present position of the London Naval Treaty: who has signed it and who has not, and so on. Your Lordships may remember that the Conference began in November, 1935, between what I might describe for the moment as five Powers: the United States, France, Italy, Japan and the British Empire. Japan, quite early in the proceedings, announced her desire—indeed, her demand—for the recognition of her right to complete equality of total tonnage with that possessed by any other Power. That was discussed by the other nations there, and they were unable to agree to grant such a request in view of Japan's more limited defensive requirements than those possessed by several of the other nations attending, amongst others ourselves. When that was announced Japan thereupon, to every- body's regret, walked cut of the Conference and took no further part in it, and indeed reserved to herself the right to build whatever number of ships she desired and of whatever type she desired. She has, however, told us through the diplomatic channel that she has no intention of starting a naval armaments race. The fact remains that in March of this year she notified us that she was not prepared to agree to the limitation of a 14-inch gun in capital ships, and as a result the United States have also stated that they intend to arm their new capital ships with 16-inch guns, as is allowed under the Treaty, in place of the 14-inch gun which everybody agreed to adopt, and Japan is not precluded from going above that limit.

The Treaty was signed by the representatives of the United States, France, Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and India. Italy unfortunately did not sign. Your Lordships will remember that at that time the difficulty in regard to Abyssinia and the League of Nations was in full operation, and Italy was not prepared at that moment to sign any international agreement. In view of the fact, however, that her representative was among those who contributed extremely valuable work in getting the Treaty brought into shape, there is still considerable hope that perhaps, when other nations have ratified, Italy may also be prepared to sign and to agree to bring into force, as far as she is concerned, a Treaty with the framing of which she had so much to do. The United States ratified the Treaty in May of last year, and France ratified it just over a month ago, on June 24 of this year. We propose, as I have already stated, to ratify the Treaty as soon as your Lordships agree to the present Bill—if you do. I understand that the other British signatories intend to ratify it also. From that moment the Treaty will come into full effect.

As soon as the Treaty was signed last year we approached Germany and asked whether she was willing to make a bilateral agreement with us on the same lines as the London Naval Treaty. She said, quite legitimately—and, indeed, as we should have done in her place—that she was quite prepared to do so provided that the other great Baltic Power, Russia, also accepted similar obligations. As a result of that, simultaneous but separate negotiations took place between ourselves and Germany and between ourselves and Russia, and I am glad to say that they have both come to a successful conclusion, and bilateral Treaties were signed between us and those two nations on July 17, which is just over a week ago. They have been published in Command Papers Nos. 5518 and 5519, but perhaps your Lordships might like me to state very briefly the difference between those Agreements and the. London Naval Treaty.

The Soviet Government are concerned with the naval situation in the Far East, where Russia faces Japan, who, as I have already stated, is not a party to the Treaty. The Soviet Government therefore stipulated that they should not be bound to communicate information of their naval forces in the Far East, nor particulars of any ships they might build in the Far East, unless and until an agreement should be concluded between Soviet Russia and Japan on this subject. Moreover, if Japan builds outside Treaty limits—for instance, with larger guns, larger ships and so on—the Soviet Government claim the right to follow suit on notification to His Majesty's Government, but without invoking Article 25 of the London Naval Treaty, which entails giving three months' notice. Your Lordships will notice that this freedom applies to the Far East as long as Japan remains outside the treaty system. But so far as construction in Europe is concerned the Soviet will indicate all details of all ships which she lays down in her European dockyards whether or no those ships are ultimately destined for the Far East. Further allowance had to be made to the Soviet Government in the construction of cruisers, since Russia is not at present in a position to manufacture 6-inch guns, whereas she has developed a 7.1-inch gun and has this weapon in production. Her right to carry this gun in a certain number of her 8,000 ton cruisers now' building or projected has been recognised.

As regards the Anglo-German bilateral Agreement, that follows the lines of the Anglo-Soviet Agreement and is accompanied by two other documents. The first deals with the exchange of notes on subcategory (a) cruisers. This document reaffirms the German right to construct a total of five 10,000-ton 8-inch-gun cruisers, which is her 35 per cent. of the British Commonwealth's total of fifteen such cruisers. This exchange was rendered necessary because Germany had only availed herself of the right to lay down three of these cruisers prior to the present Treaty, and she wished to make it clear that her rights under the 1935 Agreement were not prejudiced by the present Treaty. Although these rights are retained, the German Government have stated that they are prepared not to avail themselves of their freedom of action unless special circumstances arise which compel them to do so.

The second document to which I wish to refer is the Declaration at the end of the Agreement. This clears up some of the points that were left open when the Anglo-German Agreement of 1935 was negotiated. The most important of these points concerns over-age tonnage. The German Government accept the principle that their Fleet should be divided into over-age and under-age tonnage in the same proportions as the British Fleet is divided. This is a most valuable concession which demonstrates yet again the friendly attitude displayed by Germany throughout these negotiations, but it is difficult for Germany to implement this Agreement at the present moment in view of the shortage of over-age ships belonging to Germany. Special arrangements have therefore been made to consider those ships which Germany built under the restrictions of the Treaty of Versailles as becoming over-age before the normal date and counting them as artificial overage tonnage.

These provisions are fully explained in Articles 4 and 5 of the Declaration. Article 3 of the Declaration deals with those questions of transfer and adjustment that are necessary in order to enable Germany to utilise to the full the 35 per cent. of British tonnage in each category to which she is entitled. The House will notice that the manner and extent of any transfer of tonnage between categories will be regulated by prior agreements between the two Governments. I should like here to reiterate the great value which His Majesty's Government attach to the Anglo-German Agreement of 1935. The working of this Agreement has entailed close collaboration between the two Admiralties and I should like to pay tribute to the friendly and accommodating spirit shown by Germany throughout these discussions.

It is hoped to conclude similar bilateral treaties with Poland and Turkey, with whom negotiations, I understand, have already begun, and a multilateral treaty with Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland. Discussions have been initiated with Greece and Yugoslavia. Your Lordships will therefore see that, although the London Treaty is only signed by four sets of Powers, including Great Britain, we hope to make it into a general treaty to which all those who own warships will eventually adhere. The London Naval Treaty does not, of course, fulfil all the hopes entertained for it when the negotiations first started, but I think many of us feel that at any rate it escapes some of the objections against the earlier London Treaty which limited our cruisers to the number of fifty, which no naval officer that I have met was prepared to accept as adequate for the purpose of protecting our trade routes and fulfilling other necessary duties.

In view, however, of the very unsettled state of the world at the present time, I think your Lordships will agree that it is no mean achievement to have succeeded in carrying through a treaty at all—indeed, the only kind of armament limitation which has been successfully brought to a conclusion—by obtaining the signatures of the Powers. The provision for information and notification of building before it actually takes place is one that I think you will agree is of great value. It is entirely new among treaties of this kind. It has been mentioned of course at Geneva and during the discussion of treaties, but it has never before been successfully concluded. It is a matter which is likely to get rid of a great deal of uncertainty and suspicion which is very often hanging over the building of ships by ourselves and other Powers. If we can only get rid of suspicion and uncertainty we shall get rid of one of the main causes of international misunderstanding. Although the Treaty does not go as far as some of us would like, it does go a long way and is a treaty of very real value. I hope therefore that your Lordships will agree to the passing of this very small Bill of one clause to bring the Treaty into effect and to show your approval of the Government's having signed the London Treaty of last year.

Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a (Earl Stanhope.)

LORD STRABOLGI

My Lords, my noble friends do not offer any opposition to this Bill, and with regard to the Treaties that have been negotiated and initialled with Germany and Russia I think everyone who knows what went on and what a complicated matter it was would wish to congratulate the negotiators, especially the British negotiators, on their great patience and perseverence. The net result is not very great, as I shall show in a moment, but it is better to have a limited treaty than no treaty at all. I am beginning to think that if you can only keep people talking long enough you will stave off real trouble indefinitely. The main Treaty which this little Bill makes possible will depend tremendously upon good will and the absence of those suspicions to which the noble Earl referred, because as long as Japan and Italy are not parties there is no limitation at all. There are escape clauses in every direction and we see that Japan have broken away from the discussed agreement and have increased from 14-inch to i6-inch guns. Accordingly we have the United States saying that they must arm their new battleships with i6-inch guns, and there is an agitation started here—we have heard it in another place—to the effect that you cannot build British ships with 14-inch guns but we must have 16-inch guns as well. I do not know whether the noble Earl, Lord Howe, agrees with that, and whether he thinks that if some other naval staff considers it necessary to have these monstrous guns, we must have them too. There is, at any rate, a loquacious naval section in this country and their friends outside who say that we cannot possibly mount our ships with guns of a less calibre than others. You can have a naval race started to-day in spite of all these complicated and intricate Treaties.

In the few words I propose to say on this Treaty I hope to plead for patience and forbearance on our part, so that in effect a new competition in monstrous hyper-super-Dreadnoughts will not commence. The Americans and the Japanese are going to build 35,000-ton warships, with 16-inch guns, and I do not know what the new Italian warship launched yesterday carries, but I believe it is 16-inch guns. That is far too big and too costly, and if only there had been a little more statesmanship and sanity in 1930, when the great Naval Conference took place, I believe you could have got a far more drastic limitation of tonnage and armaments by agreement. My own friends were in power at that time, but that does not matter—I am bound to say what I think. The truth of this matter is that a great chance was lost in 1930, when the Italians particularly were on our side, for reducing the size of warships generally. Only one Power then stood out and I believe that with proper handling it could have been brought into line. I venture to say that a size of 10,000 tons is ample for any warship to-day, if only the others will agree to the same size, with great benefit to the unfortunate taxpayers and Ministers of Finance, and nobody would be a halfpenny the worse. Another chance was lost when the noble Earl's friends were in power in 1927. We had that terrible Naval Conference at Geneva, when chance after chance was thrown away and the whole cause of limitation of naval armaments by agreement was set back for a decade. Now we have these Treaties. They are better than nothing, and I do not want to scatter blame when the real blame fell on those two previous Governments, and of course on other Governments as well.

With regard to this question of the size of guns, I do not want to open up again the controversy on bombs versus battleships. The Government were good enough to set up a very strong Committee to look into that matter, and they have issued a Report. It is therefore chose jugée for the time being. I only hope that the question will not be tried by the only judgment that matters, ordeal by battle. I do not want to open that question at all, but what I am afraid of is this. After the Great War the American Navy Office drew up designs for monstrous warships of 50,000 tons burden, armed with 18-inch guns—and technically I suppose there is no reason why you should not have 60,000-ton warships armed with 20-inch guns, though I should like to see a naval architect who would design a triple turret for 20-inch guns. But there it is; you could have such a competition started. There is no reason why the 50,000-ton warships armed with 18-inch guns, costing I suppose £12,000,000 or £14,000,000, should not appear in some Navy. Then you would have the same agitation for all the other Fleets to be armed with the same sort of ships.

In this question of warship design it is really like women's fashions. If one Navy produces a certain type of ship and gun, the naval officers of all the other Powers must have the same. It is like Mrs. Brown who must have a fur coat because Mrs. Jones in the next street has one. You saw the supreme example of that in the Dreadnought design. In the Dreadnought design there were special features which every other Power promptly started to copy, and that really started a very serious naval competition. Even in the time that I have followed these matters, since I was a boy, we have seen changes of fashion continuously. We had a period in which it was considered better to have comparatively small ships. We gradually got into the period of much larger ships, and then we had various attempts at limitation. The giant cruiser was practically abolished by the Washington Treaty of 1922—a most successful Treaty—and now we are getting back once more into the era of the sort of hybrid battle-cruiser type, which is neither one thing nor the other—very fast, very costly and very heavily armed.

Now is it really necessary for the British Empire to follow the fashion, if it should be set, of the monstrous ship and the monster gun? Mr. Churchill and other protagonists say, Yes we must. I venture to say that the matter needs further consideration. What we need for our naval defence is numbers—I do not mean very small ships that cannot lie in the line of battle, but we really do need numbers of ships. Our responsibilities are all over the world. There is a great Navy on the other side of the North Sea, which is entitled by treaty to have a force equal to 35 per cent. of our own. At the same time there is a very great Fleet being built up in the Far East, and we have other responsibilities in the Mediterranean. We really therefore cannot afford to indulge in this luxury of hyper-super-Dreadnoughts, as I call them, if we can with a smaller and less costly ship, but yet a powerful ship, make the same strategical dispositions. I venture to say that technically it is not necessary to have these very large ships indeed.

I am not a small gun man. When I used to discuss designs of warships—as it was my duty to do—I always used to say that according to the size of the ship you should carry the biggest possible gun you could. A destroyer, for example, should carry the heaviest gun that she can safely mount, and the cruiser should carry the heaviest gun that she can safely mount. There are psychological reasons for it. We made a great blunder when those vast protected cruisers were built before the War, the "Amphitrite" class, armed only with 6-inch guns. I do not know what the Admiralty Staff were thinking of at that time. But where there should be a limitation, I do suggest, is in the tonnage of a ship, and there are reasons for that. In theory the larger the ship the cheaper she is and the greater power you can give her. That is to say, in theory your 35,000-ton battleship is cheaper, and at that size you carry a greater proportion of weight—armour and defensive power—than at the smaller size. That is perfectly true, but at the same time you lose in other directions. There is the old argument about not having too many eggs in one basket, which I think is a potent one and becomes more potent with the new sort of weapons that are being produced all the time. The very large ship needs very extensive docking arrangements; she needs special docks—and we always have to remember the limitations of the Suez Canal.

Apart from that is there really such a tremendous gain in the 16-inch gun over the 14-inch gun? I admit there is a tremendous gain in the 8-inch gun over the 6-inch gun. I have heard the noble Earl, Lord Howe, in another place protesting against any British cruisers existing with 6-inch guns, which might have to meet hostile cruisers armed with 8-inch guns. There is a tremendous difference there, but when you get into the very high calibres I am not sure that there is. And I am not sure it would not pay us better to mount comparatively light guns—light heavy guns if I may use that expression, that is, of the 14-inch category—on a comparatively large tonnage, with better armoured protection, especially against air attack. I think that would be better value. Furthermore there is the question of ammunition. Your very big gun means a very heavy outfit of ammunition, and only a limited number of rounds can be carried, although I believe recent experience has shown that you need a great deal of ammunition to be carried. These matters therefore lessen the theoretical advantage of the very big ship and the very big gun. I hope therefore that the naval advisers of His Majesty's Government are not going to be stampeded, or allow themselves to be influenced by outside agitation into saying that "we are sending our brave sailors with inferior ships to meet the more powerful ships of possible adversaries."

Strategical dispositions depend on many factors besides the mere paper strength of ships. They depend on your fuelling bases abroad, your scouting services, your training and personnel, and on many other factors. Just to compare the weights of guns, the weights of projectiles, and the displacement of warships may give a very false value. When the noble Earl, Lord Stanhope, so lucidly explained this small but important Bill, he hoped there would not be a new naval race. I sincerely Lope so too. I hope we shall hold our hand and not be rushed into bringing out designs of very heavily armed ships with very costly and heavy armament, which in turn will be used in the American Senate and the Japanese Diet and elsewhere by Big Navy agitators to spur on their Governments into following suit, so that we shall once more be engaged in terrible competition. I hope that these Agreements between the six Powers will give the necessary breathing space for people to be able to turn round and recover their sanity. All nations are feeling the present burden of taxation, and as soon as the outcry begins the opportunity will, I hope, be seized for another Naval Conference to see if we cannot fill in the gaps left in the last Naval Treaty.

EARL HOWE

My Lords, I am sure every one of your Lordships will wish to congratulate His Majesty's Government on the success which was outlined to us to-day by the noble Earl, Lord Stanhope. But some of us are a little bit anxious with regard to this Naval Treaty. I am not going to follow the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, in all his arguments, but there are one or two matters which he raised which seem to me of supreme importance The noble Earl who introduced the Bill did not tell us very much about the all-important question of Japan. Japan is the enigma which governs the naval situation to-day. It is true that the noble Earl has told us that the Japanese have said they are not going to start a new naval race in armaments, but, on the other hand, they have made it clear that they intend to have a Navy as big as our own. If that intention is carried into effect, it is bound, it seems to me, to have considerable effect on the calculations of our Naval Staff. The noble Earl has told us how the Government have successfully brought off bilateral or multilateral treaties, or got them on the stocks, between the various naval Powers he mentioned—what I may call the minor naval Powers. But I should like to ask the noble Earl what is going to happen supposing His Majesty's Government find that the Japanese have built a ship of more than 35,000 tons displacement, of very high speed—say thirty to thirty-three knots—and with an armament of most powerful guns, 16-inch or 18-inch guns.

I do not myself believe that it is possible to build a battleship armed with 18-inch guns. The noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, will remember the experiments which were carried out in H.M.S. "Furious" at one time, when it was found to be almost impossible to build a structure which would stand the blast of the discharged gun. But supposing Japan has laid down a ship of vastly greater offensive and tactical value than the ships we are to build ourselves, what is to be the effect on us? We have, under the Treaty, the power given by the escalator clause. Supposing we put that escalator clause into operation and say we must revise our designs, fit a slightly heavier type of gun, and have a more powerful ship generally, what is to be the effect on these multilateral and bilateral Treaties? Will they be affected in any way? I have many friends in the Royal Navy, and I have been talking to them—many of them are experts in gunnery—about this question of the 16-inch gun versus the 14-inch gun. So far as I can gather, most of my friends are very anxious to secure an annihilating salvo. An annihilating salvo, as your Lordships will understand, is a salvo to secure the greatest number of hits, one that will probably sink the ship that it hits. An annihilating salvo is more likely to occur with a larger number of guns. What I am going to ask is this, can the noble Earl tell us, supposing it transpires that the Japanese ships carry very powerful guns and are of very high speed, will the Admiralty re-design our ships so as to give them, if not guns of equal calibre to the Japanese, more of them, so that we may have more chances of hitting in a salvo?

I am particularly anxious, as far as our own Navy is concerned, that we should not forget the lesson of Coronel or of the Battle of the Falklands. The lesson there learned by the defeated sides—our own in one case and the Germans in the other—was that, all other things being equal, the ships armed with the heaviest guns and the ships with the highest speeds, will probably win the day. It is a terrible question, and I can quite imagine that it is one which is exercising all our minds very much indeed. We ought to be prepared with an answer. It may be that the noble Earl will feel that, for other reasons, he should not say what we are going to do. I am the last person to wish to press for an answer in such circumstances. We have listened to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi. We probably all agree that if there had been more sanity and statesmanship in 1930 we should have had a very different London Treaty. I rather fancy that in 1930 another Government was in power, and that that sort of thing was not possible. We must, as the noble Lord has said, study the question of ammunition supply, which is becoming an increasing problem with modern gunnery. If the noble Earl is not able to give an exact answer to-day, I hope he will indicate that the Government will keep this matter in mind and keep it open. I am anxious that they should not burn their boats and tell us they are going to build a ship of a certain power and no more, but that, if necessary, the escalator clause will be put into operation. I hope that will be kept in mind.

EARL STANHOPE

My Lords, the two noble Lords who have spoken have supported the Treaty and the objects of the Treaty very thoroughly. The noble Lord opposite counselled patience before starting any naval race. The whole object of the Treaty is to prevent a naval race starting if that is possible. That is why His Majesty's Government initiated these discussions and made such a great effort to get the Treaty carried into effect. We should be the last people to start such a race. We are doing our best to stop competition all over the world, as far as we can. The noble Lord talked about the danger of having a hybrid battle-cruiser type of ship. If he studies the Treaty he will see that there is a gap between which no nation which accedes to the Treaty is permitted to build a ship. You may not build a capital ship between 8,000 tons and 17,500 tons displacement. With regard to the hybrid type of battle cruiser, it will approximately approach the tonnage of an aircraft carrier and be not very far short of the ordinary capital ship of 35,000 tons. At any rate there is to be nothing of what I call the pocket battleship type which upsets the building programme of every other nation all over the world.

I am not capable of dealing adequately with the question of the 14-inch gun in the 35,000-ton ship. As the noble Lord knows better than I do, the whole object of the Admiralty and of the naval constructor is to produce what is described as a balanced ship in which the guns should not be too heavy for the ship and the armour should be adequate, the speed adequate and so on. All I can say in regard to that matter is that in view of the decision of Japan not to be limited to a 14-inch gun the Admiralty will have to reconsider, or still further consider, whether in future it is wise, if we intend to limit our ships to 35,000 tons, to arm them with a 14-inch gun rather than a 16-inch gun, or whether we ought in time to go to the 16-inch gun. There is little difference in range between the 14-inch and the 16-inch gun, and in this respect in the two battles to which my noble friend Lord Howe referred, there was of course a great difference in the range of the guns. I think—again I speak under correction, because I am not an expert and he at any rate is an expert or knows a good deal about it—I am right in saying that the 14-inch gun may have as good a range as the 16-inch gun; therefore it is the question of keeping the other fellow outside your straight left and ultimately winning with your right, until you put him down. Admittedly, the bigger the gun, the heavier the shell, the greater the destruction. When my noble friend talks about an annihilating salvo it has to be borne in mind that the first point is to hit the ship with the shell and, therefore, if you get a good salvo with your 14-inch guns before the other fellow with his 16-inch gun is able to hit you at all, the chances are that you will win the battle.

As regards the future, I cannot say more than that the Admiralty will watch the situation very carefully. If it is found that Japan or any other nation is building a ship above 35,000 tons or with a bigger gun than is proposed in the Treaty, as the noble Lord knows the escalator clause gives the opportunity for this country or any other country to give notice to other nations, saying that in view of the action being taken by such-and-such a nation they must use this "escape" clause in order to follow suit and to build a ship which will be adequate to deal with the situation. Whether that would be a bigger ship than the Japanese ship, or a faster or more heavily gunned one, is a matter that the experts will have to go into when they have such information as they can get in regard to the ship of the other nation concerned. I can assure the noble Earl, as he well knows, that this will be very carefully watched by the Admiralty. There is not the smallest intention that we should send our men to sea in ships inferior to others they may have to meet which belong to any other Power. The whole essence of the thing is to try to stop these races in naval armaments either in regard to ships, guns or armour. I hope that Japan in course of time will see that it is to her advantage no less than to that of every other nation to agree to a limitation, and that she may see her way to sign a treaty of this kind, or at any rate act in accordance with the terms of that Treaty and not put us or any other nation into difficulties.

EARL HOWE

Will the noble Earl tell us whether the escalator clause would have any effect on the operation of the bilateral or multilateral Treaties that the Government have come to?

EARL STANHOPE

Yes, they all have a similar clause, I think in identical wording. The bilateral agreements have the same wording in this respect as that in the London Naval Treaty itself. Therefore those who have signed the London Naval Treaty can get out; so also can Germany and Russia and any other nations with whom we are fortunate enough to make similar Treaties.

On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.