that were to

*MR. KEARLEY (Devonport) said that the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down had taken exception to the fact that certain battleships have been built by contract had been placed in Government yards. It must necessarily be the policy of the Government to give work to its own yards when they were short of employment. There was no doubt the Government cut the matter too fine last year with regard to the matter of laying down new ships. It was pointed out then that unless they did lay down some ships in their own yards there would either be a large discharge or other work would have to be found. At the moment they appeared to have had the belief there was ample work, but it turned out differently, and of course they were right in seeing that their own yards, which would have no other opportunity of getting work like private yards, were duly employed. With regard to the "Prince of Wales" battleship, he had asked whether it was the fact that one of the armour plates had developed serious defects, and the answer was that the defects were not as serious as he suggested. His information was to the effect that the fissure was so serious that a man was able to

together, but, even so, a compromise criticisms were sound his personal leanmight have been arranged whereby two ings he submitted did not affect the of the ships might have been given out question. as proposed to the private yards, because it must not be lost sight of that they too had to keep their hands together. The position of the manufacturers was affected in more ways then one because these private contractors were at the same time manufacturers of armour plate. And in this regard they were entitled to expect a large share of the orders having regard to the fact that some three or four years ago pressure was brought to bear on the armour-plate manufacturers to increase their productions. Thus Sheffield manufacturers increased their production by 10,000 tons each and yet the programme of the year would not come up to a third of their capacity. He also understood that the amount of repairs given to private yards in the future would be considerably less then in the past, but he certainly hoped having regard to the pressure put on these contractors in the past that the Admiralty would strain a point in their favour in that matter. It might be so that, in these matters, the national interest came first. That was no doubt true, but was all being done in the national interest that shuold be. Were some of the old battleships such as the "Majestic" and "Royal Sovereign" class and the "Centurion" and "Barfleur" class adequately protected in armour? He understood that at modern trials the armour-piercing shells were such as to prove that the armour of those vessels was far from adequate. There were other classes of ships which needed not only re-armouring but re-arming as well. With regard to the general question as to whether the strength of the Navy was the two-Power standard, he could only say that according to the figures in Brasseys Annual we had hardly reached that standard. According to that work the combined force of France and Germany were seventy-seven as against sixty-two. Of course all these calculations were difficult to harmonise, but so far as the mere statement as to the numbers was concerned, he believed that those figures were fairly accurate. So far as he was concerned the criticism he would make was not that the present Estimates were too large but rather that they were too small. He quite admitted that he did not approach this matter with an entirely unbiassed view, but if his

put his finger in, and that pieces 22 inches in length, 6 inches wide and three-eighths

of an inch in thickness had blown off. There was something chemically wrong with these plates. He knew the Admiralty had investigated this matter, and no doubt a report had been made. It would be of great interest to the House to have an explanation from his hon. friend as to the cause of this seriouз defect. He wanted to know what steps the Admiralty had taken with the contractor to compel him to make good not only the plates themselves but the loss that might be occasioned to the Admiralty. They had been told that the Admiralty had decided to take steps to cease the manufacture of certain commodities that were supplied to the Fleet by way of victualling, that they had decided to discontinue the manufacture of flour, oatmeal, etc., but they had decided to continue the manufacture of

biscuit and cocoa.

he had nothing to say, but with regard to biscuit he made a definite statement that the Admiralty were producing in their own factories biscuits at a cost of 40 per cent. more than they could be obtained in the open market. The hon. Gentleman shook his head, but that was his assertion after examination and inquiry.

1320 With regard to cocoa and Press discussion which had taken place. The primary object of the Fleet was to shoot well, and the result of the encouragement given by the Admiralty to the men was that there was a keen interest not only in the Navy, but through the nation in the results of the target practice and rapid firing and hitting. It would be of interest to know what ships shot badly, and he did not see the objection to publishing the results in the fullest possible detail. We got to know the records of the shooting of other nations, and if we advertised the fact that ours was the best shooting nation in the world it was not likely to do us any harm. He agreed that the practice should be in accordance with the conditions prevailing in time of war; it was in that direction we ought to excel. Every endeavour ought to be made to improve the material the men had to use, and especially was that the case in the matter of sighting. Had the Admiralty given that attention to this matter of the sighting of the guns which its importance deserved? What were the facts in connection with the "Centurion"? That ship returned from the China Station last year for the purpose of a thorough overhaul and refit. She was just on the point of being sent back to the China Station when rumours began to be circulated that the sighting of her 10-in. guns was imperfect. The Admiralty must take a great amount of responsibility in this matter; they could not pretend that they were in ignorance. It was generally known that the Gunnery School at Whale Island made representations on the point. Everybody knew, also, that when a ship came home to refit, the captain had the responsibility of making a full report with a full list of all requirements necessary to make his ship up-todate and efficient. Did the captain fail in that respect? Undoubtedly not. The captain made representations to the Admiralty that the sighting was defective, and yet this ship had gone away to China with its gun sighting defective.

For the first time for twenty years in these Estimates there was a notification by the Admiralty that all the money voted last year would have been spent and earned by the contractors and the Government yards before the end of the financial year. For ten years they had been met every year with the fact that the money voted during the preceding year had not been spent. There had been all sorts of explanations of this. As regarded contract-built ships, the Admiralty had adopted the system he was the first to suggest, that ships built by private firms should be absolutely completed there and not brought round to the Government yards to be overhauled, which resulted in time and money being spent on them there. It was encouraging to find the good business results the Admiralty had achieved from having the ships thoroughly completed in the contractors' yards. He had advocated in past years that ships built by contract and requiring repairs should be sent back to the contractor who built them. It must be obvious there was an advantage in that. The contractor knew all about his ship and he naturally took an interest in it. He believed if that system were adopted as far as possible they would get better work, a longer life to the ship, and that there would be an economy to the State. Another point was that the Admiralty ought to take some further action to get an estimate of the cost of repairs before they proceeded to put the ships into the hands of the contractors for repairs. He was certain the present system was most extravagant. He never would believe it was possible to get an approximate estimate in advance.

not

He was glad to notice in [the First Lord's statement that gunnery continued steadily to improve. He thought

MR. PRETYMAN was understood to dissent.

*MR. KEARLEY said the sighting was

that was mainly due to the Parliamentary admittedly imperfect at any rate. Lord

Selborne the other day gave some explanation as to what happened. In the first place, he said that, as part of the refit a new sighting installation had been entrusted to the Messrs. Armstrong; and in the second place, that it could not be completed owing to want of time. That appeared to be very plausible on the surface; but either the Admiralty did not act on the information supplied by the captain at the earliest possible moment, in which event they were dilatory in an important case of sighting ten-inch guns, in which there ought to have been no delay; or, if the Admiralty said they had not been dilatory, they asked the House to believe that the Messrs. Armstrong, one of the greatest shipbuilding firms in the world, with an unlimited number of hands, and all other facilities at their command, were not capable of installing a new and satisfactory system of sighting in the "Centurion" in a period of four months.

MR. PRETYMAN was understood to say that that was so.

defective. He had only one other word to say on the subject of gunnery. He had urged over and over again that the Admiralty ought to give further encouragement to the men to stimulate them in shooting. He suggested that larger prizes should be given for accurate and rapid shooting. The best man in the Navy secured for the best shooting of a 12-in. gun, which fired an 800lb. shot, the magnificent sum, under the improved conditions of payment, of £3, accompanied by a silver medal. A man went to Bisley and fired an ounce bullet at a target and received £250 in money and a gold medal. The Admiralty seemed to overlook the fact that what honour was to the officer, money was to the men. It was a question of bread and butter to them. He had come in contact with a great number of men of the lower deck, and they were all in favour of large money inducements being given to the very best shooting men. There should be a naval Bisley every year, although he knew that certain objections might be stated against it that there were variations in weather *MR. KEARLEY said that if it were and light in different parts of the world, so it seemed to him astounding. This and that therefore it was impossible that so important a matter that the the competitions could be carried out Admiralty would do well at once to under fairly similar conditions. But he appoint a Committee of Inquiry composed was told that whenever prize firing was of the best gunnery experts, and the best engaged in, the state of the weather must shipbuilders in the country. He did not be such that an open boat could be believe that it was impossible to get a lowered and lay to so as to be able, as proper sighting equipment installed in the required, to make the necessary repairs four months the ship was at home. The to the target, and to his mind that Admiralty were not free from responsifact showed that the competition bility because, when the Messrs. Armstrong could be carried on under fairly similar had failed, they had not hesitated to send this ship back to her station in a defective state. His hon. friend might reply that the "Centurion" was efficient with the old sighting apparatus; but everybody knew that the old system of sighting was quite out of date, and knocked off at least 50 per cent. of efficiency as regarded accuracy and rapidity of firing, compared with the system installed in ships built within the last two or there years. It seemed to him strange that the Admiralty should have been in such a desperate hurry to send the ship back to the China Station with the old sighting. The "Centurion" was not an isolated case. He was told that there were many ships in the Navy at the present moment with sighting equipment which was seriously

was

conditions.

The

SIR FORTESCUE FLANNERY (Yorkshire, Shipley) said he wished to identify himself with the compliment which had been paid to the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Admiralty on the very lucid, although lengthy, statement he had made on the Navy Estimates. The distinguishing feature of the Estimates was the large sum of money required. contrast between past years and the present was so marked that to-day we had a peace Estimate larger than any presented in time of war. That was a very remarkable circumstance, even more remarkable than the fact that these Estimates were £2,500,000 larger than those of last year. The two questions.

The hon. Member for Devonport had referred to the manner in which criticisms in the House had been accepted by the Admiralty. He ventured to say that the speech of the Secretary to the Admiralty and the Memorandum of the First Lord teemed with proofs of the success of criticisms in this House of naval details. He remembered that the criticisms of the late Sir W. Allan and other friends had been accepted by the Admiralty, and were now doing good and useful service in naval preparations. Take the question of sea trials of the marine boilers. These were now common, and the comparative results obtained were most valuable. That was a right policy, and so long as the Admitalty adopted the testing of novelties at sea they would meet with approval from practical men in the House. He maintained that the Boiler Commission, which was at first intended to be a temporary expedient, should be made a permanent board of advice to the Admiralty. There could be nothing possibly better than that the experience of men of high standing in the mercantile marine should be at the disposal of the Admiralty. Then the increase of the Navy Intelligence Department was also an improvement that had been the result of long and frequent debate and suggestion in this House. The Admiralty were moving in a right direction when they appointed naval attachés in all the great European capitals who would obtain intelligence regarding all foreign Navies. The drastic regulations for the compulsory retirement of captains was the result of representations in this House. The result of these regulations would be to obtain not only a large reserve of admirals, rear-admirals and captains, but also to have the rearadmirals very much longer than they had ever been before, capable of taking command in the years when their vigour was at its best, and their experience sufficiently matur d. That improvement had been carried out without any violent change of system or anything

which the country would ask upon such enormous Estimates were-first, was this vast expenditure necessary; and second, was the country getting value for the money? He thought, and especially after the very specific statement made by the right hon. Gentleman in the responsible position of Secretary of State for War, that there was nothing provocative in the Estimates as they stood, nothing to challenge a response by any foreign Power. The country had recently heard with comparative equanimity of the state of appalling inefficiency of the Army because it was generally fully persuaded that the Navy was not only large but also efficient. The two-Power standard had been recognised as necessary even by the hon. Member for Denbigh. But, in making this comparison, American as well as German preparations could not altogether be neglected. It is true that the possibility of war with America was quite remote; he hoped that it was practically non-existent; but how ever friendly a Power might be, it was our duty to take into account all the naval preparations of that Power, which he noticed proposed to spend £100,000 on experiments with submarines. Reference had been made by the Secretary to the Admiralty to the Memorandum of the First Lord of the Admiralty. That was a very remarkable document, for there was scarcely a topic connected with naval preparations that was not dealt with in it in an exhaustive manner. In regard to the Chilian battleships, the hon. Member for Cardiff had said with characteristic modesty that these ships, designed by himself, were the best at the present time in the British Navy. He could hardly go so far as that, but he held that, considering their limited displacement and tonnage, there were no battleships superior to them, and their acquisition by the Admiralty was one on which the Board might be congratulated. If the rumours as to the circumstances surrounding that acquisition were correct, then the whole country owed a deep debt of gratitude to Lord Selborne for the personal steps which he took leading to injustice to individuals. It to secure these vessels at a moment was also very satisfactory to find that of emergency, when they might the system of recruiting and training have otherwise been lost to the service of Great Britain, and perhaps one day have been ranged against us.

younger officers was working out in a way which the Admiralty considered satisfactory. "Water babies," as they

Another matter of the utmost importance was the association of the Colonies and the colonial sailor-men with the British Fleet. That was clearly at work, according to the statement of the First Lord, both in Australia and New Zealand, where the Colonial Parliaments had accepted the overtures of the mother country, but he noticed with regret that there was no mention of Newfoundland, which had a large reserve of sailors who might be utilised in the same way. Reference had been made to the rapid rate of construction in the dockyards. Credit must also be given to the improved system of organisation in the dockyards which had been introduced by the present Director of Naval Dockyards, Sir James Williamson. Whatever the cause it was satisfactory to find that the great reform urged upon the Admiralty over and over again of allowing private contractors to finish their ships in preference to sending them to the dockyards to be changed and pulled to pieces, was not only working