must always have a reasonable interpreta- | doubt, but he did not think it was tion, and that circumstances might arise founded on very large experience, and under which policy would have to take he was bound to say that he thought it the place of the maintenance of the two- arose to a certain extent from prejudice. Power standard. But for the other reasons the Secretary to the Admiralty gave, he did not think the English public schools or any public schools were a source to draw from for the Navy. If boys had to enter the Navy at sixteen or seventeen, he did not think parents would send them to public schools, and he thought, therefore, it was better to follow the confirmed opinion of officers of the Navy, that boys should be taken young without making an effort to get them from public schools. With regard to the choice of naval officers, he did not entirely agree with his hon. friend the Member for Dundee. He thought the boys ought to be taken young. The experience of naval officers was preponderating, if not unanimous, on the point that they got the best naval officers by taking the boys young. If boys were taken young, then he was entirely against the idea of competitive cramming examinations, and if they did not have competitive examination. they were thrown back on the system which the Admiralty had adopted. He hoped the Admiralty were making that system, as he thought they were, a system of, as far as possible, testing general ability and general knowledge. But if the House trusted them to nominate, upon them lay the responsibility to see that the nominations were dealt with without prejudice and with widespread impartiality. He was glad to hear the Secretary to the Amiralty state that there would be no increase of expense entailed on parents who wished to send their sons into the Navy, because he thought that any narrowing of the area would be exceedingly bad. He agreed with the Secretary to the Admiralty that it was not a very hopeful experiment to try to get boys from the public schools for the reasons he stated. He disagreed entirely with his hon. friend the Member for Dundee in his estimate of the public schools. His hon. friend said they gave an inkling of knowledge. He did not dispute that the English public schools had their fair proportion, but not more, of boys who had a natural disinclination for knowledge. But if his hon. friend had known more of the English public schools he would have known that the energy with which the authorities pressed knowledge upon that class of boys was sometimes carried to the point of inconvenience. He discounted some of his hon. friend's prejudice against the English public schools because he knew it was one which was shared by a great many of his hon. friends who came from the North. That it was an honest and genuine opinion on their part he had no With regard to the Reserves, he was not prepared to go beyond the decision to which the Committee, of which he was a member, came to with regard to the present introduction of short service in the Navy. He thought the Committee recommended as much as the Admiralty could well put into practice at the present, though there was room for expansion when experience justified that expansion. The Admiralty had not yet been able to bring in operation all the Committee's recommendations with regard to the new class of firemen and engine-room artificers, who were as important as any other matter connected with the Reserves. The Admiralty offered very good terms-he might say they were liberal terms, which he thought would be naturally calculated to induce men to enlist for this class of work. But something more than the offer of good terms was required. These men in the reserve class of firemen would have to be drawn from some of the greatest works in the country. They might offer good terms, they might make the men willing to engage, but unless they made arrangements with their employers they would not be able to get the men. They should do everything in their power to make it known that the Admiralty must to a considerable extent in regard to this class of reserve depend on the patriotism of the employers in the great works, many of whom derived a great part of their business direct from the Admiralty, and all of whom had a special interest in this matter. MR. A. J. BALFOUR: If I intervene for a few moments in this debate it is not to continue the discussion begun by my right hon. friend on the subject of the Reserve and continued by the right hon. Gentleman opposite. They speak with a knowledge on that matter to which I cannot pretend, and perhaps it is only necessary for me to emphasise what has already been so well put by my hon. friend the Secretary to the Admiralty, that the Admiralty are working not only hard but effectively at this question and that the amount of the Reserve is gradually increasing. I do not wish to labour that point. I rather rise because a broader issue was raised by my right hon. friend the Member for West Bristol, and was touched on by the right hon. Gentleman opposite, namely, the magnitude of the present Navy Estimates, and consequently, the necessity, or want of necessity, there may be in our international position for asking from the House and from the taxpayers of the country the enormous sums which I quite admit are asked for the naval power of the country. My right hon. friend the Member for West Bristol, while he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, also dwelt upon the dangers which he saw in the growing expenditure of the country, and if he spoke to the House in that sense while he was responsible for its finances, and while he was, of course, bound by the policy to which he was a party, none can complain that, in the position of freedom in which he now finds himself, he should emphasise again the lesson which he has brought to our notice before, and should impress upon the House the absolute necessity under which we are, in the public interest, of examining critically the necessity or the alleged necessity for the immense expenditure on new construction which the House is asked to sanction. I think the warning of my right hon. friend was not only perfectly justifiable in substance and perfectly moderate in tone, but was a valuable warning, and I think the House ought to watch when he sees, and they see, how the Navy Estimates are growing; and not merely the amount of the Estimates, but the general European and Asiatic situation, which alone can justify what the country is asked to expend. The right hon. Baronet opposite cast his memory back to a time when the principle of shipbuilding in this country was that two English ships should be laid down for every single French ship. Of course that period has long passed away, and, for many years now, what has been called the two-Power standard has been in force. There is nothing sacred in the two-Power standard. There is, I fear, no absolute security that in no conceivable circumstances more than two Powers might not be ranged against us. I have certainly always interpreted the two-Power standard as meaning a two-Power standard with something of the nature of a margin. I do not believe that we have exceeded the principle I have just laid down in any programme that we have ever asked the House to sanction before, or which we are asking the House to sanction now. My right hon. friend, I think, based his comparison upon the amount of expenditure for new construction, and I think he thereby raised a very interesting point-the relative cost of construction in various countries. I may say, with regard at all events to one country, and the accuracy of the published figures as to the amount spent in that country upon new construction, that the safer estimate after all is not what the ships cost, but what ships are built, and what the ships are when built. It may be the fact-I do not think it is and I do not think we suspect it to be the fact that our cost of building is excessive, but after all that is not the point we are now on, although it is important. The point is the strength of the Fleet we have got to provide. That is to be determined not by the amount spent in other countries, avowed or unavowed, for new construction, but upon the ships actually laid down and our estimate of the time at which the ships are likely to be completed. That is the only solid basis on which we can go; and it is on that that the Admiralty have framed their Estimates for the present year, and I imagine rightly. Let me remind the Committee of another fact not always present in their minds, but which cannot be lost sight of. The mere fact that there are now so many more important navies in the world than there were a quarter of a century ago is in itself considerable cause for anxiety. Supposing-I hardly like even to suggest so defensive aspect, are essentially attacking and aggressive navies. Well, Sir, can we do less than what we are doing, which is to lay down our ships as other nations lay down theirs? Hon. Gentlemen appear to suppose that we start an enormous programme which is then imitated and rivalled by other nations. I do not think I speak with deference to my hon. friends who are, of course, more familiar with the details than I am but I do not think that has ever been done. I think that it has ever been our tragic a possibility-that we were is substantially and essentially a defeninvolved in war with two great maritime sive force, and that the navies of most Powers-supposing such a war could other nations, though they may have a hardly end without immense losses, immense maritime losses, immense losses in ships and material, both on the part of our enemy and on the part of ourselves. In that case other navies would possibly remain intact, and a country which had not allowed itself to be drawn into the vortex of the war would then occupy a position which they do not occupy now, and that would necessarily put their Government in a position, from the naval and maritime point of view, which they do not at present occupy. You cannot put aside that possibility. For a Minister even to mention the possibility of war is a thing which I am very reluctant to do, and I do not think for a minute that any such dreadful contingency is one that we have at present any reason to apprehend; but when we are talking of our Navy we are talking about the possibility of war, for if war were not possible we would not have a Navy; and I am forced, therefore, when I am indicating in general outlines the reasons which have compelled the Government to call, in these Estimates, on the country to make such great sacrifices, to state possibilities which did not exist twentyfive years ago, and which every year makes more important-I will not say more menacing-but, at all events, brings home more and more clearly to those who are responsible for the naval and military policy of the Empire. Of course, it is mere commonplace, familiar to every man in this House, and which necessarily comes up in every debate, that our position in relation to the Navy is different from that of every other nation in the world. The right hon. Baronet has mentioned America. What possible comparison can there be between the dependence of America on her Navy and the dependence of Great Britain on ours. There is no comparison. And if there is no comparison in the case of America is there a comparison in the case of France? Is there a com parison in the case of Germany, which is not open to attack; or in the case of Russia, which is absolutely free from any attack by sea, except in the extreme far eastern limit of its dominions? We stand alone in the fact that our Navy policy to see what other nations are doing immediately to make the necessary reply. in the way of laying down ships, and I think my right hon. friend has been justified, on financial grounds, in warning us of the dangers incidental to this great expenditure; and though I think he suggested an interesting line of investigation when he compared the cost of shipbuilding here and the cost in other countries, after all, what we have got to consider in discussing the amount of expenditure we have to face upon ships, is that the ships that we require-their number and their character-depend upon the ships which other nations lay down ; and so long as this House is careful to see that the Admiralty does not anticipate what other nations do; that we do not, as it were, drive them on by excessive and ill-considered expenditure of our own, but that we simply follow suit and take care that they do not outstrip us in the race for naval superiorityso long, I believe, the country will support this House in the expenditure, large as it is, which we now ask, or any other expenditure which the Admiralty of the day may deem necessary. I know my right hon. friend will do me the justice to say that I am as desirous myself of diminishing the expenditure, as he is. although I think there may be, in his mind, occasions on which he would say that I had been less active in pressing that home than he could have desired. But though there may be that divergence in methods between my right hon. friend and myself in these financial matters, I do not think he will dissent from the broad principles of policy which on behalf of the Government I have ventured to lay down. *MR. RUNCIMAN (Dewsbury) said he wished to congratulate the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury on his return to an active part in the discussions of the House. The anxiety shown by hon. Members who had engaged in the debate was not to cut down the power of the Navy, but to look into the great increase in the amount of the present Estimates, especially the increase in the Construction Vote, and inquire whether that was justified at the present time. The financial side of the question had been referred to at length by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Bristol, who also made reference to the large increase in the number of men that would be required. Practically every battleship added to the Fleet must mean an increase of some 600 or 700 men who must be more or less permanent additions to our forces. They must be drawn from sources which are already well drained by engineering works and the mercantile marine. The Committee must view with great apprehension the necessity for the increase in the number of men at such an enormous rate. The Secretary to the Admiralty, if he might say so, had not rightly understood the point pressed upon him from the Opposition side of the House, as well as by hon. Members on the other side of the House, with reference to the necessities of the time, so far as battleships went. They had urged that in adding the two Chilian battleships to the British Navy, it should have been possible to have dropped two vessels, not one, out of their programme. The Secretary to the Admiralty would agree with him that the only way in which they could test their strength was by taking vessels of comparatively modern design. On Monday the Secretary to the Admiralty did not restrict the figures he used to vessels of comparatively modern design. But a juster basis of estimate of strength was by taking battleships not over twenty five years of age, and cruisers not more than twenty years of age. Taking that basis they at once eliminated a large number of out-of-date battleships that were useful merely for coast purposes, and practically nothing else. What they found was that of battleships under twenty-five years of age Great Britain VOL. CXXX [FOURTH SERIES.] in 1908 would have no less than fiftyfour and Russia and France together would have fifty-nine. But even if they took another basis of comparison, namely, the armament of those vessels, this country was certainly much stronger than Russia and France put together-that was, Russia as she stood before the present war broke out. When they turned to cruisers they found that Great Britain not only worked up to the two-Power standard, which was now adopted by the Admiralty, but it worked up to four-Power standard. Taking cruisers of twenty years of age and none over that, they found that Great Britain in 1908 would have no less than seventy-one, and France, the United States, Russia, and Germany together the four largest navies of the world, excluding our own-would have seventythree, and even their tonnage was slightly under our own. He could, therefore, well understand that the hon. Gentleman on Monday preferred to use another standard for cruisers, namely, the dimensions of our mercantile marine. Well, if that was to be the basis of comparison in the future, he took it that our cruisers were to be increased in the same proportion as our merchant navy, that was to say, if we went on possessing one half of the merchantmen of the world, as we did at the present time, we must therefore have cruisers which were equivalent to all the other cruisers in the world put together. That was a peculiarly loose way of estimating the naval strength which this country required. The hon.Gentleman referred at consider able length to the dangers which our food done that, he made reference to the fact supplies ran in time of war, and, having that our merchant navy amounted to That something like 15,000,000 tons. might be perfectly true, but of that 15,000,000 tons he doubted whether there was more than 3,500,000 engaged in carrying food to this country. And in that 3,500,000 he included not only British but also foreign vessels coming into our ports. If that was to be the basis of comparison, he took it for granted cruiser strength correspond not with that the Admiralty would make their our total of merchant navy, but with the proportion of our merchant navy which was engaged at the time being in supplying 3 B this country with food. If that was the case he did not see any justification for working up to a four-Power standard. In saying that he was sure the hon. Gentleman would be well aware that he would be one of the last to press on him any restriction of our naval power. But what he and others urged was that the present was not an opportune time for increasing the rate at which we were adding to the Navy. He believed that if they had gone on on their old scale they should have been adding a sufficient number, commensurate with our financial resources, to maintain our position. The hon. Gentleman had referred to the fact that the "Lord Nelson" design was not ready when it was likely to be he had not stated. If the pro balance of naval power. we standard. Moreover, the war in the Far were maintaining the two-Power East was likely to solve many of the problems which had been the subjects of debate in the House, at the United Service Institution and elsewhere. They did not know how far the war might show us the relative value of battleships and cruisers-a point which was not solved at the present time-or the relative value of armoured cruisers and protected cruisers. They did not know how far it might affect their policy in reference to the building of destroyers in preference to torpedo boats nor how the knowledge gained there might lead to MR. PRETYMAN: The new ships changes of arming and design. All these will be laid down in the autumn. *MR. RUNCIMAN said the hon. Gentleman must be well aware that for the docking of vessels the extreme beam would place them at great disadvantage in many of our dockyards. Might he suggest that some time must of necessity be taken for improving the "Lord Nelson" design, and the Admiralty might well have used that delay for a further postponement in order that a better design, the result of riper knowledge, might be adopted in our future programme. A further reason, which, he thought, had not been sufficiently pressed for delaying the increase of construction was that we really should recognise the fact that the balance of power had been disturbed by the war in the Far East. He did not wish to tread on any delicate international questions, but the fact was that Russia had been seriously crippled. She had lost one or two-possibly were reasons for not rushing ahead. All naval strength, but that they should prohe urged was not the diminution of our ceed at present with great caution, having in view the financial needs of the United Kingdom, and also the possibility of spending our money to much greater advantage twelve months, or even eighteen months, hence. MR. BUCHANAN (Perthshire, E.) said he wished to press home further the question of the three battleships of the 66 King Edward" type the Admiralty were about to construct. It was most important not only as regarded the policy of new construction but also as regarded finance. The First Lord of the Treasury had just stated that the best way of enforcing economy was to carefully watch the policy of new construction. He would follow that advice. The Secretary to the Admiralty stated last session that the new programme included three new battleships, that he was sorry he could not inform the House what their precise design would be, but that he could assure hon. Members they would be of a very formidablə type. Yesterday, the hon. Gentleman stated that in the process of working out the design, it was found that the dimensions would be such that they could not be built in any available dockyard; therefore, their construction had not more most valuable been only suspended, but abandoned. vessels, and that must disturb the Now the Admiralty proceeded to take Mr. Runciman. |