London vii Bombay, March 14.
A discussion took place yesterday in the House of Commons on a resolution deploring the expenditure upon the Army and Navy.
Mr. Reginald McKenna, First Lord of the Admiralty, said: " We advise building ships in numbers: sufficient to enable the British Navy to secure us in all contingencies." He said farther that this policy involved no hostility to any foreign Power.
Mr. McKenna mentioned that in the spring of 1914 Germany would have twenty-one and Great Britain thirty Dreadnoughts. If there were no further amendment of the German Navy Law, the Estimates for 1912-13 would show a reduction.
Sir Edward Grey, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, said that the Estimates did not exceed what was sufficient. It must not be eu posed, he said, that because of the increase in the Estimates, our foreign relations were strained.
The resolution was rejected by 270 votes to fifty-six.—Rewuter.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.