Reduction. of £4,000,000 as 'Speakers' Opinions Compared with Last Year: on Naval Conference London, Mar. 17.
'The House of Commons to-day' agreed the votes, for the personnel of the Navy and some other items.
"Apart from asseverations that the Naval Conference was doomed to failure, the speakers in the debate on' the Naval Estimates trained from raising questions con: cerning the problems before the Me, Winston Churchill, on behalf of the Conservatives, however, yeserved complete liberty in regard re-examining the position later.
The First Lord of the Admiralty, Mr, A, V. Alexander, replying to criticisms, said that the Government took no steps concerning naval policy without full consultation with its) experts.
Introducing the Navy Estimates in the House of Commons to-day, Mr. A. V, Alexander, the First Lord of the Admiralty, said they amount to £51,739,000 against £55,865,000 Tast_yoar, showing a reduction of 94,126,000.
The estimates, he said, were within £190,000 of the figures sub-titted for 1914 which were the last pre-war estimates, but in order to etn comparison with 1914 allow. tance must be made for the higher costs to-day.
"Calculated on pre-war rates the provisions covered by the present estimates would not have cost more than £31,000,000, showing a reduetion of 39 per cent. 'The provisions this year, however, covered a much Inrger proportion' of non-effective charges than in 1914, 'To-day the non-effective charges amounted to 8,500,000 compared with $3,000,000 in' 1914;.80, if one compared the actual effective service of the Navy, the present not estimates were ££43,000,000, compared with £48,501 000 in 1014, Reducing the present estimates to pre-war values there was a reduction of no less than 46 per cent, "I beg the House to remember," said Mr. Alexander, that no other Naval Power in the world has voluntarily made a reduction compared with its pre-war position."
With regard to the reduction in ship-building, Mr. Alexander said: "it is with great satisfaction that the Government have found in the general trend of world affairs and in the general outlook for peace, justification for proceeding still further along the road already, to some extent, marked out by the last Government of slowing down the of our Naval construction and giving proof of our sincerity in the cause of all-round reductions in armaments, The reductions have made in our programme upon the last two annual programmes of the five-years programme of the Into Government have been made in the same spirit as actuated the Into Government in the reductions they themselves made in certain of their annual programmes, but 1 would say our reductions have been made with greater courage and with 'a stronger determination to reach the end in view and have been made accordingly very much more drastic. We are convinced that the provision we are now making~is adequate. Our replacement programme must be related not to present strength but to future needs. What those needs will be cannot be accurately forecast until the results of the London Conference have been ascertainced and duly collated.
Continuing, Mr. Alexander said he hoped that the feeling of pessimism regarding the Conference so often expressed would prove to be unfounded and he deprecated any dis cussions that day of a kind which would not be of assistance in bring-to a successful 'No provision, he stated, was made for the construction programme for'
1080 as the Go ing over any de" should be. -Not only so, but in respect to the 1929 programme it had been thought best, in view of the proposal which the British Delegation had made at the Conference for the abolition of submarines, to suspend for the present the subpart of that programme.
louse, however, he said, need not view with alarm any project of 'a supplementary estimate to meet further needs in this respect. The provision made in 1929 for new construction of submarines amounted to £80,000 and no greater figure than that would be needed in respect.of 1930 unless he had to ask for provision for three submarines. provisionally Iuded i "the 1929 Should this "necessity unfortunately arise, and he would not delude the House into thinking that the ingency might be ignored, the plementary grant might ave to be increased to a more material size, but it would still re present a small fraction of the reduction of the estimates as a whole, fand it would still mean that the unate saving on the 1929 construction programme would be no less than $6,500,000.
Mr. Alexander added that a very considerable slowing down of work fon the Singapore Base had been found possible without in any way prejudicing ultimate decisions. final decision on the future development of the Base would, he said, sought as soon as possible after the Naval Conference but that final 4 after consultation witlt the Overseas Governments affected.
Mr. Winston Churchill said that} the Conservative Party did not assent to the present proposals and estimates of the Government. He! asked why the reduction in cruiser strength was announced before the Naval Conference began instead of becoming part of the general process of disarmament.—Whereas every other Power stated its requirements at the maximum, we began by announcing an enormous reduction in armaments and the Naval Conference then proceeded on the basis of seeing how much more could be out down, "There is grave danger," said Mr, Churchill, "that the Conference may become a process not general Naval disarmament but of disarming Great Britain while other! Powers become actually stronger.'
Mr. Churchill poitfted out that before the War we had 149,000 seamen. and marines and after the War 99,000 and we were now to reduce the number to 94,000. During the same period, he said, the United States, the next strongest Naval Power, had increased its personnel {from 67,000 in 1914 to 114,000 in the present year. In the face of such' figures, Mr. Churchill asked, what became of the doctrine of parity. Wireless through Reuter.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.