The Queen's Speech.

Foreign nations generally

have increased

their naval expenditure.

injure our commercial interests. In Her Majesty's gracious Speech allusion is made to the fact that there has been in recent years increased expenditure on naval armaments by European nations. It is quite true that this is not altogether applicable to the last two or three years with regard to the leading naval Powers of Europe, but taking the last fifteen years, and dividing them into quinquennial periods, it is found that each five years show an increase on the previous five years. This is true of every European nation that has any considerable seaboard. It must always be remembered that naval expenditure differs in this respect from military expenditure —that the actual returns are not available so soon. If any one wants to examine into a naval budget, he must not merely have regard to the expenditure in any one year, he must go behind this to the expenditure of some of the years before; and this will not infrequently disclose the fact that in a year when the expenditure has apparently fallen there has been the greatest increase of naval force, owing to ships the expense of which has been met in the expenditure of previous years being completed in this year. In this respect we have had a great advantage during the last few years. We have adjusted the work we have taken in hand with our finances, and we have been able to make most rapid progress with all the vessels we have had in The action hand. Foreign nations, however, have acted on another principle. of foreign They have allowed their shipbuilding programme to outrun the

nations.

Nile and

would

our last battleships.

finances of the year, and we must bear this in mind when comparing the expenditure of foreign nations with our own. If we apply this test, we find that during the next five years, there will be a large addition to the war fleets of Europe, especially in the matter of First Lord battle-ships. I had hoped some two years ago that the Nile and had hoped Trafalgar would be the last battle-ships laid down in this country. Trafalgar It then appeared as if there was to be a general cessation of armourhave been clad building owing to the appearance of the torpedo-boats. But the powers of these torpedo-boats had been greatly exaggerated by naval officers. France suspended her armour-clad building, and other nations followed her example; but since then, owing in part to the invention of quick-firing guns, there has been a return to the building of battle-ships, and during the present year and the next three or four years there will be more money spent on the building of battleships than in any previous year. Our supremacy on the sea must, after all, be measured by the number of battle-ships we can put into line. (Hear, hear.) It is therefore our duty, as we find other nations pushing forward this particular class of ship, to do the same. (Hear, hear.) In the observations I have made I am re-echoing the view

How supremacy

on the sea must be measured.

of our

Childers.

expressed in the gracious Speech that our relations are friendly and cordial with all nations. (Hear, hear.) Still it requires no very deep student of history to know that there are certain sections of opinion and of influence which are unfriendly to this country, owing Foreign to jealousy of our prosperity and envy of our great colonial expansion, jealousy. and, if in any case these influences happen to become temporarily predominant, we cannot ignore the fact that the increase of the naval forces opposed to us would be a very serious matter. (Hear, hear.) I have endeavoured during the past year to study the speeches of those who in previous years have held my position and that of Prime Minister, so as to ascertain what was the paramount idea underlying their utterances when they spoke of the standard of strength on which Standard our naval establishment should be maintained. I think I am correct naval in saying that that idea has been that our establishment should be on strength. such a scale that it should at least be equal to the naval strength of any two other countries. (Hear, hear.) I notice that the right hon. gentleman the member for South Edinburgh (Mr. Childers) has given Mr. expression to that view, and has stated that he felt certain that when he left the Admiralty the British fleet was equal to the combined naval forces of any two other countries. That may be the case; but it must be borne in mind that at the time of which the right hon. gentleman speaks there was only one considerable naval Power in Europe, while the feature of the present situation is that there are now not one or two, but four or five nations which are spending largely on their naval armaments. With this tendency to development going on, it is quite clear that the strength of the combination of any two other countries must be regarded as considerably increased in the aggregate. (Hear, hear.) This is a fact that we cannot ignore, and we must therefore either be content with a less measure of precaution than in the past, or we must be prepared to face an increased expenditure. (Hear, hear.) With regard to the effect on our commerce of a naval war, I do not refer to the possibility Effect of a of our commerce being annihilated or our food supplies cut off, but I desire to point out that, in order to prevent a great shock and dis- commerce. turbance to our trade and its consequent dislocation, due to apprehension of what might occur, it would be most necessary that there should at the outbreak of a war be a feeling of perfect confidence in our naval strength. (Hear, hear.) The recent manoeuvres have The lesgiven us some useful lessons. Whoever is in command of a campaign recent marequires information on two points. He wishes to know the amount nœuvres. of the force that can be brought against him, and he also wishes to know the uses to which it can be put. On land the number of

naval war

on our

sons of the

reserve.

military movements or combinations is limited by many conditionsthe geographical line of the country, the course of the rivers, and other limitations of this kind-but it is not so in regard to naval warfare. A ship is self-supporting and independent of such limitations. No amount of foresight or calculation can anticipate naval combinations and naval movements. (Hear, hear.) For the purpose of meeting such unexpected blows we should have a considerable Margin of margin of reserve. (Hear, hear.) I venture to lay these arguments before the Committee, because I think they are worthy of attention, and are incontrovertible conclusions for the premises with which I started. I am no alarmist, and in the controversies that have taken place during the last few years I have frequently combated exaggerated and sensational statements, for I have always considered it unwise to take advantage of ephemeral excitement to call for unnecessary expenditure. (Hear, hear.) Nothing is more foolish than to enforce demands for increased expenditure by arguments based on facts which will not bear strict inquiry. But there seem to me to be no alternatives but those I have stated; we must either be content with a lower standard of precaution than in the past, or we must be prepared to face increased expenditure. (Hear, hear.) Her Majesty's Government, in the present state of European politics, cannot recommend the former course; on the contrary, we shall use all our influence and authority to endeavour to induce the House of Commons to meet this necessity for increased naval expenditure. (Hear, hear.) Conditions Having stated, therefore, the nature and scope of the scheme which I the scheme am about to propose, I should like to turn to some other conditions to which, in the opinion of Her Majesty's Government, that scheme should conform. We considered that it should be entire in itself, and adequate not only to our immediate but also to our future wants. We considered that every vessel should be an effective war vessel of the newest type and most approved design, and that every vessel when once laid down should be pushed on with all the rapidity compatible with sound construction, and that as these vessels approach completion preparations should be made for the necessary accumulation of men and stores and guns which would enable a ship to become an efficient fighting machine. (Hear, hear.) To associate with that scheme of expenditure these business-like conditions necessitated a good deal of previous investigation and work. Upon that work we have been engaged for the past two years, and, although there may seem at first sight to be little connexion between the proposals I now have to make and the work we have done in reality, that work is the foundation on which we base our scheme. We con

to which

of naval construc

tion should conform.

between

sidered it to be essential that before we asked the House for additional money for naval purposes we should be able to show that the national shipbuilding yards were well administered, that the scandal of ships waiting for guns should not be repeated, and that the designs for new ships should be in accordance with the view of naval officers and naval scientists. Upon the questions of the administration of the dockyards, the supply of guns, and the preparations of designs, I will therefore say a few words. In the comparison too frequently made Dockyards and pribetween our dockyards and private yards sufficient allowance is vate yards not made for the variety and multiplicity of those duties which compared. the former have to perform, and from which private yards are free. (Hear, hear.) Everything that relates to a great fleet of warships has to be done in the dockyards. All the officering, manning, victualling, storing, coaling, and lighting-these and many other services, which in a great commercial port are performed by various public and private agencies, are performed in the dockyards. In addition to this, it is necessary to have a great accumulation of stores and men ready for action at a moment's notice. Moreover, we have so to arrange our machinery that every branch of it may be capable of great expansion in case of emergency. Naval mobilization is just the Difference reverse of military mobilization. The former is decentralization and naval and localization, while the latter is concentration and centralization. we were unfortunate enough to get into any war, every man, every tion. officer, every store, and every gun, as well as ammunition, would have to pass through the dockyards in order to be put on board the ships commissioned in those dockyards. Therefore, though it is necessary to keep a tight hand on these auxiliary and incidental services, it would be most unadvisable to cut them down beyond a certain limit, because in case of emergency it would be impossible to expand or extend them. In the past three years we have eliminated these incidental services from shipbuilding and repairing. We have brought them to account and have largely reduced their amount. We have made regulations by which men once put on shipbuilding are kept there and not taken for other purposes, and we have established a form of account which is working admirably. These alterations have effected a perfect revolution in the dockyards. Ships are now Ships built with a rapidity rivalling that of private yards. The Trafalgar, rapidly. which is the largest ship of war ever built in this country, was completed in the unprecedentedly short time of three years and three months. It is conclusively proved in this instance that rapidity of construction is a convertible term for economy of construction (hear, hear), for not only has the ship been built with this great expedition,

If military

mobiliza

built more

Anson

but the saving on the original estimate is £100,000, of which £87,000 is on labour alone. (Cheers.) The last ironclad built is the Anson, which is of much less tonnage than the Trafalgar. Six years Trafalgar. were occupied in her construction, and the cost of labour alone on that lesser ship was £30,000 more than on the Trafalgar. Therefore a cardinal point of our new proposals is that we should establish in our dockyards a system by which there should be a statutory enactment that ships should be pushed on with all possible rapidity (hear, hear), for it is better for this House to limit the number of ships than to assent to a larger number and then to reduce and curtail the The story money necessary for their completion. And now I turn to the

of the

guns.

question of guns. The knowledge that a considerable number of very powerful ships had so long been waiting for their guns has resulted in somewhat exaggerated statements being made as to the conditions and power of our ordnance. In the earlier days of heavy ordnance English guns were muzzle-loaders, and the muzzle-loading system was brought to great perfection, so much so that naval officers declined to part with their guns, which were in every way equal to the breechloaders of foreign nations. About twelve or thirteen years ago a new kind of powder was discovered, known as the cocoa or slow-burning powder, from which much better results were obtained than from the old powder. Nevertheless expert opinion clung to the muzzle-loaders and declined to sanction the introduction of a breechloading system. Experiments went on, till at last it became clear that we should be hopelessly left behind by foreign nations unless we adopted breechloaders, because the length of the gun necessary to utilize the slow-burning powder prevented facility of muzzle-loading. We then took to breechloaders in 1880, and we have had in the last seven years to concentrate an amount of labour which in other nations has been spread over three times that period. In dealing with questions of so experimental a character as those relating to the manufacture of big ordnance there must be a certain number of failures and mistakes. Our failures and mistakes were not greater nor more numerous than those of other nations, but they have been compressed within a much shorter period of time. Subsequently a system of lining was introduced in the construction of a considerable number of guns. That answered very well for a certain time, and then there was a failure, and the whole of those guns had to be remanufactured. My right hon. friend the Secretary for War and I had to inquire during the past year in order to ascertain how this block could be removed, and, if it were removed, whether the resources and producing power of this country are so large as to