NAVY ESTIMATES.

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 19268, 24 March 1928, Page 15

NAVY ESTIMATES.

LIMITATION IS POSSIBLE. EXPENDITURE ON SINGAPORE. (ST CABLE —PRZ99 ASSOCIATION COrTRIOJIT.) (AUSTRALIAN, AND K.Z. AND SUN CABLE.) (Received March 23rd, 5.5 p.m.) LONDON, March 22.

Lieutenant-Colonel C. Headlam, Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty, speaking in the Navy Estimates debate, stated that the Admiralty's total expenditure to date on the Singapore Base amounted to £308,500. This year thev would spend £228,000 plus £300,000 for a floating dock. Towards this expenditure £375,000 had been received from New Zealand, Hong Kong, and the Federated Malay States.

Mr W-, C. Bridgeman, First Lord of the Admiralty, in reply to a question by Lord Robert Cecil, said that a recent letter in the Press referred to a Cabinet discussion on the Geneva Conference. This was unusual, and he did not propose to violate the secrecy of Cabinet discussions. The British proposals were eventually rejected at Geneva, but not over the question of eight inch guns, but the question of total tonnage. Lady Astor asked: Would it not be better to forget Geneva, and look forward to the next Conference?

Mr Bridgeman agreed, believing as he did, that Britain and the United States were not thinking for a moment of any kind of aggressive warfare. They might hope, if feeling were not aroused and mischief done between the two countries, that with the foundations laid at Geneva, some satisfactory limitation might be agreed upon at a time not far distant.