FOUR NEW DREADNOUGHTS.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VI, Issue 485, 24 July 1912, Page 5

FOUR NEW DREADNOUGHTS.

FOR BRITAINS' NAVY., By Telegraph—Press Association.—Copyrißfil London, Monday. Mr Winßton Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, in introducing the Supplementary Estimates to the House of Commons, said that the additional expenditure waß due to the new German navy law. under which four-fifths of the vessels were in instant readiness for war, a proportion unprecedented in modern practice. Britain's programme of construction during the coming five years would be increased by four Dreadnoughts, the acceleration of smaller cruisers, and a larger number of destroyers and submarines. Eight battleships would be based on Gibraltar, with a subsidiary base at Malta.

He added that by 1914 our fully commisisoned battleships would be increased from 28 to 33. THE NAVAL PROGRAMME. SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES. GERMAN EXPANSION. London, Tuesday. In the House of Commons the Hon. Winston Churchill, dealing with the Supplementary Naval Estimates, said the German plans involved a remarkable expansion in strength and efficiency. By 1920 the new German fleet would be forty-one battleships, twenty battle cruisers, forty small cruisers, besides an ample proportion of deatroyers and submarines, nearly fourfifths of which would [be machinery in permanent commission. Such a fleet

would be about as numerous and superior in actual strength to the recent fleet at Spithead. Cool, shady, methodical preparation during successive years could alone raise our margin of naval power. It was useless to fling money about on impulse. Britain Bhould learn from Germany whose policy marches unswervingly. We must have an ample margin of strength and be instantly ready. The amount asked for on the Supplementary Estimates was only the first smallest instalment of extra expenditure which the new law en tails. Germany was spending about a million a year on submarines and we cannot allow our lead to diminish It is imperative to siftly increase the fully commissioned battleships from 1914 onward. ?We should have five battleships and squadrons comprising forty-one battleships compared with the Germans twenty-nine, whereof four squadrons remain in full commission. It was necessary to largely increase personnel during the next four years. He denied that the Admiralty had recourse to all the available reservists in the recent manoeuvres; only four thousand were uti'ised out of sixty thousand available.