NAVAL ESTIMATES

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10191, 18 March 1911, Page 5

NAVAL ESTIMATES

AN INTERESTING COMPARISON

TWO-POWER STANDARD MAIN-

TAINED

(Received Last Night, 10.35 o'clock) LONDON, March 17. The Right Hon. R. McKenna, First Lord of the Admiralty, in introducing the Naval Estimates, said .these would represent the total expenditure for the year. They would, moreover, include £1,300,000, interest on former loans. "We are," he said, "paying our way to the last shilling. The Navy must be supreme so long as the Empire is to endure. I would never advise the temporary expedient of a loan to meet permanent, needs." It took two years, he/said, to build a Dreadnought. There was no need to be- , gin the five of the Orion and Lion type before December or January next.. , xiie-cost of the first eight Dreadnoughts would be the same as nine of the .King Edwards. The maintenance cost,would-be.•,• £o0,00p : -.a year.-'.less than thatof the Prions.. Their cost would-be £1,900,000 each, an increase of £200,000 over the earlier Dreadnoughts. The estimates, compared with Germany's twentytwo millions, appeared to represent - upwards of a two-power stand-arc!:; but eight millions represented an expenditure which, in Germany's case, was embodied in the civil estimates. The true comparison, .therefore, was that Britain, was '. -spfefading thirty-six millions, and >Gerin^tty ; twenty-two. A further two-andSa. half millions was deducitable in respect to the *eets we maintain in the Pacific and Atlantic, making our total thirty-three and a half millions, ,

A CRITICAL POSITION

LABOUR AMENDMENT

SPEECH BY MR BALFOUR

(Received Last Night, 11.30 o'clock),

LONDON, March 17

*"" "Mr McEena, iii his; speedy, stated' thlit.Hhe Rosyth naval base would be ready & ;£?l3. .:?-iS/Jtr."--p. H. Lee, Unionist member for Hants,., said the-spring of 15)14 would be critical. We would then have twenty-nine Dreadnoughts in European waters, while the Triple Alliance would have twenty-nine. There was no margin for accidents. The cruiser programme was lamentably insufficient in view of the threatened privateering peril. if the Declaration of London was ratified. Mr" Q. H. Roberts," Labour member for Nbrwich, moved, ';as -an amendment, ''That ' do riot: warrant.ah. increasing expenditure, which is a menace to security.'- : -.'■ ' ■ ■ '-■

The Hon. A. J. Balfour, in a speech which aroused intense interest, said he felt, life others, that the constantly increasing estimates were more than a national . inconvenience. They must be endured, in order to avoid the risk of disaster. ~.., If diplomacy and soft 'words 'could \ accomplish anything, by all leathern be tried again. the hard facts of 1914, 'detailed by Mr Lee, must be faced* Besides our responsibilities in other parts of the World, we must,, he said, maintain supremacy in the Mediterranean. Rio other nation had such a task. Mr McKenna, interposing, said [ the Admiralty did not accept Mr ' Lee's forecast.... ' \:,„. .-, . j ~'.'. Mr !MU boir next referred to Presi- : dent Taft's;suggestion '■[ to ; extenoV .the; existing treaties for arbitration in order to include points of .national honour equally with those of nationalinterestsr The-suggestioh deserved careful consideration, and whether it Avas realiable or not generally, there was.no reason why kindred communities like Britain" and! the United States should not enter into such an agreement.

Mr Balfour, continuing, re-called Lord Salisbury's and Mr Paumceforte's efforts to frame a treaty arbitration with the United States. Lord Salisbury's successors were fortunate enough, he said, to make an immense number of treaties of arbitration. They failed in America, when the Senate' declined the suggestions approved by the President and Oabinet. He hoped that President- Taf t's words rebesides the" feelings of the President and Government, the general feeling in the United States that for, both the countries concerned peace was of the greatest interest, and the time was ripe for a .treaty preventing the possibility of any. kind so horrible as war between theiri. If Sir Edward. Grey and the Government found a way for such an arrangement, they would find no heartier friends than the Unionists. It was the consumation of a policy for which they had constantly striven; but even such a treaty could 1 hardly effect the navy's future, for we were not building ships against America, and he was not aware that any European power would be prepared to entertain President Taft's scheme. Owing to Mr Haldane's indiscretion we knew, on Mr Wilson's authority that the protection of the food supply and raw materials was a subject which was causing Mr Wilson the greatest, anxiety. Doubtless Mr McKenna endorsed Mr Wilson's view. Mr Balfour concluded by urginc that the provision of battleships for possible contingencies in 1914 was inadequate.

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