Imperial Parliament.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume IV, Issue 228, 12 July 1902, Page 1

Imperial Parliament.

London, July 9. In the House of Lords, Lord Brassey, in speaking upon the question of Naval Reserves, dealt on the decline in the construction of steamers, and urged that an effective reserve auxiliary would enable Great Britain to build more battleships. Of the twenty-eight steamships of twenty knots and upwards, the type most suitable as auxiliary cruisers, only seven were British. It was not necessary to give subsidies to steamers that were engaged in the carrying trade, but it was expedient to subsidise reserves of swift auxiliaries, which were conveying mails, and to utilise them in training engineers, officers, and stokers. The State ought to train reservists end man the mail steamers with the reserves. This system would be more efficient than training squadrons. Viscount Selborne, in replying to Lord Brassey, said that merchant cruisers had their use in war time, although they would never be substitutes for naval cruisers. It was greatly to the advantage of Britain that the carrying trade of the world should be in the hands of others besides ourselves. Britain could not obtain all her supplies without using ships which were on the foreign tegister. Britain was behindhand as regards very fast steamers, owing to her not subsidising them. Without subsidies they would not pay owing to their great cost. Yet Britain was unable to do without them. The number would bo limited unless the steamers. were subsidised for a specific purpose. Referring to the Morgan combine and deprecating a discussion based on jealousy, ho remarked that Britain could not afford to be squeezed out of tho Atlantic trade. The natural result of such a combine was not a state of rest, but absoiption. The Government must consider the question of the Atlantic trade as a whole, including what was excluded by the combination, before announcing the conclusions they had arrived at in the matter.