AIR AND SEA POWER.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 17814, 13 July 1923, Page 9

AIR AND SEA POWER.

AEROPLANES OR I SINGAPORE? 1 1 ' j DEBATE IN HOUSE OF LORDS. j .'"I- CABLE—?nESS ASSOCIATION—COPTBIOHT.) I .AUSTIiALIAN AND i?.2. CABLE ASSOCIATION.) (Received Julv 13th, 11.20 p.m.) LONDON, July 12. la tlie House of Lords, Viscount Wimhorne moved t'nat in view of the ! growing importance of an power, tlie i Aonternplated expenditure under the ! Navy LVuiinate:; and the Air Estimates I -,vas disproportionate. ; Tlie -Marquess of Linlithgow said the base at Singapore was by far the : oheapwt way of rendering British sea power effective in the Far East that ; could In- conceived. j Viscotmt Haldane asked against ' whom was the Singapore naval base directed? Was it tlio United States or Japan? Ho failed to see how our general command at the sea was at. this moment imperilled. Home air defence was more important than security in tlie Far East. People had not fully realised time wo were now a. Continental nation. Viscount Long deprecated thi3 attempt to institute' a comparison between aircraft and the capital ship in order to secure more money for the Royal Air Force. Viscount Grey agreed that the Government had no choice except to increase the expenditure on the Air Force, but, essential as this expenditure was, it was the beginning of a new competition in armaments which ivoulcl inevitably lead to a war worse than the last, and one from which European civilisation would never recover. He urged the Government to take all possible steps for an international limitation of armaments. If war with Japan did occur in which the United States and the British Empire would lie on tlie same side, he Was not at all sure that the construction of docks at Singapore was the best way to prepare for such a contingency. Lord Wimborne's motion was negatived without a division.