NAVY ESTIMATES.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 70, 22 March 1912, Page 7

NAVY ESTIMATES.

BEING DISCUSSED IN HOUSE ACCUSATIONS OF NEEDLESS DELAY BRITAIN AND GERMANY. By Telegraph.— Press Association.— Copyright. LONDON, 21st March. During the debate in the House of Commons on the Navy Estimates, Mr. George Lambert, Civil Lord' of the Admiralty, said the accusation of needless delay in the completion of the Australian and New Zealand ships was baseless. The delay was due to an endeavour to secure the best armour. Mr. Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, replying to a suggested hope that he would reduce the Navy, pointed out that the late Sir Henry CampbellBannerman's prolonged restraint in navy building had not produced a slackening, but a doubling, of German cpnstruction. Negotiations had been progressing for some time for an exchange of naval information. England was always ready to state what ships she was building and when they would be complete, providing Germany would reciprocate. NEW BATTLESHIPS. LAUNCHING 7)F THE QUEEN MARY. LONDON, 21st March. The battleship cruiser Queen Mary was launched yesterday at Jarrow. [The Queen Mary haa approximately tho same dimensions as the Lion and Princess Royal, being a vessel of 27,000 tons displacement, with a length of 660 ft between perpendiculars ; beam, 87ft; draught, 28ft. Her stipulated horse-power is 75,000, and stipulated 6peed 28 knots.' Her armament is to includo eight 13.5 m, guns. She will have turbine engines developing a speed oi 30 , knots. The Queen Mary is one of the vessels of, the 1910-11 programme. Laid down on 6th March of last year, the date of her completion i« in February of next year.] SUPER-DREADNOUGHT AJAX. (Received March 22, 1 p.m.) V LONDON, 21st March. A super-Dreadnought, the Ajax, has beon launched at Greenock. She will be 23,600 tons displacement, and have a speed of twenty-two knots. [The Ajax is one of the five capital ships of the 1910-11 1 programme. She is being built by Messrs Scott, of Greenock, and was laid down on 27th February, 1911. Her length is 555 ft, beam 89ft, draught 27£ ft.] . MR. CHURCHILL'S' DIFFICULT TASK. There is (stated a cable message in the Sydney Sun on the sth) every indication that Mr. Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, will be compelled to rely, on Unionist support in order to cai(ry through his programme of countering Germany's naval programme. Unflinching hostility to the Naval Estimates is being displayed by the Radical section of the Ministerial press. The Radicals, with the help of the Labourites, are utilising every possible means of influence against the adoption of the naval programme. The Pall Mall Gazette shows what an anxious position will remain, even if Mr Churchill does the most that the Cabinet will allow him to do at this juncture. The paper puts the case bluntly before the statesmen of the oversea* Dominions. "Our anxieties for the future," it says, "will be very little relieved, and if we do not mistake they are shared by Mr. Churchill. Unless a big programme is brought forwerd next year, and pressed rapidly to completion we sht'll, in the spring of 1915, stand whei'b the ardent spirits of the Gorman Anti-British party desire to place us." >