ECONOMY IN THE NAVY

Evening Post, Volume CIII, Issue 74, 29 March 1922, Page 7

ECONOMY IN THE NAVY

ADMIRALTY'S REPLY TO GEDDES REPORT

AN AUTHORISED DOCUMENT

COLONEL AMERY'S RESPONSIBILITY.

<rxoK ouit own corkiipoxmht.) LONDON, 17th February. In spite of the fact that the Government seems to have given a general authorisation to the Ministers responsible for the Departments to deal with criticisms of their estimates made in the Geddes report in such manner as they thought suitable, the action of the Admiralty in issuing to the press a few hours after the publication of the report, a bitter criticism of the economy proposals has raised something in the nature of a political storm.

In fact, fcho weapon of "direct action" has been employed by the most conservative of all the public departments to avert the operation of the Geddes axe. In the absence of Lord Lee in the United States, Lieut.-Colonel L. S. Amery, who is now Parliamentary and Financial Secretary of the Admiralty, had to take the responsibility of this unusual action, bat it would seem that the question of the publication of the memorandum was decided by Lord Beatty. He pointed out that if they asked ftr authorisation, there would inevitably be demur and delay, and consent would probably be. refused on the ground that a dangerous precedent would be created, and that the case for the Admiralty would be given an unfair priority over those of other Departments. If they wanted to get the memorandum out coincidently with the report, they must turn a blind eye to departmental rules, and act on their own initiative.

Colonel Amery fell into line. Happily for their purpose, the memorandum was already in print, when Mr. Lloyd George gave short notice of the publication of the Geddes Report, and, by putting pressure on the printers, they were enabled to get the memorandum out on the same evening on which the report was published. The point, of course, is that Colonel Amery, instead of stating his case to Downing Street, made it to Fleet-street, which accounts for the sea of criticism in which he finds himself. Urgent representations were made to the Admiralty by the Cabinet officials at Downing Street, and Colonel Amery informed them that he took full responsibility for the issue of the document. He was accordingly asked on behalf of the Cabinet to make this clear in a further statement to the press, and the result was the issue from the Admiralty Publicity Department of the following unrepentant communique:—"ln taking such steps as seem to be advisable to rebut the serious and misleading reflections made on the Admiralty by the Geddes Report, Mr. Amery was in no sense exceeding his authority. The memorandum contains the considered views of the Ad-miralty,-and they have nothing to add to it."

COMMITTEE'S PROPOSALS.

In its report on the Admiralty, the Geddes Committee points out that the numbers o£ officers, seamen, boys, coastguard, and Royal Marines show the following comparisons: 1913-14, 142,960; 1921-22. 122,700; 1922-23, i' 21,600. The increase in. cost is from £8,000,000 to £17.000,000, w,hile there is a reduction of 21,000 personnel. ' Flag officers still show the same numbers as pre-war with a smaller fleet, except that there are three additional Admirals of the Fleet, being "special war promotions." There is an increase— with a smaller navy—of 925 executive officers. We suggest (the report proceeds) that the (Admiralty should consider whether it is not po3siblp to abolish certain high commands which existed during the war, but which appear to us to have.now lost their significance. The cost of staff and retinues, and scale of allowances, provision of motor-cars and boats, should be drastically reduced. The cost of the five Home Commands, exclusive of free houses, is £214,000. In addition to these retinues, allowances in lieu of domestic servants are paid varying from £375 to £750 a year. With a salary of £2500 over £3000 is drawn, in allowances made in cosh, and not subject to income tax. Roughly, a staff of about 20 officers, costing £17,000 per annum, has a retinue costing slightly more to wait upon it. It is suggested that an economy is such a matter "at the. top of the Service" would set an example for similar economies elsewhere. Officers' stewards and cooks authorised for flag officers, commodores, and commanding officers, in 19H, cost £255,000; in 1921, £733,000. In addition to the scale of servants which is allowed, in any case where an officer is resident on shore, and does not enjoy the services or partial services, of servants provided at the public expense, he receives servants' allowance at rates varying from £750 down to £13 10s per annum. The total expenditure on these allowances at the present time is at the rate of £70,500 per annum, and the total number of officers m_ receipt of servants' allowances has risen from 110 in 19H to 1500 at the present time. In the four years of the war the Navy fired only half an outfit (of shell) out of the three outfits which were then authorised. At this rate of expenditure the two and a-lialf outfits which remain are equivalent to 20 venrs' consumption on the basis of the late war, and yet it is proposed next year to spend close on £2,000,000 on ammunition alone.

ADMIRALTY'S REJOINDER.

In their memorandum the Board of Admiralty state: The Geddes Committee's recommendations are based on a serious misconception of the character and requirements' of our naval organisation, and the effect upon those requirements of our experience in the late war. This misconception is so complete as greatly to diminish the value of the report as the basis Of practicable suggestions for economy. T«he committee recommend a total reduction of £21,000,COO additional to nearly £15,000,000, decided upon by the Admiralty in the summer. This reduction is declared to be irrespective of any reductions made possible by the Washington Conference, and of reductions that might be obtained by further delaying the provision of much-needed oil fuel reserves for the fleet. Yet, when the committee's recommendations are analysed, it is found that, even if viewed in the most liberal and. unpractical light, they would not achieve a- reduction of more than. £14,000,000.

DESIRE FOR A STRIKING . RESULT.

The other £7.000,000 have no other apparent foundation than the general de«ire to obtain a striking result. After repeating that the committee's recommendations on certain items might, "under the most favournblo circumstances, "lid ignoring all questions of practicability/ result in a reduction of £14,000,000*0111. of about £49,000.000— i.e., about 28 percent.—-the board proceed : The remaining items of naval expenditure (apart fi'oin the automatic expenditure included in the non-effec-tive votes) total übbut £U,000.0C0, and it i* not possible to imagine by, what

process of reasoning the committee concluded that it would be possible on. these items to make a reduction ol £7,000,000—i.e., over 60 per cent. The report throws no light on thie point, and it seems safe to assume that if the committee's general survey of the votes had led them to think that there was ai 60 per cent, superfluity anywhere, they would have closely investigated, such ai scandal, and revealed the facts in their report. ."EVERY POSSIBLE ERROR," Referring to the suggestion that the Admiralty could reduce its man-power by 35,000 officers and men, the board states: "The committee seem to have proceeded on the essentially false assumption that so long as the numbers voted are adequate to provide for mobilisation allocation, they will of necessity also provide adequately for peace, training and the other requirements. Having started on a wrong basis (and incidentally with an inaccurate number), the committee fell into almost every possible error in the series of calculations leading them to the conclusion that only 86,600 men were required for the service of the Fleet. For instance, they omitted to make any allowance whatever for the fact that men would be sick, and on passage to and from foreign stations, at the moment of mobilisation, as at any other moment— an omission of some thousands. They treated 4347 men whose posts are fixed in peace, and who therefore cannot be used for training, reliefs, etc., as if they were available for those purposes, and thus introduced another error amounting to thousands into their calculations. i DESTRUCTION OF EFFICIENCY. | Other outstanding comments in the I memorandum are: There are many inaccuracies in the report with regard to the number of surplus officers. The surplus is no new discovery. The surplus of officers has been reduced since the war by more than 1000.

Many of the suggestions in the report ar« very useful, and are being worked upon, and appreciable, though not enormous, savings will result. In regard to the main recommendations, however, the Admiralty have the best of grounds for questioning the committee's accuracy and judgment. Belying on the Washington agreements, the Admiralty have themselves proposed very large reductions in the expenditure on the Navy. These alternative reductions, totalling very little short of the quite- unsubstantial round figure asked by the Geddes Committee, would not only prove greater in. the result than could ha^e* been secured by 'the Geddes recommendations, but would also avoid the almost complete destruction of naval efficiency involved by the report.. ANTI-CLIMAX. "If Parliament knows its constitutional duty," says the Daily Mail, "it will deal very sharply with the Admiralty's defiant manifesto against the Geddes Report. If the Admiralty is allowed to dictate to the Civil Power by addressing its sai'casms direct to the public over the heads of the responsible Ministers, then there is an end of Parliamentary control over the finance of the spending services. And all the other wasteful Departments will be encouraged to dance a sailor's hornpipe on the Report."

It was predicted that a great deal would be said in ths House concerning the action of the Admiralty in publishing the memorandum, but" the whole matter seems to have ended in anticlimax. In reply(,to Sir T. Poison, asking whether he would name a day for the discussion of "this grave breach of official discipline," Mr. Chamberlain replied: "The Memorandum was issued by the Admiralty in pursuance of a general decision of the Government. The Government thought it desirable that' the .House should' have this information before them as well as the Geddes Report itself in order that they might have full material for a judgment. I have given instructions that the Memorandum should be circulated as a Parliamentary paper." (Laughter.)

LETTER FROM THE COMMITTEE.

Yesterday, when further questions were raissd in the House, Sir Robert Home intimated that he had received the_ following letter, from Sir Eric Geddes:—' "My Dear Chancellor.—Our attentions has been drawn to a communication from the Admiralty which states that in our Report on Navy Estimates there are errors of fact and faulty calculation. We do not pretend that in the whole course of our Report, covering such a wide and complicated field, minor errors may not have crept in, but .we have scrutinised our 1 Report carefully, and We cannot de-. tect the errors alleged in the Admiralty 'statement. If, therefore, you are in any doubt as to the facts which we have given in our Report or the Navy, or are unable to reconcile, our calculations, we should be glad to give our authority for facts and to substantiate the calculations we have made." . ,