COMMAND OF THE SEA

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 109, 9 May 1923, Page 5

COMMAND OF THE SEA

IMPORTANCE OF THE PACIFIC

NAVAL VISIT TO THE DOMINIONS

FORESHADOWED.

(FROM ODR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

LONDON, 28th March. " The future safety of this country may not depend so much on naval action in the narrow seas as on retention of the command of the sea in the Pacific and distant South Atlantic," said Mr. L. S. Amery, First Lord of the Admiralty, replying to the debate on Navy Estimates, in the House of Commons.

Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy moved a reduction of one hundred men. He said he agreed that, if they were going" to pursue the policy followed since the Armistice, the limit of reduction had been reached. If there were to be substantial reductions in the future, there would have to be a change of policy. We were reverting to the older system under which the Navy had to be prepared to exert its force much further away from these islands. Yet there were expensive and extensive Home establishments which were out of place, unnecessary, and unsuited for the new orientation which would have to be made. It was also repugnant to all who had the real interests of the Navy at heart, that it should be prepared for police duties in times of industrial unrest. (Labour members, " Hear, hear.") He urged the Admiralty to be courageous in the matter of our home dockyards and to reduce the establishment at Chatham and to. refrain from any further development of docking facilities at Portsmouth, both places being vulnerable to attack from the air. While we were spending millions on our dockyards at home, the Navy had no base in the Pacific, and, in the event of need, would be unable to proceed to the protection of Australia or New Zealand. .'SERIOUS ATTENTION TO LIGHT OBUISERS. ' Viscount Curzon urged the Admiralty to send our ships to foreign stations, believing their retention in home waters to be bad both for officers and men. He would like to see an importint section of our battle fleet undertake a cruise to America, Australia, New Zealand, and India. He hoped serious attention would be given to the situation in regard to light cruisers—the eyes of the fleet; we were reaching a point where we should be in a position of great inferiority. It might be that the Admiralty were waiting in the hope of getting control of the air arm; but if that was the case, they ought to say so. The cutting down of the allowance for fuel for the steaming of the fleet to a very low limit was a step which struck at the root of naval efficiency. It was not worth while spending money on the fleet unless we secured efficiency, and efficiency could not be attained without sea training. Mr. Amery said he agreed with the honourable member for Hull, that we were destined to revert to the general conception of naval policy which dominated defence schemes in past centuries. The dockyards and other institutions of the Navy could not be quickly removed to more desirable spots, and the base at Singapore could not be completed in a moment. It would take eight or nine years to finish. If they were starting entirely de novo, they might not set up a great dockyard at Chatham. , At present, however, the cost of removals was prohibitive, and it was certainly more economical to provide'a strong Air Force than to attempt to move the whole of the bases to another part of the world. It was true of Gibraltar that, in the one very remote possibility of war with Spain, it would be liable to attack from' the air, but there were very few positions where so valuable a base could be established. FIGHTING EFFICIENCY. It was absurd to suggest that the Admiralty kept the dockyards inefficient in order to serve some political theory. They endeavoured to keep them as efficient as they could, and they believed that, as regarded repair work, they were more efficient than private yards, or, at least, they did it with less expenditure. On the other hand, when it came to new construction., the dockyards were really not so well equipped as some of the big private firms. He agreed with Lord Curzcm that, from the point of view of training and of the satisfaction of the officers and men themselves, foreign service was preferable to home service, and he would" certainly sympathetically consider the noble lord's idea that, when a little money became available, a fleet of some size should make a lengthened cruise, whether in South American, Australian, or some other waters. The whole of the reductions had been made by the Sea Lords weighing the relative disadvantages of every course and endeavouring to get the Estimates within a certain fixed sum, and if they came to the conclusion that reducing fuel to the present figure was on the whole the least disadvantageous thing to do, he thought the House would accept their decision as the best in the circumstances. It had been urged that they were_ cutting down essential services and keeping a large number of unnecessary establishments ashore. That was the prima facie opinion of the Geddes Committee, but the more closely the matter was looked into the more incorrect that impression was found to be. We had a higher porcentage of actual fighting effi- ; ciency afloat than any other Navy.