BRITISH NAVY

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 146, 18 December 1933, Page 16

BRITISH NAVY

ADEQUACY TO NEEDS

EARL BEATTY'S DOUBTS

NELSON PAY SPEECH

(From "The Post's" Representative.) | LONDON, October 27. The Nelson Day dinner of the Navy * League was held at Dorchester Hotel and the Duke of York was to have been present to propose "The Immortal Memory." Having caught a slight chill, the Duke was unable to bo present, and tho main toast was proposed by the Bishop of Portsmouth. "With the Duke absent, the chief feature of tho evening was the speech of Admiral of tho Meet Earl Beatty. The King, in reply to a loyal message of the league, sent a telegram, in which he gaid: "It is very gratifying to the King and Queen to receive assurances of renewed devotion from the members of the ftavy League assembled tonight. He trusts that you will spend an enjoyable evening." Messages were read by the chairman (Lord Lloyd), from Ceylon, Hawke's Bay, South Africa, Ehodesia, Wellington, and other parts of the Empire. Lord Beatty* replied to the toast of "The Imperial Forces." He said that Britain needed a Navy to play the part of a Great Power. To bo of value as an ally we must be strong somewhere. We must havo something to bargain' with, something to make us attractive as an ally. For the purpose of making solid contributions to the directing of European affairs, from which wo could not divorce ourselves today, the Navy was. the handmaiden of our foreign policy. Without a strong Navy we were no use to anybody and we could not play our part as a Great Power. But there w,Cre other and more vital reasons for the need of a strong Navy, i The doctrine of sea power was to secure for our ships the free passpge of the sea. This free passage of tho sea was the beginning and end of our safety as. an Empire, and indeed of our national safety. It could not be said too often that our standard of naval strength, today was insufficient, on the one hand to make us an attractive alfy and play our part as a Great r Power, and thereby, help to promote a restoration of international confidence ': —or, on tho other, was it sufficient to guarantee the free passage of the sea to our ships. The world had talked of disarmament since 1919; In this country alone wo had dono more than talk; we were the only country that had carried out fully the policy of disarmament; and to an extent that made us incapable of playing the part of a^ Great Power,, or of guaranteeing the safe passage of tho sea to our ships. Our credit was restored, but at a sacrifice, our power of defence was weak. Other countries had not restored their credit, but had maintained, their armaments. NEEDS OF THE NAVY. Now that tho economic difficulties were getting less acute, the defence difficulties were getting more insistent, and tho time had surely come when we must meet the just, right, and proper demands of those who were responsible for supplying and maintaining tho defences upon which wo actuoily existed, and.wo liad no right -to continuo to -run tho terrible risks wo had in the past years. Today at the Admiralty we had a board of exceptional qualifications which could bo trusted to administer the Navy in tho most economical way. Dealing in some detail with the needs of the Navy, Lord Beatty said:— As regards battleships, tho overdue replacement of these ships is not on tho- horizon as yet, the time for it having been postponed by the London Treaty until 1936. But it is inevitable, as it is on the Battle Fleet that, our whole Imperial security must finally devolve. Ono of the most important questions as regards battleships to do with disarmament is not the quantity of ships we are to have but their relative size. \ There havo been two majn proposals put at Geneva: One, called the Hoover proposal, that the numbers of all classes of ships should be reduced by one-third. - Tho other Great Britain proposed, that the size should bo reduced by one-third. These proposals aro fundamentally different. The United States wants larger ships. The British Empire wants many ships. Why? Because wo have far greater responsibilities ou the sea than any other country; Obviously we cannot afford our ships to be inferior in fighting power to those of any other country. If we can reduce the size of our battleships in reasonable meSaurc, the expense of our naval armaments will be considerably reduced. A^ for the question of cruisers, here again wo aro tied by convention or treaties. At Washington we kept a free hand in the matter of those vessels, and they wero not included in the treaty. It was definitely recognised, thero by all tho Powers that, owing-to the scattered units of the British Empire, which covered tho Seven Seas, our requirements in this class of vessel were greater and entirely different from that of any other Power, and therefore it was universally recognised that each Power should construct what cruisers she required for her special purpose,' LONDON CONFERENCE "BLUNDER." At Geneva in 1927 there was an attempt to alter this. I am glad to say that it failed. It was left until tho London Conference in 1930 that we departed from our hitherto accepted principle and allowed ourselves to be tied down to accept a quantum of fifty cruisers and parity with tho United States, instead of the seventy cruisers which had always been accepted as our minimum number required for the work to be done. It is not tho parity with the United States that I cavil at, if she wants as many as we do. Why not? But the acceptance of fifty to do the work of seventy was a grave and deplorable blunder. !' There is another chapter in this unhappy story.. In 1925 the Admiralty put forward a programme of construction of cruisers which would have spread over a period of ten years, and at the end thereof in 1934 have given us the seventy cruisers we considered necessary. This programme would have kept going our shipbuilding and armament firms, provided work for thousands of men and kept them off the dole (and it is to be remembered that over 90 per cent, spent on building a ship goes in wages)—in fact, doinjg exactly what they aro doing in the United States today, utilising her unemployed factories and men—and would have been the most economical way of providing for tho safety of the Empire. After a most searching' inquiry by tho strongest Cabinet Committee that could have been formed, the Admiralty plan and programmo was accepted and approved. All was well until the autumn of 1927, when, for reasons best known to themselves, tho programmo was cancelled and reduced to such an extent that we are in a position that even by building , three cruisers a year we cannot obtain more than the fifty, cruisers allowed under the London Treaty by 1936. That position must be rectified at the confer-

ence which has been arranged between tho signatory Powers of tho London Treaty iv 1935, and this country must never again bind itself to any such unsafe limit, but must, as before, build I the cruisers needed for the exceptional. responsibilities wo have on tho Seven Seas. OBSERVER OF TREATIES. Out of all this arises tho point that I we aro a nation that observes its treaties; we can do no more than the Admiralty is doing until tho period governed by that Treaty conies to an end. Meanwhile we should.make the utmost endeavour to put the Fleet in a more satisfactory position in other types of - vessels, particularly aircraft carriers L and defensive vessels of the anti-sub-marine type. 1 Dealing with personnel, Lord Beatty ■ referred to tho reduction in the Brit- ■ ish Navy over tho last few years of 12,000 men and expressed doubt if we had the men. to fully man our ships. The personnel of the United States Navy was 107,000 men, a 60 per cent, increase -on 1914 numbers. That of Japan was 88,000 in 1931, with probably a greater number today—in any case an increase of 74 per cent, on 1914 numbers. ' Our personnel h_id been reduced tp 90,300, a decrease of 35 per cent, on our 1914 numbers —probably barely equal to that of Japan. . Lord Beatty said that a great deal of undue notice and lively imagination had been given to the exercises carried out between a portion of the fleet and aircraft off Scotland, as a result of which some tried to teach them that we could get rid of the Navy and substitute what was called a cheaper arm. They wero not saying what was true or what was sensible. The air weapon was a valuable one and had its .own part to play, and however [efficient aircraft might be they could hot take the place of the Navy. All. three aims of tho Imporial Service's-; .were necessary, and each had cits" own role to Play- -J- "■■> '"' THE ADMIRALTY VOTE. Finally, they came to the crux of the whole situation—the amount of money given to the Admiralty to provide for all-the Naval- requirements. --When he left the Admiralty, in 1927.the Naval Estimates amounted to. £58,000,000. Since .then they had steadily dwindled •and had been as low as £50,000,000. He was glad'to see that this year they were up to *Es3;ooo,ooo,.mainly-to meet the cost of now cruiser and, destroyer construction.. From his' personal knowledge, the new Construction Vote was only one part oi: the Naval Estimates. Out of £53,000;000; some £10,000,000 was being devoted to new Construction, leaving only £43,000,000 for all ,tho other needs of the Navy. How had the Admiralty in the past four or five years been able to maintain the Navy on so little? He was bound to assume that it had been done, by starving the Navy in other directions. Other great maritime Powers, were spending more money on their navies proportionately, and' in the case of the United States actually. We had, rightly or wrongly, conceded parity with the United States, but to concede parity and allow ourselves to'drop behind was unwise. For the last few years the Naval Estimates of the United States had amounted to £75,00,0.00 -approximately. Was it possible that we, by spending £50,000,000,.c0u1d bo equally powerful or efficient? Our-parity .with the United States was the basis of our relative strength with. the other maritime Powers. Our old Allies in the Far East did not hesitate to give their naval staff the money they required. Everything else was sacrificed to it. It was impossible. to imagine how, on .the sum that Aye were spending on tho Navy, the Admiralty wero able, not only to provide for new construction, but to keep the . other necessities of the Navy" adequate:- - -Therefore ■ there must be grave doubts in their minds as to whether .our security was..what we imagined it to bo.