OLD NAVAL CUTS

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 70, 19 September 1936, Page 25

OLD NAVAL CUTS

EFFECT OF LABOUR ACTION The Navy's thirteen cruisers of the 10500%0n County class have long been nbiects of severe criticism on account of 3 heir inadequate .protection writes Hector By water'in the 'Daily Teiegrinhiite of their great . size and laSe complement-nearly 700 officers and men-they carry no vertical _ armour, and their only defence against gun-fire is a steel deck' Hm to Jin th These ships are being reconstructed in rotation, and the Cumberland recently came out of dockyard with her after freeboard reduced and a certain amount* of extra armour protection. Meanwhile, other navies have steadily developed and improved this type 'of vessel. The latest foreign examples are true armoured cruisers, greatly superior to our ships even after reconstruction. In the case of Great Britain a corresponding development has been- impossible, owing to • the IiMU London Treaty concluded by the then Labour Government. This Treaty completely stopped the building of .heavy cruisers for the British Navy, while leaving every other Power free to construct such vessels." In this connection, an interesting disclosure can now be made. Two 10,000ton cruisers, Northumberland and Surrey, were, projected by the Conservative Government in 1929 and duly ordered. Although the'fact was naturally confidential at the time, these ships were of an entirely new. design and were, indeed, intended to be our first armoured cruisers of the postwar period. In all-round fighting power they would have "been a match for any cruisers afloat.' Shortly after the ships had been voted the Labour Government came into power., One of its first acts was to suspend all preliminary work on the new ships, and in January, 1930, both were cancelled. No doubt the Admiralty pointed out. the , special importance of the two" ships' and the Navy's urgent need of such vessels,, but the Government turned a deaf ear to all protests. At the same time the Labour Government cancelled four out of the eight destroyers which had.been, voted by the previous Parliament. This action subsequently compelled the Armiralty to organise, the 2nd Destroyer Flotilla out of four new and, four old destroyers, thereby seriously impairing its tactical efficiency;.