BRITAIN'S NAVAL DEFENCE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLI, Issue 8828, 20 March 1909, Page 2

BRITAIN'S NAVAL DEFENCE.

"A FOOL'S PARADISE." GERMANY'S DREADNOUGHTS. (By Electbic Telegraph—Copybight.) iPES Press Association.)" LONDON, March 19. In. the House of Commons Mr Austin Chamberlain, Conservative member for Worcestershire, continued the naval debate. He declared that Ministers had been living in a fool's paradise A year ago the nation had no security, though in his judgment the position was better then than now. In any case the margin was dangerously narrow. Ministers had been forgetful of such a contingency as a shipbuilding strike. Mr Chamberlain and Mr A. Bonar Law, Conservative member for Duhvich, insisted that it was essential to lay down the Dreadnoughts promised for April immediately. , . The Hon R. McKenna said the coming battleships would bo 30 per cent, better than the Dreadnoughts. .... Mr Balfour, Loader of- the Opposition, noticing that Mr McKenna avoided a direct promise that four Dreadnoughts 1 would be laid down in April, taxed Mr Asquith, who promised this would be j. done if the acceleration of the German programme continued. , • , . 4.1, The Opposition strongly object to tne qualified promise. . , Mr Asquith,, evidently referring to the assertion in the Reichstag of Admiral von Tirpitz,,. German Secretary to the Navy, that in the autumn of 1912 Germany would have only 13 Dreadnoughts and • Invincibles, and that no proposal for disarmament had been made to Germany, this assertion being in direct contradiction to statements made by Mr McKenna, said"Certain declarations filled me with surprise. I await fuller explanation." , The Times recalls that Krupp s loan was made on July 23rd, 1908, and this proves that Germany's order to accelerate the building of battleships was given in April, not October.