NAVAL ESTIMATES

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIV, Issue 88, 13 March 1934, Page 8

NAVAL ESTIMATES

DISCUSSION IN HOUSE. (United Press Association —By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.) Received Alarch 13, 12.55 p.m. LONDON, Alarch 12. Speaking in the House of Commons after Sir Bolton Eyres-Monsell, Mr O. H. Hall said Labour viewed the increased naval estimates with alarm. Despite financial stringency, Britain had spent ten thousand millions on armaments since the war, of which a half had gone to the Navy. Admiral Sir Roger Keyes, in a speech in a crowded Chamber, said lie did not believe that any other nation but Britain was going to surrender anything affecting its interests and security. He joined the Board of Admiralty on the eve of the Washington negotiations and it was no exaggeration to say that the co-operation of Earl Beatty of the Board of Admiralty alone made it possible to translate America’s gesture into working Treaty of Washington. “Then, under the first Labour Government, a substantial building programme enabled us to replace wornout ships with cruisers fit to meet those wiiich America, Japan, France, and Italy had built. A minimum of seventy were required to carry out our world-wide duties,” he said. Sir Roger Keyes said a vital link in the imperial chain of defence was a battleship base at Singapore, without which it would be impossible to go to the help of Australia and New Zealand, or operate in Eastern waters. Since 1929 a dangerous change of policy had led to tlie London Treaty reauctions and he hoped the Government would resolutely build all the ships allowed under the London Treaty and relieve the navy from toils at the earliest date.

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