BIGGER NAVY FOR BRITAIN

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20675, 13 March 1937, Page 16 (Supplement)

BIGGER NAVY FOR BRITAIN

PLANS FOR EIGHTY SHIPS DANGEROUS ARREARS OF STRENGTH I LABOUR’S CRITICISM OF POLICY British Official Wlrelese (Received March 12, 6.30 p.m.) RUGBY, March I|. In asking the House of Commons tu approve expenditure of more than £100,000,000, and a naval programme of eighty new ships, the First Lord of the Admiralty (Sir Samuel Hqare) sale) that the demand meant that at the end of the year Britain would have under construction the remarkable number of 148 new ships, including five capital ships, four aircraft carriers, and seventeen cruisers. Lessons From Last War The size of the programme, Sir Samuel explained, was the result of past deficiencies. Since 1919 there had been a continuous effort, both at the Admiralty and in the Fleets, to learn the lessons of war and keep abreast of subsequent developments which were even more important. The ship designs had therefore been based upon lesson and experiment and he instanced the new battleships, for which, he said, eighteen designs had successively been discarded before the final acceptance. The year 1914, he argued, had caught the Navy in a dangerous transition stage, before it had had time to organise for defence against the newly-emerged forms of attack. Now they had had seventeen years in which to develop counter action. Without giving details he could say that they included the fullest use of air power itself, and the production of anti-aircraft weapons on a scale and of precision undreamt of in 1918, with the object of making a Fleet in general and the battleships in particular, the least attractive targets for an enemy air force. Naval Bases Sir Samuel stated that repeated investigations had been carried out by the three services for the protection of the naval bases. It was mainly an Air Force and Army task. It showed that they could, and would, make these bases very formidalle objects to attack, whether the Fleet was present or not, while he regarded the surface raider as still the greatest danger to trade routes, so that an adequate number of warships remained the first essential for their protection. Empire Trade Routes Tire First Lord dealt in particular with the question of trade communications through narrow seas. If that threat were developed they were ready to meet it, but the Navy still believed the best form of defence was a bold offensive. He was not prepared to state the desired standard of British naval strength in terms of countries or in terms of numerals. He preferred to say that they must, in order to keep open their trade routes and imperial communications, have a fleet strong enough to carry out its responsibilities in both the Eastern iird Western Hemispheres, for they were an oceanic Empire with oceanic communications. Sir Samuel recalled that the general argument he had given for naval strength was essential for any collective action which Britain might have taken under the Covenant as for selfdefence. He anticipated that if the naval programme was criticised in the light of these considerations, it would be for its shortcomings rather than its excess, but he replied that in the changing situation the programme must be flexible, and, for the present, the proposed expansion war as much as was either wise or practicable. Policy Criticised

The First Lord of the Admiralty in the Labour Cabinet (Mr W. F. Alexander), criticising the Navy Estimates in the House of Commons, said: “Along that road lies the beginning of the end of the Empire.” He asked if the naval strength of Australia and New Zealand were to be increased, and, if so. would the Dominions contribute? “If there was a danger of war in the Pacific, the Dominions might find themselves in a different mind from what they have been recently,” declared Mr Alexander.