INCREASED NUMBER OF BATTLESHIPS IMPERATIVE.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXX, Issue 3583, 24 July 1912, Page 5

INCREASED NUMBER OF BATTLESHIPS IMPERATIVE.

WHAT CERMANY IS DOING

OUR LEAD MUST NOT DIMINISH!”

(Received July 23, 11.45 p.m.) LONDON, July 23

In the House of Commons, Mr Churchill, dealing with the Suppleentury Naval Estimates, said the German plans involved a remarkable expansion in strength and efficiency.

By 1920 the new German fleet would consist of 41 battleships, 20 battle cruisers and 40 small cruisers, besides an ample proportion of destroyers and submarines.

Nearly four-fifths of these ships would he maintained in permanent commission.

Such a fleet was about as numerous arid was superior in actual strength, io the fleet at Spithead at t-lie review.

Cool, steady, methodical preparation over successive years alone would raise ouv margin of naval power. ft was useless to fling money about ou impulse.

4Ye should learn from Germany, whose policy marched unswervingly. AYe must have an ample margin of strength instantly ready. Ihe amount asked for in the supplementary Estimates was only the first and the smallest instalment of the extra expenditure which the new law entailed.

Germany was spending about a million a year in submarines, and we could not allow our lead to diminish. It was imperative to swiftly increase our fully-commissioned battleships.

From 1914 onward we should have five battleship squadrons comprising 41 battleships, as compared with the Carmans’ 29, whereof four squadrons should remain in full commission. It would he necessary to largely increase the personnel of our Navy in tlie next four years. He denied that the Admiralty had recourse to all the available reservists in the recent manoeuvres. They only utilised four thousand out of sixty thousand available.