A.—s

2

111. From Mr. Chuhchtll to Eight Hon. E. L. Boedbn, K.C., M.P. My dear Me. Bobden, — 23rd January, 1912. I am very sorry for the delay in sending you the enclosed memorandum. It has been unavoidable. I hope it has caused you no inconvenience. Yours sincerely, Winston S. Churchill.

Memorandum, 23rd January, 1912. The suggestion that the proposed battleships could be expeditiously built in Canada cannot be based on full knowledge of the question. The battleship of to-day has gradually been evolved from years of experiments and experience. She is a 7nass of intricate machines, and the armour, guns, gun-mountings, and machinery all require separate and extensive plant, of a very costly nature, to cope with the constant changes in designs and composition. In addition to this, the actual construction of a battleship, where high tensile and mild steel are largely used, requires the employment of special riveters and steelworkers. These men are difficult to obtain in Great Britain, and it is thought it would be a long time before a sufficient number of efficient workmen of this nature could be obtained in Canada. For the manufacture of armour plates large steel furnaces, heavy rolling-mills, planingmachines, carburizing plant, &c, capable of dealing with weights of 150 tons at a time, have to be provided, besides which the special treatment to obtain the correct quality of plate requires special experts who have been brought up to nothing else. Such men could not be obtained in Canada. For the manufacture of guns, plant consisting of heavy lathes, boring and trepanning machines, wire-winding machines, as well as a heavy forging plant, and oil-tempering baths with heavy cranes, all capable of dealing with weights up to and over 100 tons, are required. The men for this class of work are specially trained, and could not be obtained in Canada. For the manufacture of gunmountings, which involves the use of castings of irregular shape from 80 to 100 tons, and which require special armour treatment, a special armour-plate plant is required. The hydraulic and electric machinery for these mountings are all of an intricate and special design, requiring special knowledge, and can only be undertaken by a firm having years of experience of work of this nature. The manufacture of engines, although requiring special treatment, does not present such great difficulties as that of armour, guns, and gun-mountings. But in starting a new business of this kind it would be difficult at this stage to know what plant machinery to put down, as the possible introduction of internal-combustion engines may revolutionize the whole of the engine-construction • of warships. The above does not include specialities, such as bilge-pumps, steering-gear, and numbers of other details which have to be sub-contracted for all over the country and only with people on the Admiralty List. The expense of fitting these up, sending them out, and carrying out trials would become very onerous. For the building-yard itself the installation of heavy cranes and appliances for building a vessel of, say, 27,000 tons is a very heavy item, and the fitting of the blocks and slips to take this weight would require considerable care in selection of site in regard to nature of soil for the blocks and launching facilities, so that the existing shipyards might not be adapted for this purpose. As an example of the cost of a shipyard, it may be mentioned that Elswick, in order to cope with increased work, have lately put down a new shipyard, which is costing approximately threequarters of a million pounds. This yard has already been two years in preparation, and will not be ready for laying down a ship for another six months. With regard to foreign shipbuilding, Austria-Hungary has largely extended her resources by laying down two large slips at Fiume. This scheme was projected in 1909. It is understood that these slips were put down in 1911, and the first battleship commenced in January, 1912. The Austrian Press states that the contract date for completion is July, 1914, but that it is probable there will be a delay of some months in the realization of this. In this instance, however, they have other large yards and all the necessary plant in the country. The cost of this undertaking is not known. The Japanese have taken twenty years in working up their warship-building, and now take over three years to build a battleship, and, although anxious to build all ships in their own country, they still find it necessary to have some of them built in Great Britain. Spain has developed a shipyard in Ferrol and Cartagena. They have only found it possible to put down second-class battleships of about 15,000 tons at Ferrol (the bulk of the material coming from Great Britain), and the yards are being financed and worked by English firms (Armstrongs, Brown, and Vickers). Taking the above points into consideration, it is clear that it would be wholly unwise for Canada to attempt to undertake the building of battleships at the present moment. The cost of laying down the plant alone would, at a rough estimate, be approximately £15,000,000, and it could not be ready for four years. Such an outlay could only be justified on the assumption that Canada is to keep up a continuous naval building programme to turn out a succession of ships after the fashion of the largest shipyards in Great Britain and Europe.