Works, Buildings, and Repairs, at Home and Abroad.

Part of Orders of the Day — Navy Estimates, 1922–23. – in the House of Commons at on 23 May 1922.

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Photo of Sir Bolton Eyres-Monsell Sir Bolton Eyres-Monsell , Evesham

In making the customary statement on the introduction of Vote 10, I hope the Committee will find that my remarks will be as brief as my demands are going to be modest. Before I come to the figures, I wish to dissipate two erroneous ideas I find very commonly held with regard to this Vote. The first is that because this Vote deals chiefly with such mundane materials as bricks and mortar, it must be a very dull subject. I can only say, as one who temporarily has something to do with the administration of this Vote, that I find it intensely interesting. We deal with and we provide everything for the requirements of the Navy, from the largest engineering undertaking to the smallest building repair, in almost every part of the world. We deal in everything from docks to door handles, from barracks to washhand basins, and the area over which we work extends from Wei-hai-wei in the North to the Cape of Good Hope in the South; from Jamaica and the Falklands in the West to Singapore and Hong Kong in the East; and to me this world interest invests even bricks and mortar with a certain amount of glamour.

The second error to which I have alluded is a far more important one. There is a widespread belief that expenditure under this Vote is not essential for the primary purpose of the Navy, and that it absorbs money which might be more profitably devoted to the fighting efficiency of the Fleet in other directions of the Naval Service. If I may say so, I think this is the right line that any criticism should take, that no expenditure on this Vote should detract from the fighting efficiency of the Fleet, and that is the test which I always apply to every single item of expenditure that comes before me on this Vote. This general belief is entirely wrong, because you cannot divide expenditure under this Vote from that incurred for the general needs of the Navy. What we provide forms an integral and vital part of the Navy both in personnel and material.

Take personnel. We have to build and provide the educational establishments and colleges at which the men are trained. We have to build and provide the barracks in which they are housed; and we have to build and provide the hospitals to which they are taken when they are sick. We have to build and maintain the slips on which to build the ships, and the docks and the locks in which they are repaired; we have to build and maintain the workshops in which the repairs are carried out; we have to lay down railways and provide roads to serve those ships and workshops; and we have to build and provide piers and jetties, and, by dredging, ensure the correct depth of water for the ever increasing draught of our ships.

4.0 P.M.

We have to build and maintain workshops, storehouses and magazines for the thousand and one articles without which the ships would be useless; guns, ammunition, torpedoes, mines, depth charges, and stores of every description. Further we have to provide fuel installations—and this is probably the most important item we have to provide at the present moment—to replenish our ships not only at home but all over the world; and we have to build wireless telegraphy stations to communicate with our ships. I hope I have indicated enough of our activities to show the Committee that we provide for the integral needs of the Navy and that the Fleet could not come into being or exist without us. The amount which I am going to ask the Committee to provide for the purposes I have roughly outlined for the financial year 1922–23 is £4,273,000. Last year this House voted £5,836,600, but to that I must add a Supplementary Estimate of £10,000 which we got through later in the year, so that, comparing the gross Vote this year with the gross Vote of last year, I can show a decrease of £1,573,600, which, if you take the percentage, is a very considerable amount on the total involved. I want the Admiralty, and particularly my Department, to get the credit for the great majority of this reduction, because the great majority of the cut was made before the Committee on National Expenditure was ever heard of. As long ago as June last year we had cut this Vote down to £4,756,000, and this was the Estimate which we presented to the Geddes Committee. The Admiralty have always been willing to co-operate with that Committee or any Committee to effect reductions in expenditure, and we met that Committee and made a further reduction of £483,000.

This further reduction was not made without a great deal of effort, and it was made, in four ways. First, by not proceeding with various items that were approved by this House last year and which we thought we could really do without in these trying times. Secondly, by going slow with various continuation services where the adoption of that method did not involve too great expense. In some cases it might involve too great an expense for the saving made at the moment. Thirdly, by postponing many undertakings entered into for the improvement of the living conditions of naval ratings while serving on shore. I regret very much not being able to go on with some of these welfare items, and I hope that the House, when times are more propitious and money is more easily available, will support me or my successor in trying to get some of these welfare items that really are so desirable. The fourth means by which we made that cut was by drastically cutting down new works and concentrating only on those services absolutely necessary in the interests of safety and health.

The Geddes Committee, in their Report on that Vote, which is not a very long one, recommended that no new works of any description whatsoever should be undertaken this year. The Admiralty could not possibly recom- mend that course to the House, because it would be the most false economy imaginable. I do not know whether many hon. Members, like myself, since the War, have taken a great deal more interest in such subject as re-soling one's boots and shoes. If they have, they will have learned, like myself, that you can allow a hole in the outer sole to go to a certain length, but directly it goes too far the shoe becomes useless and you have to buy a new pair.