NAVY ESTIMATES, 1940.

§ The First Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. Churchill)

I beg to move, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."

I come before the House, on behalf of the Navy, to ask for a few men, some ships, and a little money, to enable them to carry on their work, which has become important to us all at the present time. In making this request, I am emboldened by the remarkable consideration with which naval affairs have been treated during this war by all parties in the House. It seems to me that since I last presented Navy Estimates in war-time—25 years ago, almost to a day—there has grown up a very much wider comprehension of the conditions under which the Navy and the Admiralty do their duty; of their difficulties, and of the certainty that mistakes will be made both at Whitehall and on salt water, and that, however hard we try, a painful drain of losses will be sustained.

I am grateful to the House—not only to my hon. Friends on this side, but to the right hon. Member who speaks for the Opposition and to the Leader of the Liberal party, for this spirit of tolerance, of understanding, and even indulgence with which we have been and are being treated; and I can assure the House that it will only make us more zealous in the discharge of our task, in order to give satisfaction and win approval by producing good results. The earnestness and vigour with which Parliament is supporting the Crown in waging this very grievous war, and the unstinted money contribution which the House of Commons has made for that purpose, imposes the highest obligation upon the armed Forces, and upon the Parliamentary Ministers entrusted with their superintendence and direction.

I regret that it is not expedient to lay precise facts and figures of the proposed strength and cost of the Navy in the coming year before the House, as we 1924 should naturally desire to do. In the first place, it is physically impossible to make exact estimates for contingencies which are constantly changing; and, in the second place, there is no need to tell the enemy more than is good for him about what we are doing. We, therefore, ask the House to show us a special mark of confidence by allowing us to present only token votes. But this must not in the slightest degree relax or baffle the vigilance of Parliament in preventing waste and exposing errors, should such be detected.

The Parliamentary Committees which the House desired, and which the Chancellor of the Exchequer instituted, are now at work in all three Services. I have given particular directions at the Admiralty that all officials and officers required shall attend before them, and assist them in their work. Many have already been examined, but they can be recalled at any time, and there are many others who have not yet been seen; and all those have full liberty to disclose all matters bearing on the subject except those which, being of a specially secret nature, the Committee themselves would not desire to know. Should any difficulty arise, I hold myself entirely at the disposal of the Committee examining Admiralty expenditure. I hope they will not confine themselves to taking evidence in London, but will go to the naval ports and establishments and see things on the spot for themselves.

Of course, there is bound to be both extravagance and waste in time of war. In our country, accustomed to strict Parliamentary supervision, this waste arises very rarely from fraud or corruption. It arises sometimes from inefficiency, and is capable of correction. It arises most of all, I think, from excessive zeal in preparing against dangers which often change, and sometimes fade as soon as they are faced; and still more from the well-intentioned desire of every branch and section to reach 100 percent. standard of safety, which, of course, is never attainable in war. An officer, in any station, serves his country best by asking for no more than he needs for his task. It is not patriotic to ask for the moon—and you do not get it, either. The Navy has borne, and is bearing, the main weight of the war up to the present, and many vexatious and dangerous forms of attack are directed upon us; but if at 1925 any time in the future it becomes apparent that we have got the upper hand in an even more marked and decisive form than at present, I shall be the first to propose a review of our resources and requirements—and we have quite a lot—in order to aid the national war-effort in other directions.

That time has not yet come. We must clearly expect that attacks will be delivered upon the sea-power by which we live, on which all depends, on a far greater scale than anything we have so far beaten back and beaten down. We have been making, from the outset of the war, immense additional preparations to meet these reinforced attacks, whether they come from U-boats, or from the mine-laying of various kinds, or from the air.

Let me first say a word about the U-boat warfare. I have "opined"—if I may find an opportunity to give such a sorry word a job—and it seems to fit the case—that our killings of U-boats may be estimated at between two and four a week; but I qualified this by pointing out that it only applies to periods of U-boat activity; because, of course, when very few come out we could not achieve these figures. I believe it is safe to say that, by the end of 1939, the Germans had lost, from all causes, at least half the U-boat fleet with which they began the war. If we put that fleet at 70, this would leave them 35. On the other hand, I was in error when some months ago I told the House that the rate of German new building of U-boats must be counted at two per week. This and even more may be true in the future; but it was not true up to the end of 1939. I doubt very much whether even 10 fresh U-boats came into action in that period. Thus the enemy may have ended the year with about 45 U-boats, of which, of course, 20 would be required for training, leaving perhaps 25 for active operations. As these would work in two or three reliefs, the number at any one time cannot be very large. Indeed, our calculations show that it has probably not exceeded 10 operating at any one time. This figure must be compared with the figure of 60 all operating together which on three occasions marked the high peak of the great U-boat campaign which we wore down and broke in 1917.

1926 We are getting an increasing number of U-boats. Since the New Year things have sharpened up on both sides, and we have had some quite exceptional weeks of proved results. I see it is said in the papers that another U-boat was sunk yesterday. We do not make announcements of U-boat sinkings unless there are some features of special interest. We leave them wrapped in mystery, but as this case has been mentioned I do not mind saying that it is an under-statement, because actually in the last two days there were one certain and two almost certain U-boat sinkings. This may be satisfactory so far as it goes, but when we remember the substantial losses we have suffered from just these few U-boats operating up to the present, the House will see how vast must be the preparations which we ought to make and which we have made to cope with the full scale of attack which may come upon us later on.

Hitherto we have been fighting with the very modest number of destroyers we had ready at the beginning of the war, supplemented by several hundreds of other small craft, the bulk converted from civilian use, but all armed with the Asdics, with the depth charge, and the gun. But with the passage of the summer the new building of U-boats will increasingly come into play, and we expect to meet these with our very large new buildings of craft specially adapted to their destruction. The token Estimates provide for an immense programme; in fact, we shall be building all this summer at our extreme capacity, subject only to one condition.

I have also undertaken, as the House will remember, at the request of the Cabinet, to try to make a large increase in the rate of merchant shipbuilding in order to replace inevitable losses. Obviously we have to balance one form of building against the other, and that is best done by making the Admiralty responsible for both. I told the House some days ago about this new responsibility which we have accepted. I hope to get, not only leading employers, but also leading trade unionists, into the new Department, so that both sides will be represented, will have a place in the honour of success, and will, I trust, pull together as they have never pulled before, which is very necessary.

1927 The U-boat has been steadily driven from using the gun, with all its great advantages of speed, upon the surface into the more ruthless but less effective warfare by the torpedo; and it has been largely driven from using the torpedo to the laying of mines, magnetic and others, in the approaches to our harbours. The ordinary moored mines were familiar to us in the last war, and we had at one time upwards of 600 vessels engaged solely on the task of sweeping them up and keeping the channels clear. The use of the magnetic mine produces an additional complication. There is nothing particularly new or novel about it, although mechanically it is very nicely made. I feel entitled to say that we see our way to mastering this magnetic mine and other variants of the same idea. How this has been achieved is a detective story written in a language of its own. Magneticism is a fairly exact science, and its complications and refinements can all be explored and measured. To be modest, we do not feel at all outdone in science in this country by the Nazis. There are, of course, two stages in the process of dealing with the magnetic mine. The first is finding out what to do, and the second is applying this knowledge to practical conditions upon a very large scale. We are now far advanced upon the second stage, and although we must expect, perhaps in the immediate future, further much heavier attacks upon us by this method, we believe we shall find ourselves equipped to deal with them.

To cope with the mining attack, we have had to call upon the fishing fleets and upon the fishermen. Although this year we shall have about a quarter of a million sailors at our disposal, we had at the end of November to call for many thousand volunteers for mine-sweeping duties. There was a most willing response, but the engagement was for only three months. It is now clear that it must be greatly prolonged. The service is, of course, not only dangerous but arduous in a very high degree. However, our volunteers from the fishing fleets seem to have taken a liking to it, probably because everybody knows how very necessary it is to the country and that the job has to be done by men bred to the sea. In many sea ports over 75 per cent. of those who volunteered for three months 1928 in November now wish to continue for the duration, and the Admiralty are going to meet their wish.

In their attack upon our shipping and neutral shipping the Germans have broken every rule hitherto accepted by the world for the regulation of mining warfare. But then, besides, there are the outrages they have committed upon the fishing fleets and upon small unarmed merchant vessels and upon the lightships which warn the mariners of all countries off the rocks and shoals. So execrable has been the behaviour of some of the German aviators in attacking harmless, unarmed vessels, in machine-gunning their crews when in the boats, and in describing on the radio what fun it was to see a little ship "crackling in flames like a Christmas-tree," that we have had to set about arming all our fishing boats and small craft with the means of defending themselves, because it was found that nothing gives better results in respect to one of these raiders than to fire upon it at once. We have reason to know that several of them have sheered off very quickly when even only fishermen newly given a weapon have fired back upon them. Thousands of guns of all sorts and sizes are being issued to our merchant and to our fishing fleets. The Nazis have retorted by saying that this entitles them to break all the conventions which they had already broken many times over. They may, of course, apply their methods on a larger scale, but they have not for some time been able to descend to any new levels of cruelty and disgrace.

I suppose the House realises that Herr Hitler and his Nazis have quite definitely exceeded the worst villainies which Imperial Germany committed in the late war. This brings me to a point that I should like to put to the House. One of the most extraordinary things that I have ever known in my experience is the way in which German illegalities, atrocities, and brutalities are coming to be accepted as if they were part of the ordinary day-to-day conditions of war. Why, Sir, the neutral Press makes more fuss when I make a speech telling them what is their duty than they have done when hundreds of their ships have been sunk and many thousands of their sailors have been drowned or murdered, for that is the right word, on the open sea. Apparently, according to the present doctrine of neutral States, strongly endorsed 1929 by the German Government, Germany is to gain one set of advantages by breaking all the rules and committing foul outrages upon the seas, and then go on and gain another set of advantages through insisting whenever it suits her, upon the strictest interpretation of the International Code she has torn to pieces. It is not at all odd that His Majesty's Government are getting rather tired of it. I am getting rather tired of it myself. For my part, I say without hesitation that in the interpretation of the rules and conventions affecting neutrals humanity rather than legal pedantry must be our guide; and, judging by the "Altmark" episode, which gave so much pleasure last week, this seems to be the opinion, not only of the British nation, but of the civilised world.

We must be very thankful that we have our sea power, that we have our Navy, the champion of freedom across the centuries, strong enough and fierce enough to beat down all this wickedness and degeneracy, strong enough to enable us to help our Allies by land and air in their splendid effort—this great institution, which has lived through so many wars, but is still the foundation, in spite of all the changes that have taken place, of our ability to survive and to serve the causes which are now at stake. But let us look at the foundations upon which our sea power rests. Some people think that great battleships are no use at all, that they are only anxieties at sea and a useless burden in port. Everyone sees this war being fought from day to day by the small craft, and they see that the little ships have always to go ahead to protect the big ones, so they ask, "Why have the big ones at all?"

But this is a very superficial view. If we had not got at the present time an unquestioned superiority in battleships, the German heavy cruisers would come out into the Atlantic Ocean and, without fear of being brought to account, would be able to obstruct, if not to arrest, the whole of the enormous trade without which we could not live. They might make temporary bases in distant quarters of the globe, they might establish themselves in positions where we should have no means whatever with which to attack them, and in this way they would soon bring about our mortal ruin. Happily, we have far greater strength in capital ships than the enemy; and if at any time 1930 they break out, as they may do, we are always ready to meet them with much larger forces and bring them to battle and destroy them, as we did in the isolated case of the. "Graf Spee," although, of course, this would have to be on a much larger scale. Without a superior battle fleet we could not exercise any command of the sea, nor even keep ourselves alive in food.

During the last war we had to keep always ready 30 or40 battleships, with all their attendant squadrons and flotillas at short notice, in order to fight a main battle with the enemy at any time. But now this preoccupation is greatly diminished. The enemy have only two really big ships, and they cannot attempt to form a line of battle. We, on the other hand, have at least three, if not four, possible lines of battle, not one of which the enemy could face in a fought-out engagement. Therefore we are able to dispose our ships much more widely about the oceans, and at the same time to keep ample forces at hand and always at sea ready to engage his principal vessels should they present themselves, and it is upon this fact that the whole of our sea control depends.

However, it must be remembered that at this moment there are no modern battleships in action. Many are building in various countries, but none is in commission. Through the various Treaties into which we entered, and upon which I have sometimes expressed my opinion in former times, all our capital ships are old. Some have been rebuilt, but all except three were approved by me when I was last at the Admiralty more than a quarter of a century ago. In fact, we are fighting this war with the battleships of the last war. This does not affect surface fighting, because our new ships will come along as soon as theirs, and in much greater numbers. In a short time the Fleet will be reinforced by five modern battleships of the King George V Class, against which the enemy, in a similar time, can only bring two. Therefore, we shall not be at any disadvantage so far as surface fighting is concerned.

But the fact that we are using old ships at this present time adds to our anxiety, because the attack from under-water or from the air has become far more formidable since they were built, for the torpedoes, mines and air bombs of 1940 are applied 1931 to the structures of a bygone generation. Where one torpedo with a 500 lbs. head was fired in 1915, six may be fired in a volley with much heavier heads in 1940. The air bombs descending almost vertically are also a menace which ought not to be underrated, and which did not exist when most of our battleships were built. But the new ships which we are building, which we have accelerated, and which will be ready in time, are capable of standing up to the air bomb, and are far better adapted to under-water explosions than anything we have to-day. I do not wish, however, to raise any undue apprehensions about the strength of our existing ships. When the "Barham" was hit by a torpedo, although an old ship, she stood up well to the heavy blow, and was able to proceed under her own steam. She will soon be repaired and ready for sea. Again, when in the early part of December the "Nelson," the Home Fleet flagship, a more modern ship, but still 15 years old, was damaged by a magnetic mine, she was able to return to harbour under her own steam. She too will soon be rejoining the Fleet. This secret, of which many thousands of people were necessarily aware, was very well kept and has only just leaked out into Germany after it has ceased to have any importance. Apart from the "Royal Oak" and the "Courageous," no other large ship has been damaged or sunk—

§ Miss Wilkinson

Touch wood.

§ Mr. Churchill

I entirely sympathise with that feeling, but I can assure the hon. Member that I rarely like to be at any considerable distance from a piece of wood. But there is a difference in making predictions and in stating facts about the past, and facts which are known at the moment. So far as the future is concerned, I always speak with the greatest caution, but when you are making a statement of what the facts are at this moment, after six months of the war, on this occasion to the House, I think it is right to say what the state of affairs really is, because it is said that even Heaven itself cannot control the past. Therefore, I say that apart from the "Royal Oak" and the "Courageous," no other large ships have been damaged or sunk since the outbreak of war or during these very difficult winter months. I say difficult months, because not only 1932 have our ships had constantly to keep the sea in sufficient strength amid the storms of a tempestuous winter, amid icy blizzards and high-running seas, but since the "Royal Oak" was sunk we have not had the use of Scapa Flow, which is, of course, our best strategic base, and which would save our ships from a great deal of unnecessary steaming through dangerous waters. "Under the adverse circumstances," if I may quote a hero's phrase, our ships, great and small, have been at sea more continually than was ever done or dreamed of in any previous war since the introduction of steam.

Their steaming capacity and the trustworthiness of their machinery is marvellous to me, because the last time I was here one always expected a regular stream of lame ducks from the Fleets to the dockyards with what was called "condenseritis" or heated bearings, or other mechanical defects. But now they seem to steam on for ever. Even ships with old engines, under modern care, have steamed 90days or more, out of the first 119 days of the war, ending at 31st December. This reflects the very greatest credit on the Engineering Branch of the Royal Navy, and I wish this afternoon to pay my tribute to them here in the House of Commons, and ask the House to join me so that these many thousands of faithful, skilful, untiring engineers may learn, as they will learn, that we here in London understand what they have done and what they are doing, and that we admire their work and thank them for it. We must never forget the man behind the gun, but we must also remember in these modern times the man around the engine, without whom nothing could be done, who does not see the excitements of the action, and does not ask how things are going, but who runs a very big chance of going down with the ship, should disaster come.

§ Mr. Hayday

Stokers as well.

§ Mr. Churchill

Certainly, all who are concerned with the engine-room, the stokers, and the engine-room parties equally. I am very much obliged to the hon. Gentleman for including them specifically, because certainly the House wishes to express to all of them, stokers-as well, the sense they have of the fine achievement which has been produced by 1933 their devotion in the actual running of our ships since the outbreak of the war.

I have several times spoken about the destroyer and submarine Flotillas, and the Coastal Command Air Force, which is their ally and friend, but to-day I ask the House to pay its tribute especially to the officers and men in our heavy ships and cruisers who are nearly always out on the rough waters, amid the mines and torpedoes, some of which must often be only very narrowly avoided, and some of which we never hear of at all; and I ask the House to think of them, and particularly of the Commander-in-Chief, Sir Charles Forbes, upon whose indomitable shoulders the direct impact of prolonged and wearing responsibility week after week descends.

When people wonder that we can move so freely about these dangerous seas, and move great masses of men and material from one far point to another, let them recognise that the Home Fleet is the supreme and final guarantee. Upon this our contraband control is erected. The Straits of Dover are, of course, closed and sealed. The Northern patrol is maintained by a strongly supported cordon from Scotland to Greenland. But the distance is 1,000 miles, 800 miles of sea. During the winter when fearful gales blow and snowstorms, rainstorms and mists descend upon the sea, when it is night for three-quarters of every 24 hours, it is not surprising that a certain proportion of enemy ships manage to run the gauntlet, and, striking the Norwegian Coast in the Far North, wriggle their way down the 800 miles of territorial waters which carry them into close protection of the main German naval and air forces. Nevertheless, the majority of German ships that have tried to come home have either scuttled themselves at some point on their journey, or have been captured by us as prizes. Now and again a raider has broken out, has lain quiet in the Atlantic for some time, and then crept back. There was one that did not even creep back.

Neutral shipping in the main comes voluntarily into our contraband control stations, or in many cases avails itself of the convenience of being franked for the voyage by the Navicert documents which can readily be obtained at the port of departure. There is a very little doubt that the whole of this Northern system of 1934 contraband control will become more efficient as our forces increase, as the long nights turn into long days, and as summer weather enables our amphibian aircraft to range constantly over the whole area. For the rest, the efficiency of our contraband control, whether in the North or in the Mediterranean, depends not upon the Navy but upon political decisions; concessions made rightly to neutrals, trade agreements, and the like. There would be no difficulty from a naval point of view in making the blockade more severe. It cost us no more in naval exertion to add the control of German exports to the control already established since the beginning of the war on German imports. But no one must neglect the serious character of the political decisions which must rule and which are dictated by our relations with various neutral countries. A balance has to be struck between the full efficiency of naval control and the hardships it might inflict on friendly neutrals. This is not a matter for the Navy but for the War Cabinet, and it has of course to be reviewed from time to time.

Where then, Sir, do we stand at the end of the first six months of war? We have lost 63,000 tons of warships, or about half the losses of the first six months of the last war. We have lost on the balance of loss and gain less than 200,000 tons of merchant shipping, taking new building and prizes on the one side, out of a total of 21,000,000 of all types-or 17½million in ocean-going shipping, flying the British flag. This figure of less than 200,000 tons in six months may be compared with 450,000 tons net loss in the single deadly month of April, 1917 We have captured more cargoes in tonnage destined for the enemy than we have lost ourselves. During the first two months of war there was inevitable dislocation. But each month there has been a steady improvement in spite of the deterioration of the weather, and in January the Navy carried safely into British harbours, in the teeth of the U-boats, of the mines, and of the winter gales and fog, considerably more than four-fifths of the peace-time average taken over the whole, summer and winter alike, of the three preceding years.

Our exports, measured in tons—and it is with tonnage that the Navy is concerned—were equal in December and January to our exports coming in in those 1935 months of the last peace-time year of 1938. But now with spring and summer at hand, there is to be expected a considerable normal seasonal increase in the volume of traffic by sea, and apart from any new development of enemy action, a matter which can never be overlooked in any provisions for the future, there is no reason why we should not improve upon these figures. When we consider the great number of British ships which have been withdrawn for Naval Service, or for the transport of our Armies across the Channel or across the globe, there is nothing in these results which—to put it mildly—should cause despondency or alarm, or which justifies the idea that we cannot carry on our national life and the war upon which the national life is centred, with increasing vigour. Any reductions and austerities in home consumption, which we have found, or may find, it necessary to impose upon ourselves, are not due to any failure of the Navy to keep the seas open, but to the need of making prudent preparations against the unknown, and of raising our war effort to the highest pitch.

In 1915, speaking from this Box, on the Motion, Mr. Speaker, that your predecessor should leave the Chair—which he did—I was able to say that our command of the seas was more thorough than ever before in our history, and—although I was not allowed to preside over it—it so continued for more than eighteen months. I will not make any prophecies about the future which is doubly veiled by the obscurities and uncertainties of war. But personally I shall not be content, nor do I think the House should be content, if we do not reach and maintain a control of the seas equal to the highest standards of the last war and enable the Navy once again to play a decisive part in the general victory of the Allies.

§ Mr. A. V. Alexander

I suppose there has been no occasion in the history of our country when the Navy Estimates have been presented in circumstances of greater danger and of greater urgency. I do not think the First Lord would need to apologise for the lack of detailed information in the published Paper for, although on the occasion of the consideration of the Estimates in 1915–1917, we did then have a detailed Vote A, it is 1936 obvious to us that it would be unwise to have such detailed information to-day. We have had to-day from the First Lord, as we expect from him, a statement which was comprehensive and inspiriting and did not lack in the usual light and shade. We would all, I think, like to say to him this afternoon that however much many of us have differed from him, and will continue to differ, on certain political and economic questions, on this matter of leading the British Navy against threats to the security of our nation, and its fight against the aggressor, we not only feel he has done well, but we wish him well. Although the statement has had to be of a certain character necessary in wartime, the First Lord himself—I think he indicated it in the opening of his statement—would be the last to wish to preclude from the discussions in this House anything in the nature of really fair and constructive criticism.

I shall not embark in any party sense this afternoon upon a field of criticism, but whatever we say on this side in regard to this great Service of ours in the present time the criticism will all be in the direction of reaching our national objective, and putting strength and heart into the men and officers of our Fleet. We do desire, from this side of the House, to pay our tribute to the work of the Royal Navy since war broke out; it certainly has been magnificent. There may have been wars of the past in which greater naval forces have been deployed over the Seven Seas at a given time, but there can be few precedents for the pressure upon the time of ships and men that has occurred in the carrying out of their duties of the last six months. I should like to say that I was grateful to the First Lord and the Board of Admiralty for the privilege of going to visit the Commander-in-Chief and discussing the situation with him freely and frankly. I thought it was a good thing for the Board to permit that, and I should like to pay tribute to that great officer, who has done a very great piece of work. What impressed me most of all about him was the complete lack of frills, which, of course, we expect from naval officers, and his quiet confidence and cheerful outlook on the task to be accomplished.

I thought, when I listened on the wireless on Friday afternoon to the speeches of the officers who commanded the 1937 "Exeter" and "Ajax" in the memorable action of the River Plate, that there was something of the true standing, character, and purpose of those who led our naval forces. They have been dealing with an enemy who, however he may have lulled some in this country for the time being by the absence of direct bombing attack, has proved in his actions against our naval forces and the Mercantile Marine how utterly ruthless he has been, and intends to be. In the nature of that attack nothing could have been finer than the work of our Fleet. I do not think the First Lord intended this, because he has already referred to the matter on previous occasions, but I feel that we should recognise in the House of Commons to-day the very great service which the Royal Navy feel has been rendered by their colleagues of the French Fleet. The position of that Fleet, with the very important contribution which it makes to-day, with its two modern battle cruisers and a number of capital ships, apart from smaller forces, is a tribute to the work of its present Commander-in-Chief, Admiral Darlan, during the last decade and a half. I feel that during the last six months they have done magnificent work on the sea.

I would like to say a word or two with regard to what the Fleet has accomplished, if it will not be thought I am painting a lily to the sketch given by the First Lord. May I give it, not as one close up against it in management and direction, like the First Lord, but as one who looks at it from a private position? It seems to me that the Fleet and its work stand out in two special respects, in regard both to defence and offence. It has never slackened in its defence of the vital interests of getting the supplies of food for our sustenance and our raw materials so that we may continue to prosecute our purpose. I do not know whether there is anything comparable in our naval history with the kind of patrols our Fleet have carried out in the Northern passage in the face of increasing use by submarines and raiders of that passage in the absence of the mine barrage we had at the end of the last war. The continuous and ceaseless patrols in the Arctic seas would have tried the finest training, the greatest physique, and strength of spirit that could be found in the world. They have come through that trial with great success.

1938 In the anti-submarine campaign, while we may have hoped that it would have been better, I think in our heart of hearts we must admit that the defence of the Navy has been more successful than some of us feared might be the case. The First Lord has estimated that probably 35 of these submarines were killed by the end of December, and I suppose it is not too much for an amateur to estimate that at the present time we can put that figure at nearer 50. In that case it seems quite clear that if we have not got completely on top, at least we are overtaking and checking the very serious menace of the submarine campaign. Moreover, as compared with the last war, the early introduction and success of the marshalling and conduct of the convoys is a matter for congratulation. We have lost a great many of our ships on this occasion by the action of the enemy through mines, and while the First Lord was able to amuse the House with his reference to the measures taken to deal with the magnetic mine, I feel that the nation has reason to be pleased with what has been accomplished by the Board of Admiralty and its experts in this matter. A very urgent and very great danger had to be met. The losses in the course of a couple of months might have been very much larger, but, as a matter of fact, the record of the destruction and collection of magnetic mines bodes well for the strength of the Navy to deal with any expansion of that menace. In spite of all these menaces from which the Navy has been defending us, the real fact is that in our daily food and in most of the things which we have been accustomed to get, the public so far has not suffered any great inconvenience. That is a remarkable fact at the end of six months of strenuous war at sea, however less strenuous the war may have been in other fields.

Then there is the question of offence. While there are always people who are asking when the forces of the country are going to be put on the offensive and make an effort at shortening the war, there is this fact to be put to the credit of the Royal Navy on the offensive side, that they have cleared enemy commerce and enemy belligerent ships from practically all the seas. You have great difficulty now in finding any German surface ships anywhere on the seas. They rarely come out, and when they do, sooner or 1939 later they are caught. That is a great achievement. The battle of the River Plate was clearly a real offensive as well as being a defensive action. I cannot speak too highly of the nerve, the skill, and the courage of those who led the submarines which came back from their successful attacks upon German enemy ships in the Heligoland Bight. Only those who know the circumstances and conditions can understand exactly what that action meant. On both these grounds I think we can congratulate the Board of Admiralty to-day.

There is one other thing I must mention. I am more convinced than ever that to-day the spirit of our people is behind the Royal Navy. I am quite certain of that. The terrors of German ruthlessness have produced no change in the enthusiasm of our young men. I hesitate to tell the First Lord how many letters I have received in the last few weeks—always repeated in numbers after the sinking of one of our naval ships—from young men who, because I had some acquaintance with the Admiralty in days gone by, think I can do something to get them into the Fleet where they want to serve. It is not merely a question of a spirit to serve, which we all accept with so much gratitude from a body of seafaring men like the fishermen who have been doing such magnificent work, but a spirit which is inherent in our young people, who will volunteer for the most dangerous tasks in the Air Force, and which impels them to ask me to help them on to the lower deck of the Navy, although they have seen quite clearly that up to the present the naval service is the most dangerous and arduous of the three. It shows that the spirit of the people is behind the Fleet.

Having paid one or two tributes which I desired to pay to the Navy, there are one or two points which I desire to put to the First Lord. It is true to say that, taking the Fleet to-day, in spite of the losses which the First Lord has detailed, the Navy in relation to the forces opposed to it is in no way impaired in its fighting strength. I had rather hoped that the First Lord would have told us a little about the circumstances in which some of the losses occurred, provided that he did not give any undue solace to the enemy, and what steps are being 1940 taken to prevent a recurrence of the kind of losses that have happened. The loss of the "Royal Oak" caused some anxiety to some of us, and we should like to think that Scapa Flow will be available for use again as soon as possible. We do not under-estimate the increasing dangers of a base of that kind in view of the known increase of air power in attack, but I hope that by now we have so reorganised our defences in that important base, from the point of view of a normal sea guard and anti-aircraft preparations, that we shall be able once more economically—and economy in this matter is important not only so far as fuel is concerned, but for the rest of the personnel of the Fleet—to use it again.

I have also been rather anxious as to the circumstances in which our three sub marines were lost in the Heligoland Bight. We were all heartened to hear that many of the crews of two of the submarines were saved. We admire the nerve of our submarine commanders and the skill with which they negotiate dangerous channels and avoid many pitfalls of one sort and another, but I have wondered whether there were any mistakes which could have been avoided, mistakes in signals and instructions and in charts; in any case, we should like to be assured that we have learned something from the disaster and that we shall be able to avoid another of a similar character. However, I do not wish to press that matter further. Our losses have not been as heavy as they might have been, but they have been grievous, and I am sure the First Lord will agree that every effort must be made to minimise not only the loss of tonnage and material but also losses in personnel. That is a point on which many of my colleagues and myself have been some what concerned. We recognise that the Fleet have to face many dangers, but when one thinks of the losses after the sinking of the "Courageous" and the "Exmouth" and the "Daring," and the torpedoing of the "Royal Oak," we wonder whether we have yet achieved all that we might achieve in the preparation and use of safety devices. I quite recognise that at the time of attack you may be dealing with a variety of circumstances—

§ Mr. Churchill

The "Daring" sank in 30 seconds.

§ Mr. Alexander

You may be dealing with a variety of circumstances, sea and weather, time, light and fog, but what I feel is that although a ship may go down rapidly and in the dark, and some of our biggest losses have been in the night, we ought to be able in these modern days to protect our men by means of rafts and lifebelts and to collect as many of them as possible, subject, of course, to this rather hard overriding rule, which we did not observe when the "Cressy," "Aboukir" and "Hogue" were sunk, that the safety of the Fleet or the convoy comes before the safety of the few. I should like to know whether we are making progress in the preparation and use of new safety devices and some means of identification in the dark when men are still swimming for their lives.

§ Mr. Churchill

The Parliamentary Secretary will be able to give the right hon. Member a reply on these matters when he speaks later in the Debate.

§ Mr. Alexander

Let me take the question of the recognition of the services of the personnel. We are indebted for the early action taken to recognise special services. It has been very well done, but we should like another form of recognition. We should like to see an increase in promotions from the lower deck. We were grateful for the statement of the First Lord on 4th October as to the increase in the number of promotions contemplated in a year, about 75;and he did, in reply to a Supplementary Question, go so far as to say that that was not necessarily the maximum. But with the rapid growth of personnel in war-time, and with, I fear, the possibility of having to keep the personnel at that figure for a year or two after the war, I think it may be argued that we should have a better arrangement for promotion from the lower deck. I welcome very much the announcement made by the Admiralty in the "Times" to-day of a new proposal for speeding up the promotion of warrant officers to lieutenant engineers. That is a good recognition of these warrant officers, and I hope it will lead to a great amount of satisfaction.

The next point I should like to make in regard to the recognition of the personnel refers to a matter which is put to me in a large number of letters which I receive from the wives and relatives of the men. At the present time, with the increasing 1942 cost of food, they feel that there ought to be some reconsideration of the allowances for children. I have heard of no great shouts about the allowances for wives, but I have received a great number of complaints about the children's allowances. I should be glad if the Board of Admiralty could, consistent with the general national interest, make a re-examination of the present scale of allowances for children in order to see whether it can be improved.

I turn now to the question of naval expansion and equipment. I was encouraged by the First Lord's remarks about the growing strength of our naval tonnage, but I should like to be told—as far as it can be stated in time of war—how much the tempo of production has been improved during the last six months. How quickly has it been speeded up?

§ Mr. Churchill

Warship building?

§ Mr. Alexander

I am thinking of the general programme, including capital ships, aircraft carriers, cruisers and destroyers. I am certain that, as the war goes on, we shall need these ships, and need them very badly. Perhaps I may put the question in this way. Is the First Lord now satisfied with the new rate of progress?

§ Mr. Churchill

The rate of progress has been much accelerated, but, of course, I have also to consider merchant shipbuilding. The measure is the number of men available in the various yards, private and public, and the need for increasing that number of men is very great indeed. Warship building must have priority up to a certain point, but we have equally to replace our merchant tonnage. It does seem to me that at the present time the supply of labour is not adequate to the effort we should like to make in both these fields.

§ Mr. Alexander

The right hon. Gentleman's answer is reassuring in this respect, that the rate of progress is more rapid than some of us may have thought, perhaps; and during the right hon. Gentleman's term of office that rate has been speeded up. I am pleased that it is so, but still, I think that with a little collaboration with the workers' organisations we might get some more labour into the yards—for there are still men 1943 capable of doing the work who are unemployed. For this reason, I was glad to learn of the First Lord's intention to introduce into the new Department at the Board of Admiralty not only representatives of the employers, but representatives of the trade unions. I hope that, not only with regard to the main programme, but with regard to the production of motor craft, something is being done which is effective. There is, however, one matter in connection with naval expansion and equipment about which we on this side are very concerned, and that is the armament of our merchant ships. Weeks and weeks ago the First Lord determined that, in view of the German ruthlessness and cruelty, our merchant ships should be armed. I do not criticise him in any way; the question is simply how quickly these merchant ships can be armed. I was reading again the Debates of 1917, and I came across the following passage in a speech made by Lord Carson—then Sir Edward Carson—on 21st February: In the last two months the number of armed merchant ships has increased by 47.5 per cent."— which did not tell us very much— We had, in the first place, to get guns in competition with the Army. We had to get the mountings, and. above all, we had to get the gun ratings. He went on to say: Of armed merchantmen that escape [that is, escape from attacks by submarines] there are about 70 per cent. or 75 per cent., and of unarmed merchantmen 24 per cent."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 21st February, 1917; cols. 1364–5, Vol. 90.] Therefore, in the last war the percentage of armed merchantmen that escaped from submarine attacks was three times as great as the percentage of unarmed merchantmen that escaped. This illustrates how urgent it is that our merchantmen, in these circumstances, should get their full armament.

§ Mr. Churchill

Nearly 2,000 merchant ships are armed.

§ Mr. Alexander

By cannon or by machine gun?

§ Mr. Churchill

By cannon.

§ Mr. Alexander

That is encouraging when compared with the experience in the last war, for the statement I have just quoted was made 2½ years after the 1944 beginning of the war. What I ask is that, in view of the intense nature of the menace, the merchant ships should be armed as speedily as possible. Another question that concerns us in regard to the general building on the naval side is whether we are making full use of the dockyard facilities. Certainly, there must be, necessarily, a heavy amount of re pairs to be done, but there must also be a great deal of maintenance to be done. I think we lose severely in this war by the removal of the services which we got from the Irish bases that were formerly available to us. It would be encouraging to some of us if we could feel that at least our criticisms during the last few years of the Board of Admiralty's policy had resulted in the reopening and use of Pembroke. When compared with the East Coast ports, Pembroke would be valuable for services in connection with light flotillas in the anti-submarine campaign at the Western approaches. Something ought to be done in that matter without any further delay. I should like now to say a few words about mercantile building, superintendence over which the First Lord has added to his numerous other duties. It is quite right that he should try to get the balance required between the naval tonnage to be built and the merchant tonnage to be built in replacement. There are many people in the country who are anxious on this subject at the present time. The losses have not been given to us in detail to-day by the First Lord, and I do not blame him—

§ Mr. Churchill

I did give them.

§ Mr. Alexander

The right hon. Gentleman has given us no other figure of losses of ships except to say what has been the net loss of British tonnage. That is by no means the full story of the mercantile position which we have to face. There is a number of ways in which we can deal with the falling away in this tonnage position. We can purchase neutral tonnage. We can charter neutral tonnage, not merely for single voyages but for long periods. I have not heard of any sensational work by the Ministry of Shipping in purchasing neutral tonnage. I hope they will purchase some. I have not heard anything very sensational in the way of long-period chartering of large blocks of tonnage. I hope that we may get some information on that another day, but in 1945 the matter of building, I feel that we are up against an urgent and vital problem.

The First Lord knows the experience of the last war. In that war, we lost, in British, Allied and neutral merchant and fishing vessels, 5,400 ships, and a gross tonnage of over 11,000,000 by submarines alone, to which must be added the additional losses by mine. We pray that our experience in this war will not be as grave in numbers or volume. I agree with the spirit of the First Lord, in his forward view of the submarine campaign, that we must be ready. Therefore, in our battle for the security of our people, we must build and prepare now on the mercantile side. Last night, I looked up the figures of launchings of mercantile tonnage during the last war. In 1914—for only five months of which we were at war—the figure of launchings was 1,684,000 tons. In the first full year of war, 1915, the figure dropped to 657,000 tons. In 1916, just as the submarine campaign was mounting up, the figure dropped to 608,000 tons. But in 1917, when we had the full burden of the anti-submarine campaign, we raised our tonnage output to 1,168,000, and in 1918 we raised it to 1,348,000 tons.

The First Lord has rightly taken credit for dealing with the immediate naval menace of a campaign which in the early days was more in the style of the campaign against us in the last war than we might have expected. Great losses have been incurred. We speak of the tonnage of the ships that have been sunk, but there are the losses, we know, in respect of ships that are completely out of action—through beachings, collisions, or ordinary founderings. All those have to be included in the calculation. It seems to me that we ought to be making a very earnest effort to deal with this position. I hope that it will be possible for the Parliamentary Secretary to give us, consistent with the public interest, some idea as to what the programme is to be. But as we look at the problem as a whole and think also of the question of the guns for the ships, gun crews, and the actual manning of the ships, it may well be—and I am sure the First Lord will not object to my saying this—that in the near future the Opposition may have to ask for a special day, perhaps on the Ministry of Shipping Vote, to deal with these matters which are so much in our minds.

1946 We face great dangers and anticipate increasing tribulations, but I believe this nation is determined itself to strive for the great objectives of ending the continuous aggression and threat to liberty and peace which has grown up in Europe during the last seven years, and for the creation of the conditions of permanent peace and justice under the rule of law. I believe that this nation, with its Ally, has the good will of the great majority of neutral peoples, a good will which I hope will be maintained, although I must say that we hold the profound conviction that there is no secure future for any one of those neutral peoples unless the cause to which we have given our hearts and hands is successful. We would not and ought not to continue in this state of exhausting belligerency or to risk the lives of our men and relatives for one moment longer than is necessary to secure the path to those great objectives, but until the cruel, relentless, persecuting aggression is withdrawn, and proved to be withdrawn by deeds, or until that aggression is defeated, and defeated finally, we must pursue our task with the courage and tenacity which are so exemplified by the example and service of the Royal Navy, whose work and achievements we acclaim and acknowledge with gratitude, and to whose leadership we wish wisdom, judgment, un-weariness and success.

§ Admiral of the Fleet Sir Roger Keyes

I am sure that everybody who listened to the speech of my right hon. Friend the First Lord of the Admiralty or who reads it to-morrow will feel confident that the Navy is in sure and resolute hands. It happens that nearly all the Sea Lords who are on the Board of Admiralty to-day joined the Admiralty shortly before the war broke out, and they cannot be held responsible for the shortcomings in our preparation for war which were apparent to those of us who had experience of the last war, and, indeed, to any intelligent man in the street. However, the Board of Admiralty, as it exists to-day, has lost no time in making good deficiencies and in tackling new problems. By the disposition of the fleets and the ready acceptance of great responsibilities, the Admiralty have given the officers and men of the Fleet opportunities of adding glorious pages to the annals and history of the British Navy. I am sure that my 1947 hon. Friends in every part of the House will not grudge me the intense pride which I feel to-day in the younger generation of the Service, in which I spent so much of my life.

The First Lord gave us a brilliant survey of what the Navy means in the struggle which is before us. I do not think that after his explanation of the value of the battleship and of what the capital fleet means in this great organisation, called the British Navy, it will ever be questioned that the Admiralty were wise in the past few years in insisting on building a capital fleet, ready to meet the capital ships which all other maritime nations including Germany are building as fast as they possibly can. I would like to say too how much I appreciate all that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Hillsborough (Mr. A. V. Alexander) has said in the great tribute which he paid to the officers and men of my service. I appreciate also the helpful tone of the right hon. Gentleman's speech to-day, and may I say that it has been very agreeable for the last two years to find the right hon. Gentleman fighting on the same side with us and striving to help the Government of the day to provide the Navy which the country needs.

I ventured to come into the House of Commons six years ago to fight for the restoration of sea power, which was at that time at a rather low ebb, and to fight for all those things which I considered necessary for the welfare of the officers and men of the Fleet. I knew from my experience in the last war and when I was in command of the principal Fleet during many peace-time exercises that air power had become of ever-increasing importance in the exercise of sea power, and I have been striving during all those years to regain for the Admiralty the right to develop naval aviation; to get aircraft designed which would carry out the functions required by the Navy in war, to train the necessary personnel and to operate those aircraft in war-time. In fact, my object was to regain for the Admiralty the control, which it held all through the last war, over all aircraft operating with and against ships.

We have now been six months at war and the Navy still lacks any control over a number of aircraft which carry out purely naval functions, an arrangement which has been attended with disturbing 1948 and sometimes dangerous results. In those circumstances, I feel impelled, once again, to call attention to this matter which is of vital importance for the successful conduct of the war. I do so even at the risk of incurring the displeasure of my right hon. Friend the First Lord of the Admiralty who has, in my opinion, tolerated the existing system which he inherited all too long—no doubt in the hope of coming to some sort of working arrangement with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Air. I would like to quote to the House a letter which the late Lord Beatty wrote to me when I was Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean Fleet, referring to the working of the dual control of the Fleet Air Arm which was imposed upon the Admiralty by Lord Baldwin's Government in 1923. Lord Beatty wrote: This is no inter-service quarrel capable of compromise but a serious cause of reduced efficiency which time cannot correct as it is due to a fundamental error in principle which no compromise can possibly bridge over. Those are the words of a great sea officer who bore the heaviest responsibilities in the last war and who had the vision to see what was likely to happen in the next war. Nevertheless, all the efforts of the Admiralty to regain control of their air service have been met by a long series of compromises. There can be nothing more important in the conduct of sea war at the moment than the security of British and neutral shipping, and the fishing fleets which operate in the North Sea, and it simply is not fair to leave the Navy under the stigma of having failed to give these vessels the protection which it is the Navy's responsibility to provide, and yet the Navy have no control whatever over the nature of the aircraft employed, the strength of the squadrons, the training of the personnel, or even the operation of aircraft on which the Admiralty have to rely for information about enemy ships which venture into the North Sea and for reconnaissance reports on which the conduct of Fleet operations may depend. Neither have they any control over the aircraft which should be in a position to deliver attacks on enemy ships at sea immediately they are located; nor over the fighter aircraft which should be available at a moment's notice to attack the enemy aircraft which prey on our unprotected trading and fishing vessels 1949 almost within sight of our shores. This is no reflection on the splendid young men who, since the war started, have been carrying out the patrols of the Coastal Command. It is not their fault that the Air Ministry has failed to equip them with the adequate number of aircraft of the type necessary to give the Navy the aerial co-operation which it has the right to expect.

The functions which I have mentioned are all naval functions. One is often asked why the Fleet Air Arm, over which the Admiralty have complete control, cannot carry out these functions and provide all the aircraft which the Navy needs to fulfil its responsibilities. It is not generally understood that the decision made by the Government in July, 1937, only gave the Navy control over aircraft which were actually carried in ships. These small aircraft which have to fold their wings in order to get into their floating aerodromes and which fly on and off very small spaces cannot possibly compete in combat with the powerful great shore-based aircraft which Germany possesses and which can fly wherever they like from the Heligoland Bight to the Shetlands, or with the fighters possessed by the enemy which can operate at considerable distances out to sea. When I am asked, then, what the Fleet Air Arm is doing, all I can say is that it is quietly doing its job without talking about it, and in fact is doing the same things as the splendid young men of the Coastal Command have been doing throughout the war, with this difference, that they are operating from floating aerodromes on storm-swept seas out in the ocean spaces.

Without giving anything away—indeed, the fact has been published to the world—I may say that, shortly before the "Graf Spee" was no gallantly fought to destruction by three light cruisers, the "Ark Royal"—which the enemy claimed to have destroyed in the North Sea during the early days of the war—was at cape Town. A few days later, shortly after the "Graf Spee" fight, the "Ark Royal" was at Rio de Janeiro. It is easy to deduce or to opine, if that is the right word, that the "Ark Royal" and the "Renown" were not very far from the "Graf Spee." I would not deprive those three gallant little cruisers of the credit for that splendid action. I would not deprive the Navy of that glorious 1950 story, but the next time a raider ventures out I hope it will be found by one of our aircraft carriers, attacked by the aircraft carriers' torpedo planes, and destroyed by the accompanying ships. That is what the Fleet Air Arm is for. It happens that Germany has no sea-going fleet at present, but a sufficient force of aircraft carriers must be kept in being to deal with enemy ships which venture into the ocean spaces on raiding expeditions such as that of the "Graf Spee." Each aircraft carrier, in addition to its reconnaissance planes, carries fighter planes to fight the sea-borne aircraft of the enemy and it also carries torpedo planes to attack the enemy ships. It is, as I say, essential therefore that a force of aircraft carriers should be kept in being.

In the meantime, I know there are scores of splendid young naval pilots who have not had an opportunity of getting contact with the enemy and who are spoiling to be allowed to fly in shore base aircraft in order to attack the enemy aircraft which operate against our merchant ships and to attack the enemy's ships whenever they put to sea. That brings me to my point. It is no use criticising unless one can make suggestions. The Navy cannot escape responsibility for protecting shipping at sea, by arming all ships with defensive armament and machine guns. The First Lord told us that this was being done. I suggest that a Naval Air Service should be formed without further delay, first, by placing the Coastal Command under the direct control of the Admiralty and equipping it with an adequate number of machines, so that it can continue to carry out the splendid work which it is doing now more effectively. I suggest, too, that the Coastal Command should be strengthened by a certain number of fighters and powerful aircraft equipped with offensive weapons to help it to co-operate most effectively with the Navy in sea operations. I would suggest, too, that all the naval air pilots that can be spared from the Fleet Air Arm should be equipped with machines the Admiralty consider necessarry to carry out offensive operations against enemy ships and aircraft coming within their radius of action.

When I spoke last in this House on this subject, in March, 1937, we hoped that an unbiased committee would consider this question, consisting of men who had neither political nor Service considera- 1951 tions to influence them; but although the House knew of the composition of the committee, it was shut down. I have pleaded, and I have warned the Government, that there could only be one end to this age-old controversy—that the Admiralty must control all the aircraft the Navy needs to fulfil its responsibilities. I stated, too, that, if war came before the Navy possessed a Naval Air Service, the men of the Fleet would pay with their lives for the shortcomings of the Government in failing to provide what the Admiralty should have insisted upon at the time, and for years past. It cannot be denied to-day that men have paid with their lives—fishermen, lightship keepers and merchant seamen—because the Government failed to provide the Navy with the air service which those best qualified to judge considered it should have.

§ Mr. Horabin

I find myself in a most unusual position this afternoon, because I cannot attack, but can only praise, although, of course, there may be some sort of sting in the tail of my speech. I should like to pay my tribute to the inspiring efforts of the Navy under the energetic and clear-sighted leadership of the First Lord of the Admiralty. We all feel that the expansion of the Navy is being pushed forward with full appreciation of the magnitude and the urgency of its task. If our war effort in other directions was as adequate, we should have no grounds for disquiet or criticism of the Government. To me it is significant that the Admiralty deal with any correspondence I may have with them promptly, and without any evasion of the point at issue in a tenth of the time of many other Government Departments which have very much less to do with the enemy. It shows that the Admiralty have a clearly defined policy and an energetic administration. One has confidence in the determination of the Fleet's First Lord to allow nothing to stand in the way in that part of our war effort for which he is responsible.

I welcome the fact that he is now responsible for merchant shipbuilding. In my view, our greatest danger in the months ahead is a shortage of food. Hitler has made no secret of his intention to try and win this war by a ruthless 1952 attempt to starve us out. He will, I believe, use every available means to achieve this end, concentrated air attacks upon our ports and shipping, submarines and magnetic mines. While, of course, the spirit of the British people can never be quelled, their strength can be destroyed by starvation. Starvation might possibly mean a humiliating surrender. This places a very heavy responsibility on the First Lord both to protect our mercantile shipping from losses and to see that enough new tonnage is coming forward to make good any possible losses. During the last six months our merchant seamen have played their part by heroic persistence in their duty whatever the odds against them. They will carry on with the same grim determination in the difficult months ahead. But, that is not enough. They must have the ships in which to sail. By how much would their task have been lightened had steps been taken to make full use of our capacity for the production of food at home. Instead, their task is heavier to-day because we have 2,000,000 less acres under cultivation compared with 1914 and 5,000,000 more mouths to feed. We must build more, and still more, merchant ships, because, it has been decided, as the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) told us the other day, to dig for victory with a pair of Treasury scissors, and to scratch at our millions of derelict acres of land with a garden trowel. Side by side with this neglect of agriculture is the decline in the deadweight tonnage of shipping available for importation of food and raw materials to this country. It is 6,000,000 or 7,000,000 tons less than in 1914. Besides—and I know that the First Lord of the Admiralty has this in mind—it is not enough to plan our merchant shipbuilding merely to replace current losses. Losses may increase in the future, and past neglect must also be made up. Already these losses amount to somewhere about 1,300,000 tons a year. The "Economist" considers it would be a good effort on our part if we built 1,500,000 tons of merchant shipping during the current year.

To me, it is a scathing commentary on Government policy that in the face of German re-armament not only was the home production of food not accelerated, not only was the tonnage of shipping, suitable for carrying cargoes in time of 1953 war, allowed to decline, but a policy of deliberately destroying a large part of our shipbuilding capacity, was also pursued. I am told that National Shipbuilders' Security, Limited, deliberately destroyed a productive capacity of about 1,350,000 tons. National Shipbuilders Security! Shipbuilders Security; National Insecurity. Skilled Labour allowed to rot and disperse, and we know the effect of that from what the First Lord of the Admiralty has said this afternoon. 2,000,000 acres less for food at home, 6,000,000 tons deadweight of shipping less to bring food from overseas; 1,300,000 tons of shipbuilding capacity deliberately destroyed. Surely, this is to gamble with the future of the British people. There has been lack of vision and failure to prepare, and now the man who prophesied in the wilderness is called upon to save us from disaster he warned us against in those fateful wasted years. I am confident of one thing, that his courage, drive, and tenacity will not be unequal to the task which lies before him.

§ Major Neven-Spence

The hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Horabin) referred to the losses, and other hon. Members have referred to the same thing. The right hon. Member for Hillsborough (Mr. Alexander) suggested that the way in which these losses might be made good was by the purchase and charter of neutral tonnage and the building of ships. He omitted, however, to mention one method of minimising these losses which is, I think, of extreme importance, and that is by concentrating every possible effort on salvaging damaged ships. Some losses are inevitable, but even in peace-time we take every step to salvage ships coming to grief through storm, collision, fire, or accident. What are we doing at the present time to salvage ships not irretrievably damaged? I put down a Question about this some time ago; the answer was not altogether evasive, and was in the politest terms, but it suggested that I might teach my grandmother to suck eggs.

If it is necessary to make an effort to salvage ships in peace-time, does it not become 10 times more necessary to make that effort in war, when losing so many ships by enemy action? It is strange to reflect that while we prided ourselves on being the greatest maritime nation in the world, even in peace-time 1954 we were relatively the worst equipped for conducting salvage operations at sea. I ask hon. Members to go back to 1927, when we had to send to Orkney for a ship capable of dealing with the "Celtic" at Queenstown. Again and again we have had to borrow foreign salvage ships to carry on operations around our shores. Foreign tugs were constantly stationed at Falmouth. Before the war there were three foreign salvage tugs at Queenstown all the year round, capable of remaining at sea for three weeks on end, and conducting salvage operations in mid-Atlantic. When we wanted to send the great floating dock to Singapore, we had to hire a Dutch tug for the purpose. It is not surprising, therefore, that when war broke out we were not properly equipped for salvage work. We have many small companies with inadequate capital and inadequate equipment and often without experience of certain types of work. I ask whether, at the present moment, there is anywhere on the East Coast a single salvage ship capable of proceeding to sea for a long period. Of all the small salvage companies on the East Coast, has any one of them a 10-inch hemp hawser, or a seven-inch wire hawser? The only place I know where these can be obtained is in Orkney.

Let us look at some of these salvage companies round the coasts. At Aberdeen there is a two penny-halfpenny tug, appropriately called the "Iron Axe," used exclusively by Lloyds for salvaging fishing vessels. At Leith there are three tugs not properly equipped for real salvage work, and with no divers available except dock divers. When we get down to the Tyne, we find two small tugs. The Humber is rather better equipped; I do not know how many tugs there are, but in any case they are not sea-going tugs. The position in the Thames is much the same. On the West coast there is the Liverpool company, which is one of the best equipped salvage companies in the country; but look at the evidence that came to light in the course of the "Thetis" inquiry. A veil has been drawn over that event; otherwise there might have been a lot more said about it. What was revealed there was lack of proper organisation for carrying out the salvage. The gear was in existence, but the oxy-acetylene plant was not transported in the first ship to where it was wanted, and some essential gear was not 1955 in working order. Also the divers were not sufficiently experienced for the work they had to do.

If that is the state of affairs in one of our better salvage companies, what are we to expect from the small and indifferent companies round the coast? There is only one exception to what I have been saying, and that is the salvage company which has been at work for many years in Orkney—formerly Cox and Danks, and now Metal Industries, Limited. There is no doubt that Mr. MacKenzie, the manager, is a salvage king. He and Commander Hughes and others working under him have carried out successfully one of the greatest salvage feats ever attempted. They are highly equipped for the particular job they are carrying out. But again, they are not equipped for work at any great distance from the shore. They have two very good salvage ships, the "Metinda" and the "Bertha," and a tug which is so powerful that when she went to pull a steamer off the rocks near my home she pulled the top of the steamer right off the bottom. These vessels are specialised for the particular jobs they have to do, and in consequence the available space which a sea-going salvage ship needs for the accommodation of the crew and bunkers is taken up with gear. The "Bertha" and "Metinda," both of which ships I know well, left Orkney at or shortly after the outbreak of war to refit. Where are they now? They went away to have some of the compressors taken out in order to give extra space for the crew and extra bunker space and to have oxy-acetylene apparatus put on board, and, in fact, to be fitted properly as sea-going salvage ships. And here we are now in the sixth month of the war, and these ships are not ready yet. I want to know why they are not ready and whose fault it is. This matter needs looking into.

The other day in London I ran into the officer to whom I referred, Commander Hughes. That officer has been in charge of the salvage operations under Mr. Mackenzie at Scapa Flow continuously for seven years, and there is probably no more experienced salvage officer in the country. Ever since the outbreak of the war, however, he has been on the beach. That can only mean that we are not carrying out as much salvage 1956 as we were before the war. Is there any wonder that wherever one goes along the East Coast the same question comes up every time: Why are we not salvaging more ships? An hon. Member above the Gangway approached me the other day and asked about the state of affairs along the Sunderland coast. I feel that much more might be done than is being done. There is overwhelming evidence that thousands of tons of shipping that could have been salved have not been salved, and much will be irretrievably lost if the job is not soon tackled. Salvage is a very critical operation. Every minute may count. If a ship goes ashore on a rising tide it may be possible to salvage her at once. If she goes ashore when the spring tides are making, the case may not be hopeless. The point is that every second counts. A change of the weather may wreck the most promising chance.

I appreciate that there are many ships which it is difficult to salve in war-time. No one expects an attempt to be made to salvage a ship which has been blown up by a magnetic mine and had her back broken, but there are other ships which have been attacked by machine guns and abandoned by the crews and afterwards sunk by our own destroyers. That is the type of ship which can often be salved. One has seen reports recently about ships of which the salvage has been attempted, but when they were towed in they capsized. One cannot be dogmatic about such cases without knowing the circumstances, but they rouse the suspicion that properly qualified people were not tackling the jobs. Only yesterday I read in one of my local papers an account of the salvaging of a burning grain ship in Orkney. No attempt had been made to deal with the ship until a retired sea captain asked whether he could have a try. He had no tackle or gear, although he had had some previous experience, and he salvaged the ship successfully. Such a job should not be left to an individual situated as he was. There should have been some better organisation to deal with it.

The whole position of salvage shows a woeful lack of foresight at the Admiralty. They must have been aware for years of the lamentable lack of adequate salvage apparatus round our coasts. If they were not aware of it, they should have had their eyes opened at the time of the "Thetis" 1957 tragedy. Yet six months after the outbreak of war we still have no sea-going salvage ships. It is possible that the Admiralty have plans, but nothing will make me alter my opinion that they have been too long in getting the plans into action. I hope they have been worked out now and that we shall see something of them in the near future. I should like to see at the stations I have mentioned on the East Coast at least one first-class sea-going salvage ship with complete equipment—compressors for diving, oxy-acetylene apparatus, salvage pumps, general repair outfit, wireless apparatus, and a couple of experienced divers. We have the necessary divers in this country at Scapa Flow. We want the type of men who are accustomed not merely to going down great depths, but to doing a job of work when they get there. I do not think the salvage companies could do the work themselves because they have not the capital or the amount of experience. The work must be co-ordinated and all the stations properly equipped. Whatever the future arrangements are, I hope the Admiralty will see that it is their policy to provide these companies with the capital and equipment they have not got—and at the same time see they do not get away with too much of the swag.

§ Mr. McLean Watson

I have a considerable amount of sympathy with the hon. and gallant Member for Orkney and Shetland (Major Neven-Spence), who has been voicing a great grievance in Scotland, for Scotland has a great interest in the question of salvaging vessels. At the end of the last war the German Fleet found a grave in Scapa Flow. In the time that has elapsed the greater part of that fleet has been salvaged and broken up for scrap. I am pleased to have the opportunity of following the hon. and gallant Member for Orkney and Shetland, because these German battleships were brought through the North Sea to a dockyard in my constituency. I question whether there is any dockyard in the country to which the German hulks could have been brought. These battleships were brought to Rosyth bottom upwards, and I question whether there is another dockyard in the country that could have taken them in that state. Yet this is the dockyard which the Admiralty reduced to 1958 a care-and-maintenance basis in 1925. It was kept in that condition until shortly before the present war broke out. I am pleased the Admiralty recognised that there is a need for Rosyth, and I hope that the daft policy that was pursued in the past with regard to it will not be followed in future and that now that they are getting the yard back to something like its original condition it will be kept so long as we require dockyards.

It is lamentable to think that while dockyards in the South of England, which cannot compare with Rosyth, were being kept in full working order, Rosyth was reduced to a care-and-maintenance basis. It was then the newest dockyard in the country. There is no difficulty in docking in it the largest ship in the Fleet. Shortly before it was reduced, the "Hood" was docked there in a dense fog without a scratch. Rosyth has now been reopened, but it has not done as much for the Navy as it could have done if it had been kept in proper condition. The Admiralty have had to re-establish the yard and obtain new labour because the war was upon us before it could be developed to any extent. However, it has again been placed on the map, and I hope it will be kept on the map by the Admiralty. The First Lord interested the whole House with his graphic description of how the war had developed, his account of the losses we had sustained, and his expectations and hopes for the future. We were all interested in that speech, and I dare say that so long as the Government can find as good a cause as they have for the present war they will get support from this side of the House for the Navy, for the Army and for the Air Force.

I do not know how the First Lord or the powers-that-be generally managed to cover up the accident to the "Nelson" for so long. They knew about it weeks ago, but, as the First Lord said, it was only last week-end that it was discovered in Germany that the "Nelson" had met with an accident. Had the Germans been as well informed as they pretend to be, we should have had "Lord Haw-Haw" on the job weeks ago. It is a good thing they do not know everything which they might know concerning our affairs in this country. I hope they will get no information that will be of any use to them in any shape or form. The information 1959 which they ought to get is some of that which the First Lord gave us this afternoon; that while our losses have been serious—not so far as capital ships are concerned; the smaller ships have suffered—we have his assurance that the ships lost will be replaced in a very short time, and that some of the ships damaged in the course of the war will again be in active service before long. That gives us the assurance that so far as the Navy is concerned we have no need to be afraid or to be ashamed.

I have a considerable amount of sympathy with the speech of the hon. and gallant Member for North Portsmouth (Sir R. Keyes). He raised a matter which is of very considerable importance. We have had many discussions in this House about whether the Air Force should be entirely under the control of the Air Ministry or whether we should have this compromise system of having part of it under the Air Ministry and part of it under the Admiralty. I have great sympathy with the point of view which the hon. and gallant Member expressed. I have sympathy with him for this reason, that in the one serious attack made on this country by the German air force the sufferers were men belonging to the Navy. That was the occasion when the Germans tried to get through to Rosyth Dockyard. They created a considerable amount of havoc that afternoon, and it is possible that if we had had an air fleet wholly under the control of the Admiralty there might have been more co-operation between that section of the Air Force and the Navy than was in existence that afternoon.

The first air raid made on this country was made on Rosyth, and, as I have said, the men who met their death were men who were on His Majesty's ships. It was a most unfortunate business, and it makes many of us wonder whether the advocates of the whole of the Air Force being under the control of the Air Ministry are justified in that claim, or whether we should not, as the hon. and gallant Member for North Portsmouth advocated this afternoon, give the Admiralty much greater power in building up an air force to co-operate with the Fleet than has been permitted to them so far. It is true that in addition to the floating aerodromes to which he referred there are one or two shore establishments 1960 which are under the control of the Admiralty, but I believe that it would be to the advantage of this country if the Admiralty had a much greater and a more efficient air force than they are now permitted to have.

I know that many hon. Members are anxious to take part in this Debate, and I merely wish to express my appreciation of the speech we had this afternoon from the First Lord, and to renew the hope that the mistake which was made in 1925 with regard to the dockyard in my constituency will not be repeated. I hope that Rosyth will be made and kept as a first-class naval dockyard; that the Admiralty will make up their minds once and for all that so long as we require a Navy, Rosyth shall be one of the dockyards which is to serve its needs. In the past the Admiralty have not played the game with Scotland in that respect. They may have played the game with the Clyde, where many of our first-class battleships have been built, but the Clyde is not the whole of Scotland, and I am not sure that it is the best part of Scotland. We who live on the East Coast are as keenly interested in the Navy as any one in the West can be, and we want to see that dockyard made into and kept as one of our first-class dockyards.

Commander Sir Archibald South by

During the last war a great American who was at that time United States Ambassador to this country wrote this: So far as ensuring peace is concerned, the biggest factor in the world in the British Fleet. A Member of this Honourable House in 1751 uttered the immortal truth that a Sea Power should make war by sea. I do not always see eye to eye with the First Lord of the Admiralty, but I will "hand it to him" for knowing how to make war by sea, for organising the naval resources of this country, for stimulating the naval forces of this country, and for catching the attention of the public and heartening the nation in the speeches he makes about our naval forces. He appreciates the dictum of Cardinal Richelieu that without sea-power one can neither profit from peace nor sustain war. We listened with great interest to the account which the right hon. Gentleman gave when presenting the Estimates, 1961 Estimates for an unspecified number of men, an unspecified number of ships and an unspecified amount of money, none of which, this country or this House will grudge to the right hon. Gentleman's Department for the better prosecution of the war, realising that fundamentally and in the end it is the sea-power of this country which will be the deciding factor in this or in any war in which this country is engaged. I was glad to hear the right hon. Gentleman's tribute to the officers and men of the Royal Navy. There was no one who was not thrilled by the exploits of those three magnificently-handled ships in the action against the "Graf Spee." Their magnificent handling was also supported by very good fortune, as those who have expert knowledge realise. Indeed, there was a considerable amount of good fortune in that action, on our side mercifully. We were thrilled, also, when we found the men who had been concerned in that action amongst us in the City of London, but as I read the accounts of the wonderful entertainment given to them by the city, and the amazing reception they met with from the people, my thoughts turned to the officers and men of the flotillas in the North Sea who for week after week and month after month have endured what nobody who has not experienced the North Sea in such weather as we have had recently, can really appreciate.

§ Mr. Benjamin Smith

Surely that does not detract from the exploits of the other men?

Sir A. South by

No, I would not for a moment have it said that I think that: This ought ye to have done, and not have left the other undone. Only I feel that it should be on record that the work which is being done day by day by the men in the destroyers merits not only our appreciation but our whole-hearted gratitude. As long ago as 1907 there was a Hague Convention which laid down certain rules for the conduct of war. The State Department of the United States at that time expressed forebodings that belligerents might, in the heat of a war and for their own advantage, break their word although they had subscribed to the Convention. Both in the last war and in this war we have seen those forebodings fulfilled by Germany's betrayal after 1962 betrayal of the undertakings she had entered into. To any seamen the last, the most beastly and most disgusting of all her actions was the bombing and the machine-gunning of lightships. It can only be described as on a par with shooting a hospital nurse in the back. It has been left for German airmen to do that, just as it has been left for Germany to make the name "submarine" stink in the nostrils of the world.

All through history every effort has been made in times of peace to reduce and to hamstring the sea power of this country. We have had to wage a continuous fight to preserve for ourselves that liberty of action at sea which makes it possible for us to use that last inexorable triumphant weapon of the blockade. Although Germany has broken every rule of decency in the conduct of the war at sea, we should remind ourselves that it is possible to make submarine warfare and to do it humanely and decently. I do not know how many Members have had either the time or the inclination to read the naval history of the last war, but I would crave their indulgence to quote two or three passages from it. Here is one concerning the work of our submarines in the Sea of Marmora: This ended the work of the British submarines in the Sea. of Marmora. They had sunk two battleships of the Turkish Navy, one destroyer, five gunboats, nine transports, more than 30 steamers, seven ammunition store ships and 188 sailing vessels. In every case regard was paid to the humanities. The crews were provided for, often at great risk to ourselves, and the greatest consideration was shown, a fact to which the Turks themselves paid tribute to our commanding officers.

Recently I have had enforced leisure in which to study the speeches and Debates of the past. In considering Germany's tremendous fury and reaction to the "Altmark" incident one might remember what happened to one of our submarines, E 13, in the last war. E 13, when coming back from the Baltic, went aground on 18th August, 1915, between Malmo and Copenhagen, on Danish territorial soil. She had, under international law, 24 hours in which she could either repair herself and get off or be interned. While she was lying there two German destroyers came and, in spite of the presence of a Danish torpedo vessel, they fired a torpedo at E 13 which exploded 1963 on the Danish rocks under the ship's bottom. Not content with that they opened fire upon this defenceless ship which was lying on a neutral shore, under what protection a neutral man-of-war could give to it. They fired some 400 rounds of four-inch projectiles into this ship. The crew escaped, some over the rocks. Some took to the water and a large number of them were deliberately machine-gunned by the German destroyer as they were swimming until the Danish sailors intervened and saved the lives of the remainder. It passes my comprehension and, I am sure, that of any other hon. Member in this House how any country or Government can be so hypercritical, having that record behind them, as to complain of what we did in saving our men from the "Altmark."

My right hon. Friend referred—I took great note of what he said—to the effects of our economic blockade. There we have the one weapon among other weapons which in the end will prove victorious in the struggle in which we are now engaged. The alternative to a blockade as one great writer, Admiral Mahon, who is an expert on the subject, has said, is the expenditure of hundreds of thousands of lives and millions of money. The last war was prolonged because in the beginning we did not exert our full power of economic warfare and blockade. I hope that we shall not make the same mistake in this war. We very nearly subscribed to the Declaration of London, pressed to do so over and over again by politicians and statesmen in this country, but mercifully we did not. Under it we should have started the war with copper, rubber, cotton and even aeroplanes not contraband. Those who took part in the last war and were in service on the North Sea saw cargo after cargo of potential munitions of war including raw materials passing practically unhindered into Germany. When a blockade was exercised the flood of raw materials through the neutrals enabled Germany to keep the war on. In the interests of humanity it is necessary for us to exercise to the fullest possible extent the power of blockade which sea power gives to us.

When the United States have been at war they have always subscribed to our rules of sea warfare. When they have been at peace they have not. Certainly on occasions they have had reservations. 1964 In the last war when they came in they went much further than we were prepared to go in applying blockade. I am sure that the feeling in the United States is one of great sympathy with the Allies and of great understanding of the difficulties—because of their experiences in the last war—which any sea power must have when it is fighting a war of this importance. Therefore, I have no fear about public opinion in the United States of America. Causes of friction will arise, but in the main the United States understand our difficulties in the application of sea power and provided we carry out our duties and obligations with tact and consideration I believe we shall have nothing but support from them.

Mr. Walter Hines Page, perhaps one of the greatest Ambassadors the United States have ever sent to this country, had the fullest understanding of us and of our difficulties. At the time when the Declaration of London was being discussed before the last war he was pressed four times by his Government to exercise pressure upon this country to subscribe to a declaration which would have hamstrung us completely if it had been finally ratified before the war began.

Vice-Admiral Taylor

That Declaration was not law.

Sir A. South by

No, it was not law. As I said, had it been subscribed to completely it would have hamstrung us. Mr. Page said this: If Lansing (then Secretary of State in the United States) again brings up the Declaration of London after four flat and reasonable rejections I shall resign. I will not be the instrument of a perfectly gratuitous and ineffective insult to this patient and fair and friendly Government, who, in my time, have done us many kindnesses and never an injury, and who sincerely try now to meet our wishes. He went on at the same time to say: The case is plain enough to me. England is going to keep war materials out of Germany so far as she can. We would do it in her place. Germany would do it. Any nation would do it. Then he said: If England be left alone she will do it in a way to give us the very least annoyance possible. He pointed out that we had not then confiscated a single American cargo even of unconditional contraband. I believe that in the hands of my right hon. Friend 1965 the First Lord of the Admiralty, the prosecution of economic warfare is safe. I said just now—although we have not always been able to see eye to eye—that I hand it to him for the prosecution of the war at sea. I believe that with his drive he is the person who will see to it that we do not lose the tremendous advantage that we possess of being able to apply inexorable pressure upon the German people. This is more difficult now because of the circumstances of the grouping of the Powers, but in the end the sea power that we can exercise will be the deciding factor.

I listened to the right hon. Member for Hillsborough (Mr. Alexander), whose friendliness and affection for the Navy I as a naval officer would like to acknowledge. He has always been dear to the heart of the Navy. Knowing his interest in the Service and his knowledge of the conditions in the Navy, I could not help casting my mind back to the time when he was First Lord of the Admiralty and when some of us—I have no desire to say "I told you so"—protested against the London Naval Treaty which is at the bottom of half our troubles of unprepared-ness at the present time. He had—I do not know with what pressure behind him—to defend that Treaty at that Box and he did ably defend it, while I opposed it from the other side of the House. That was a wicked abrogation of British sea power, from the effects of which we shall have to suffer until after the expenditure of much money we shall with blood and tears have made up the deficiencies of the Navy which ought never to have been allowed to take place.

§ Mr. Alexander

I take no exception to what the hon. and gallant Member is saying, but I would simply say that if he has ever known what it is to find himself fighting a rearguard action against the Treasury and to come out of it with a programme of replacement of crui