ABSTRACT
I cannot conceive how any Hon. or Right Hon. Member in this House can contemplate this new and, in my opinion, avoidable burden without a feeling of sadness, if not utter despair. At the last Hague Conference our chief representative, Sir Edward Fry, showed that, while in 1898 European countries spent £251,000,000 on armaments, in 1906 the amount was £320,000,000 or an increase of £69,000,000, or upwards of 27 per cent. ‘This enormous growth’, he added, ‘represents the Christian peace of the civilized world in the twentieth century.’ I wonder what our representative at the next Hague Conference will have to report if the same rate of expenditure continues during a further four years? There is more than £9,000,000 increase in our Navy Estimates this year over those of 1907–8. What will next year’s be? This, we are not told, but only that there are five large armoured ships, five protected cruisers, and twenty destroyers; and submarines to cost £750,000. Are these five large armoured ships to be of the same construction as those that are now under construction, or are they to be like those which are proposed for the United States of America, costing probably £3,500,000 or £4,000,000 sterling each? It is not only the intolerable burden of the present year, but what we have to face in years to come, that should produce pause and hesitation on the part of the Committee before passing these Estimates….
