TOPICS OF THE DAY.
WHY NOT AUDIT THE FLEET ?
IN the autumn of 1906 we advocated a Parliamentary inquiry, either by a Committee of the House ,pf Commons or by a Joint Committee of both Houses, into the question : " Are we getting value for our expenditure on the Navy ? " What we want, we declared, "is, in commercial language, to take stock of the Navy and the Admiralty," and to see whether the state of the Navy is or is not satisfactory. We desired an answer to the question : " Is all well with that force upon which, under God, to use the words of the preamble to the Naval Discipline Act, the safety and welfare of the Realm cloth depend ? " The year and a half that have passed have not made us alter our view, but, on the contrary, have immensely strengthened the convictions upon which it was based. That being so, it is with the utmost satisfaction that we note Lord Esher's most able plea for a similar policy contained in his article entitled " To-day and To-morrow " in the National Review for May. We dealt with that article last week, but so great is the importance of the problem that we make no apology for returning to it. Lord Esher's argument is shortly as follows. The possession of the command of the sea is absolutely essential, not only to the maintenance of the Empire, but to the existence of these islands as an independent nationality. If we lose the command of the sea, we lie at the mercy of Germany ; and all history shows that no great and growing Power can resist the temptation to take from its neighbours what they do not value, or what, at any rate, they do not think it worth while to safeguard. We cannot possibly expect the Germans, if once they are stronger at sea than we, not to reap the reward of the great sacrifices which they will have made to obtain naval supremacy. Hence, as Lord Esher shows with admirable force and insight, the maintenance of friendly relations with our great neighbour, those friendly relations which the bulk of Englishmen are so anxious to maintain, rests in the last resort upon our keeping the command of the sea. If we keep that treasure, there is little fear of war with Germany. If we do not keep it, we are inviting the terrible evil which we so ardently desire to avoid. Never was there a better example of the truth that the best way to maintain peace is to be prepared for war. We. are not an aggressive or tyrannous people, and there is not the slightest fear that predominant sea power in our hands will ever be used to attack our neighbours, or to oppress independent nations. The notion of either party in the State using sea power in order to effect an unrighteous domination is too ridiculous to be argued.
The next step in Lord Esher's argument is to point out that the only safe way by which we can secure the command of the sea is to build two ships for every one built by the Germans. We entirely agree that this is a far safer and better test than the so-called two-Power standard" If we follow it out honestly and sincerely, there can be no doubt that we shall maintain our naval supremacy. We will go farther and say that this policy has also the very great advantage that in all probability it will induce the Germans after a few years to give up the attempt to outbid us in the international auction-room in which sea supremacy is to be obtained. If the Germans once realise that their expenditure can never give them the command of the sea, those financial arguments which already appeal strongly to Clem will take effect. At the moment the financial difficulties of Germany cannot in the least be counted upon as likely to prevent German naval expenditure. That they are not so great as many people here imagine is shown by an article in our review columns dealing with a work on German finance. But even granted. that Germany does feel the strain of naval expenditure, that fact alone would not be sufficient to put a stop to her present naval policy. The prevailing idea amongst those who control the destinies of Germany is that great naval expenditure may be made into •a most profitable form of national investment. They argue that it would be worth while for Germany to borrow largely and at a high rate to build her Fleet, because in the end that Fleet can be used to obtain material advantages of a kind so vast that they will far outweigh what has been spent on it. To put the matter crudely, a great many Germans hold that if they can wrest the supremacy of the sea from Britain, and obtain the logical consequences in Imperial and commercial expansion, they will be able to repay themselves a hundredfold for the sacrifices they have made. Therefore over-spending on the Navy will, they declare, be amply justified by the result. They are only borrowing to buy a property of incalculable value. Once, however, make it clear to the logical German mind that they will not be able to obtain this property, borrow as they may, and there is every likelihood of Germany ceasing to bid, for bids in this auction have the uncomfort- able peculiarity of having to be paid even though no result is achieved.
The third and last step in Lord Esher's argument is to show that although the matter of naval supremacy is absolutely vital to us, the country has not got the assurance it ought to have that it is getting value for its money. Curiously enough, as he points out, the House of Commons, though it votes such enormous sums for naval and military expenditure, and takes great trouble, by means of a Standing Committee, to see that every penny is applied to the Service for which it is voted, yet takes no trouble to ascertain whether it is getting value for its money. "There is no Standine. Committee to inquire whether the money voted is spent to the best advantage." " Is it not," he goes on to ask, " worth while even for the Mother of Parliaments to examine a custom which has grown up in France under which the Estimates of the Navy and Army are submitted to Committees representing all sections of the Chamber ? " To emphasise his con- tention Lord Esher points out that it was due to the inquiries and labours of one of these Committees that France ascertained that the armaments of her frontier fortresses and their provisioning with munitions of war were entirely inadequate, and was able to put matters on a proper footing. We will give Lord Esher's conclusion in his own words :— "The writer of these pages was for many years a Member of the House of Commons, and for many years the head of one of the State Departments. He has served on Royal Commissions and committees, and has had a somewhat varied experience of govern- ment. He can affirm, therefore, with a certain degree of know- ledge, that no more formidable and efficient piece of machinery exists within the constitution for ascertaining the truth than the Standing Committee of the House of Commons which goes by the name of the Committee of Public Accounts. If Parliament is satisfied that we must look to the Fleet to provide the first, second and third lines of national defence, and if Parliament is in earnest in declaring that no money shall be spared in order to secure the supremacy of Great Britain at sea, should not Parlia- ment itself take care that these intentions are made good ? If it is a function of Parliament to audit expenditure upon which national credit is based, is it not equally its duty to audit the Fleet upon which our national existence depends ? Although the Navy is the vital interest, and although the peril of the naval position during the next few years can hardly bo exaggerated and demands the untiring examination and care of Parliament, it is obvious that the same chain of reasoning applies to the land forces of the Crown."
With the above words we are in entire agreement. To use Lord Esher's phrase, let the House of Commons " audit the Fleet," and by a system of national stock- taking assure itself that, in the first place, we are doing what all sides are agreed we must do to maintain our naval supremacy, and next, that in the process of doing so we are obtaining full value for the money we are expending.
It will be urged, no doubt, against Lord Esher's proposal that it would weaken Ministerial responsibility, and that the First Lord of the Admiralty and his colleagues in the Cabinet could not place their naval policy, and also to a large extent therefore their financial policy, at the mercy of the House of, Commons. We cannot agree. Possibly the Department would very much dislike what they would call the prying and fussy inquiries of the Committee of the House of Commons, and they would dislike also the labour of having to justify their action before, as it were, a jury of men who, they would declare, do not know the A B C of naval administration. As a matter of fact, however, such a yearly justification of naval policy and action would be of immense value to the Admiralty. It would often oblige them either to justify or to abandon acts and expen- diture which are now adopted by routine, and which have never been really thought out. Every wise and experienced man knows that he has 'often derived immense practical advantage from having to set forth and justify some business scheme to colleagues or partners, and that in the process of that setting forth he has discovered weaknesses which had gone unrecognised before, or has learned to, develop points of strength which he had hitherto over- looked.
There is not the slightest reason to think that such a, Committee of the House of Commons as we desire would overstep its functions and weaken the responsibility of the Board of Admiralty. The most it would do would be to report that in its opinion the Admiralty was not doing what it professed to be doing. Take a concrete case. If such a Standing Committee for " auditing the Fleet" now existed, it might, we believe, do a great service in clearing up the question whether the present Board of Admiralty has allowed repairs to fall below the standard of safety, and also whether the policy of nucleus crews, good if not pressed too far, has not been pressed to the point where inefficiency has been the result. In a confused debate in the House of Commons a skilful orator may be able to make out what appears' a good case on such points as these, though really he has no true justification for his contentions. Across a Committee table, however, it is far more difficult to confuse the issue, and the soundness or unsoundness of the policy adopted upon such practical points can be brought to a test.
An indirect advantage of Lord Esher's proposal is its educative effect upon the House of Commons. The Standing Committee for " auditing the Fleet " would be composed, not of experts, but of representative Members of Parliament drawn from all sections of the House. These men could not but learn a great deal while serving on the Committee about the vital needs of the nation, and knowledge thus acquired would spread through the House of Commons, to the very great advantage of that Assembly. It must not be supposed for a moment that such a Committee as we have named would be permanently antagonistic to the Admiralty officials. On the contrary, far oftener than not it would prove a support to the Department. Again, except where a private-Member critic had a very good case, it would prove a very useful buffer between the Department and such " sniping" criticism. Lord Esher evidently desires a Standing Committee for the Army as well as for the Navy. We agree. But " one thing at a time " is a good rule ; and since the Navy is our first line of defence, we hold that at present effort should be concentrated on obtaining a Committee for naval stock- takina. Let no one suppose that we desire that the Com- mittee should be " packed " with Imperialists. On the contrary, the more Radical its composition the better. What we want is to bring home responsibility to those who for the moment do not altogether realise it ; but we want to bring it home, not by outside pressure, but by the revelation of bard facts.
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