19 MARCH 1927, Page 2

The First Lord of the Admiralty presented his Est Unlit

in the House of Commons on Monday. They showed reduction upon last year of only £100,000. He plat out, however,_ that if the fall in the value of money we he taken into account the Navy now cost only £34,000,000 as compared with £51,500,000 in 1913-14. Mr. Bridgman deprecated the idea that the Admiralty was " bellicoSe " ; it was really an emissary of 'peace which welcomed the prospect of a new naval conference and was ready to give the same consideration to the difficulties of other countries that it expected to receive for British difficulties. Mr. Hilton Young in pleading for smaller cruisers for guarding the trade routes made the extremely important point that a large financial reserve is one of our truest lines of defence.

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