On the resumption of the debate on Monday Mr. Kearley,
bringing up the case of the Cobra,' charged the Admiralty with deliberately buying a jerry-built" coffin" ship with its eyes open, and severely criticised the proposed scheme of reducing the speed of the destroyers, and keeping the new boats in reserve,—a policy which implied that they were not going to test the qualities, or lack of qualities, of these boats until the fateful day. On the House going into Committee of Supply Mr. Allan called attention to the under-manning of the engine-rooms, which he estimated at a shortage of eight hundred engineer officers and thirteen hundred artificers. Mr. Arnold-Forster, in reply to these and other criticisms, main- tained that our large cruisers were not under-gunned, and declared that the progress of foreign countries was being carefully watched. It was incorrect to state that the newer destroyers were withdrawn from ordinary service. All the Admiralty had done was to adopt the ordinary procedure of giving over for practice purposes boats which were not of the newest type. As regards subsidised cruisers, they had made agreements with seven companies instead of four, had subventioned eighteen ships instead of eleven, while the number of ships placed at their disposal without pay was thirty-two instead of seventeen.
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