The Navy Estimates • • The large increase in this
year's Navy Estimates (which is £10 millions in round figures) appears all the more formidable because it is not final. It does not provide for the new defence programme outlined in the. White Paper, nor for continued abnormal expenditure in the Mediterranean ; it only covers the increases thought necessary for an acceleration of the normal programme. The proposal to build two 35,000-ton battleships was discussed along rather misleading lines, as if it were a- question.of battleships or ao battleships. The true question is rather whether we should build two battleships of 35,000 tons or four of 17,500 tons and on this it is by no means certain that the -decision readied is the wiser one. In regard. again, to lighter. 'craft few will challenge the need for increase. The chief doubt is as to the proportions in which it should be distributed between cruisers and destroyers. The • old saying that what we have to consider is not the - size of the enemy's fleet but-the size of the sea, is- true of both, but of destroyers most of all. And by- that test our relative strength in destroyers looks less satis- factory than the programme implies that it should. If one thing is- certain, it is that, however important battleships• may be in the background, the day-to-day _ work in modern naval war must all be done by quite small craft.
