Mr. McKenna made his anxiously expected statement on the subject
of the " contingent " ' Dreadnoughts' in Committee on the Shipbuilding Vote on Monday afternoon. To quote his own words, "after very anxious and careful examination of the conditions of shipbuilding in foreign countries, the Government have come to the conclusion that it is desirable to take all the necessary steps to ensure that the second four ships referred to in the programme shall be completed by March, 1912." Mr. McKenna reminded the House that in the last three years Germany had laid down eleven large ships to our eight ; that there had been admitted acceleration on her part ; and that if we continued to lay down fewer large armoured ships than a foreign Power laid down, our superiority at sea would have disappeared in ten or fifteen years' time.
