An amendment was moved by Mr. Herbert Roberts and seconded
by Mr. Buchanan representing that in view of our expanding naval expenditure—estimated at above £40,000,000 for this year—and in the interests of international peace, our Government should approach the other great naval Powers with a view to a joint reduction of armaments and the adjust- ment of their relative naval strength on some permanent basis. Mr. Arnold-Forster in reply said he thought we had done all that was possible in endorsing and re-endorsing Lord Goschen's public declaration that we should be glad to consider any such proposal from other Powers. But the overtures must come from others; our Fleet being our sole guarantee against invasion, it was not our duty to begin making reductions. Mr. Robertson contended that as our Fleet was supreme we could better afford to take the initiative, a line of argument followed and amplified by Mr. Haldane and Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, who feared that in naval ex- penditure we were simply drifting, instead of trying to stop this absurd and ruinous rivalry. Ultimately the amendment was rejected by 174 votes to 122, or a majority of 52, and the Motion to go into Committee of Supply was carried by 144 votes against 70.
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