The business on Wednesday included a vote for a Supplementary
Navy Estimate of nearly £700,000. Mr. McKenna explained that more than two-thirds of this sum was due to expenditure incurred upon the four "contingent" ships which were authorised in July. The Government had given a pledge that the ships should be ready for commission by the end of March, 1912, and to make this certain it had been necessary to give certain orders as early as last December. The rest of the extra expenditure was owing to an acceleration in the construction of destroyers. Without opposing the vote, Mr. Lee pointed out that the time estimated for building the new ships made no allowance for any unforeseen delays, such as accidents or strikes, and also that whereas British shipbuilders took eighteen months in completing a destroyer, the Germans had been completing them regularly in less than eighteen months. After an attempt on the part of Mr. Lough to show that the expendi- ture was unnecessary, and a passage between Lord Charles Beresford and Mr. McKenna, the vote was agreed to without a division.
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