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31st March 1913

Lord C. BERESFORD

  The First Lord of the Admiralty has been good enough to tell me that I am a person who does not tell the truth.
  I do not wish to make a tu quoque and say his statement is contrary to fact, but I want to prove the statement I have made on several occasions as to our being 20,000 men short, and I believe the House will see that I was correct, and not the First Lord.
  Last year, in answer to a question, the right hon. Gentleman said we were 240 men short. That was in March, but afterwards his junior came down and said it was 2,000.
  That was a great discrepancy, and I pointed it out at the time. I pointed out that we were a great deal more than 240 men short.
  Can the right hon. Gentleman tell me why he did not give me the first-term men who were leaving the Service last year and who had left during the last three years? He said that it was not in the public interest. I maintain that it is in the public interest. The public should know if we are short of men in the Fleet, and they should know why men who are worth their weight in gold are leaving the Service in great numbers.
  The First Lord by increasing the pay will retain some, but I do not think he will retain them all or nearly all. He knows perfectly well that the men were overworked and underpaid. He knows perfectly well that it was the shortage of men in the Fleet which gave rise to the discontent; it was overwork in the Fleet, and not the question of pay which made them discontented.
  The First Lord is not going to tell this House if he does it will not believe him that it is a good thing to get in an enormous number of recruits, some 15,000, as we are going to do now. They are nearly all lads, except the Marines, and he must acknowledge that it will take five years to properly train them for fighting.
  He tells the House this large amount of recruiting is to fill up ships that are going to be commissioned. I deny that altogether.
  The Government reduced the complement of the Fleet for five years. They were warned over and over again by many of us that they would have to join an enormous number of men suddenly like this, and my statement that they are 20,000 men short is proved to have been correct by what he is now doing.
  He is joining the same number next year and the year after in order to fill up the 20,000 of which I say the Fleet is short. I do not want to have recriminations. I believe him to be as perfectly honest as I am in endeavouring to get the Navy correct, but he is absolutely wrong about the men. He invited two Members from this bench to go to the Admiralty. I hope they will go. It is a very fair offer, and the question is very important. I do not for one moment say the First Lord cannot man these 143 ships.

Mr. CHURCHILL

  What are the 143 ships?

Lord C. BERESFORD

  They are all in the Navy List nucleus crews and skeleton crews; what you call "the Reserve."

Mr. CHURCHILL

  Does the Noble Lord include ships of the Second Fleet, or is he speaking of the ships in the Second and Third Fleets.

Lord C. BERESFORD

  If the right hon. Gentleman will get the Navy List, and look up the ships that have got nucleus and skeleton crews, he will find there are 143. I do not say he cannot man them. He will man them with the Royal Naval Reserve and with boys.
  He has letters at this moment from captains and admirals to say there are a great many boys in the ships.
  There are a great many, too many, boys in the Fleet. There are a great many boys taking the place of able seamen.
  I was perfectly right when I told my countrymen that we were 20,000 men short for the selected moment, and proof of it is to be found in that which the right hon. Gentleman is now doing.
  Just fancy having to join men at the rate you are now joining them, when you know they cannot be ready for five years!
  If you had joined them during the last three or four years you would not have been in your present position.
  The fact is our Fleet is not ready to go out to fight at the selected moment.
  You are short of men. You have too many boys and too many young stokers, and all because you have not looked ahead during the last five years.
  Instead of joining extra men, you reduced the number. I do not want to have a violent recrimination with the First Lord. When I made that statement I believed it. I believe it now.
  I believe that if any hon. Member went to the Fleet and asked any officers or men he would be told that they are shorthanded and overworked.
  If, by some wave of a fairy wand, the First Lord could have six "Dreadnoughts" to-morrow, he could not man them unless he paid off ships now in commission.

Mr. CHURCHILL

  Naturally. How many "Dreadnoughts" more than the Admiralty now possess or have in prospect are they expected to provide crews for?

Lord C. BERESFORD

  You cannot provide crews for the selected moment, because you are short-handed, and you are going to call out your Reserve.
  Any captain will tell you that the reserve ships are not fit to fight an action.
  The right hon. Gentleman informed us that the Germans were going to have four-fifths of their fleet always ready. You are not prepared for that.

Mr. CHURCHILL

  Ninety per cent. of the whole fighting strength of the Fleet is manned without the use of a single Reservist.

Lord C. BERESFORD

  There, again, is one of those charming sentences which take in the House. The right hon. Gentleman is perfectly right in what he says, but what are these crews? The ships' companies consist largely of boys and young stokers. The First Lord knows it.

Mr. CHURCHILL

  It is not true.

Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE

  Order, order.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER

  Interruptions such as these ought not to be made by an hon. Member unless they are of sufficient importance to lead the hon. Member to rise.

Lord C. BERESFORD

  I still maintain what I have said, both in the House and in the country. I think I have proved my case.
  I take it all hon. Members have an interest in this question. They all have friends in the Fleet. I suggest they should go to any naval officer, or any man in the Fleet, or any man in the torpedo-boat destroyers, and make inquiries. I am sure the reply will be that they are shorthanded in the Fleet. To make up what the right hon. Gentleman calls the fighting Fleet, he will have to put in Reservists.

Mr. CHURCHILL

  Not in the First and Second Fleets.

Lord C. BERESFORD

  The First and Second Fleets have far too many boys and young stokers in them to make them efficient.
  I again maintain I was right.
  The right hon. Gentleman has simply made a statement to show that I was incorrect, whereas I have given proof of the accuracy of my statement.

Mr. MIDDLEMORE

  I do not feel competent to follow the discussion in regard to manning, but I wish to make some observation as to the figures we have had from the right hon. Gentleman, and also as to some figures which he gave me in answer to questions a fortnight ago last Wednesday questions replied to with some asperity, and, I might also say, with rudeness. The right hon. Gentleman on that occasion refused to disclose the facts for which I was appealing. Those facts are vital, and in regard to them I propose to make a general statement. This Government has provided and completed, while it has been in office, seventeen armoured ships, against the German fourteen armoured ships. It has provided and completed seventeen small cruisers, against Germany's ten; that appears to be a good majority, but it is a very deceptive one, as I shall show presently. It has provided and completed seventy-five destroyers against the German seventy-three; that is a serious fact.
  In that case the 60 per cent. is only in imagination. I think, too, it is an unworthy record. It represents the compromise of the various wings of the party which go to make up the majority, while the German list represents an understanding between their Admiralty and their Foreign Office.