* * Naval Defence The fact that the Government was
attacked from two sides, in the debate on the Navy Estimates, being accused both of spending too much and on the other hand of starving the Navy, may be taken as evidence that it is pursuing a reasonable policy. Not only does the Government stand firm on the London Treaty, but its programme of reconstruction is also governed by the fact that the next Naval Conference will be in 1935 ; and Sir Bolton Eyres-Monsell refuses to base his plans on the assumption that that Conference will be a failure. For that reason he refrains from embarking on as large a programme of cruiser replacement as he would be entitled to do, having in view qualitative limitations for which one hopes to get agreement at the Conference. The First Lord made an ingenious but unconvincing case for big battleships on the ground, not merely of naval strength, but economy.
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