On Monday in the Commons Mr. Churchill explained the Naval
Supplementary Estimate of £2,500,000 over and above the sum of £16,309,300 voted last year. The statement was notably lucid and well arranged. The first item was £500,000 for oil. Enough oil had been stored to provide forthree years of peace or one year of war. £260,000 had been spent on air- craft. It was proposed to construct eight airships and to build sheds for them near Chatham and in Norfolk. The Cabinet bad sanctioned this expenditure as necessary last July. We did not, of course, even now compete seriously with France or Germany in airships, but in view of our superiority in seaplanes the expenditure of £260,000 bad been thought sufficient. £450,000 had been spent on
"beginning early "—the phrase which Mr. Churchill pre- ferred to " accelerating "—three battleships in order to make good the lack of the three Canadian ships. Increases in wages and in the price of materials had accounted for 2200,000.
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