Naval Improvement

Senator Underwood, who had been giving the Muscle Shoals question a personally conducted tour through the Capitol, paused a moment to give place to Senator Hale, of Maine, Chairman of the Naval Affairs Committee. Mr. Hale promptly brought up a naval authorization bill passed by the House and left in the Senate last session. Senator King, of Utah, who blocked the passage of the bill last June, tried again to block it and asked for an investigation by the Navy Department. The Senate overruled him. The bill was passed viva voce.

So passed a bill which the Navy Department has long craved. It authorizes expenditures of $111,000,000 and provides for:

1) Alterations on the six older capital ships New York, Texas, Florida, Wyoming, Utah, Arkansas to blister* them as protection against submarine attack, to strengthen their deck armor against aircraft bombs and plunging fire, to replace their worn-out boilers with modern oil-burning equipment. Total cost, $18,000,000.

2) Construction of eight new scout cruisers of 10,000 tons displacement, carrying 8-inch guns, to be laid down not later than July 1, 1927. Cost each (exclusive of armor and armament), $11,000,000.

3) Construction of six river gunboats (for use in China) prior to July 1, 1927. Cost each (exclusive of armor and armament), $700,000.

The President is to have the right to suspend building or alterations in the event of a new disarmament conference. The improvements on the six battleships are allowable under the present Limitation of Armaments Treaty. As for the scout cruisers and gunboats, they are also within treaty rights as no limitation is placed on .ships of not more than 10,000 tons.

How badly the Navy wanted the passage of this bill was evident from a report made only two days earlier to the House Subcommittee on Naval Appropriations by Secretary Wilbur. This report was a veritable primer, explaining fully for the lay mind the fundamentals of sea power. Mr. Wilbur explained the nature and uses of the several kinds of naval vessels, showing how the power of a fleet is dependent on a proper number of all types, and then explained what the 5-5-3 naval ratio really means: that by the allotment of tonnage the American fleet would be stronger than either British or Japanese fleets in an action near our coasts (because of the distance of the latter from their bases) but this, in an action in European or Asiatic waters, our fleet would be inferior to either of the two because of the distance from U. S. bases.

He concluded:

"The great accomplishment of the Limitation of Naval Armament Agreement was not in the fixing of a definite ratio of ships, with its attendant economies, but in effecting an agreement making aggressive warfare across the ocean more difficult. That agreement made it impossible for any one of the great powers of the world to make a successful invasion across the Atlantic or Pacific."

* "Blister" or "Bulge" is a device resorted to in remodeling older ships to protect them from torpedo, mine or bomb explosions alongside. In new ships many watertight bulkheads keep the ship afloat in such a case. In older ships, by building a sort of outer hull (the "blister" or "bulge") outside the regular hull, a similar protection is achieved.