Ships & Savings

ARMY & NAVY

With the Navy League growling behind him and jingoes in Congress snarling ahead, President Hoover last week whipped his Navy budget into final shape. Its total: $343,000,000. (This year's expenditure: $360,000,000.) Secretary Adams had first carried to the White House naval estimates totaling $401,000,000. Where and how the President proposed to effect $17,000,000 economies remained a secret which, as a matter of governmental courtesy, he had to save for Congress next month.

President Hoover had been swamped with economy suggestions. The Navy's proposal to lay up the U. S. S. Constitution and do away with bands and music he suspected as being designed to start a "backfire" against the White House. The idea of closing the yards at Boston and Charleston, while favored by the Navy, brought angry politicians protesting to the President. Decommissioning a large slice of the fleet to save fuel and maintenance costs was another suggestion. The Navy countered with a proposition to rotate vessels at their docks in what it called "reserve commission.'' Last week the President announced:

"This budget does not decrease the personnel of the Navy 'below its present status [79,700 men] by a single man. It does not decommission any fighting ships although the rotation plan will be continued. It does not propose to abandon any of the Navy Yards. . . . The budget provides for ... the frigate Constitution and . . . the Navy bands."

Prime item of interest in the Hoover budget was new construction. This was fixed by the President at $57,000,000, as compared with $53,000,000 this year, $38,000,000 the year before. Declared President Hoover: "The budget provides for the continued construction of every one of the treaty ships authorized by Congress, except six destroyers. . . . The tonnage of combatant ships actually in construction by the United States today is nearly double that of Great Britain."

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