* * * * * Early in March, while the new German Navy Law was still unannounced, it was necessary to present our Estimates to the House of Commons. It would of course have been a breach of faith with the German Emperor to let any suggestion pass my lips that we already knew what the text of the Navy Law was. I was therefore obliged to make my first speech on naval matters on a purely hypothetical basis: ‘This is what we are going to do if no further increases are made in the German Fleet. Should unhappily the rumours which we hear prove true, I shall have to present a Supplementary Estimate to the House, etc.’ In this speech I laid down clearly, with the assent of the Cabinet, the principles which should govern our naval construction in the next five years, and the standards of strength we should follow in capital ships. This standard was as follows: Sixty per cent. in Dreadnoughts over Germany as long as she adhered to her present declared programme, and two keels to one for every additional ship laid down by her. Two complications of these clear principles were unavoidable. First, the two ‘Lord Nelsons’ although not Dreadnoughts were stronger in many ways, particularly in armour and subdivision, than the original _Dreadnought_ herself. Although projected earlier, they had actually been completed later. Acting on the advice of the Naval Staff, I counted these throughout as ‘Dreadnoughts.’ On the other hand, any ships provided by the Dominions were to be additional to anything we might build ourselves. Otherwise the efforts of the Dominions would not have resulted in any accession to our naval strength, and consequently these efforts might have been discouraged. Proceeding on these lines I set out the six years of British construction at 4, 3, 4, 3, 4, 3, against a uniform German construction of 2. These numbers were well received by the House of Commons. We were not sure whether the Germans would adhere to an offer made to Mr. Haldane to drop one of the three extra ships embodied in their new Navy Law. This, however, proved ultimately to be the case and was at any rate a tangible result of the Haldane mission. In Tirpitz’ words: ‘He (Haldane) next came out with a proposal of a certain delay in the building of the three ships; could we not distribute them over twelve years?... He only wanted a token of our readiness to meet England, more for the sake of form.... Haldane himself proposed that we should retard the rate of our increase “in order to lubricate the negotiations,” or that we should at least cancel the first of the three ships. He outlined in writing of his own accord the same principle which I had previously fixed upon in my own mind as a possible concession. I _therefore sacrificed the ship_.’