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The Admiralty had always maintained, and still maintaind, that this assumption was a false one. In his opinion, the whole question might with advantage be reconsidered, in order that our organisation for Home Defence might be based on a more correct estimate of the scale of attack to be provided against. Should such reconsideration be deemed inexpedient, however, the Admiralty would offer no objection to the issue of the Memorandum.

LORD HALDANE said that this was a matter on which we should be wrong to take the very slightest risk. The policy had been most carefully considered, and it was most undesirable to revive unrest by altering it.

MR. CHURCHILL said that it could not be wrong in this matter to make assurance doubly sure.

THE PRIME MINISTER reminded the Committee that the question of Invasion had been examined by the Committee of Imperial Defence only three years ago. The enquiry had been a most exhaustive one, and had occupied the Committee for many months. The conclusions arrived at, though not representing the precise views of any particular department, reproduced the considered opinion of the Government, after they had heard the evidence of the greatest experts on the question. He then read the third and fourth conclusions approved at the 100th meeting of the Committee of Imperial Defence, which were as follows :-

"3. That our army for Home defence ought to be sufficient in numbers and organisation not only to repel small raids, but to compel an enemy who contemplates invasion to come with so substantial a force as will make it impossible for him to evade our fleets.

“4. That in order to ensure an ample margin of safety such a force may, for

purposes of calculation, be assumed to be 70,000 men.'

>>

The time was not yet ripe for a reconsideration of the policy set forth in these conclusions, which had been generally accepted throughout the country, although he recognised that the First Lord of the Admiraly could not allow this occasion to pass without re-asserting the views always held in his department on the question of Invasion.

LORD ESHER drew attention to the second clause of Sir William Nicholson's alternative paragraph 1, which commenced as follows: With this object in view, the policy of Ilis Majesty's Government is to maintain the British navy at a two-Power standard of strength.” He enquired whether this statement was consistent with the Prime Minister's pronouncement in the House of Commons on the 26th May, 1909, dealing with the two-Power standard, which he had re-affirmed on the 20th March,

1911.

THE PRIME MINISTER stated that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had written to draw attention to the same clause. The sentence should be re-drafted so as to correspond with the statement made by him in the House of Commons on the 26th May, 1909, in which case it would read as follows:-

"With this object in view, the policy of His Majesty's Government is to maintain the British navy at a standard of strength which would give complete and absolute command of the sea against any reasonably possible combination of Powers."

(Conclusion.)

The Committee approved the issue of the Memorandum submitted by the War Office as re-drafted by the Home Ports Defence Committee, with the amendments proposed by Sir William Nicholson. The above sentence, drafted by the Prime Minister, to be substituted for the second clause of Sir William Nicholson's amendment.

PRINTED AT TEX FORFIGH OFFICE BY J. W. HARRISON,—6/4/1911.

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