Navy budget

“ This acceptance of the Budget made the Government feel reasonably sure that it would get the 16,000,000 pounds required to pay for eight new battleships (S629) . It also encouraged the War Department to spend a considerable sum in experimenting with military airships as a means of defense against invasion. Great Britain, like Germany, believes that such vessels have become a necessity; for since a foreigner flew across the Channel and landed at Dover (1909) , England has felt that her navy on the sea must be supplemented by a navy above the sea. ”

“ The forthcoming military budget therefore emphasizes modern airpower in the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps and increases the emphasis on new weapons, especially those of rapid and destructive striking power. It assures the maintenance of effective, retaliatory force as the principal deterrent to overt aggression. It accelerates the continental defense program and the build-up of ready military reserve forces. It continues a vigorous program of stockpiling strategic and critical materials and strengthening our mobilization base. ”

“ The increased expenditure on the navy after 1897 again caused the contributions required from the states to exceed the grants to them from the imperial exchequer. In 1903 Baron von Stengel, who succeeded Baron von Thielmann as finance minister in this year, proposed that the matricular contributions of the several states, instead of varying as heretofore with the exigencies of the annual budget, should be fixed by law. This plan, originally suggested by Dr von Miquel, was adopted by the Reichstag in May 1904. ”

“ These defence cuts have reduced the operations and maintenance budget so that operational and training activities have had to be reduced by 25 per cent. In plain words, this means that the navy has and will continue to sail less. The air force has and will continue to fly less and the army has and will continue to train less. ”

“ Our own nation has been guilty of its full share of this gigantic folly. Our Congress faced a deficit last year of something like one hundred and thirty five millions of dollars, mainly because of the enormous outlays upon the navy in building those ten million dollar warships. If the present rate of expenditure is maintained for the next ten years, with no increase whatever, it means that we shall spend upon our navy the vast sum of one billion, three hundred and fifty millions of dollars. ”

“ In like manner the estimate of appropriations for the Navy Department will present an aggregate sum of upward of $3,000,000. About half of these, however, covers the current expenditures of the Navy in actual service, and half constitutes a fund of national property, the pledge of our future glory and defense. It was scarcely one short year after the close of the late war, and when the burden of its expenses and charges was weighing heaviest upon the country, that Congress, by the act of April 29th, 1816, appropriated $1,000,000 annually for eight years to the gradual increase of the Navy. ”

“ I feel bound to impress upon the attention of Congress the necessity of continued progress in, the reconstruction of the Navy. The condition of the public Treasury, as I have already intimated, makes the present an auspicious time for putting this branch of the service in a state of efficiency.
It is no part of our policy to create and maintain a Navy able to cope with that of the other great powers of the world.
We have no wish for foreign conquest, and the peace which we have long enjoyed is in no seeming danger of interruption. ”

“ The burden of cost to provide an adequate army for the general service of the Empire, added to the ever increasing weight of expenditure necessary to maintain predominant sea-power in the world, suggests the question. How long can the resources of these islands discharge the general naval and military obligations of a world-spread State? The warnings of successive Chancellors of the home Exchequer are sufficiently ominous to make it impossible to believe the present rate of expenditure can much longer continue. ”

“ What dire stress compels England to-day to perpetuate her program of naval supremacy when she is struggling in the throes of budget difficulties which seem all but unsolvable? What is it that compels Germany and France to tax themselves until they fairly stagger under the burden of military expenditures? ”

“ Needless expenditure we deprecate as strongly as the most sturdy adherent of the League, and we expect and hope that in several departments there will be a saving, not because that has been clamoured for, but because the works which occasioned the outlay have been completed. For example, the introduction of steam vessels into our navy has cost a large sum, which may not be required in future. But to assign, as ministers have done, the position of affairs abroad as a reason for reducing our armaments, is utterly preposterous. ”

“ Our navy cost us this year and last year about one hundred millions. Considering that, owing to the rapid progress of invention in our days, the modern ship of war, originally built at enormous cost, is apt to become antiquated before it is long in service, and that the navy to be good for anything must be kept “up to date,” the annual expense, even in time of peace, is more liable to increase than to grow less. ”

“ Taking the expense of our Naval Establishment at one million dollars a year, it would only be an expense of one-third per cent., which every one must allow was a mere trifle, to have the money of the public well expended. The services of the War and Navy Departments were, he said, perfectly distinct. The duties of the War Department became every day more arduous, and whatever gentlemen may think, they must become still more so. ”

“ In 1908, when there was no mistaking the danger, we, the American people, one of the richest and most energetic nations of the world, nevertheless allowed ourselves in the course of the debate on the naval appropriations to be frightened by Senator Maine's threat of a deficit of a few dollars in our budget, should the sums that were absolutely needed in case our fleet was to fulfill the most immediate national tasks be voted. ”

“ These sums represent an annual tax, for expenditure sanctioned during the last ten years, of £1,500,000. That great repairing establishments are absolutely necessary to the navy is a self-evident proposition, but to disperse the facilities of these establishments by a multiplication of dockyards in different parts of the world may easily result in loss rather than gain, and when done at the expense of fighting strength it is as if a general, having asked for reinforcements, is sent ambulances. With navies it is very much as it is in business—the large establishments win the orders. ”

“ It only remains to declare distinctly, that the country will repose in the consciousness of right, without the wanton excess of supporting soldiers, lazy consumers of the fruits of the earth, who might do the State good service in the various departments of useful industry.
What is the use of the Navy of the United States? The annual expense of our Navy, during recent years, has been upward of six millions of dollars. For what purpose is this paid? Not for the apprehension of pirates; for frigates and ships of the line are of too great bulk to be of service for this purpose. ”

“ Our other expenses, including War, Navy, the Pension list, and the Civil list, ought not to exceed one hundred millions; so that if we raise two hundred and fifty millions from Customs and Internal Revenue combined, we should have twenty-five millions annual surplus to apply to the reduction of the Public debt. But to attain this end we must mend our ways, and practice an economy far more consistent and severe than any we have attempted in the past. Our Military peace establishment must be reduced one-half at least, and our Naval appropriations correspondingly curtailed ”

“ If the sums to be expended to build and maintain the frigates were applied to paying a part of our national debt, the payment would make us more respectable in the eyes of foreign nations than all the frigates we can build. To spend money unnecessarily at present will diminish our future resources, and instead of enabling us will perhaps render it more difficult for us to build a navy some years hence. ”

“ The parliament votes for the sea service 4l. per month per man, including wages, wear and tear, victuals and ordnance. This allowance is insufficient, and falls short every year more or less, in proportion to the number of men voted. From hence, in a great measure, arises that annual increase of the navy debt, mentioned in the second article of the National Expenditure. ”

“ Four weary months of discussion produced only two measures of military importance, one of which provided for the addition to the army of twenty-five thousand men enlisted for five years, and the other for the calling into service of fifty thousand state militia. The proposal of the naval committee to appropriate seven and a half million dollars to build a new navy was voted down; Gallatin's urgent appeal for new taxes fell upon deaf ears; and Congress proposed to meet the new military expenditure by the dubious expedient of a loan of eleven million dollars. ”

“ The expense is as nothing compared to the advantage to be achieved. The reestablishment of our merchant marine involves in a large measure our continued industrial progress and the extension of our commercial triumphs. I am satisfied the judgment of the country favors the policy of aid to our merchant marine, which will broaden our commerce and markets and upbuild our sea-carrying capacity for the products of agriculture and manufacture; which, with the increase of our Navy, mean more work and wages to our countrymen, as well as a safeguard to American interests in every part of the world. ”

“ Considering the already vast and daily increasing commerce of the country, apart from the exposure to hostile inroad of an extended seaboard, all that relates to the Navy is calculated to excite particular attention. Whatever tends to add to its efficiency without entailing unnecessary charges upon the Treasury is well worthy of your serious consideration. ”

“ Congress made provision for only one battleship, and therefore the Navy Department has deemed it necessary and proper to make an estimate which includes the first year's expenditure for three battleships in addition to the amount required for work on the uncompleted ships now under construction. In addition to the natural increase in the expenditures for the uncompleted ships, and the additional battleship estimated for, the other increases are due to the pay required for 4,000 or more additional enlisted men in the Navy ”

“ But we are told that we must have a much larger army than we had twenty years ago, and especially a much bigger navy—aye, as the present Secretary of the Navy tells us, we must have the biggest navy in the world. Indeed, we are actually engaged in building a navy which, if the building goes on at the present rate, will soon burden the American people with a load of naval expenses heavier than that under which any other nation is groaning. ”

“ In the first place, in so far as it is a financial question, it has resulted mainly from the sustained attempt of successive governments to keep the naval expenditure within or near to a fixed annual amount, notwithstanding the palpable fact that every branch of the naval service, like most other services, is unavoidably increasing in cost, while the necessities of the empire are likewise unavoidably increasing. ”

“ The path chosen, however, is one along which Germany will be forced to follow Great Britain with much reluctance. She is bound to involve herself in a very large expenditure, which is merely accessory to fighting strength, and not the provision of fighting strength itself. This expense was certainly not foreseen when the second German Navy Bill was passed in 1900 for an extraordinary expenditure of £94,000,000 by the year 1920 as regards works, and the year 1916 as regards ships. ”

“ For these reasons the expenses of the army and navy and of coast defenses should always be considered as something which the Government must pay for, and they should not be cut off through mere consideration of economy. ”

“ Owing to the necessity for economy in expenditures, I have directed the curtailment of recommendations for naval appropriations so that they are thirty-eight millions less than the corresponding estimates of last year, and the request for new naval construction is limited to two first-class battle ships and one repair vessel.
The use of a navy is for military purposes, and there has been found need in the Department of a military branch dealing directly with the military use of the fleet. ”

“ The annual cost would not amount to the one millionth of the amount of damage Brazil, or Italy, or Germany, or France, or England, or Chili even could do us in the same length of time if we are without them.
Our navy costs about $15,000,000 yearly, about half of that sum is for the pay of officers and men, and it is misapplied, because they are being trained in the use of weapons which are no longer effective, and our people are not getting the proper return for their money. But the fault is their own and the navy is not to blame. ”

“ Taking it all in all, assuming our standing Army not to exceed 100,000 men, but a large part of it to be engaged in the tropics, and our Navy to be gradually enlarged to the strength which it “must have” in order to enable this Republic to play the part of a colonial Power, we are sure to have, including our pension roll, an annual expenditure for army and navy purposes not only far exceeding that of any European Power, but not falling very much short of two-fifths of the expenses for the same purposes of all the six great Powers of Europe together—that is not far from $400,000,000 a year. ”