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Show DANIELS AGAIN I BEFORE HOUSE Speaks on Battleship Construction Construc-tion Plan Navy Yards Should Build Warships. TOO MANY CONTRACTS Government Should Build Submarines Pacific Coast Should Also Build Battleships. Washington. Dec. 11. Secretarv Daniels continued today before the house naval committee speaking on the construction program, He test i fied that emergency battleships could be built at various places and that while thirty months now was normally normal-ly required for a ship building company com-pany to turn out a battleship it might be possible to cut down the time to two years. He said there were facilities at th Newport News Cramps. New York and Fore River Ship BuildiriK companies compa-nies Secretary Daniels contended all navy yards should be equipped to build warships. New York and Philadelphia Phila-delphia yards, he said, should he able to build battleships; Norfolk and Portsmouth ought to be aide to build a certain character of ships at the lowest price W e oucht to have a place to build battleships out on the Pacific coast," he said. Too Many Contracts. Secretary Daniels said too many hips were bein built by contract and too few by the navy yards. He said he would use the smaller yards to build submarines, and reiterated his view that the government ought to build submarines. Must Prepare Against Any Enemy. We should not consider war with any country or build against, any country." coun-try." the secretary continued. "We should be prepared for our defense from whatever quarter an attack may come, a defense against any enemy. We must prepare to defend ourselves i in the very best way we can Many people believe that our navy ouht to be greater than any of the other nations. It" any country comes and attacks we must make the greatsi defense we can. If you go into w;ir you ro in to win " Secretary Daniels, replying to a iinPsTtdn, said Tie Unitf-d States ought HDt to acquire another foot of territory. terri-tory. No More Territory Needed "For Instance," he said, "the LTnt- ted States had no idea of taking M e nila when the urir with Spain brok" out. Nobody supposed we would have anything to do with Manila. I am sorry' we ever took the Philippines, but, I want to say that Admiral Dewey Dew-ey acted in the most wise and states manlike way. There is not a single sin-gle act that ho ever committed in the Philippines that committed thlo country to any policy. His self-repression and wisdom left everything as to policy to a civil government " Necessity for Battleships. Urging the dominant necessity for battleships, Mr Daniels revealed bis view of a battle between the navies of Cermany and the allies. "Suppose," he said, "that England had no dreadnoughts The Carman fleet would come out and control tie-seas tie-seas Any day that you pick up the papers you may see a report of a battle royal between all these bati!.-ships, bati!.-ships, compared to which these others are mere skirmishes." |
