Two-Power and Double Standards: The 1906 Parliament, the Liberal Governments and the Conservative opposition, And the Navy Estimates and dreadnought construction programmes, 1906-1909

Two-Power and Double Standards is the story of the 1906 Parliament, the Liberal government and Conservative opposition, and the Naval Estimates for the years 1906-1909 that provided for the first programmes that resulted in the building of the dreadnought fleet. It is a story of the conflict of influences, the annual struggles within departments and the cabinet to settle issues and priorities, and the impact of outside events, within the nation in terms of role and priorities and in the wider international context in terms of impact in what proved to be a self-justifying arms race.

In personal terms the main individuals are Campbell-Bannerman and Asquith, Grey, McKenna, Churchill, Lloyd George and Fisher, and these, and specifically the last of these, are afforded consideration in terms of their decisions and various attempts to arrange national policy. The main argument nonetheless concerns the powerful economist and peace lobbies that sought to limit building programmes at the very time when the decision to build the Dreadnought had opened a naval race that proved very important in Britain’s association with France and Russia in opposition to Germany, and ends with a detailed examination of the infamous 1909 crisis that resulted in the largest peacetime construction programme implemented by any state.