On the history of the two-power standard see E. L. Woodward, Great Britain and the German Navy (Oxford, 1935), Appendix II.
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On the course and outcome of this struggle over the Navy Estimates see in particular John Ferris, Men, Money and Diplomacy (Ithaca, NY, 1989), chapter 10
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also B. J. C. McKercher, ‘A Sane and Sensible Diplomacy: Austen Chamberlain, Japan and the Naval Balance of Power in the Pacific Ocean, 1924–1929’, Canadian Journal of History, XXI (1986), 193–200; Roskill, Naval Policy, I, pp. 445–53;
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and Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill (London, 1976), V, chapters 4–5. Historians frequently but erroneously treat Churchill’s attacks on the navy while Chancellor as a skeleton in his closet. See in particular Ian Hamill, ‘Winston Churchill and the Singapore Naval Base, 1924–1929,’ Journal of Southeast Asian Studies (September 1980)
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and David MacGregor, ‘Former Naval Cheapskate: Chancellor of the Exchequer Winston Churchill and the Royal Navy, 1924–29,’ Armed Forces and Society (Spring 1993).
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Jon Sumida, ‘Churchill and British Sea Power, 1908–29,’ Winston Churchill: Studies in Statesmanship, ed. R. A. C. Parker (London, 1995), presents a more balanced view.
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On perceptions of Japan in Whitehall after the Manchuria incident see Antony Best, ‘Constructing an Image: British Intelligence and Whitehall’s Perception of Japan, 1931–1939,’ Intelligence and National Security, 11 (July 1996), 403–23.
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The final report of the DRC not only implies that this definition had official acceptance, but also antedates it to 1932. These details were repeated in the report of the DPR (DR) Committee and reappeared in virtually all subsequent Cabinet documents on the subject. That a new definition of the one-power standard had been laid down in 1932 was accepted by Treasury officials and, more recently, by historians of British rearmament, most notably Peden, Gibbs, and Gordon. The latter wrongly concludes that Field put this definition forward in his ‘S/L Memorandum’ of 14 November 1932. G. A. H. Gordon, British Seapower and Procurement Between the Wars (Annapolis, MD, 1988), pp. 107–8; DRC 37, ‘Third Report of Defence Requirements Sub-Committee,’ 21 November 1935, CAB 16/112; DPR (DR) 9, Report, 12 February 1936, CAB 16/123; minute by Bridges, ‘New Construction Programme 1937,’ 6 January 1937, T 161/755/S36130/37;
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N.H. Gibbs, Grand Strategy, (London, 1976), I p. 334;
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G. C. Peden, British Rearmament and the Treasury: 1932–1939 (Edinburgh, 1979), p. 113.
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Claims that the navy secured approval for its ‘new standard’ during the final months of peace are wrong. The source of this error is M. M. Postan, British War Production (London, 1952), p. 58, which mistakenly claims that in July 1939 the CID approved the Admiralty’s plans for the development of additional shipbuilding capacity.
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