The Pursuit of Power. Technology, Armed Force, and Society since A.D. 1000

Military-Industrial Interaction, 1884–1914 287

Table 1. Authorized Expenditures (£ million)

almost stable price levels. Clearly, by embracing new technology and

the private sector as suppliers of armaments, the Royal Navy suc­

ceeded in capturing a larger slice of public appropriations in a time

when the army, remaining loyal to older forms of management and

relying almost wholly on arsenal production and design for its

weapons, lagged far behind.

Intensified interaction between industry and the navy brought seri­

ous new pressures on two other facets of public management, the one

financial, the other technical.

Financial problems became especially acute because of the unpre­

dictability of costs. This in turn arose out of the very rapidity with

which new devices and processes were introduced. Over and over

again, a promising new idea proved far more expensive than it first ap­

peared would be the case; yet to halt in midstream or refuse to try

something new until its feasibility had been thoroughly tested meant

handing over technical leadership to someone else s navy.

The Royal Navy, of course, was not supposed to spend more than

Parliament authorized. But from the time of Samuel Pepys and be­

fore, the Admiralty had been in the habit of borrowing money from

London bankers to meet current expenses whenever outgo ran ahead

of parliamentary grants. As long as ships and guns changed slowly, if at

all, costs were quite predictable. A prudent Board of Admiralty could

therefore borrow in emergency and then repay when Parliament saw

fit to cover past deficits without piling up dangerously heavy debt. The

system gave Parliament more or less what it paid for, while the Admi­

ralty had a useful flexibility in managing its affairs.

But when technology began to change as rapidly as it did after 1880,

predictable limits to expenditures faded from sight. Borrowing to

cover cost overruns became irresistible. Not to borrow might hold up

completion of a new ship or allow the Germans to outstrip the Royal

Year Army and Ordnance Navy

1884 16.1 10.7

1889 16.0 13.0

(^1894) 17.9 15.5
1899 20.0 24.1
(^1904) 36.7 35.5
1909 26.8 32.3
(^1914) 28.3 48.8
Source: B. R. Mitchell, Abstracts of British Statistics (Cambridge, 1971), pp. 397–98.