While our Army is small, prudence requires that it should be kept in a high state of efficiency and provided with such supplies as would permit of its immediate expansion.  The garrison ration has lately been increased.  Recommendations for an appropriation of $6,166,000 for new housing made to the previous Congress failed to pass.  While most of the Army is well housed, some of it which is quartered in wartime training camps is becoming poorly housed.  In the past three years $12,533,000 have been appropriated for reconstruction and repairs, and an authorization has been approved of $22,301,000 for new housing, under which $8,070,000 has already been appropriated.  A law has also been passed, complying with the request of the War Department, allocating funds received from the sale of buildings and land for housing purposes.  The work, however, is not completed, so that other appropriations are being recommended.

Our Navy is likewise a weapon of defense.  We have a foreign commerce and ocean lines of trade unsurpassed by any other country.  We have outlying territory in the two great oceans and long stretches of seacoast studded with the richest cities in the world.  We are responsible for the protection of a large population and the greatest treasure ever bestowed upon any people.  We are charged with an international duty of defending the Panama Canal.  To meet these responsibilities we need a very substantial sea armament.  It needs aircraft development, which is being provided under the five-year program.  It needs submarines as soon as the department decides upon the best type of construction.  It needs airplane carriers and a material addition to its force of cruisers.  We can plan for the future and begin a moderate building program.

This country has put away the Old World policy of competitive armaments.  It can never be relieved of the responsibility of adequate national defense.  We have one treaty secured by an unprecedented attitude of generosity on our part for a limitation in naval armament.  After most careful preparation, extending over months, we recently made every effort to secure a three-power treaty to the same end.  We were granted much cooperation by Japan, but we were unable to come to an agreement with Great Britain.  While the results of the conference were of considerable value, they were mostly of a negative character.  We know now that no agreement can be reached which will be inconsistent with a considerable building program on our part.  We are ready and willing to continue the preparatory investigations on the general subject of limitation of armaments which have been started under the auspices of the League of Nations.