Why overseas flagships needed room

By the time of HMS Queen Mary and HMS Tiger, battlecruisers had become too expensive to buy in the numbers needed for overseas stations. Light cruisers could take on some duties, but a station flagship also had to accommodate visiting officers and receive local political leaders. A dinner aboard ship required rooms and staff space that a smaller hull could struggle to provide. The case for a medium-sized cruiser depends in part on this diplomatic work, whose value is hard to measure until the navy loses the ability to do it.