Salisbury opened with a £21.5 million program to be completed in four and a half years: £10 million for private contracts and £11.5 million for royal dockyards. He estimated that hulls and machinery absorbed three quarters of a contemporary warship's cost, leaving one quarter for armament. The central argument was administrative rather than simply numerical. Annual estimates had forced the Admiralty to stretch, pause, or alter construction according to each year's money and politics, disrupting dockyard labor and making costs harder to predict. Salisbury also objected that yearly reconsideration exposed designs to changing ministers, treasury economies, and panic-driven alterations. Funding complete ships allowed regular work to continue without repeated redesign or interruption and made large-scale contracting with commercial yards practical.
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The £21.5 million act changed how Britain paid for complete warships
Salisbury split £21.5 million between private contracts and royal dockyards, but the decisive reform was funding approved ships through completion instead of in unstable annual slices.