"[2] Former Prime Minister Arthur Balfour rejected the proposal but unsuccessfully argued to the Committee of Imperial Defence, which adopted the rule, that "nobody could say that from any one moment war was an impossibility for the next ten years ... we could not rest in a state of unpreparedness on such an assumption by anybody.
"[3] In 1928 Churchill, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, successfully urged the Cabinet to make the rule self-perpetuating, and hence it was in force unless specifically countermanded.
In 1931 the Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald wanted to abolish the Ten Year Rule because he thought it unjustified based on the international situation.
[5] In April 1931 the First Sea Lord, Sir Frederick Field, claimed in a report to the Committee of Imperial Defence that the Royal Navy had declined not only in relative strength compared to other Great Powers but "owing to the operation of the 'ten-year-decision' and the clamant need for economy, our absolute strength also has ... been so diminished as to render the fleet incapable, in the event of war, of efficiently affording protection to our trade".
[6] The Ten Year Rule was abandoned by the Cabinet on 23 March 1932, but this decision was countered with: "this must not be taken to justify an expanding expenditure by the Defence Services without regard to the very serious financial and economic situation" which the country was in due to the Great Depression.