AUSTRALIAN NAVY.

Press, Volume LVII, Issue 17112, 6 April 1921, Page 3

AUSTRALIAN NAVY.

A PERIOD OF INACTIVITY. (FROM OT7E OWN OORBESPONDENT.) SYDNEY, March 30. Although nothing about it has appeared in the newspapers, it is apparent tliat the whole scheme of building up an Australian Navy has been held up for revision. The vast changes in naval construction and organisation rendered necessary by tho lessons learned in the war; the hurried rearrangement of naval forces talcing placo in the Pacific; and the possibility that, if present conditions are noW altered, Great Britain will, in a very tew years, recede to the position of the third naval Power—ail these things have caused the Australian Naval Board to cease all actual building operations until 'Britain's future naval policy h decided.

The first indication of pending changes came last year, when the Dreadnought. battle-pruiser Australia was practically relegated to the scrap heap. Australia was very proud of this fine warship and, as she lay in her accustomed plate,in Sydney Harbour, trim and powerful looking, her decks swarming with men, and the great muzzles of her guns swinging dumbly around to the tides, it was hard to believe that she represented anything but efficient fighting machine. But high authority said that' she belonged to an prder that was past, and that her maintenance on «. fighting scale was waste of money. Thereupon her complement was greatly reduced, and she was-sent off to the barren naval base of Westernport, in Victoria, to become a training 'ship. - That was the first jolt to the public. Tho next came when the cruiser Adelaide, which was being built at Cockatoo Island, was towed out into the stream and, only half-constructed, was left there under guard.. The building of this warship commenced some years ago, and she was launched in 1917. But, as the war progressed, more and more alterations were required in the building of ships, and the end of the war found the plans still being chopped and changed. Finally, the Naval Board decided to cease building altogether, until the future became clearer and money more plentiful, and so-she went into the stream. • The latest development is the handing over of Cookatoo Naval Dockyard to a new Board, which is to undertake there the building of merphant- ships. Naval repairs will -still be done there, but - naval construction for, the time being has absolutely ceased. The same thing has happened at "Westernport and Obekburn Sound naval bases —huge works have been commenced, but, for the time being, building' operations have practically ceased. The 'head of the Australian Navy, Admiral Grant, has gone off to Singapore in the cruiser Brisbane, to meet other British Admirals., Thence they go to London. From these conferences, Sflme definite naval policy-for-the British Empire will probably emerge.