Warships Undisguised.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1809, 23 July 1913, Page 10

Warships Undisguised.

The Australian authorities are awaiting with kpen interest the issue of tho Admiralty regulations governing these vessels. Jt is known, however, that the Admiralty will provide the guns and the ammunition, and will train the guns crews, most of whom will be naval reserve men. Extra pay will be "iven to these gunner?, amounting to from 3d. to 9d. a dav, and the supervision will be in the hands of naval reserve officers, stationed at the terminal, ports. These will superintend the training of the crew's and the care of the .ammunition and the guns. Until the Admiralty announces the' terms of its agreement with the shipping companies there will be no definite information available, but the special cable message in the "Sun" of Tuesday last, statins* that the Ceramic has Iwen equipped with guns, is regarded as indicating early attention to Australian ships. The Houlilcr line has already signed an agreement for its Australian snips. Possibly the Orient Line, which receives the Australian subsidy, will make its agreement through the Commonwealth Government. One of the advantages of having the guns permanently mounted is tlmt they will be always available for training. Another is that they are likely to be morn stable than -Hie hastily-mounted wMiWii of t.h<» secret warships, some of which, according to gumierr theories,

would tear the side of the ship if fired. The British ■f.r-inch guns are all to be of a specially simple character, so that only small guns crpws will be necessarv, and it will bo comparatively easy to keep the weapons in good order.

Every Sea Red With Blood. This is to he the Empire's reply to the persistent preparations of other Powers for the conversion of their trading vessels into formidable privateers. All the nations are at crips in the matter, and they mean to stain every sea with the blood of peaceful travellers when at length they go to war. Not content with expending their energy 011 the construction and maintenance of huge engines of destruction, they insist 011 invading even the peaceful decks of the pleasant passenger steamer. In these days of international competition it is useless to east tho blame for warlike excess on any one nation, but tho new development in naval methods must 1)0 laid at tho door of Germany. Germany is recently exhibiting extremo activity in tinning her merchantmen. Tho seriousness of her preparations can bo appreciated from the following from a wellinformed Berlin publicist, a prominent colleague of the "Sun's" special Berlin representative: "Arrangements have been made, in the event of war, to arm all tho fastest German steamers. In time of peace they carry a few G-pounders and sufficient trained men to work these guns. On the declaration of war they will hoist the flag and attack the commerce of the enemy, and it would be extremelv difficult to hunt them down, and destroy them."