LATE LOCALS.

Hokitika Guardian, 1 June 1920, Page 3

LATE LOCALS.

Relative to the expectation that H.M.S. New Zealand might he the Hagship of the post-war fleet on the China station, a London correspondent quotes the following remarks from “The Times”: ‘.‘There is not, of course, any question of breach of faith involved inthe circumstances that the New Zealand has now been reduced, to the reserve at home. Although it was decided at the Imperial Defence Conference in July and August, 1909, that the New Zealand, which had been offered to the Empire by that Dominion, shoijd. when completed, be stationed in China waters, it was announced in the Memorandum of Mr Churchill, dated March Bth ,1913, that, in response to a suggestion from the Admiralty the Government of New Zealand had agreed to this vessel being stationed ‘wherever his Majesty’s Government consider her service of most value,’ and the Admiralty, availing themsplves, $ this gen. erous permission, attached her to the First Battle Cruiser Squadron in the North Sea, wlier? she, figured in all the big actions of the war. The strength of the Fleet in China, as revised,, is; numerically very similar to what it was in 19]4. There are now five light cruisers, 12 submarines, and two 'depot ships, four sloops, 14 gunboats for river work, an aircraft carrier, and a dispatch v >sse.l, making a total of 39 pennants.