REBUILT SHIPS

Hokitika Guardian, 15 May 1929, Page 1

REBUILT SHIPS

KEEPING THE NAVY UP TO DATE EXPENSIVE PROCESS. LONDON, March 28. A battleship which is shortly to return to the Mediterranean has just been turned out by Portsmouth Dockyard after reconstruction. She is the Malaya and she has been modernised. Big bulges have been iitted on her sides to make her immune from torpedo damage. Her funnel is now of the “two in one” 'type, offering less resistance to wind and providing better escape lor smoke and inines. Other extensive work lias been done inside and out, and the bill for all this is £500,000. This is a considerable sum, even as battleship work goes nowadays, and the unpleasant fact (from a taxpayer’s point of view) is that this job of Malaya is only one of a scries, that over a score of other vessels arc awaiting attention, and that some millions of pounds will be spent only in keeping the larger vessels of the Navy up to date. In the Naval Estimates this year the provision is sot forth in detail for “repairs, alterations, etc*.,” as part of the shipbuilding programme. A lost of the ships requiring repairs are to be banded over to the Royal Dockyards at home, though three comparatively small jobs are allotted to Malta. In the Royal Dockyards alone the Admiralty are spending £4.000,700 on repair work, of which £1.190.820 will go for material and £3,403,800 will pay wages, etc. Altogether the repair vote, ns wo may call it, comes to £0.918,031 for the establishment charges have to be reckoned in. The year’s programme of repans is r„ll of ’ interest. Jli.ta.vn linvhm linked. In." I**- »"! '"7 "“ I ,vitli Valiant. Horn! ami l!cnl>o«'. Ihe aircraft earlier Gloria,,* is to he 1 like her sitter. Coarageo.^ Then there is the extensive work t at nuist he done to the or, user Th.nntiU as a result of her strand,ng off Halifax. Nova Seotia. It is snipris : how much work is to he done on these ships, illlliough they were hmlt within recent years.