H.M.S. NEW ZEALAND.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 557, 9 April 1913, Page 6

H.M.S. NEW ZEALAND.

VISIT TO DOMINION. PORTS OF CALL. ' ENTERTAINMENT OP OFFICERS. In view of the interest aroused by the visit to the Dominion of New Zealand's famous Dreadnought, particulars of the impending visit will be welcome. The battleship arrives in Wellington no Saturday next, April 12, and remains there until the 22nd, on which date departure ia to be made for Auckland. Napier and Gisborne are to be visited en route, and H.Ms New Zealand reaches the Waitemata on April 29th, and remains until May 12th. The reception programme at Auckland provides for an official welcome at the Town Hall at noon on the 29tb. On landing at the north end of Queen street whatf the officers will be formally welcomed by the port authorities, and the party will then be driven straight to the Town Hall. After the reception Captain Halsey, the commander of tlm- ship, and his officers will be entertained at luncheon at the Northern Club. A citizens' ball will be held while the battleship is in port, and Thursday, May Ist, is the date decided upon for this function. A visit to Rotorua will also be arranged for the officers.

It is proposed to entertain 1000 of the men at luncheon at the Town Hall on Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday, April 30th and May Ist and 3rd. Tram trips round the city, a run into the Nihotapu bush, and athletic sports, are includedin the entertainment programme for the men of the ship.

The battleship will be open for inspection while in port, and it is in tended to make provision for thousands of school children visiting the vessel.

Citizens have been invited to assist in decorating the city. The Harbour Board is spending £4OO in decorating the ferry buildings and wharves, and the Reception Committee estimates that the cost of lunching the men, providing sports, excursions, illuminations, etc., will run into another £IOOO.

The details of the cruiser may be summarised as follow: —

Built by the Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company, Govan, Glasgow, to the charge of the Government of New Zealand.

Laid down June, 1910. Launched July, 1911. Commissioned at Devonport by Captain Lionel Halsey, November 23rd, 1912. Length., 590 ft. Beam, 80ft. Draught, 30j£t. Displacement, 19,000 tons. Main armament, 8 12in B.L, Mk. X. 45-calibre guns.

Weight of broadside, 68001bB —3 tons. Auxiliary armament, 16 4in B.L. Mk. VII. 50-calibre guns. Armour protection, belt 12ft wide, 4 to 6in thick. Two submerged torpedo tubes. • Eight twin searchlights. Complement, 789 officers and men. Turbined engines, four propellers. 44,000 horse power, 31 boilers Speed, 27 knots hour. Ship carries 3200 tons of coal and 830 tons of oil fuel. Cost, £2,000,000. As becomes the first of Imperial ships, the New Zealand is manned by members of the British navy, and by New Zealanders. Two of her officers were born in the Dominion, and 4 or 5 of her crew. Captain Halsey himself will be remembered aa Flag-Captain on the Australasian Station —spare, wiry, alert, and altogether competent. Commander Grace, the second iti command, and a son of the redoubtable and world-famouß "W.G.," is a chip of the old block. Officers, war-rant-officers, p3tty-officers, and men, from the highest to the lowest, all bear that hall-mark which is characteristic of the British navy. DEATH-DEALING ARMAMENT.

The control of the armaments of the giant craft is marvellous. To such a pitch of perfection has gunnery been brought that these huge guns, which drive a shell weighing 12001b to a distance of seven mileß, are practically fool-proof. Except for handles and levers, which a child could operate, none of their vital parts has to be touched. The shell down in the bunkers in the magazine is lifted by a little hoist, which carries it along to a lift, which, again, deposits it in the casement in a compartment, from which it rolls into a kind of slot, and from the slot is pushed up by the machinery into the breech. Rammed home, the breech is closed and the gun is fired. At a trial of the ship, the operation took, from the moment the men were told to "stand ready" until the trigger was pulled, 18 seconds. So is every reason why it is expected that three rounds a minute could be fired from these monsters. The 6in guns, with their lesser charge and their lower penetrating power carry grim evi dence of their death-dealing qualities The super-Dreadnought of to-day has her battery of guns so arranged that she can rain practically the whole of them on any given object at the same time. The only exception are the two 6in guns aft, which, in consideration of their nature, are circumscribed in their arc, and could only be used to fight a rear-guard action, or to drop a parting shot on to some opponent as the warship is swung round for another broadside. AN ELECTRIC NETWORK.

There are telephones everywhere. The modern warship has become a kind of electrical laboratory. Everything is done by electricity, from the cooking of food to the. blowing of the fire in tae blacksmith's shop, the firing of the great guns to the lighting of the captain's stove in his sitting-room, the working of the lifts to the hoisting out of the boats. There is apparently nothing that an electrician cannot do with this strange

power. When once the order is given to "clear decks," therefore, every part of the ship inßtantly becomes in closest contact with every other psi i by this network of electrical lines, and no chances are taken. If the enemy should clout the conning tower, and render it necessary for the gun fire to be directed and controlled from tome safer place, there is a room embedded in the armour forward, where this work can be carried out without the slightest break in the continuity of operations, and if by any chance the enemy were to plunge a shell into this den, there is s second secret cabin amidships, an emergency cabin, fitted with every requiste, where for a third time the brains of the ship can work coolly and quietly, despite the hail of death raining outside. SNUB-NOSED DISASTER. Destruction, disaster, desolation, despair, and lurk in the shell magazine in the centre of the ship, yet they look to the uninstructed eye harmless lumps of iron. They are great long cylinders, with iron shell and snub noses. Formerly they were made with pointed tips, but it was discovered f hat the Bnub-nose has an even better penetrative power than the point; and within those iron cases lie three kinds of death —death by a solid smash of iron, death by shrapnel —which explodes, shrieks, and screams like furies let loose from hell —and death by lyddite, timed by a fuse to explode at a given distance, and if the distance be right, sufficiently disruptive to bear the greatest battleship that man has made to the bottom of the ocean. SEARCHLIGHTS LIKE SUNS. The searchlights ,are an amazing achievement. The heliograph has disappeared in the British navy, for it iB no longer required. These electric suns, each of 25,000 c.h p , throw a beam of light up the sea as if it were day for a distance of four miles, rendering it almost impossible for the fastest and smallest craft to approach a battleship without detection, and the searchlights serve a double purpose. They are not only employed to sweep the sea to prevent the enemy creeping up without notice; they are also used for signalling other ships of the fleet. A quaint shutterlike apparatus is worked by hand, and blinks our Morse signals across the waters. The men's quarters do not allow of a person of 6ft high standing upright, and are constructed so that only the man of comparatively small stature can walk about with any freedom. Off it are the officers' cabins Delightful places they all are, with bedstead bunks, and writing tables, and reading desks, and reasonable accommodation for clotheß and laundry and books. Beyond these, again, are the captain's cabin and the captain's sitting room. They are the last word in gentlemanly bachelor™luxury at sea, and the captain's messroom and the officers' messroom and the middies' messroom are each of their kind excellent and pleasant to the eye. The men's sleeping quarters are in the men's eating quarters. They have their meals and they sleep in the same place between decks. The tables are fairly high off the ground, and not very far from the roof, so that there is not a great deal of space for the hammocks, which are fixed when the last meal, supper, has been eaten, and there is no great elbow room between the hammocks, and of fresh air there is not much, because the port-holes are alnsost always awash when a battleship is at sea, and therefore the men's quarters are almost always lighted with electricity. BOARD OF EDUCATION. At the meeting of the Board of Education last week, the following appointments were authorised: Miss C. Buvill, Awakino; Miss E. M. Burgess. Okauia. Pupil tachers: Misses E. M. Risdling, Ngaruawahia; T. A. Conway, Frankton. The board endorsed the recommendation of the finance committee regard ing grants *to the Oruaiti school library of £4 13s, to Oturoa school library of £6 10s, and to Thames of £7 15s. The board further approved of the usual subsidy being made to the Waipu Central school library. The chairman intimated that the department had been informed the estimated cost of the infant department in brick for Hamilton West school was £2llO for building, and £325 for furniture.

The establishment of a school in a building to be erected by residents at Ohura Valley was authorised.

A request for a residence at Pio Pio was declined.

An application from Te Puhi for a school building Was referred to the inspector, .as was a request from Karamu for the enlargement of the residence. The board's solicitors were instructed to take action to acquire a site for a school at Arapae.

The Kakepuku comimttee was granted £4 7s for an entrance to the school.

The architect was authorised to act in the matter of alterations to the windows, etc., at Mangaroa.

The Otangiwai committee were granted £2 10s for repairs to the residence.

The supply of a tank at Te Puhi was authorised, and the Elstow committee granted £2 10s for a tank. Applications for a school district at Korokaonui and Ngongotaha were referred to the inspector. The name of the Mangaroa school and school district waß changed to "Ohura."

The Paemako and Wairere Falls schools are to be taught half time.