LATEST BRITISH BATTLESHIPS.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 156, 17 March 1916, Page 2 (Supplement)

LATEST BRITISH BATTLESHIPS.

WOXDKIIFI'I, ARMAMENT. The Agenzie Nazionale, Rome, states ilit Germany is making colossal preparations for a naval offensive in the spring. It is said that the enemy will have a new type of torpedo-proof ship, armed with IGI-inch and perhajw '2l)meh guns. The following outspoken yet s:gnilicant paragraph from the Daily News, London, in an article headed "The .Next Fight, v says:— "The guns of that great battleship which joined the fleet not many days ago are very true. The few on shore who knew of the leviathan's unheralded coming and watched with well justified pride the passing of the battle squadron —the last word in naval construction —said to each other: 'The guns mounted on that boat are not intended to hit ships.' No, nor will they. They will hit something else, and will crumb!: what they hit into ashes and dust. "Tho Germans recently launched a new battleship, the von Hindenburg. There were realistic pictures in the German papers of tho ceremony. Even in England excellent illustrations appeared of tho great ship leaving the way*:; the publicity was excellently stage managed, and the bulk of tho von Hindenburg launching into th"> water, even though its engines may never he built in, was supposed to slnw the people ofthe Central Powers that the German 'command' of the seas is no chimera, and that organisation for its fruition is p/oceeding. " We have a different way of doing things in this country. Legion* of men work night and day among the great steel ribs in the shipyards, legions more are at work in the engine rooms, and still more legions are in the forges at Newcastle, Birkenhead Barrow, and l'arkshead easting the guns that will soon make the British nation open the eyes of the whole world. The great ships are finished silently and secretly. They pasr, out to their appointed places and we hear nothing. Only a few 011 shore watch them sail away. Pride in their power beat-: fast in the hearts of those who speed the monarchs of the deep on their way. All is conducted behind a veil.''