IDEALS IN STEEL.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 169, 28 April 1916, Page 4

IDEALS IN STEEL.

Significance of Britain's Sea Supremacy. In a description which has appeared in "The Chicago Daily News " of a visit to the British fleet, Mr Edward Price Bell, the special correspondent of that journal, mentions his meeting with Admiral Brock—" clean-shaven, blue-eyed, fair-haired, highly sensitive and intelligent, an admirable type of the British naval officer." On board the Lion the correspondent met Admiral Beatty. "He has," he says, •' good shoulders thrown well back, and a handsome head firmly set, impressing one as the seat of wit and will. He glances from face to face, smiling, questioning, remarking—all in an abrupt, terse manner, but all touched with human warmth. Only 44, and an admiral. You would not say he is a day older; but look closely at his face. Kesponsibility, concentration, danger have been etching there. Youth rules the British Navy. Jellicoe, Admiralissimo, is only 57, but one strongly suspects that these high-tension men have tended to telescope the calendar."

MAN AND THE MACHINE. After describing various ships of the " Cat " squadron, Mr Bell remarks:—"One finds the fact coming forcibly home to one on a great warship, as happens also, I imagine, when one studies a great army, that there are two overmastering factors in modern war—the man and the machine. If the man is helpless without the machine, the machine is yet more helpless without the man. Precarious the position of that nation, particularly that wealthy nation, which lacks these indespensables of safety. Not pacificist ideals, nor law, nor justice, nor humanity, not righteousness, no abstract excellence whatever, will ensure deliverance from powerful enemies in time of war. Deliverance can be had only from the man and the machine In her Navy—for this sample of her fleet, I believe, is like all the restBritain has this union of the marvel of mechanics and the magic of human skill. The men must be trained ; the machines up to date. The man is needed in millions; the machine in numbers almost as great. In effective warships boilers and engines must be right, guns right, the human element right, Boilers and engines give the speed that is vital; guns give the range and throw the weight of metal that is vital; men furnish the all-transcending, all-controlling energy, coolness, judgment, discipline, and death-despising nerve that are vital. IDEALS CAST IN STEEL.

"Something of the teeth and claws of the British Lion< something of a total of 3000 ships pledged to the defence of an old system of human liberty—this we have seen, upon this we reflect. Those men in the mist, one thinks of them as a bulwark against mailed tyranny. Those uptilted, swinging, far-raDging guns, I call them memories, ideals, aspirations cast in steel. The British Navy is the great stabilizer of British nerves. Against it Teutonic panic-mongering breaks emptily. Behind their multiple and multitudinous fleet Britons rest peacefully at night, unhaunted by the spectre of invasion or of starvation, and none cry in the interests of local protection against grand strategic relations, which threatened to occur ia the United States on the outbreak of the Spanish-American war. British sea supremacy, dearly bought at Trafalgar, seems more solidly established than ever before. Three hours after tl\e war bolt fell, at 2 a.m., August oth, 1914, the British Navy went into action in the Heligoland Bight, and it has been indefatigably at its task ever since. The German Navy is in being, powerful and daringly manned, eager for laurels; yet Britain's fleet saves the nation's balance, saves its coasts, saves its trade, sweeps the enemy's flag from the seas, and convoys British fighting legions from the ends of the earth to the fields of battle." WORKING THE GUNS.

Dealing with the manner in which the guns are worked, Mr Bell says : "Hydraulic power is used in the Lion, as almost universally in the British Navy, for power-worked mountings. The British regard hydraulic mechanism as comparatively noiseless and reliable. They believe that defects in it are relatively easy of diagnosis and rectification. Electric power, however, is used for smaller machinery. Some projectiles, for emergencies, are stored in the turret, but the great stock of cartridges and shells is kept in the magazine and the shell room, which lie about 110 feet below tho turrets. Cartridges and shells are brought up on an ammunition hoist, hydraulically manipulated. The eugiuo-room of the Lion is a wonierworld. She has alternativo sets of propellers. She has colossal low and high-pressure turbines, so that the steam is used twice, first by the high-pressure and then by the lowpressure machine. 'Die design tf the boiler and engines is such that this niuss of wood and steel, with its numerous complement, can be driven through the seas at a speed of 28 knots. Great interest is taken in the Lion's battery of 4-inch quick-firers, constructed on the same principle as the big guns. Keen and competent must be the men who use these gun 3 with success."