THE NAVAL ADVISER.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIX, Issue 28, 25 May 1914, Page 4

THE NAVAL ADVISER.

The London correspondent of the Wellington "Post" states that from a training point of view, New Zealand could probably not hare got a more experienced naval adviser than Captain P. H. Hall Thompson. In the Navy List he appears as captain of No. 385, which is H.M.S. President, formerly the steam sloop Buzzard, under which name she is easily recognised as a sister of what was once the Sparrow and is now the New Zealand training ship Amokura. But to be captain of the President means more than appears on the face of it. The President is the headquarters and training ship of the London division of the Royal Naval Volunteer Be,serve, and Captain Thompson is a naval member of the Admiralty Volunteer Committee. Though so small a vessel, the President takes up three pages of the Navy List, whereas the average first-class battleship only takes half a page. This is because she is the nominal headquarters of all sorts of services. She bears as additional for various services hydrographic, ordnance, patrols, R.N. College, coastguards, engineer overseers, and numbers more. This does not mean that all these officers are quartered on board. It is just the same as at Portsmouth, where H.M.S. Victory lies empty in the stream, but 4000 men with H.M.S. Victory on their hats are housed ashore in the naval barracks.