The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET AUCKLAND SATURDAY, JANUARY 18, 1930 THE £. S. D. OF FIGHTING CRAFT

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 874, 18 January 1930, Page 8

The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET AUCKLAND SATURDAY, JANUARY 18, 1930 THE £. S. D. OF FIGHTING CRAFT

REPRESENTATIVES of five great Powers will gather next week to discuss the possibility of reducing naval armaments and so diverting to productive purposes one of the heaviest forms of national expenditure. The unfortunate feature of drastic curtailments in naval construction, with its attendant reduction m maintenance requirements, is the long period of adjustment necessary before large bodies of men employed in the big naval dockyards, as well as aboard the fighting craft themselves, can be placed in other occupations. Some of them are unfitted by training and environment for any other work than that required for the specialised crafts of the shipyards, and if the private shipyards, too, are feeling the pinch of foreign competition, and thus offer no possibility of expansion, there must be a certain amount of difficulty and even suffering during the period of adjustment.

This unfortunate phase of naval reduction has been apparent again and again in Britain since the war. It has also been noted in Japan, where in 1927 there was a serious danger that, through a curtailment in the capital-ship programme, 25,000 dockyard hands would be thrown out of work. In the United States the powerful interests engaged in turning out men-o’-war from the shipyards have realised the danger, perhaps more as it applies to their own revenue than as it affects their employees, and have even adopted some of the methods revealed in the Shearer disclosures to influence the Powers against further reductions.

In every maritime country there is a large class of workmen that almost by instinct turns to the dockyards for work. They have the skill implanted through generations of application to the same sort of tasks. Again, hundreds of families in seaports like Hull and Liverpool raise their sons with the expectation that when the time comes they may be able to enter the navy as lowerdeck ratings. The restriction of this opening through the limitation of armaments since the war has already had a serious effect in Britain. It is not limited to the poorer sections of the people. The quarterdeck is no longer wide open to accredited young* men.

Though these are features of disarmament which, quite apart from questions of national safety, make abstract ideals rather difficult to execute, they cannot be permitted to conceal the immense burden which the construction and maintenance of naval craft impose on the resources of the nations. Even in New Zealand the Minister of Finance must sometimes feel that the sums expended on the upkeep of the New Zealand naval squadron are a recurring embarrassment. To send H.M.S. Diomede Home to refit costs something over £30,000. This expense was incurred less than three years ago, and it is being incurred again now. Every shot fired in manoeuvres and exercises is one of those “necessary luxuries” for which the obliging taxpayer must pay. Even such a comparatively innocuous device as a target for gunfire cost the Dominion over £IO,OOO. The target anchored at Devonport consumes £SOO annually in interest charges, and is idle for 51 weeks of the year. But these trifling figures pale before the enormous cost of capital ships, huge floating fortresses of the Hood and Nelson type, each costing from £6,000,000 to £7,000,000 or more to build, and huge amounts to maintain in fighting trim. Some of the great capital ships were not in action more than once or twice during the whole Avar. Even at Jutland they had only a negligible share of the fighting, the brunt of which Avas borne by the battle-cruisers. Nevertheless, it has been pointed out that the actual existence of the Grand Fleet, maintained in a high state of efficiency, was an important factor in the preservation of British sea-poAver. Each such ship is not merely a floating fort, but also a floating city, and every inhabitant of these cities is fed, clothed and paid at the taxpayers’ expense. The Hood has a complement of 1,400 men. When she flies the Admiral’s flag she has a £2,000-a-year man aboard, and this raises her total payroll to £203,800 a year. Great ships need constant repairs, miles of rope, and thousands of gallons of paint. These items alone cost £28,000 a year. Docking is another costly performance. This phase of the Hood’s upkeep costs £60,000 a year. Medical stores alone cost £7,000 a year for this one ship, and pensions represent an additional £50,000. Vast sums, in ordinary reckoning, are expended at every gun practice. The Hood blows £38,000 a year out through her gun muzzles. Steaming at high speed, a capital ship burns tremendous quantities of oil. The fuel bill for the Hood is £120,000 a year. Wisely invested, that sum Avould produce an income of £6,000.

. The cost of smaller ships does not, unfortunately, diminish in ratio to their tonnage. Yet the figures quoted show that a reduction in capital ships Avould mean immense relief to the exchequers of the nations. Statistics showing the high cost of fighting ships may at first sight seem dismal reading. But to reach a basis of comparison it is necessary to consider the enormous losses that an unscrupulous enemy may inflict on the unprotected sea-borne commerce of a nation, and on its coastal towns in the course of a few moments’* bombardment.

THE QUIET CORNER.