BRITAIN'S NEW WARSHIPS.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 219, 14 December 1916, Page 6

BRITAIN'S NEW WARSHIPS.

OF GEEAT SIZE AND AMAZING SPEED. CARRIES HEAVIER ARMOUR AND GEEATEE ENGINES) EDINBURGH. Sept. 27. By .invitation of the Admiralty (writes E. A. McKenzie) I visited the British Fleet, examining ships like the Tiger and the Warspite, which the Germans declare they sunk, and witnessing something of the completeness and magnitude of Britain's continual naval pre-

parations. One of the new ships just completed on the Clyde is the mightiest battleship the world has ever seen; with a speed greater than that of the speediest •battle-cruisers; with armour and armament excelling that of the super-Dread-noughts; with 150,000 horse-power engines, which enable her to overtake and destroy any possible opponents. Nearby was the keel of a still mightier vessel.

Powerful destroyers are being turned out wholesale. Lines of them are Hearing completion, each on its keel, ready to run into the water.

"It's too ridiculous," one American said. "They turn out destroyers here like shelling peas."

The speed of ship construction has broken all records. One monster battleship, whose plans had not been prepared in January, 1915, was launched in March 1916, and completed a fortnight ago. The Clyde Motto. The motto of one big shipyard, "Be sure Germany is working double time" dominates the Clyde, where employers and, workers*, men and |womcn, (are working together in the same shops, all filled with the determination to make good. Gentlewomen take their share of daily labour in the workshops in order to beat the Huns.

I can only say, concerning submarines, that what I saw convinced me that Britain's submarine fleet, for size and long-distance capacity, need fear no comparison.

I was especially interested in going over the AVarspite. which Germany officially maintains was sunk at Jutland. It is a substantial ghost.

The story of how the AVarspite came home under her own steam, after being the centre of one of the most concentrated attacks in that battle, forms one of the yet unwritten romances of this war.

"We do not wonder that the Germans imagine the Warspite was sunk, say the sailors. "She was surrounded by columns of water from German shells bursting around her, and was quite invisible for a long time."

To-day the Warspite is fitter than ever, and has been doing good work for weeks past. Germany's Mistakes.

Officers discussing the general naval outlook declared themselves absolutely unperturbed over Germany's threats of fresh submarine activity. She has threatened that almost from the beginning, they say. She has striven to do all the submarining damage she can for two years. She has proved how limited is her capacity for damage in this direction.

Naval men express frank amazement :it Germany's two cardinal mistakes in this sea war —first arranging to attack our merchantmen at the beginning by ocean cruisers, properly distributed over the different seas,'and second, by centralising her efforts now upon submarines rather than disguised ocean destroyers. These mistakes arc now irremediable, and have deprived Germany of a powerful weapon, while the submarine war has, in addition, stripped her of the last vestiges of the sympathy of neutrals. Surprise of Jutland. Naval men consider that the Jutland battle unquestionably proved the soundness of the principles of naval development. The surprise of that battle was, they declare, the absence of any surprises. The Zeppelins took no part in the fighting, nor can they. The Germans Showed the absence of very big guns. If the Germans had any big guns they failed to make use of them. Their sailors, although firing excellently at the beginning, crumpled up when our shells began to get home, their nerves clearly being rattled under the fire. This proves, officers maintain, that short-service sailors like the Germans ar e inferior to old-time men like our own. Optimism and Cheerfulness. ■ I found the spirit of officers and men one of great cheerfulness and optimism. They want the German navy to emerge, but scarcely anticipate it, believing ,that Germany will prefer to keep her ships as pawns when the peace negotiations come. I watched particularly among crews of various ships engaged in recent fighting, and in previous bat tics for signs of staleness and weariness. They were not observable. The Navy never was better, never stronger. Obviously however, the great increase in the number of our ships makes the demand for men urgent. Canada's offer of naval recruits has been received with great satisfaction.