THE WORK OF THE GRAND FLEET.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 7 September 1917, Page 2

THE WORK OF THE GRAND FLEET.

Eeferrang to the worn: of the British Navy recently, Eear-Admiral Lionel Halsey, Third Sea Lord, said the great increase in the Navy during the war had been obtained almost entirely filom the Mercantile marinje.i |rliich had provided 10,931 officers and 65,000 men, while the Eoyal Naval Volunteer Eeserve had supplied and trained 4528 officers and 28,000 men. As a naval officer, he could say without hesitation that these men, after three, years of war, were the same as though they had always been officers and men of the Eoyal Navy. They had the same feelings and traditions, and in every way showed the great worth of the service from which they came. Admiral Halsey said that at the start of the war the enemy had placed raiders all over the world, but all the raiders, with two exceptions, had been accounted for. The fleet had always been ready and anxious to meet the Germans in battle. Only once had the enemy dared to enter th e main thoroughfare to outer seas—on May 31, 1916 —and there had not been a single German raid that had not been followed by a blow from the British Fleet. If the navy should be defeated the British Isles would be starved out in a month, but with the fleet remaining intact and the ceaseless vigilance of the thousands of small merchant craft that kept the highways free from mines, there was no need for fear. The enemy might raid England, but he would guarantee that the army and navy together could prevent any raid from proving successful.