U.S. WAR MEASURES.

Taihape Daily Times, 25 March 1918, Page 6

U.S. WAR MEASURES.

FACING A LONG WAR. ' '""'** WASHINGTON, March 21. Speaking at Pittsburgh, Mr. Taft said: "We have to face two orThree years of war. We must provide an army of 5,000,000, and semTour soldiers to Franco as fast as our ships are built. We will make~iio "progress •by further debate with Germany and Austria. Blows are the only arguments now."'' Colonel Goethals and Mr. Stettinius have been appointed members of the War Council. The "New York Times" Paris correspondent interviewed Garros, who is thin and sallow, as a result of his long captivity in Germany. He does not disclose how he escaped, because it would spoil others' chances. He says he received starvation Tations. "Germany's economic condition is indescribably bad. The soldiers' food is unfit for dogs. Soldiers and civilians u.e utterly tired of the war.

A MERICA'S HUGE NAVY.

BIGGEST DESTROYER FLEET IN THE WORLD.

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The naval programme approved by Congress, when completed, and it is making rapid progress, will result in making the United States Navy almost the most efficient and powerful in the world.

Within eight months the United States will have the greatest fleet of torpedo-boat destroyers in the world. These ships are now being rushed for launching in Government and private yards on both coasts. By next June every one of these vessels will be in the water ready to combat the submarine menace.

The battleship programme approved by the last Congress, under the fouryear plan of construction, is being carried out, and great Dreadnoughts are being built as rapidly as possible. By early spring three new naval training stations will be completed. These stations will train at one time 15,000 navy recruits.

Several thousand civilian seamen and officers of the fleet reserve are now being trained to take commissions in the United States Navy. All warrant officers in the navy can now take examinations for commissions. There is a shortage of officers am•onnting to about 3000, but these will soon be secured from the warrant officers who win commissions, and from the best seamen in the fleet reserve.