GERMAN FLEET.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 229, 26 March 1912, Page 4

GERMAN FLEET.

NOT ENOUGH SAILORS TO BE GOT, A SERIOUS POSITION. London, January 20. The German naval authorities are experiencing great difficulty, in view of the rapid increase of the fleet, in obtaining tl sufficient men to place all the ships of " appreciable value on a reasonable standard of efficiency. This is one of the inevitable results of the attempt to legislate for a navi years in advance. When the original Navy Act was passed, the largest armored ships of the German fleet required ' crews of only about (100 officers and men, whereas the latest Dreadnoughts absorb 1007. Nominally, the number of armored ships is the same to-day as it was in 1898, when the first legislation vva» passed; but whereas then their total displacement was of about 175,000 tons, in- , eluding small coast defence ships, now it has risen to 424,700 tons, and there are Dreadnoughts building of 290,050 tons, giving the aggregate displacement of 714,755 tons. The development in the size of cruiser* and torpedo craft has been little less rapid, with the result that to-day the fleet displaces 749,699 tons, and there are 337,700 tons under construction, raising the total amount of naval armament, built and building, to 1,087,399. Thia is considerably in excess of the effective fighting weight of the whole British fleet as recently as 1900. While, however, the British navy then had a personnel of 114,880, the German Navy to-day, with a larger displacement, possesses only 60,805, or rather more than half as many. Though tho manning difficulty ha» arisen in Germany, it must not be supposed that the expansion of t the personnel has been neglected. The contrary is the fact. In 1897 there were only 23,403 men, and thenceforward the numbers were raised year by year. The figures for the past eleven years have been as follows:—1901, 31,157; 1902, 7 22,542; 1903, 33,834; 1004, 38,128; 1905, ' 40,843; 1906, 43,654; 1907, 46,936; 1908, , 50,531; 1909, 53,946; 1910, 57,373; 1911, *■ 60,805. It will thus be seen that since 1907 the number of officers and men has been augmented \by approximately 160 per cent., and yet the strength is not sufficient for tho proper manning of the flest as it exists to-day. The difficulty arises, in large measure, from a (übtle change which has occurred since steamships replaced sailing ships and a new and higher standard of manning policy became essential, owing to the delicacy of the mechanical equipment of a man-of-war. It is only under a voluntary long-ser-vice system that adequate numbers can be provided to suit the modern fighting ' policy of a war fleet, which requires that the whole of the active squadrons shall be manned by "regulars," and that the second line of the fleet shall be main-' tained in peace by large nucleus crews, to be increased to war complements by drafts of "regulars," with a proportion of reservists for the less technical work - on board. This truth has been realised by all the naval authorities in the world', but under a short-service system the consequent drain on the manhood of a nation forced to maintain a large army is almost unbearable. It follows that, since . in the British navy the average period' of service is over nine years, and in the German and some other foreign navies only three years, the proportionate number of recruits required annually under the latter condition is three times as great as under the former.

The difficulties of foreign fleets in these circumstances have grown year by year, as the complexity and delicacy of the mechanism of men-of-war have increased. This movement is seriously interfering with the plans of the •German naval authorities in manning the fleet. The vessels now completing require such large screws that the balance available for the older ships is proving inadequate. This can readily be understood when it is explained that a German bat. tleship to-day requires nearly twice as many men as a battleship of 10,000 tons built fifteen years ago. (The manning trouble in Germany has been exaggerated by the depreciation of ,the utility of the reservists, and by the particular design of armored ship adopted, which is a combination of the mixed armament battleship and the Dreadnought design of the British authorities, with the result that each German Dreadnought requires over 100 more men than a r vessel.