THE NAVY.

Taranaki Daily News, 30 May 1916, Page 3

THE NAVY.

I WINSTON CHURCHILL'S "WARNING." HIS AMAZING CONVERSION. London, March 9. If there is one thing in which the average "plain workaday" Briton lias faith, it is the Navy. "Of late there seems to have been something like a concerted effort on the part of a certain section of arm-chair "authorities" and journalistic "experts" to undermine that faith. We have had all sorts of darkling hints as to what Germany is doing in the matter of battleship construction,' coupled with suggestions that our own Admiralty is, so to speak, merely "marking time" in the matter of naval juilding so far as really big ships and guns are concerned. There was an article published recently in which it was suggested that, in addition to a large number of huge submarines capable of voyaging from Heligoland to New York and back without making a call anywhere for renewal of supplies of any kind, the German shipbuilding yards would presently vomit forth something like a score of capital ships armed with guns by the. side of which the Queen Elizabeth's 15in weapons would be, comparatively, "small potatoes." The writer set himself to prove that the German Navy in the course of the aext few months might be infinitely more formidable relatively to our Navy than it was at the commencement of the war; indeed, he seemed to hint that when Tirpitz's successor did see fit to set free the "High Canal" fleet Admiral Jellicoe would find himself overmatched in the matter of super-Dread-noughts, both as to number and gun power. Whatever uneasiness this and other alarmist articles on naval matters may/have caused in civilian minds was added to by the exploits of. the German commerce raider Mocwe—if that was her name—and by the recrudescence of successful German submarine activity. AMAZING CONVERSION. On top of these things Colonel Churchill—as Mr. Winston Churchill is now styled—made a dramatic reappearance in the House of Commons last Monday night especially, it seems, to apprise the British public of the fact that he—the late civil head of the Navy—has no confidence in the present Admiralty administration, and that he believed our only hope of naval salvation lies in the recall of Lord Fisher to the office from which he retired not long after Mr. Churchill had relinquished the post of First Lord. Colonel Churchill expressed his opinion that the present Admiralty administration lacks driving force and directing energy, and that Lord Fisher (though seventy-five years of age) will, in his view, supply these missing qualities. The House listened to this with be- . wilderment, for it was Lord Fisher's insistence that compelled Mr. Churchill's retirement from the Admiralty last May. and, rightly or wrongly, it is believed that Lord Fisher desired to drive Mr. Churchill, not merely from the Admiralty, but out of the Government, and that it was Mr. Asquith's refusal to accept dictation on this point that led to Lord Fisher's own retirement. With the Fisher-Churchill feud still very green in their memories, members were startled to hear one of the parties to it eloquently pleading for Lord Fisher's return to office. Mr. Churchill himself l-ecognised the incongruity of his position. He gave the House to understand that it was a hard thing for l.im nuhlielv tn advise the recall

for mm publicly to aavise tue recan of Lord Fisher, but lie had no doubt whatever that it was his duty to do so. The House did not know what to make of the situation, and Mr. Churchill's amazing conversion was naturally the subject of much speculation subsequently. FEARS OF DELAY. Colonel Churchill gave reasons for his general dissatisfaction. He was guarded in his utterances, but he let it clearly be perceived: 1. That he was alarmed lest there should be serious delay in the completion of the programme of capital ships. 2. That he fears there have been Relays in the completion of the flotillas laid down by himself and Lord Fisher. 3. That he is not satisfied with what he described as "purely negative strategy," and he bluntly said that "the late Jjoard would certainly not have been contented with pure passivity in 1910." 4. That he could not understand the present lack of enterprise in dealing with the Zeppelin raiders. Why not destroy their sheds? he asked, and he evoked a big cheer recalling the fact that in the early weeks of the war British airmen had found their way to Cologne, Dusseldorf, . and Cuxliaven. "Why not now ?" he asked. These were the main points ol Colonel Churchill's criticism. He insisted that we ought to credit the Germans over whose dockyards an impenetrable veil has fallen—with not having wasted their time, and with having completed every vessel which was begun before the war. The man-in-the-street is naturally asking whether Mr. Churchill's speech was prompted by actual knowledge of dangerous delays in naval construction, or whether it was merely one which later on he will "regret," as he frankly nd- ' mitted he now does, the notorious "dig i them out" speech he made concerning the 1 German Navy, at Liverpool, when lie was ' First Lord of the Admiralty. The gen- ' oral view seems to be that Colonel 1 Churchill need not be taken altogether seriously either as regard.' his advocacy ' of a return to a Fisher regime or his > hints of serious delays in connection with '' naval construction." At the same time, ' the nation at large would like an answer * to his questions on Zeppelin matters. In > that connection the ex-First Lord certain- ' ly spoke with the voice of the people. ' MR. BALFOUR'S CONFIDENCE. Colonel Churchill's speech was in a 1 sense discounted in advance by Mr. Bal- > four, who gave a very cheery account 3 of our naval position. He stated catet gorically: 1. That never had so.many ships been s built, or built so fast." ? 2. That practically the whole sliip--1 building capacity of the country had been absorbed by Admiralty work. 3. That, with the single exception of armoured cruisers, our superiority in every class of ship was absolutely and relatively greater than that at the bel sinning of the war. ? 4. that the same general oliscrva--1 ions were true of guns and munitions. I He did not pretend that the Admirilty was "satisfied." How could it ever ' he'satisfied? But they were filling up ■■ 'II deficiencies as fast as possible, and ' ,'nc was no limit to their will. Mr. Balfour naturally laid great stress [ )i the enormous expansion of the Navy j'nee war began. The personnel has II nore than doubled from 140,000 men to 100,000. Oyer 9, milliofi tons have been

added to the tonnage. Four million combatants have been transported, with 2,500,000 tons of stores, a million horses, and 25,000,000 gallons of oil. RESULTS OF HUSTLE. In a subsequent speech Mr. Balfour dealt with Colonel Churchill's diatribe point by point in an admirable manner. Thus, in dealing with the shortage of labor for shipbuilding, he suggested that if anybody was responsible for allowing skilled mechanics to go to the front it was Colonel Churchill. Again, the late First Lord had complained that certain "Dreadnoughts" were not completed and at the same time had plumed himself on his action in producing a number of monitors. The reason, said Mr. Balfour, why the "Dreadnoughts" had not been finished was that in making the monitors Colonel Churchill and his board had used the guns and gun-mountings designed for the capital ships. Moreover, the bustle, hurry and push demanded by Colonel Churchill had been carried to such an extreme in the case of monitors that it had been found impossible to use some of them, and they were being remodelled. Mr. Balfour condemned, as contrary to the public interests, Colonel Churchill's endeavor to suggest doubts, fears and alarms to the public. He went on to say that at the beginning of the war we had not a single naval base on the East Coast that was safe from submarine attacks, and that trade routes were most imperfectly policed by fast cruisers, these things being entirely due to the Board of Admiralty over which Colonel Churchill presided. THE CASE OF LORD FISHER. As to the plea for the recall of Lord Fisher, Mr. Balfour pointed out that, in the speech he made on leaving office, Colonel Churchill complained that Lord Fisher had not given him either the guidance pt the firm support he had a right to expect. "Let us suppose," said Mr. Balfour, "I was prepared to take my Board of Admiralty from my right honorable friei)''—rather a violent supposition—why does he suppose Lord Fisher would behave differently to me than he behaved to him?" Mr. Balfour declared, amid cheering, that nothing would induce him to yield to such a demand as that of Colonel Churchill, made in such a way. Colonel Churchill's rejoinder was to the effect that his feelings of disquietude arose from doubt as to whether the battleship and destroyer programmes had been worked to the dates arranged, and that he had been restrained only by the public interest from waking his charge in a stronger form.