BEHIND THE FLEET.

Taranaki Daily News, 11 January 1918, Page 6

BEHIND THE FLEET.

WHERE rWBTIXU SHIPS ARE BORN VISIT TO THE CLYDE, (Sydney "Sun" Special Correspondent.) The Clyde. Travelling down to the Clyde, in the company of a naval guide kindly furnished by the Admiralty, I have had a unique opportunity of seeing the stress of work behind the fleet, and behind all those other thousands of smaller vessels that patrol the seas, transport armies and supplies. The difficulty is that so many are the secrets here that one cannot record facta, but only impressions. No slip is empty, no slip is occupied longer than necessary. Keels are being prepared and plates forged for ships far ahead in the scheme of construction. The Clyde took up the submarine's challenge. as soon as uttered, and here on its countless slips is proof of its fighting capacity. I can only hint at what we are building. Naval ships, of course, of every kind, some different from anything afloat, others improvements on the HtVi of their type. Looking at them, you would say that the flying submarine will come some day, and the Clyde will be the first into the ocean with it. And a' mass of merchantmen—standardised and other types, all faster than pre-war types, all fitted for war conditions. One sees here some fast beauties that would look well in Australian ports, with a stomach full of Australian wheat and meat. AYe shall see some of them, after the war. BUSY AVORKERS. Difficulties are merely those of physical capacities. . A limit is reached in men's and women's endurance, and in supply of material. AVithin that limit shipbuilding has been organised at a rate which if the long enough will some day outdo any efforts that the submarines can make. It is true that this great ocean-goer on this slip here, tuckfd away between seven other new ships nn seven other slips, may be sunk on its first, voyage, with its holds full and its engine-bearings still showing their initial coating of oil. The Clyde is truly a place of tragedy—the work of six months disappears in six minutes. But on the law of averages the Clyde beats the submarine. From a launch on the river the workers fashioning and riveting the hard steel are mere dehumanised instruments of the nation. But inside the yards they are in full truth human—stocky, strongthinking, proud, skilled, male mechanics, and pretty though smudgy unskilled women workers in overall trousers and blouses, all with the sweat and grease of labor on them, but all eager and satisfied.

So far there is no shortage 'of materials. Much in future depends on our success in maintaining ore traffic and metal supplies, for most of these come a long way by sea through subarine zones. AVe have reserves, and sound systems, and should get through. As for labor, there is never enough of it. More workers would mean a larger output. The Clyde could use all the skilled workers it can get, and many thousands of unskilled also. There Is no shortage of women volunteers here, for the women like work, they like to earn their thirty shillings or two pounds weekly, and they like to help in war. The question of male labor is the ceaseless question of conflict between Army needs and internal needs. Most of the men are working ten or eleven hours a day, with occasional holidays and with Sundays of!', except for riveters. Are the hours too long? All concerned regard them from the point of view of efficiency, and ask rather, AYould we get a greater output by shorter ■hours? Certainly the laborers look i jaded, as though the task were indeed heavy. But the steel must be fashioned and the rivets driven home. Of the industrial unrest which has | become a nightmare to many in London, I could see no sign here. Men and women are earning more than enough for life comfort, though increased costs are eating up their increased wages. They have willingly abandoned many of their cherished privileges. For many months they have been content to be tied by law to their set tasks, unable to go elsewhere even to better-paid positions. They do not talk or think revolution, but read the war news, and hope for victory, and for the safety and triumph of their families and friends in the battlefields. These workers will go more than half-way to meet their industrial masters to win the war. Stories Of high earnings are mostly fabulous. Most are on piecework. Riveters earn from £5 to £lO weekly, but many skilled workers, with the war bonus of 10s or j 15s, do not exceed £3 a week, j I found little appreciation amongst employers of Australia's efforts to provide labor. Considering the smallness of anything Australia can do, and the cost and difficulties of transport, it secins tli&t the present system of sending labor here lias largely failed. If it is to be continued, there should be insistence upon the definite provision ot wcrk for-all the men so that they may become busy in useful jobs as soon as they arrive.

SUBMERSIBLE ANTI-SUBMAfeINES. A word may be said about the fight with explosives against the Huns at sea. The fig-lit with dockyards, as expressed here in the building of many ships to replace those sunk, has its excitements, its failures, and its successes. The fight with explosives is even more tense and arduous. I do not think that anyone in authority amongst the Allies will claim that we are sinking more submarines than Germany is building. The figures would probably show that for the time being the German dockyards are turning out more submarines than we caj> sink, and that the U-boat fleet gradually increases. Yet the submarine is already losing its power. The worst days of the sinking of merchantmen s6em to have passed, Why ? Because we harry and torment the Huns, keeping them under water, defeating their torpedoes, chasing always on their (racks, making their existence a perfect misery. British submariners would take more, sporting risks than the Germans do, and would probably hold up the world's .traffic. But the German commander is a cautions, nervous chap, and he bates what :i .Voung British submariner, fresh from the vigorous sclionl of the Grand Fleet, would call a '''sporting chance." In tliis tormenting of submarines wc use many strange ships. Strangest of all are our own submarines, now forming nearly ils imposing a fleet of submersibles as Uio great U-boat Jleet of Gerasuijr,