MAGIC NAVIES.

Taranaki Daily News, 9 December 1918, Page 5

MAGIC NAVIES.

STILL THE BREED TELLG RUSHING MONSTER SHIPS, 01AM! eras . In the Sydney Sim, Mr H. CampbellJones, managing editor of the paper named, and one of Ww Imperii Press Delegation, wrote as follows to the Sun. under date London, August Mist:— The greatest fleet in the world: the second strongest fleet in the world. Both are possessed l>y the British Empire. Sydney sleeps soundly: civilisation is safe because this Empire of ours owns a Navy without parallel in the annals of tIMs old earth. There is nothing else like it. There has never been anything approaching it. Other nations m the past have lorded it over one or two oceans, but ! none have ever been able to assert its supremacy in the seven stas witfei such irrefragable evidence of predominance. To be privileged to see the sea strength of Great Britain and her Do' minions is to realise Why the German High Sea Fleet remains snugly tucked awa/ in home waters. To challenge superiority would foe madness, and the German Admiralty is not mad —at least not at present. MILES OP WARSHIPS. "Miosis of us who watcned the Great White Meet of America, powerful battleships, plod ponderously up our landlocked harbors, experienced tne thrill which springs from the visualising of a country's might and majesty concentrated. and expressed in ships of war. Picture them, if you can, nor. great ships, but miles of greater ships And then remember that this amazing aggregation of battlesnips and battle-cruisers and miisera and destroyers and submarines only represent a majority of the wondrous Navy which Uias foiled the Eohenzollern aspirations. The rest are elsewhere by the tana and hundreds and thousands. Never did the sun rise on such a stupendous massing of floating fortresses. There they lay, not in a single line, but in <ine after line from horizon to horizon—and beyond, each one a large village in manpower, each one a Gibraltar in war dynamics, each one the supreme symbol of massive potency.

BACK FROM ,TOTLAN4 There were moored all the famous warships of our far-flung -Empire, the enormous battleship which limped back from Jutland, the mammoth battlecruiser ' which the Germans sank in their communiques, the heavy draft and the light craft, the avengers and gadflies wlho have come through the tornadoes of destruction in the North Sea and are pining to get at the Oarmans again. From end to end of tht lane which seemed to stretch to the crack of doom, were ships which chased the Germans back to their mine-fields, some of them wobbly with wounds, some perforated like colanders, some battle-red nearly beyond recognition. On none was there any sign of the dint or smash of German shells. They swing to tlfoe tide sound and staunch, ready to renew the combat at « moments notice. ' Nothing perhaps more convinces one of the efficiency, of the British Navy than the swiftness with whicto the ugly scars ■of war are effaced. The fleet of to-day might be bidden, to a wedding. MANY CHANGES Of changes in construction there haive been many. There is nothing of the Bourbon about our Admiralty. They have not forgotten the lessons of yesterday. They are not too proud to b® taught by tfcfo enemy. The -tfeory of yesterday is the accomplished fact of to-day. The objectives wm'aan the same—speed, defensive resistance, and power of gunnery; but the means of attaining them have been transformed. The last word is never said. 'Our 'Admiralty improved upon improvement. No commercial profit-seek-ing corporation jvas ever t>> Veen for modernisation. Our Navy, is infinitely faster, more powerful, and better protected than our >nost skilled experts dreamed _ of even a decade ago. It could say out idle boast, "Come, the whole world. And the glory of its achievemeK* is that )t has set itself the highest «ta.Brdard of attainment, notwithstanding tJha.t it has the whole-hearted j-o-opera-tion of the doughty fleets of France afld, Italy, of America aad_ -fapas*. Afisorance has been made uouble fozreAnd daily it becomes sorer. MECHANICAL MIRAiITJBfI Minnies of science, marvels of we-" cbanical ingenuity, have been combined ii gfljfitoia iha -Emgirt'ft buiSSk

sftimter down thosu lanes oi frowning |grey ; annihilation reveal not one but hj, jcmyriad waye of confounding tenenueg. . ....

It were a million times bettor for Fritz to be a doorkeeper in Kiel thsa venture into the North Sea.' 1S» twost pronootneed pessimist within war actional family could not deny the maritime gerrins of our lace after Studying is all incredible, imponderable, being our stupendous fleet, and the ingenuity of the shipbuilder is not-yet spent. He moves from one masterpiece to toother. The triumph of yesterday is the HitsBeen of to-mororw. '

Nowlhere does the spectator better appreciate the . truth of the French adag<\ "Everything passes," than -when steaming amongst the warships of Great Britain. Every branch of tlie service ia constantly going otto better. TVll© prodigious battle-cmiwera or© no longer the pride of the navy, '% ore vin ordinaire. The colossal battleships are no more the awed focus Of naval thought. They are only dates c&.the calendar of sea-power. SPEED ANI> SIZE fiROW, There are larger battleships, greater battle-cruisers. Men spoke with bated breath of 17 knots as a record speed tax a giant warship at the -beginning of tWa century. Already twice that speed fe taken as a matter of course. Monster guns drop monster shells of terrific explosive power away across the horizon on to swift rushing targets as accurately as a crack marksman bundles over t!he tin bird in a pea riflacalooa, It "closer to magio than any othej factor in our Imperial life. ' ' Always we have-to return to the fact that vessels of war fade faster even than butterflies. They are hardly on the high seas before fjhey art;- obsoles-1 cent. Looking at the British Meet, probably £500,000,000 a*e spread before astounding eyes. Ten years is the longest span of life which any fighting admiral will give to a Warship. Half that ia about all it can foope to remain' in even the second line of battle.

Think, then, of what we owe to the British taxpayer, who provides Junetenths of- the money for this drain upon the exchequer. Sea power is world dominion, hut it lhas to be paid for. AUSTRAIIA'S BIG SHIP . Australia voting money for her bat- ; tie-cruiser, and New Zealand likewise, j thougnt that she had done something very material to assist the Empire. At the moment it was. But it was actually more moral than material. To-day neither tJhe Australia nor the ■ Sew Zealand caa remain many months more, in the battle-squadron of which they are integral parts. Tfieir speed is too crabbed, their armour to thin, their guns ton light. Hhey must give place to other ships of increased power. Their day is gone, except la a secondary Sense. Only the best are admitted to the front fighting-line. Six short, years 'have sped since we foregathered on the quar-ter-deck of the Australia to celebrate her commissioning, These sis years have placed her in the aged class. Quickly as racehorses they have their crowded hour, and pass. THE SAME JACK TAB, .

It is the same with the personnel. Oi the original officers and crew not a tithe remain. Nothing could better illustrate tlhe tremendous expansion of the Navy than their transfer elsewhere All the trained men have been needed to stiffen the cow crews in ships which have just joined the line. Uhie. process 'has almost stripped the older ships of their old companies. Tens of thousands of lusty sailors have been placed on new types of ships, and they have 1 needed the companionship of proved salts- One of the miracles of our Navy la that it *ias grown so wolossally without, in the slightest degree, impairing its efficiency New wine has been poured Into new bottles. The Jack Tar of 1918 is the same Jack Tar who won at Trafalgar, even -though he. could no more use grappling irons and cutlass to-day than the gunner accustomed to black • powder and. round shot could manipulate a modern big gun. But the breed and the spirit has come down the decades unchanged, TOUGH AND HARDX As in the days of Nelson, so in the days of Beatty, personnel and •morale are the final deciding factors. Our officers >md our men are chips of the. old biock.. Of the comfort of the land-lub-ber tfley know little or nothing. They *rn limrdy men, trained mi a toughening school. !livery warship is a feat 'i'. organisation. If the same utilisation of opportunities! was ajade on shore we would believe that our Governments were of divine origin. No boosted factory dare challenge comparison with a light cruiser,, much less a destroyer, for the conservation of space, the development of energy, and the quickening of production. Without any vaunt, the Brtish seaman takea whit '» going as his appointed lot, and his officers are of the same jnind. And also without any spoken word they accept imcredible risks 1 as though life consisted of dodging death. 'mere axe parts to he played in «mr navy >vhich nan only be filled by men who Know they take up their task that their chance of surviving is less 4ha» one in. ten -thousand. Witlfi> them tti*only alternatives ar« death or a V.C. Youth his it» iiright througa the commands. Of dug-outs none are seen on the sea. By ; far the greater hulk of the fighting officers are under 40 years of age. The fact, might easily foe missed. Overwhelming responsibility 6ges_ a naval man very rapidly, Oowsfcet; cheat the eye into thinking that a cap- 1 tain of 35 is a veteraii of 50. The /car* admiral is old who <-ounts more yt'avs. Men <"mst b« in <toir yrnae (U« in ocean lighting, 'die 'ail aav cotui' at any instant, aid 'Jut Amjutor, lying so lazily %t aaefcor, wfces* man submarine caa iitnecvatt., <IH. distantly surge into itfefti>» I antennae stretch to Kiel Canal. Let the «memy leave Ms joow'ttgi fiud in the twinkling of an Hquadroa | after squadron of first-class fighting j ships will sweep to <jea at a. pane «(h.ich I the fastest liner cannot achieve, j Neiit morning of that amazing assem- ) blage of warships few remained. In T he breaking dawn they had disappeared. J With hundreds upon hundreds of wsseils our naval chiefs shame the clevwest j Stage magician. ijpun them has descended * mantle of Drafco. "Th«re must be a beginning of my great the said, "but the 'sontinu • , ing until the and, until it is tho T oughly finished, yields the true glory." Upon the front of the bridgfr o ? the ships o.° our Nary are burnished copper scrolls bearing the living legends. "Dogger Bank," "Jutland," "Heligoland," and otlber records of famous fights m tfie Seven Seas. They aro the heginnijM?.. 1 The Nafy is imbued with tlw intention