BRITISH NAVAL POWER.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9169, 18 August 1908, Page 4

BRITISH NAVAL POWER.

The display of British naval power in the North Ssa recently must have seemed magnificent alike to friend and critic of the Admiralty. There were engaged in these secret manoeuvres 29 battleships, 24 armoured cruisers, 36 protected cruisers and scrati, 10 torpedo gunboats, 136 destroyers and parent ships, 33 submarines and parent vessels, 3 mine layers and 40 torpedo-boats, a total of 311 vessels. Besides this great fleet there were vesnels in dockyard undergoing repairs, four battleships of the Atlantic Fleet elsewhere, four cruisers in Canadian waters, 27 vessels of the Mediterranean Fleet, and squadrons in more distant parts of the world. In the old days there' were weeks of rush and confusion just before manoeuvres. Vessels which had been deserted for the greater part of a year had to be manned and got ready v for sea, officers and men unknown to each other went aboard ships entirely new to them. Now, under the system of nucleus crewa, the ships are always kepi in a state of preparation for sea, and in a few hours the crews can be brought up to their proper strength, and the vessel is ready to go into action, mimic or real.