GERMANY AND HER NAVY.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 3027, 26 October 1908, Page 5

GERMANY AND HER NAVY.

TRYING TO OVERTAKE BRITAIN. Ricieved October 24, 8.11 p.m. LONDON. October 24. The "Daily Express" reports that Germany will forthwith begin her 1909 battleship programme simultaneously with Britain, a beginning her 1908 programme. By doing this Germany will complete in 1911, 14 Dreadnoughts against Britian's 12.

Several important British newspapers have recommended Britain drawing up a shipbuilding programme for several years ahead, the "Westminster Gazette" favouring a loan to enable the Government to fix the new programme for four years, subject to modification if Germany modifies her plans. Mr H. W. Wilson, the well-known British naval authority, writing on the subject of fi>.ed programmes recently wrote: "It must be understood that German programmes are not like French or Russian ones. The ships sanctioned in them are always built, and usually quickly built. The date of completion is fixed long beforehand, and in the past has been observed in most cases to the month,* There has, it is true, been some delay with the i ships which were to have been laid down last summer, but this was due to a change in their armament and design, and it is a feature which is not likely to, recur. There is no single instance in German naval history of a ship which has been voted in a Navy Act being abandoned. We cannot, unfortunately, say the same of the British Navy. In 1903 three cruisers voted were abandoned; in 1904 one large armoured" cruiser and fourteen destroyers disappeared; in 1905 one Invincible vanished from the list; in 1906 one battleship, three destroyers and four submarines were cancelled. All these vessels had been voted by Parliament at the demand of the Admiralty. The result of these perpetual shifts and changes is that no one ever feels certain that any British programme will be carried out."