Cost of Powder-blazing

New Zealand Tablet, 20 August 1908, Page 9

Cost of Powder-blazing

The powder-blazing indulged in by the ships of the American fleet during their battle-practices across the. Pacific • is*- one of the expensive necessities of every navy. Every time the American Jack Tar fired a twelve-inch gun, he lifted' about £32 out of the collective pocket of the American tax-payer. The next largest gun absorbed about j£i6 per shot; and at -every discharge of the modest six-inch guns, bang went £2- The ordinary shells which are stored in the compartmented magazines cost from about £4 to .£ls each, and the armor-piercing variety— ' with noses specially sharpened and hardened in order the better to poke them into the innards of other people's ships— may run into an expenditure of close on £$0 each. War is an expensive game. And the next thing to it, for eating up the national shekels, is an .armed peace.