A BAD ADVERTISEMENT.

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 83, 10 April 1922, Page 4

A BAD ADVERTISEMENT.

After its experience with the cruiser Adelaide the Commonwealth Government will not be in a hurry to lay down more warships in Australian yards. The keel of this ship was laid down in November, 1917, and she was launched In July, 1918, yet she did not run her trials till last woek. Her cost has been £1,250,000, the price of a pre-Dread-nought battleship. We were informed by cable message that the delay was due to alterations ordered as a result or lessons learned at Jutland, but this would be only one explanation of the fact that it took an Australian yard four and a half years to build a light cruiser, whereas an English yard could do the same job in a year. Besides the reference to Jutland is misleading. The Adelaide was out of date when 6hc was laid down, and the alterations made in her plan would not make her a match for the fa6t new cruisers of the latter part of the war and the post-armistice period. Even the latest of these vessels probably oost no more than the Adelaide, if so much. The Adelaide may be a firstclass ship of her kind, but her cost and the time it has taken to build her are bad advertisements for Australian dockyards and the very idea of an Australian Navy. The accumulating experience of failure in Australia might profitably be taken to heart by the Government of this country, which has during the past three years been foolishly experimenting with the idea of a local navy.