NEW ZEALAND'S END.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 148, 23 June 1923, Page 7

NEW ZEALAND'S END.

CRUISER TO BE SCRAPPED. SOLO FOR £21.000. A RESULT OF THE TREATY. (By Cable. —Press Association. — Copjright.i LONDON, June 22. The battle-cruiser New Zealand, which cost the New Zealand Government f 1,700,000, was sold to a British firm for breaking up for £21.000. The New Zealand was not submitted to auction, but after the Washington Conference it was decided to scrap her and many other ships immediately. This glutted the market anrl depreciated prices.—(A. and N.Z. Cable.) It is rather strange that the news of the sale of H.M.S. New Zealand should only now be cabled by the Trees Association, as "The Navy," the organ of the Navy League, reported the sale in the April number oi that publication. According to a list there given, the New Zealand was .-old last December, to he broken up at fiosyth. The record shows that IH2 large ships were sold, in addition to about IiOO other craft including destroyers, torpedo boats, submarine. 5 , monitors, sloops, etc., all in the short cspaee of four years. The list is of particular interest' to us in New Zealand, as it disposes of the prevalent opinion that all our ships were being sent abroad to be demolished, while unemployment was rite in Britain. It is quite true that after the war certain ships were lying at ports abroad, worn out and not worth taking home to ports already overcrowded with obsolete craft that were already overdue to be scrapped, even if the Washington pact had not been made. 13ut it seems that, with the exception of these and a batch sold to a German firm a year ago, besides a few odd ships to Holland, Denmark and Norway, the bulk were demolished in British port?. Even photographs are apparently deceptive for these accompanied Fress reports that the Indomitable was taken to Germany, and the Inflexible and the Vincent to Holland, whereas all three were demolished at Dover. Apparently the opinion in foreign countries is that 'the Navy is still possessed of the bulk of its pre-war ships. If a comparison were made between a 1914 and a current Xavy list it would be found that all but one" pre-Dreadnought, the Argamemnon, of the 29 which remained after the Armistice havo disappeared, together with 13 Dreadnoughts, while of the 10 surviving protected cruisers, 13 have been sold. The New Zealand was twice in these waters, once in 1913, soon after her first commission, and again in 1019, when she took Lord Jellieoe round the Empire on I his mission to report upon the naval I defences. She cost just over £2,000,000, being laid down in 1911 and commissioned in February, 1913. She was in ! all the big battles of the North Sea, nut I was at no time severely damaged. She ' put the Australia out of commission for i some time by colliding heavily with her I just after leaving port, the Australia being compelled to limp back to dry dock.