THE VISITING WARSHIPS.

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 115, 16 May 1924, Page 7

THE VISITING WARSHIPS.

<To the Editor.) Sir, —Every effort has been made in New Zealand to promote the enjoyment of the ship's officers and crews of the visiting warships, but I hare heard fairly general complaint that there has not been any marked reciprocity. The Special Service Squadron is not, I presume, circumnavigating the world for pleasure, but is engaged on an Imperial Mission and a great part of the success of that mission is dependent on the impression left among the people at large of the communities -visited. What I think is a reasonable cause of complaint is the almost entire absence when the big ship has been thrown open to the public of any effort to show the visitors round. With the very numerous crews carried it would have been easy to organise some proper system of conducting visitors over the ships. Whether the palpable absence of any such routine has been due to oversight or pure indifference is not material to the question. The effect on the public mind ie the thing, and this has not been favourable. The attitude of the personnel of our present visitor* has been unfavourably compared to that of earlier naval visitors, both British and foreign.—l am etc, IMPERIALIST.