NAVAL COLLISIONS.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 241, 4 July 1908, Page 10

NAVAL COLLISIONS.

"Tho time' has surely como for very plain speaking to the Lords of tho Admiralty in referenco to the sories of disasters by which ships are lost to tho Navy, and, what is still more deplorable, lives aro needlessly sacrificed," writes tho "Saturday Review." "Blood may bo tho price of Admiralty, but thero aro limits, and it is necessary to dofino thoso limits. In saying this, wo havo no desiro to associate 1 ourselves with tho wot-nursing sentimentalists of the; Liberal party who are urging tho Admiralty to prohibit manoeuvres withput lights. Both in tlio British and Gorman navies these exorcises havo always been a prominent feature. It is only sinoo Great Britain adopted on a large scale the French plan of nucleus crews, and began a harassing system of constantly shifting officers and men from ship to ship, so that neither officers nor men get to know baoli _ other- or . their ships,' that disastrous collisions'- began to bo frequent. Tho idea of a nucleus crow is to_ have officers and skilled ratings ■ and a maintenance party on board reserve ships so as to form the nucleus of a full'crew if war broke out. Applied on'a small scale to the larger ships tho system has certain merits witn which we need not deal, for tho condition of affairs is that tho application of tho system has been wholesale, and _ it is destroying tho moralo and ooup d'oeil of tho great sea-service. It has now been in operation only thrco years, and the forecasts of thoso who havo attacked it as well as tho Admiralty indifference to tho sea-training of tho Navy havo been fully borno out. Tho collisions have increased, and will incroaso year by year. The reason is obvious. We may say»at once that courtsmartial are not t of tho slightest uso in getting at tho causo of the trouble, for tho reason'that no court-martial can bring a vordict blaming tho system ,for which tho Board of Admiralty aro responaible. Ono after another tho ablo officers have thoir coup d'oeil ruined by a system and then have tho bad luck to be involved in a collision when they happen to bo practising manoeuvres which are of every day occurrence in war."