NAVY BUILDING.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 285, 26 August 1908, Page 7

NAVY BUILDING.

INCREASED PROGRAMME. CONSIDERED TOLERABLY CERTAIN. RADICAL PROTESTS. (DT TEZ.EGRAPn —PRESS ASSOCIATION— COPYRIGHT.) London, August 24. The "Daily News" and other Radical papers bitterly oppose an increased Navy programme on the lines stated in the "Westminster Gazette" and other papers,' which it is now considered tolerably certain will bo put forward.

TWICE A ONE-POWER STANDARD. The lino which the "Westminster Gazette" lms argued on is a definite programme fixed four years ahead, and proportioned lo Germany's. In some quarters there has been a call for two ships to Germany's one. The now First Lord of the Admiralty, Mr. M'Kenna, speaking in the House of Commons on July 13, stated that "by tlio timo Germany has five Dreadnoughts we shall have ten." By 1911 Britain should still have a marked superiority in this .class of ship. Next year the Government would build whatever might bo necessary to obtain complete security. Ho could not admit tho doetrino that the twoPower standard was twiea a one-Power standard. Moreover, Mr. Lee (a Unionist critic) apparently wanted not merely twice a onePower standard, but twice a one-Power standard in any typo of ship. British superiority in varying classes of ships had to bo taken into account. Ho refused to accept tho suggestion that 50 per cent, of British destroyers were unfit for continuous war service. RUSSIAN BATTLESHIPS. St. Petersburg, August 24. Russia has accepted German designs for four largo Dreadnoughts to ■ be built at St. Petersburg. The Russian Minister of Marine lately declared that the new Russian battleships would bo of 22,000 tons, and tho most powerful in the world. There has been much trouble over the finances, tho Duma refusing to pass the battleships vote. In Juno the Council of the Empire, the Russian Upper Chamber, by an overwhelming majority, voted *81,500,000 as the first instalment for the construction of the four battleships refused by the Duma. It was thon stated that if the Duma remained obstinate the Government would take the money from tho ,£4.600,000 voted in 190G, and hitherto unused. This threat, it was thought, might lead the Duma to vota tho .£1,500,000 for fear that the Government appropriate all tho .£4,G00,000.