25 YEARS AGO

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 233, 30 June 1939, Page 8

25 YEARS AGO

British Navy Reserves (From “The Dominion,” July 3, 1914.) The “Daily Telegraph,” London, stated yesterday that the mobilization and commissioning of 493 ships of the British Navy, of w|ich 200 will assemble at Spithead, will provide an interesting operation, it being the first time the whole fleet will have been placed on a war footing by the utilization of 14,000 reserves, but it will be dangerous also because it will exhibit the country’s strength after long preparations, whereas the only criterion on sea power is its average standing without reference to any special time or occasion. There is an increasing tendency throughout Europe to relegate to the background all reserves, and to train a large number of regular ratings and thus to keep every ship of war on a footing ready for rapid, energetic, and decisive action. Reserves are only valuable as a reservoir to make good the casualties of a long campaign; they are negligible in the early phases of hostilities.

The coming of the motor has wrought many changes in divers directions, and in none probably more than in street traffic. Motor traffic necessarily means more ra.pid transit, considerably more rapid than the old-time four-wheeler. But rapid transit 'brings its dangers, and one of these is the presence in fairly busy thoroughfares of tramway centre-poles, which will disappear one day. In order to make these obstructions in Wellington more visible after dark than they have been, the tramway board is having the standards, which encompass the poles to a height of about five feet from the ground, painted white. The inovation should be appreciated by all motorists. A star has already been made with the work at the end of Courtenay Place and in Clyde Quay.