A COSTLY IRONCLAD.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3604, 30 January 1883, Page 4

A COSTLY IRONCLAD.

The Polyphemus is a failure. The seagoing qualities of this little vessel are bad. Even in fine weather, with little or no sea on, she pitches and rolls heavily. This defect naturally affects her fighting qualities She is designed as a torpedo-ship and ram.' But so unsteady is she at sea, that to launch torpedoes is most difneidt, and to insure striking the mark impossible. The Polyphemus is, in fact, useless. She cannot even steam. Endless sums have been spent in experimenting with various kinds of boilers for this vessel. Nevertheless, those supplied to her have been found utterly useless. They must now be removed. But there is but one way of getting them out. The Polyphemus must go into dry dock. A hole -will then be cut on each side of her keel, in her bottom, and the boilers will be dropped out, and new ones hoisted in. It is in this maimer that tho money of the British Taxpayer is frittered away, and under such circumstances, it is no wonder that the cost of the Navy increases, while its fighting efficiency decreases. At the present moment, a tidal wave uf dishonesty is sweeping over the service. We find peculation rampant. Ships' stores are being made away with, right and left. Ships' books are being tampered with by dishonest stewards and paymasters. A commander and a gunner are under arrest for misappropriating, and'making away with public property. Rumour even points to higher officials. The Polyphemus is said to have already cost the country nearly a million of money. Suspicions exist in many quarters as to the disbursement of the sums spent on her construction. It has even been openly asserted by the Contemporary that '' this leakage of taxpayers' cash is hid away among repairs;" that, in fact, the official accounts are themselves cooked ; and that for this reason, and from this bad example, have recent scandals occurred. Be this as it mayj that the Polyphemus is a failure is now generally admitted. The merest tyro iv matters naval could have told my Lords that. the Polyphemus, sis designed, would prove a failure. Wo did tell them so, when there was yet time to alter her lines, so as to make her a serticeable vessel. Indeed, we have repeatedly warned the Admiralty and Mr Bamaby, their Chief Constructor, that their shipbuilding policy is .wrong, wrong fond en comblc. But they have persevered in the ccrele vicieux or bad groove into which they had fallen through ignorance—ignorance of the science of naval architecture and of the art of shipbuilding so crass, that not all the light of modem science thrown upon their errors could make them see their mistakes, or admit themselves to be at fault. Now, after having squandered a million of money, failure, naked, ugly failure, stares the Admiralty and Mr Bamaby in the face in that hideous form, the- Polyphemus. We do not pity. them. , We hope, indeed, that tho public will take the matter, up, and and that a day of reckoning is at hand. We do not condemn the idea which gave birth to the Polyphemus, ibut the manner in which Mr Barnaby designed her.—Army and Navy Gazette.