A FUTILE PROJECT.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVI, Issue 111, 6 November 1908, Page 6

A FUTILE PROJECT.

Moved by some undercurrent of influence of whose nature we are not aware, the Conservative member for Mid-Armagh in the House of Commons has asked the Secretary for the Colonies what w.as being done in relation to New Zealand's request for an old battleship in which to train young sprigs for the Navy. The Secretary of the Colonies, properly impressed by the importance of the matter, has answered that he had written to the Admiralty once about that training-ship, and lie -would write again. Then the Empire drew a breath of re- j lief and proceeded with its business. | Somewhere in the Admiralty offices, doubtless, a weary clerk is looking for New Zealand on a map of the world, and tieing up a bundle of papers with red tape, and in due tjme the Admiralty will sit upon the New Zealand trainingship. If the matter by any chance reaches the First Lord, or the Last LouU, or any of the Lords m between, and he has a proper conception of the situation, it is likely that he will wonder why an extremely prosperous country like New Zealand does not buy its own training-ship, instead of coming cap i*t hand to the Admiralty for a dole. Oi*tworn ships of the Navy are periodically condemned to the scrap-heap under Sir John Fisher's policy, and bargain, lines in war-vessels are sold now and again for comparatively trifling sums; bo why, if New Zealand wants a training-fhip, she cewmot put her hand in her "magnificent, surplus, 1 ' and pay down the £3000* or £4000 which, at the market rate, will buy a cruiser that was a very xecent thing in battleships thirty yeai» ago, is something that practical Britons will havo difficulty in comprehending. We dislike heartily the contrast be/iween the Premier's continual boasfeg of prosperity, and his continual professions of independence, and this Nimble attitude of a suppliant on the Admiralty backstairs. If he is only asking ior £5000 or £4000, there is still no r'tfison why the Navy funds should be mulcted to that extent. When we look 'closely at the object of the begging 'expedition, the wonder grows. New .7>galand certainly needs to make a bejpnning of provision for real military and coastal defence whenever the waste of the public service and the losses on, the railways will permit her to afford it. If the country were wise, the country would insist on affording it j but since the country is but slowly a'jßu.kening to wisdom, there is no sense in throwing away upon a futile project -what money there is to be es> pended_ The Premier's idea is to utilise the caarity-ship, when he gets it, "to train a thousand young men for the mercantile marine or for ships of war." ,\ tho-ajjand 3'oung men might cost £10,000 or £20,000 a year : it. does not appear tbai the Premier has .considered this asj»ec tof the matter : apparently his busy

electioneering mind has stopped at the first step of begging the vessfjj. And when the thousand young vae a are trained, what is to become of tfrem? How will they help us in the vital question of making New Zealand safe from foreign attack? No doufct the Government training ship would, be a very useful feeder to the Unio* Steamship Company, which is the bearing endi&g ot 'the mercantile marine » of New Zea . land j but th/j -(;j nioil Company is quite able to trairo its own young men, and indeed it teight find that the Gover n. ment-tr a/O r jed young men would iaye much Vj unlearn before they were fitted *°r Vfcj service that they might cause m o/rj bother than they were worth. Not r/raHr /raH the. young men be drafted into the Navy unless they were teamed under the Admiralty's supervision; and here again we can conceive the Admiralty as very much preferring to do its own training. Besides, New Zealand wants all her young men for her own defence. The Premier has put the cart before the horse. If he had a coastal destroyer and a couplo of torpedo-boata into which his young men could be drafted with a decent prospect of becoming really useful in the defence of their country, the project would not look so foolish. But while even military defence is starved and neglected, there is no profit in expending money in the wrong way, in the wrong place, and upon a scheme which promises no na< tional benefit whatever.