THE NAVY HYBRID TYPE OF SHIP.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXV, Issue 46, 24 February 1913, Page 7

THE NAVY HYBRID TYPE OF SHIP.

NEITHER BATTLESHIP NOR CRUISER SUBMERSIBLES TO REPLACE DESTROYERS. By Telegraph.— Press Association.— Copyright. (Received February 24, 8.5 a.m.) LONDON, 23rd February. The Observer states that five of the ships tojae included in the forthcoming programme will be neither battleships nor battlecruisers, but a hybrid type. They will be of 28,000 tons displacement, with 13iin armour. Their speed will be 25 knots, and they will carry eight 15 or 16Jin guns. The new armoured cruisers will be 300 tons heavier than their predecessors, while submersibles will replaco destroy, ers. The new type of submersible wM have a surface speed approaching that of the river typo of destroyers. AUSTRALIA'S NAVY. SERIOUS QUESTIONS MAY ARISE. LONDON, 22nd February. The Morning Post's naval correspondent declares that if the Australian Navy is taking over patrol duties in the South Pacific, rather serious questions may arise. . "It seems quite clear," he declares, ' that the Australian Navy is not under the Admiralty's orders, so the Admiralty cannot be held responsible for its actions. The Commonwealth is not the sovereign power. Accordingly Australian ships will not be recognised abroad as forming part of the British Navy, or they may be ignored altogether as possessing no place in international law If the Australian Navy were refused recognition by the ships of a foreign Power, the Commonwealth would be deeply insulted, yet vesels not representing a sovereign p-wer are regarded as privateers or pirates. "It is possible," he adds, "that a secret arrangement may have been concluded between the Governments of Great Britain and the Commonwealth for the settling of these points." CANADA'S NAVY BILL. LIBERALS WUjL OPPOSE IT. OTTAWA, 22nd February. The Liberals have decided to oppose the Naval Bill throughout all its stages. Speaking in the House of Commons, in favour of the measure, Mi v . T. W. Crothers, Minister for Labour, pointed out that the present was not to be regarded as a permanent policy, but was merely designed to aid the Empire most effectively, pending Cabinet evolving a definite scheme. J Ml \ MVM V JYI.J Yl . M ' Lean ' Halifax, alleged that the Admiralty memorandum was secured under duress exercised by Canadian Ministers. The memorandum did not reflect official opinion in Great Bri« tain. i."On the 16th of last month the Toronto Globe remarked : —"The failure of Mr. Borden's scheme to carry public sentiment with it is due to the fact that he proposes to give Britain money which she does not particularly need, and to do nothing toward securing the active participation of Canadians in the defence ,of their own shores and overseas trade. Britain needs men far more than she needs money, and a serious and sustained effort to build, man, and maintain in Canada vessels for the safeguarding of Canada's shores would before long add several thousand trained and physically fit seamen and gunners to the Empire's naval strength. . . The Liberals of Canada will never consent to the hiring of the naval defence of the Dominion either by occasional or annual contributions of money to the British Treasury. If the Premier is committed beyond recall to that principle, if he persists in the faces of the proposed compromise in saying that no naval organisation of an efficient charactof could be built up in this country within a quarter or perhaps half a century, there will be a very strenuous time in Parliament during the next few months, with the probability of a general election in the spring. Mr. Borden has the issue of peace or war in his own hands. His political reputation depends on the way in which he deals with the proposals of the Opposition;]