DEARER WARSHIPS

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 104, 4 May 1935, Page 33

DEARER WARSHIPS

The increase in the cost of modern men-of-war is revealed in a statement made in answer to a question in the House of Commons. The expenditure on battleships before the war worked out at £78 per standard ton, and it had risen to £176 in 1927 when the last British vessels, the Nelson and Rodney, were built. Again, cruisers under the 1913-14 programme were completed at £71 per ton, a figure which had increased to £228 in 1932----33, but has since dropped to about £200. The average cost of destroyers has advanced from £108 per ton to £210, in one instance (the Fearless), and as much as £215 in the case of the Escapade and Escort. As to submarines, they were being built before

...e war at £132 per'ton, but the cost of the latest vessels ot the type has come out at from £251 in the case of the Clyde to about £353 in that of the Shark; the Sealion and Salmon were built at the rate of £341 and £348 respectively. Sloops, on Which £106 was spent six or seven years ago. now range in cost from £125 to £159 per ton, the last figure applying to the Grimsby and Leith.