NAVAL ESTIMATES

Greymouth Evening Star, 23 June 1923, Page 5

NAVAL ESTIMATES

— COMMITTEE’S REPORT. RETRENCHMENT PREPARATIONS (Australian and N.Z. Cable Association.) LONDON, June 20. A Select Committee op the Naval Estimates 'recommends that tile officers and men's pay should be reviewed in 1924. The committee is of opinion tnat the administrative naval staff needs reorganisation, and should be. reduced. The report points out that the seamen’s pay is still one , hundred and fifty per cent, about the pre-war rates and that the m.en are still receiving the postwar marriage allowances which are costing one million pounds annually, while only one-sixth of the officers’ present pay is liable to reduction. The report mentions that at the Naval College at Greenwich there are 227 students, with a staff of no fewer than 356 looking after them. The report also says that the warship “New Zealand,” which cost the New Zealand Government £1,700,000, has ben sold to a British firm for breaking up. She., was sold for £22,000. The New Zealand was not auctioned. ' After the Washington Conference decision, it was decided to scrap her and .also many other ships immediately, which glutted the mar- 1 ket, and depreciated the. price. ■ AERIAL DEFENCE FLEETS. LONDON, June 21. j A mystery surrounding the new equipment for the Royal Air Force has been lifted sufficiently to show that the new machines are. such as would

have staggered the imagination only a . year ago. It includes machines which fly with full military equipment, men, and munitions at a speed of 150 miles an hour at a height of over 10,000 feet, capable of twisting and turning with extraordinary facility. The experts are gratified with the Jesuits of the experiments. In the Naval Department the latest types of torpedo carriers are the Black burn “dart” and the Handley Page “Hamley.” Both are single seaters, with a speed of one hundred miles* an hour. Several other types are ready, which, it is considered, will place England ahead of all other powers in aircraft. ■ ’PLANES v. BATTLESHIP. LONDON, June 21. In the presence of thousands of people, lining the foreshore, six aeroplanes carried out a trial attack cn' the Atlantic Fleet at Weymouth on Wednesday night, using aerial torpedoes. AU the ships’ lights were put out, and the aeroplanes, though they flew low, had the greatest difficulty in spotting their targets. The “Daily Express” states that three out of six dummy torpedoes hit the Queen Elizabeth, the Valiant and another warship during the night attack.