THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. SATURDAY APRIL 21, 1894.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 9491, 21 April 1894, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. SATURDAY APRIL 21, 1894.

According to the report of the subcommittee appointed to inquire into the state of the French navy, the stability of some of the ironclads is doubted, and the torpedo vessels declared unseaworthy. Judging from the statements made in the leading English magazines the British navy is subjected to the same depressing criticism. Our firstclass battle ships represent about £1,000,000 each, and they are practically floating fortresses. The conditions required, are that they should preserve a comparatively steady platform in any but the very worst weather ; keep a steady course, under easy control of helm, and possess a large margin of surplus buoyancy and initial stability, and that they should be made as invulnerable as possible against every form of attack likely to effect vital injury and endanger safety. The most noted feature of some of our " hogs in armour " is their proclivity to roll, owing to their top weight, even in moderate weather, and to their defective- steering power. The Resolution's dangerous performances are quite recent, «.nd bore their own moral. The Ajax, at her steam trial, could not be kept steady on her course; " at times," it was said, "her course was serpentine, and she appeared to be turning circles," while the officers were doing their best unavailingly to prevent it. Her captain reported that, if sailed in company with other armourclads, she would probably damage a number of her consorts, a prophecy partially fulfilled. The Agamemnon, a sister ship, and many other of our line - of - battle - ships, have developed similar defects. A number of the ships, classed »s first and second-class battle-ships, are officially restricted to harbour service or coast defence operations, owing to their liability to capsize in a seaway being too great to admit of their making an ocean voyage. Up to the present time the idea of naval constructors has been to make the vessel above and near the water line impregnable against modern guns, and to this end they have been topweighted, while the weak points oelow the water-line have been wholly unprotected. The loss of H.M. s. Captain, with 500 men, owing to lack of sufficient freeboard, in a gale which a schooner passed through unscathed, showed the Admiralty the danger of continuing to bid defiance to the laws and rules of stability and safety. The Victoria is also a case in point, though in a lesser degree. Sir Edward J. Reed observed in the English I'arliamenc that the catastrophe to that vessel was neither unforeseen nor unexpected, and ne named other battle-snips which could have failed to maintain their stability if rammed in a similar rashion. At the launch of the Victoria, Sir William Armstrong expressed nis doubts as to whether it was wise to go on building huge floating which could not be made invulnerable, and the enormous cost or which precluded a numerous navy. In xhb contest guns versus armour, the former appears to have got the best of io. Some of the foreign Powers, recognising that it is impossible to make large battle-ships invulnerable above water, are lightening the heavy top weight in order to better protect the under water portions of the ship, which matter has hitherto been almost wholly neglected. The Russians were the first to move in this direction by building the Rurik armoured to the keel, and the French followed suit, the Dupuy de Lome being protected by 4-inch armour over the whole of her hull proper. America has not been slow to take the hint, and is at work on the same lines, as owing to the steady progress in the various forms of submarine attack the deadliest operations will now be directed, not against the superstructure but the bottom of a ship. The strides which have been made in torpedo warfare, and in perfecting the diving and submarine torpedo-boats has revolutionised offensive as well as defensive naval warfare. The exposures made in the English journals of the defects of many of the English line-of-battle ironclads shows that the English, like the French, are at their wits' end how to make these unwieldy monsters effective when they patrol the great highways of commerce in peace or war. THE CRY OF THE WORKLESS. • A Melbourne contemporary has been investigating the condition of some of the workless in that city, who, owing to the depression, have been reduced to abject poverty and misery. The state of things disclosed is heart-rending in the extreme. In South Melbourne alone there are hundreds of families suffering

the keenest privation. In one locality .which - was visited— network of terraces of badly-built four-roomed, singlefronted, one-story brick houses, pat up by speculative - building societies during the boom ; times as , cheap and desirable . homes for . work-1 ing men—" hungry,' almost naked children sprawl all' over the dirty -infested yards, and nothing but squalor is to be encountered on every hand." The rents of these tenements vary from five shillings to nothing. In one of the no-rent tUmble-down hovels was a foreigner with- his wite and six children. They are, the writer says, decent respectable people. To avoid starvation they have to beg scraps of food. Their only income consists of one shilling per week earned by one of the boys "by cleaning the windows of a Brunswick Bank." One old woman found making a meal off some dry bread and mashed potatoes, said she had been begging all day and had collected 2|d, with which she had purchased enough food to sustain life until the morrow. Some idea of the poverty of the neighbourhood may be formed from the fact that; tea, sugar, and kerosene mre actually sold by the halfpennyworth, and that one pennyworth of potatoes is considered almost an extravagant order. _ Another case was even more distressing. The husband had only done a few odd days work during the past two years. There were six in the family. The woman said that sometimes for two days she and her children would be quite without food ; and often for four or five days at a time they never tasted a cup of tea. The furniture consisted of one bed. We walked," says the writer, "from door to door, street to street. The same heart-breaking tales—no work, no food, no clothing, no furniture, in some cases not even a bed to lie upon, only the bare boards. There is one case of a woman who lost her husband in a recent shipwreck. She is quite destitute. But for the bit of food obtained from the depot she and her children would be starving, and her landlord has given her notice to quit her cottage, as she cannot pay rent. Another woman told us her husband had been dead five weeks. She had two young children, and was daily expecting a third. She was Is 6d short of her rent? 'If 1 can't make it up I will be turned out,' she said. 'No one will give me work on account of my state of health. My furniture consists of three chairs, one table, a bed, and a small quantity of bedding. AH the clothes 1 possess I stand in.' In another house there was a woman and five children. Her husband was away looking for gold. She produced a letter, in which he stated that he had had nothing to eat but potatoes for four days. If he were able to earn even a shilling he would send it to her. The man didn't care about himself, but he did feel that his wife and children should want. ' I had to wait some time to answer the letter said the wife, ' till I could beg a stamp. I have received two loaves of bread from the depot to-day.' 'How long will that last you?' 'Not more than one day, for I have five children.' ' Have you any furniture V ' That is all,' and she pointed to a bed,' and there is not a blanket on it, for I have not one.'" Everywhere the same heart-breaking tale of woe, of dreary, hopeless misery, was heard. The outlook for these poor people during the winter is a despairing one. A food dep6t has been established which supplies 800 people twice a week with bread, meat, and vegetables, but it is only able to relieve a fraction of the distress that exists. Help is urgently needed. But what above all is wanted is work. Were employment to be had the scene would change as if by magic. " Work, work," is the cry. • 'We do not ask for money; give us work, so that we may win shelter and food for our children," say the workless. But there is no prospect of work. It is appalling to think that in a new country there should be all this wretchedness and suffering and destitution.