NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15557, 14 March 1914, Page 6

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

AUSTRALIAN : FLEET EFFICIENCY. ' It is known that the authorities are very well pleased with the results of the battle ■ practice of the battle-cruiser Australia, the flagship of the Australian fleet. This test has been awaited with great interest, as it practically forms a, competition in which the ships of the Australian fleet are matched against all the fleets of the Empire. The training given to the fleet since November 'has been strenuous, but the authorities hardly expected that any very good showing would be made by the fleet this year, as the time 'had been too short. The results of the Australia's firing, however, are said to have been exceedingly satisfactory. Indeed, it is rumoured that if she had managed to get off all the shots which she might have fired she would practically be at the head of the ships of her class in the navy. As it was, a slight hitch prevented her from using two shots which ought to have been fired, and her place will not be quite at the head of the list, but an honourable one for all that. As to the firing of the other ships, it is stated that Admiral Patey was well satisfied. When the fleet set out from Sydney for Spencer's Gulf, the admiral admitted that the ships were not fit to carry out the duties they would have to carry out in war time. But when the result of the firing on one of the ships was announced.to him in Hobart he is said to have remarked, " You're a warship now." The naval authorities make no secret of the fact that the Australian crews have, on the whole, come far better out of the period of keen active training which they have just undergone than out of the comparatively slack service in the old Australian squadron. DESTITUTE RESERVISTS. The War Office has made a new departure by advertising the attractions of a soldier's life with a view to drawing recruits. In this connection Colonel Leve-son-Gower sends a pertinent letter to the London Times. ■ Being in a position to provide permanent employment for several ex-soldiers,, he receives weekly visits from reservists, "many of them utterly destitute." Their army characters vary from exemplary to good, but the tale is always the same. They were not allowed to stay in the army, and once out of it they have no chance against civilian competitors. Again, a stationmaster consulted him about buying his son out of a cavalry regiment, because he would never be able ' to get tho son work if the latter served his time. Finally, he narrates his experience in a Government office, where, on his asking a man with three medals if he were the porter, the man replied, "No such luck, sir; I'm only the 'sweeper' (the Indian phrase for the lowest caste); the porter was —'s valet,' naming an ex-Min-ister." This, adds Colonel Leveson-Gower, "is the actual advertisement that the army gets daily by -thousands of men all over England." There is no use in treating men well in the service so long as the State abandons them the moment they leave it. A guaranteed future is the one thing to make the new advertisements effective. FRENCH AVIATION SERVICE. Extraordinary revelations have - been made m the French Senate in the course of an. interpellation; by Senator Emile Reymond, from which it is learned thatyoung officers and recruits who are- specially fitted for aviation are systematically barred from it, and others, on the contrary, who, have no aptitude for the service whatever, have the greatest facilities in entering it. Senator Reymond is the most competent man in the Senate to speak on aviation. He is an excellent pilot himself, and has made flights from Paris to his constituency in the South. His comparative review of the condition of aviation and of the airship service in the French and German Armies is particularly interesting. He says :— Germany possesses 14 dirigibles, of which Seven are Zeppelin airships, capable of being used as destroyers. France has only seven dirigibles. The German dirigibles have motors of 600 h.p. and 800 h.p. The German airships have- - a speed of 80 to 95 kilometres (about 50 to 60 miles) an hour; the French airships scarcely have a speed higher than 45 kilometers per hour, and only one of them can attain a speed of 55 kilometers per hour. Seven of the German destroyers are powerfully, armed and can be used effectively in offensive operations. They can each carry 25 persons, in addition to a crew of 12 men and eight tons of weight, together -with one ton and a-half of ammunition. They have already thrown projectiles of 610 kilos without slackening their speed, and they ' are about- to make experiments to throw I projectiles of 800 kilos. On the other hand, they are provided . also with means of protection. The car is supplied with machine-guns, and on top of -the balloon 1 there is a gangway supplied with machine- ; guns than can fire 600 shots a minute." M. : Reymoud's denunciation of military rou- . tine is no doubt in a large measure justified, but it may be said that it is a, grievance, not only in the French Army, but the world over. In spite of M. Reymond's ' statements, it must not be taken for . granted that French military aviation is 1 defunct, or even behind that of any other nation. At the last manoeuvres, in 1913,

the aerial squadrons rendered excellent and even brilliant service, and the information they supplied to the opposing commanders was such as to transform entirely the strategic character of the campaign.