THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS SATURDAY, MAY 9, 1931. A VANISHING NAVY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20868, 9 May 1931, Page 8

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS SATURDAY, MAY 9, 1931. A VANISHING NAVY.

Facts noted in a recent cable message suggest so extensive a tion in the size and strength of the Royal Navy that the question of its adequacy is- very seriously raised. With the striking of his flag by Bear-Admiral Hyde the Third Battle Squadron vanishes and certain capital ships are marked for destruction ; this reduces the fully armoured forces of the Navy to fifteen ships; and the reduction brings the fleet to but a third of the size of its armament twelve years ago. That bare statement calls for explanation. Compliance with the terms of the London Naval Treaty involves the removal of five capital ships—the battleships Benbow, Emperor of India, Iron Duke and Marlborough and the battle-cruiser Tiger. Three of the battleships and the battlecruiser will bo scrapped, either broken up deliberately or sunk by gunfire, and the Iron Duke will be " demilitarised," being used in future as gunnery training ship at Portland. This disappearance of j the three battleships involves the abolition of the special seagoing training squadron for boys, known as the Third Battle Squadron, and for the present, after leaving the shore training establishments, boys will be trained in the ships of the ordinary seagoing squadrons. There will thus bo left the following capital ships: the battleships Queen Elizabeth, Warspitc, Barham, Malaya, Royal Sovereign, Revenge, Resolution, Royal Oak, Valiant, Ramillies, Nelson and Rodney, with ihe battle-cruisers Repulse, Renown and Hood. The order of mention in each class corresponds to that adopted in the Washington Treaty for replacement, and those who have memories of the war will: not need to be reminded that almost J all of them are fully fifteen years old. At Washington it was agreed that the effective life of a capital ship should be reckoned as twenty: years. Put briefly, the position is: that, as to such ships, which professional opinion in all the oceanic | Powers regards as still the indispensable backbone of modern fleets, Britain has an attenuated strength. If there were any reasonable assurance that international peace could be definitely established within a few years, this extensive reduction would give no anxiety. There is no such assurance. J The London Treaty, it is true, has accelerated the reduction of the capital ship strength of Britain, the United States and Japan, so that the familiar Washington ratio of 55 —3—meaning precisely fifteen, fifteen and nine respectively for these three Powers —will be reached by 1932 instead of 1936; but this in itself contains no promise of peace, nor even of eventual naval disarmament. Nor has the London Treaty really cleared the situation and ensured economy in construction : no agreement was reached by the five Powers, nor even by the leading three, on the vital question of the individual size and armament of capital ships. Total tonnage and the maximum number of ships, as at Washington, were fixed, but there are other factors to bo considered. The age of vessels has to be taken into account, for instance, in every comparison of seagoing strengths. That blessed word j "parity," if it applies—as it does | —only to aggregate tonnage, is anything but a term meaning equality] of actual strength. Comparatively old as are the five capital ships now to be scrapped, they arc not so old as (he American four and tho Japaneso one to be scrapped by the same date. Ship for ship the fleets of these Powers will be more modern and consequently more technically efficient and resistant than Britain's. These competitors, moreover, have made no proportionate reduction in total tonnage, and as to absolute need it ought never to be forgotten that they have but a fraction of the strategic necessity of which Britain can never be rid without a dissolution of the Empire. The limits set out in the Washington and London agreements, as far as they go, work adversely against Britain. They have cut down the comparative strength of the British Fleet and also its absolute strength, when maritime need is considered. At the same time they have increased the building programmes of the other Powers, entitled to build new ships up to flic specified limits. A further disadvantage to Britain lies in the fact that the 35,000-ton and 16-inch-gun limits of the Washington Treaty, left undiminished at London, allow of the building by these other Powers'of vessels too large and too costly for normal British needs, yet manifestly superior in abnormal circumstances. Coupled with this liberty that is worse than worthless, for it must either entail burdensome expenditure or leave Britain inferior to the other Powers, is a shackling of construction due to the absence of specific agreement ' about the replacement of Britain's capital ships

Unless extensive construction he begun soon in British shipyards the Royal Navy must fall below the levels set by the Washington and London Treaties, yet this lack of decision hampers that construction. The London limit of our cruisers to fifty —it took a dozen or moro to check the Emden is insufficient for security, and a similar insufficiency is imposed by the maximum allowed in destroyers. If further proof of the threatened vanishing of the Royal Navy is needed it will be found in the vital matter of personnel : the American, according to the latest official figures, is 114,000 and the Japanese 85.000, increases of 47,000 and 35,000 respectively on the figures in 1014, whereas the British, 146,000 in 1914, is now 03.650, and in March next will be 01,810. At this rate, the whittling will soon leave the Empire without its first and essential line of defence.