“DOWN A STEEP PLACE.”

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 6625, 15 September 1908, Page 4

“DOWN A STEEP PLACE.”

It is a little disconcerting, at first sight, to find Britain, after evolving the Dreadnought type of battleship. now 7 launching a vessel inferior to one which has almost simultaneously taken the water for an absurd naval Power like Brazil. Yesterday the cables informed us that the St. Vincent had been launched at Portsmouth, and the Brazilian Minas Goraes on tho Tyne. The St. Vincent carries ton 12in guns of tho latest typo, and the Brazilian battleship twelve of them. It was believed that both vessels were to carry tho how 13. Sin gun; but the building of ships has got ahead of tho building of guns. Besides two guns more on the broadside, tho Brazilian ships—there arc three to bo built—can fire eight ahead and eight vi stern as compared with the St. Vincent’s six ahead and eight astern, and the Brazilian torpedo-repellers are of heavier calibre. Japan has projected a vesspl something like the Minas Goraes, and of the same power, wdiile America has building two of ten guns each, hut equal in broadside to the Japanese and Brazilian designs, under construction. The German Dreadnoughts carry more guns than the vessels of any other Power; but the guns are of lesser calibre. The St. Vincent is tho first launched of a group of throe vessels, improved Bellorophons, which again are a trio of improved Dreadnoughts. She is the fifth launched of the Dreadnought class, of whioh seven have been laid down. All three are to be completed in 1910, and up to the following year Britain vi'l have ten “capital ships” of thv dreadnought and Invincible types completed, as against Germany’s five.

All naval comparisons are now expressed in terms of Dreadnoughts, which is rather misleading, for the Dreadnoughts do not, by any means, write off, by their very existence, all the battleships that preceded them. It is not possible to mention the British navy without making reference to Germany, so the mere statement of Britain’s construction programme leads inevitably to the citation of Germany’s position. Timid people who see in the new German navy the certain downfall of Britain’s supremacy at sea overlook one or two things that have a very important bearing on the question. As related, Britain has a handsome margin of sea power, on the Dreadnought basis alone, for three years. Next year it is the intention of the British Government, states the First Lord of the Admiralty, Mr McKenna, to review the whole situation as affected by the shipbuilding programme of other nations, and the Government will do ail that is necessary to preserve the pre-eminence of Britain. Mr McKenna points out that where types so soon become obsolete, there can be no greater mistake than to build more ships than are needed.

for the security of the country. l lt is sheer waste,” ho says, “to go one inch beyond security.” Meantime, Britain, having evolved a typo of battleship highly efficient, thoroughly dependable, in no way experimental, has been building enough of them to maintain, easily, the twoPower standard. And while other nations have planned super-Dread-noughts, British naval designers have been at work on something much better still. And if within the next year Britain finds it necessary to build ships at a more rapid rate, she will launch vessels almost as far ahead of the original Dreadnought as that ship was superior to the King Edward, which it superseded. Then, if the race for naval supremacy is to continue, the competing Power will try to go one better, as they have with the Dreadnought type, and there will be another headlong rush. Ten years ago a battleship cost just under a million sterling. Now wo have the twomillion super-Dreadnought, and there is indication of a still more expensive vessel. And the bigger, and finer, and more complicated the vessels grow, rho faster they wear out. The navies of the world are costipg too much; but there seems to bo little chance of the power of oommon-seuso being exerted strongly enough to stop the violent rush down the steep place of expenditure before one or some of the weaker nations perish in the waters of financial ruin at the bottom.