THE BRITISH NAVY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18896, 23 June 1923, Page 7

THE BRITISH NAVY

SELECT COMMITTEE’S EEPOHT. RETRENCHMENT RECOMMENDED. Press Association —By Telegraph —Copyright LONDON, June 20. The Select Committee on the Naval Estimates recommends that officers' and men’s pay should be reviewed in 1924. The committee is of opinion that the administrative staffs need reorganisation and reduction. The report points out that seamen’s pay is still 150 per cent, above pre-war rates. The men are still receiving their post-war marriage allowances, costing £1,000,000 annually, while only one-sixth of the officers’ present pay is liable to reduction. —A. and N.Z. Cable. WARSHIP NEW ZEALAND. SOLD FOR £21,000. LONDON, June 20. At the Naval College at Greenwich there were 227 students with a staff of 356 looking after them. The warship New Zealand, which cost the New Zealand Government £1,700,000, was sold to a British firm for breaking up for £21,000. The New Zealand was not sold by auction, but after the Washington decision it was decided to scrap her and many other ships immediately, thus gutting the market and depreciating prices.— A. and N.Z. Cable. The First Lord’s statement explanatory of the Naval Estimates for the financial year 1922-25 said that as a result of the agreement reached at the Washington Conference the cltoctive naval votes for 192223 had been reduced by nearly £21,000.000 net as compared with 1921-22. On the other hand the non-offeotive votes (those for pensions, retired pay, otc), had increased by £3,195,800 as compared with 1921-22, the increase being almost entirely duo to the special provision for probable charges by way of pensions and retiring gratuities to the great number of officers and men and dockyard employees (numbering over 30,000 in all) who were to bo retired during the year. Taking this into consideration, and after making the necessary deductions for increase in prices, wages, etc., the effective votes for 1922-23 showed a net reduction, as compared with 1914-15, of over £24,000,000, or, approximately, 50 per cent. The Estimates for 1922-23 provided the following comparison with those of the previous year:— 1921- £91,554,869 1922- 68,950,000 Reduction ...£22,604,869 The economies included in the 1922-25 Estimates included (1) The scrapping of 12 capital ships in addition to eight already sold for breaking u,p and the maintenance of only 15 capital ships in full commission, as compared with 33 in March, 1914. .*) The further reduction of the destroyer flotillas of the Atlantic Fleet. (3) The abolition of 27 submarines, and the reduction of the number in full commission. (4) The abolition of two of the Horae commands. (5) The reduction of the personnel of the fleet during 1922-23 by over 20,000 officers and men. (6) The discharge of over 10,000 men from the Royal Dockyards, and a drastic reduction of the civil staffs of the Admiralty and other establishments. (7) The rigoious pruning of all other services and votes. i\o provision was made in these Estimates for any new programme beyond the laying down early in 1925 of the two 35,000-ton battleships authorised by the Washington Treaty.