“MYSTERY SHIPS”

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23082, 7 January 1937, Page 8

“MYSTERY SHIPS”

Secrecy has become a relative term to a public that allows no privacy to monarchs or, for that matter, to film and drarriatic artists who, we have been informed this week, are not permitted to conduct their tiffs like other people. There are peoplein the world to-day who claim to be as well informed, as the engineers concerned are, about the French frontier fortifications and to know more about the domestic economy of Germany than the most loyal of the goose-stepping Brownshirts. It appears to be entirely without irony that the naval correspondent of the Morning Post, having indicated that all the Powers are agog to learn the constructional secrets of the two new battleships that have been laid down in Great Britain, proceeds to write with some show of authority about features that are to be presented in them. There is, it is to be admitted, a diffident note of conjecture in certain of the correspondent’s statements. His description of formidable armaments, aeroplane accommodation and so on is accompanied by qualifying adverbs. He would accept correction amicably, but with surprise. The average man, however, while willing enough to concede the possession of special knowledge to the naval correspondent of an important English paper, which is regarded with particular favour by the fighting services, and to be pleasantly flattered at having the secrets of the new “ mystery ships ” exposed for him for a penny, may also have sufficient confidence in the reticence of the “ Silent Service ” to assume that no. information has been given to correspondents which it was not desired they should' receive. It is difficult to maintain entire secrecy about a mass of steel and machinery which is costing the taxpayer seven millions or so. It may still be possible to preserve from publicity those details of construction which make the new ships so formidable a mystery to foreign Powers.. Actually, the exact specifications of the King George V and Prince of Wales as to armaments are of little moment to the man-in-the-street. All he needs to know, and probably all he wants to know, is that in the construction of new ships of war, and the reconstruction of the older ships, which has been proceeding for some time, Great Britain is bringing the Navy up to a strength compatible with Empire needs in a world that has been given over to rearmament. The assurance that no step is being neglected that will ensure that the Navy is to be second to none has been offered in general terms by many British statesmen. It was so offered with emphasis by the First Lord of the Admiralty, Sir Samuel Hoare, at the recent Navy League dinner in London. The Navy programme, he then said, was proceeding satisfactorily, and the new battleships had been so designed as to take fully into account “ the experience of the war, the lessons of experiment and the developments of science.” For good measure the First Lord added, no doubt with past controversies in mind, that the Admiralty was building “ the ships that the Fleet wants and not making the Fleet take the ships that the theorists desire.” If the public was in need of enlightenment concerning the British Government’s rearmament programme as it affects the Navy, this statement should suffice. There is no particular reason why the inexpert should have technical details submitted to them on any subject. In the case of the new “ mystery ships ” there are very 'good reasons why they should not.