PATER'S CHATS WITH THE BOYS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2105, 28 June 1894, Page 42

PATER'S CHATS WITH THE BOYS.

Some of the Navies of the World. Last week, for the information of one of my readers, I gave the fighting strength — at present and in the immediate future — of Great Britain, and promised to look up information on the other navies. Through the courtesy of my bookseller I am able to give the subjoined figures and explanatory notes, taken from "The Statesman's Year Book for 1894." It is the clearest table that I have come across. Bat I cannot help thinking after reading co much about the varyiDg offensive and defensive power of steelclads in the same class, and after comparing a class of one nation with the corresponding class of another nation, that a table such as I am quoting only very approximately indicates the relative efficiency of the navies

In this table three factors have been taken into consideration by the compiler — displacement, age, speed : displacement because it implies offensive and defensive power, age as indicating efficiency, and speed as Determining mobility. No vessel is classed as a battleship unless it has at least 11 knots sea speed, such speed being taken as two knots less than the nominal. First-class battleships are not under GOOO tons or over 12 years old ; second class not over 20 years old ; while the third class includes up to 27 years and down to 5000 tons. Port defence vessels are a miscellaneous group of older and slower battleships, armoured" gunboats, &c. Firat-class cruisers in (a) class have a minimum sea speed of 15 knots, are 5000 tons and over, and armoured or otherwise ; (6) class is a miscellaneous group excluded from (a) class and from battleships ; those of this division are mainly used for convoying. Second-class cruisers are of 2000 tons or more, and not under 12 knots. Tbe third class of cruisers may be said to include all others " not otherwise enumerated," such as sloop 3, unarmed gunvessels, torpedo gunboats, tbojeengagedin marine surveying, &c ; those indicated fa) h.ive at least 10 knots, (b) being slower. la the torpe'lo-boat division, («) are over 125 ft in lsngth — speed not given — (6) 100 ft to 125 ft, and (c) from 80ft to 100 ft; tho3e under SO Id are nob counted, being considered only use r ul for harbour defence. The table includes vessels afloa 1 ", building, ordered to be built, or provided for. It will be seen that I have given only — in addition to the United States — tbe countries likely to be engaged in a European outbreak, and those wishiDg to can work out the likely combinations. I did think of running out as far as practicable the amounts to be spent this year in naval armaments, and the number of men

required to man the 1500 odd boats accounted for above— for instance, the cost of the British navy for the financial year just ending is over £14,000,000, and the seamen, &c, 76,700 ([ don'fc think this iccludes engineers), while France has nearly 42,000 men ready for active service afloat, and is spending over £11,000,000 this yejr, an immense sum considering her small marine trade, and her comparatively unimportant colonial possessions. But I'll pasß these by as being uninteresting to the general reader, and those in particular for whom I am supposing mysely to write. I hope what I have given will meet my I correspondent's wishes. If fuller information is required I must refer him to the two books I have used and named. ! tay Down Your Arms ! I think I referred some time ago to the French classic " The Downfall," the most vivid and historically accurate description of the Franco-Prussian War that has been written. A cheap edition of another novel, equally accurate, and describing the campaign in which Austria measured swords with Italy and lost Venetia ; in which, with Prussia, she deprived Denmark of Schleawig* Holsfcein ; the humiliation she suffered at the hands of the Pr uaeians with their needle gun in Bohemian territories ; and finally, the horrors of the Franco-Prussian Warall on account of some incident or other used to gratify some nation's whim. The boob does not contain battle pictures like Zola's masterpiece ; but, written from a woman's sympathetic point of view, deals with the fearful sufferings of the wounded ; the hypocrisies and mockreies of war ; the blasphemy of a nation praying for success and offering up Te Deums for its unholy work, and the sin of a nation in training up the flower of its youth to take a pride in slaughter, and to be made food for powder. Toe book is written by Bsroness Suttner, an Austrian lady, as if it were her autobiography, and is therefore written more from a domestic and personal point of view than "The Downfall." To* debating societies taking up such a question as, "la war justifiable? ' the book will be specially interesting, for it argues this question almost from start to finish. The edition just out is published at Is 63, and the translation was undertaken at the instance of the International Arbitration and Peace Association, that its influence may work for the abolition of war as the arbiter of disputes. May it accomplish its end. " Ten Nights In a Bar-room." - In Dunedin we are suffering just now from a surfeit of " drink" — on paper, not in the pot. Many are writing upon the cruelty ; of depriving a man of his living by taking his license, while others again point out the cruelty to wives and children in allowing a hotel to remain open when it is known to be the centre of a cirole of misery, a point of [ view which' apparently never enters the heads of the first class of writers ; nor do they see, when arguing the loss of revenue, how contemptible it is to receive revenue from what- the people by their voting have decided to be a vice. . Some of the letters have had special reference to a lantern entertainment, " Ten Nights in a Bar-room," gives by a worker in the temperance cause, and one writer in particular has been very insultiDg in the epithets he uses in his references to the slides shown. I cannot say lam in favour of showing pictures illustrating the effects of drink, or any other form of vice, though in this, and* in other case?, they do not in any way offend good taste. I would rather, however, that, the lantern should be used to cultivate a taste far the refined by the exhibition of the beautiful, for we can attract by the beautiful as we can repel by the repulsive. What doyou think?

— It takes about 10 weeks.to build arailway.' engine.

— Lobsters have a great dread of thunder, . and when peals are very loud will swim to 1 deeper water..

Nation. Is w *3 Eg a> v o Ph 18 19 25 4 14 10 7 17 "2 7> .a o 73 3 a o s J u5 go 5 o H 11213 alb a 16 1 I I 2I 2 I 3I 3 Great Britain France Russia Italy Germany ... Austria Turkey. 1 United States --- 25 911 23 8 3 16-1 9 34 8 2 15 2 11 — 25 23 16 9 4 1 1 6 312 810 6 7 4 5 1 8 1 9 5 2 63 37 3 15 9 4 2 13 103 86 47 «5 3112 31 8 22 3 1612 33 22 714 85 45 53 100 77 24 9 2 33 148 6 36 64 5 15 - IS 38 4 486 451 ltiO 219 212 106 107 26 7 1 fi — - —