THE BRITISH NAVY.

Otago Witness, Issue 2811, 26 August 1908, Page 19

THE BRITISH NAVY.

LONDON, August 18. While not denying the possibility of some loan of a reasonable amount for naval expansion in the event of the circumstances . demanding it, City circles are unfavourable to such an operation because of its effect on consols and other good securities. Careful inquiry has failed to discover the- financiers alluded to in the Telegraph's story as offering the loan. The Express foreshadows the ultimate issue x>i a naval loan in instalments. The Westminster Gazette favours a loan to enable the Government to fix the shipbuilding programme for four years, subject to modifications if Germany modifies hers. The Daily Chronicle, while considering the figure (on© hundred millions) preposterous, favours the plan of announcing a financing programme several years in advance. "It is important," it says, "by one means or another to establish and declare the continuity and certainty of Britain's policy, thereby creating conditions favourable .to friendly negotiations towards a mutual agreement to cry a halt in naval expenditure." -The Chronicle's naval correspondent says that tli-e Dreadnought battleship type is already obsolete, and that the new loan will be spent on additional Indomitables. August 23. The Observer advocates the building of 30 improved Dreadnoughts or Indomitables, costing nearly two millions apiece, and that the basis of\the Government's programme be two keels to Germany's one.