A NAVAL SUGGESTION.

Otago Witness, Issue 2934, 8 June 1910, Page 45

A NAVAL SUGGESTION.

COLONIES AND OLD WARSHIPS

(From Our Own Correspondent.)

LONDON, April 8.

Mr F. T. Jane, who is an acknowledged authority on naval matters, makes some pertinent remarks in his column " Under the White Ensign " in the Evening Standard this week. He says :- " Lord Brassey's suggestion of passing old ships on to the colonies, although it seems to have met with very little sympathy, is an extremely good one. At the present moment we have the Centurion and Barfleur condemned to the scrapheap. Neither of these ships is worn out, and both are able to steam about 15 knots at least, or would be able to do so with small repairs. Their value to the British fleet is trifling, as both theirarmour and armament are very inadequate, although there are not wanting those who can see purposes for which they might still have been employed in Home waters. " At the Antipodes, however, these two ships might, in certain circumstances, be extremely valuable —the conditions there obtaining being totally different from what may be looked for in Home waters. Australia is only subject to two kinds of naval attack. The first of these would be by a large and overwhelming fleet. Such" an attack is practically inconceivable while the British fleet remains intact. The other form of attack, and the far more likelv one, would be from predatory cruisers. The most powerful of these would hardly dare to try conclusions with the Centurion, so far away from her base. It is, of course, perfectly true that whenever she saw the Centurion the cruiser could easily run away unhurt; but, on the other hand, she would run considerable risk of being surprised m harbour by the old battleship. ' Some time ago naval construction took a kink in the wrong direction, because, instead of thinking of fleet actions, individual ships were compared with an idea of duels between them—the most unlikely thing in the world to happen. The United States was probably the first nation to realise that the duel was a mythical condition, and to design sh;ps for fleet action purposes, these ships bein" the South Carolina class, winch sacrificed end-on-fire in order to secure the best possible broadside. But since these ships were designed, and the duel error refuted, there has been a general tendency, especially in this country, to overlook the fact that, after the first shock of battle, Dreadnoughts are likely to be so knocked about that old battleships may well be formidable opponents to them. This is the weak point of the scrapheap policy. The official statement that the colonies do not ask for old ships is hardly borne out by the facts that at the present moment Canada is arranging to take over the Niobe and "Rainbow.