USE OF OIL FUEL

Otago Witness, Issue 3098, 30 July 1913, Page 25

USE OF OIL FUEL

LONDON, July 27. The railway companies are considering seriously the use of oil fuel, and experiments and reports are being prepared at the instance of the directorates on three of the leading trunk lines. Mr Ramsay MacDonald, M.P.. in the course of a letter to the Leicester Pioneer, accuses Mr Churchill of committing the Admiralty to the use of oil fuel before anyone knew what was going on. He had stated that four Dreadnoughts were to be laid down that would be propelled by oil before Cabinet was aware of the fact. Mr Churchill, lie says, had never sat down for a single hour to think of the possible consequences of his proposal. Mr Ramsay MacDonald states: —“Oilpropelled dreadnoughts will allow of a big navy, and people cannot include coal-pro-pelle |1 vessels in an international comparison. So we begin a new chapter in an insane and criminal race of armaments, and also by scrapping our naval coal supply we will throw ourselves at the mercy of far-removed foreign sources of supply.”