The Russian Navy.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 5020, 30 May 1889, Page 2

The Russian Navy.

A Home journal says:—Some facts have recently been published respecting the Russian Navy which show that the Czar is quietly, but none the less effectively, improving his position at sea. The Russian Admiralty seems to have elaborated a plan of shipbuilding more sound in every way than that which obtains in other The programme approved in St Petersburg in 1882 took note of the peculiar needs of the various portions of the fleet, and geographical and political considerations were kept steadily in view, so that the vessels for the Black Sea were not of the same type as those intended for the Baltic. The original programme has been considerably modified —in some instances solely as the result of the failure of British vessels similar to those contemplated by Russia —and since 1882 tbe Baltic fleet has been increased by two first-class ironclads, four second class, “one magnificent protected cruiser,” two ordinary protected cruisers, two sloops, two double-screw steel gunboats, two smaller gunboats, one torpedo gunboat, and “134 torpedo boats of various dimensions, including some superior to anything our Navy can boast of.” So, too, with the Black Sea fleet, which has received three first-class ironclads, six Cossack gunboats, one torpedo gunboat, forty-one torpedo boats, and “ a respectable fleet of unarmoured vessels belonging to the Russian Steam Navigation Company, available for various kinds of service in war.” To say nothing of those ironclads and cruisers which are rapidly nearing completion, it is perhaps not too much to say that Russia has now “ made ample provision for the defence of her coasts, and has built up a navy which practically puls her in possession of Turkey, and will enable her to prove extremely troublesome to Great Britain whenever the two nations happen to go to war.”