NAVAL DEFENCE.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXIV, Issue 954, 26 December 1933, Page 10

NAVAL DEFENCE.

Leander Class Said to be Most Suitable. “ TAFFRAIL ” VISITS N.Z. Per Press Association. AUCKLAND, December 24. “ What New Zealand needs for defence is ships of the Leander class, a little bigger than the Diomede, and certainly not large cruisers,” said Captain Taprell Dorling, D. 5.0., R.N., the well-known writer of books on naval subjects, who is well known by the pen name of “ Taffrail,” and who arrived at Auckland on Saturday by the Cornwall from Liverpool. “ Ship* of 10,000 tons, like the Australia and Canberra, are definite anachronisms. They are too big for their purpose, immense targets, and very costly.” Captain Taprell Dorling is making a voyage in the Cornwall in order to write for “ The Times ” a description of a training scheme for mercantile cadets, lie will return to England in the Cornwall, but hopes, while the vessel is in New Zealand, to visit Rotorua and Lake Wakatipu, and also to write articles for the English Press. This is his first visit to the Dominion, and he is anxious to see something of sheepfarming and the frozen meat trade from the New Zealand end. “ Britain has over 80,000 miles of sea routes to protect,” he said, when advocating the construction of smaller cruisers and more of them. ” Unless she can protect them, she will starve, and the units of the Empire will become defenceless. The amount spent on the Navy is only 2i per cent of the value of the Empire’s trade, which is not a high insurance. Every man, woman and child in New Zealand is interested in overseas trade to the extent of £4O a head every year. What is your position if this is cut off?” Importance of Singapore. The Singapore naval base, to which New Zealand had contributed, was of vital importance to the Dominion. The Empire needed a secure docking base for the fleet east of Suez. It could not protect Hong Kong under the Washington agreement, and a secure base was necessary in the East in case the battle fleet had ever to be moved to the Pacific. “ The Admiralty desires to build smaller battleships and cruisers,” he said, ” thereby increasing the mobility of these vessels, as docking facilities for smaller vessels are greater. Such ships are of greater value than big ships like the Nelson and Rodney. I think that, when the Washington and London naval treaties expire at the end of 1936, we shall go all out for smaller battleships and cruisers. Value of Aeroplanes Exaggerated. Aerial experts, said Captain Taprell Dorling, rather exaggerated the value of aeroplanes as a weapon against battleships. Actually they were merely another weapon against which battleships had to be protected. An aircraft bomb was no more dangerous than a projectile fired from a long distance. Aircraft could be dangerous if, say, a fleet were anchored within aircraft striking distance of an enemy country. It could not be said that aircraft could ever replace cruisers, although they were very useful as an auxiliary. They were handicapped by such conditions as fog and rain. From the aspect of the defence of New Zealand, provided the Dominion had a unit of modern ships, aircraft would prove very useful, especially if they were adapted for operating over the sea.