Review of Feviews, ]/ill3. 



TOPICS OF THE MOSTH. 



153 



New inventions constantly require the 

 scrapping of costly plant, if the most 

 efficient ships are to be turned out. Such 

 efficiency can only be obtained where 

 there is much competition and keen 

 rivalry. If the proposed fleet is to be 

 first of all a weapon of defence, it 

 ought to be as powerful as possible, and 

 should therefore be built in Britain. If 

 it is to be the excuse for creating a new 

 industry in Canada, well and good, but 

 it is hardly fair to charge the huge cost 

 of laying down new dockyards and 

 equipping them with costly plant to the 

 Defence Department. If Canada — and 

 we ourselves for that matter — wish to 

 become ship-building nations, why not 

 subsidise yards for the turning out of 

 merchantmen, rather than attempt to 

 create them under cover of a Defence 

 scheme It would be far cheaper in the 

 long run, and the first line of defence 

 would be all the more powerful. 



SOUTH AFRICA. 

 In South Africa also this question of 

 a contribution to Imperial defence has 

 given rise to fierce argument, and there 

 is obviously a strong feeling in the 

 newest Dominion that no grant at all 

 shouiQ be made. To create a local 

 navy is quite out of the question there. 

 The people have not therefore the in- 

 ducement of getting something which 

 is all their very own ; it is a question of 

 cash only. c. contribution to the Imperial 

 Navy. There are a million people in 

 South Africa, and a Dreadnought costs 

 close on i^2, 000,000 sterling. 



AUSTRALIA. 

 We at any rate have made a begin- 

 ning. We are creating a navy which is 

 to be our verv own, and which will be 

 under our entire control. In time we 

 will man and officer it. and at once we 

 begin to pay for it. The cost of the 

 fleet now building is nearly ;£^ 5 ,000,000. 

 Other ships will have to be added, and 

 before many years have passed those we 

 now have will be obsolete. Hardly one 

 of the great battleships which lay at 

 Spithead for the coronation review of 

 King Edward were to be seen in those 

 long lines of sinister strength through 

 which King George passed in the Royal 

 Yacht, when a far more powerful 



fleet assembled to do him honour in 

 1911. We realise that the fleet is going 

 to cost us a great deal, and more, too, 

 every year ; consequently we will have 

 a more personal interest in the efforts 

 that are being made to arrest the 

 desjierate competition in armaments 

 now going on in Europe. 



We are going to have a fleet, but 

 would we agree to its being sent to 

 Atlantic or Mediterranean waters should 

 Britain ever be involved in war? No ; 

 we would want it to protect our own 

 shores. Any suggestion to send it away 

 would be violently opposed. Its value 

 to the Admiralty is not that it is an 

 additional fighting force to be relied 

 upon, but that its existence does away 

 with the need of detaching special ships 

 from the Home fleet for Australian 

 waters should such a course be deemed 

 necessarv. 



THE ARRIVAL OF THE " MELBOURNE." 

 The control of the sea is vital to the 

 Empire. Is the domination of the air 

 not even more so '■! As I watched the 

 Melbuiirnc leading the little proces- 

 sion of Australian warships up from the 

 Heads ni}' thoughts flew back to the 

 last Bristol type of cruiser I had seen. 

 She was lying with several others, and 

 a battleship, at Harwich, in England. 

 Round her were many of the latest 

 destroyers and several of the last built 

 submarines. On either side of her were 

 the powerful forts which defend that 

 East Coast Naval Station. Suddenly 

 the whirr of a motor fell on our ears, 

 and across her, high in the air, Com- 

 mander Samson's hydroplane shot 

 swiftly on its way seaward to search 

 for two submarines nianeruvring below 

 the w^atei outside the harbour. From 

 his rapidly-moving machine the gallant 

 commander si)eedily located them, and 

 then flew (iuictl\' back, straight over the 

 forts and the anchored warshijis, and 

 dropped, light <is a feather, to rest on 

 the waters of the Orwell. 



WllV NOT AIRSHIPS? 



In imagination 1 saw a war-plane 



glide swiftly over the line of steaming 



warships, the Yirrra, the VarrauuUdu the 



WarregiK then the Encounter, and last 



the Melbourne, dropping as it went, 



