MORE WASTE

Our navy department has announced that, sometime between January 1 and July 15 next, it will carry out the greatest naval and aerial gun and bombing test ever conducted. The obsolete American warships, Iowa and Kentucky, and the eleven former German warships, allocated to the United States, will be used as targets. There is no intention of sinking the two out-of-date American vessels. Dummy bombs will be used upon them. However, the eleven German ships of later model and in good condition, will be sent to Davy Jones's locker. In the meantime congress is granting money to enlarge our fleet. If Germany had been forced to give the United States a large sum of gold coin in place of these vessels we would not dump it into the ocean just because it came from a vanquished enemy. These ships have at least some value as transports, tenders, or as mother-ships for sea-planes. Is it a principle of our present system of naval economics that everything labelled "Made in Germany" must be destroyed?