WHY, I WONDER, SHOULD the Queen be asked to visit
an aircraft carrier which is so out of date that it is shortly going into dock for an overhaul lasting, it is estimated, for four years? And why, come to think of it, bother to overhaul it? Even the Americans, who have held out for mobile floating aerodromes longer than anybody, now concede that they have had their day. I have some sympathy in theory for Christopher Hollis's argument in favour of building up conventional weapons, but in practice this seems to mean heavy expenditure on modernising weapons which are outmoded before they even come back into ser- vice. The extensive alterations which are pro- posed for HMS Eagle would have been quite useful in the Second World War, but not for any conceivable contest, global or peripheral, in the future. And in Australia, I see, they are now testing the anti-aircraft guided missile 'Blood- hound II.' Bloodhound' is a singularly apt name; the weapon, like the dog, can only track suc- cessfully provided that the quarry does not know he is being followed; if he does, he can easily throw them off the scent. At one time I had hopes the defence cuts would be used to eliminate such expensive toys : apparently not.
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