GERMANY'S FLEET.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 506, 13 May 1909, Page 4

GERMANY'S FLEET.

STORY OF ITS GROWTH. : • The Gorman Navy of to-day is a result of the war with Franco in 1870-I.' The growth was insignificant for ten years, but. in tho eighties, when the German population and mercantile mariijo bogan to increase, the assumed.lmperial proportions. In 188!) tho Navy was reorganised and given a commander-in-chief. During the'next ten years tho country .was educated to a naval programme, and .in 1803 tho first big schemo was put forward of 19 battleships and 50 cruisers and coast dcfenco' ships. The replacement of each ship; was provided for from its fifteenth to twenty-fifth year according to class: 1 The real Navy Bill, however, was that of 1900, framed during,the Boer war. It aimed at making Germany t a great naval Powor. It was.: a red-letter day in the history of tho Fatherland. The Bill was introduced in the German' Parliament on February 8 of that year by Admiral von. Tirpitz, Naval Secretary, of. Statfl, and •was duly passed. '•'■■lt provided for two battle fleets. ' The amount estimated, up to 1920, to oreato the navy "l arKs ' w a yearly average oi 40,000,000 marks. • , / : Tho amount was whittled down, but much of tho total charge was raisod by : taxing foreign■ goods. now fleet, which was to be accelerated in construction and completed, if not paid for, by 1916-7,. was fixed as under:—- ■'.. . . . v : Additions by • U 4.4,'t' U" ' • 1900 Act. ' battleships ... 38 •jq Armoured cruisers 14 3 : Protected cruisers 38 ' g Torpedo craft .... • ... yg , 20 Personnel ~.. ...59,000 ...81,000 , ' this time a "naval fever" had seized I, nation, and with tho knowledge tbat breafr liritain was laying down a new record' battleship (tho Dreadnought), upon which to mould a now modern ; fleet > many additions were made which brought the prospectivo Gorman programmo to the following grand total:— Uattloships ... .. it> 33. \ Armoured: cruisors ... '!!! 20 Protected oruisers - ... . ... ' . ... 38 Destroyers An increase yearly of 6 lorpedo craft' ... ... ~, , log . Submarines; j... ... ... fleet' • personnel ... ... ...66,000 Not.fewer than three Dreadnoughts were to be laid down: annually, and tho estimates were t° rise steadily to fifteen million.pounds ?mi Programme of 1910-11 and lyu-vu wiu bo revised to admit of four or fivo Dreadnoughts beiug laid" down each . u fatter of fact this revision is tmomeially m. operation and has thrown our own Government astray in caiculation./Durmg the following years Germany will, as a minimum, Jay down Dreadnoughts as under: - ... 4 1913 .. ... *2 1909 _ 2 ' . - 4 1915 ... ... 2 nmJ - - 4 1916 - - 2 1912 '~. '2 1917 ... ... 2 'Probably 4. , ' J h P expenditure by 1917 is to be about 208 millions sterling..—"The Standard,"