THE GERMAN NAVY.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1092, 3 April 1911, Page 5

THE GERMAN NAVY.

_ PROGRAMME ATT-ER 1917. ■ By Telegraph-Press AssociaUon-Oopyrieht Berlin, March 31. In an.article just published, Count Keventlow, the- well-known writer on naval matters, states that .the, year. 1917 will see the end of the transition period of German naval shipbuilding, and 1919 the beginning of the automatic building of two battleships and a.-cruiser yearly. .. THE NAVY LEAGUE'S DEMANDS.. Tlie German Navy Act of 1908 provided for the construction of three battleships and- one armoured cruiser in each year up to 1911. From 1911 to 1917 the 'official programme is for one battleship and one cruiser per annum. Touching on this point, the Berlin correspondent of "The Times" said recently:—"lt is commonly assumed that from the financial year 1912 onwards Germany will lay down only one battleship and one large cruiser a year. Perhaps the assumption will be justified. The' Navy League, however, maintains that it would bo not only expedient but lawful to lay down three capital ships in each year. So far as I know there has been no official repudiation' of the accuracy of this interpretation of the law, whatever the Government's actual intentions may or may not be." The League's demand is, as its president, Grand-Admiral von Koester, stated in December last, "that from the year 1912 onwards Germany shall proceed with the regular annual construction of three ships as substitutes for old ships, upon the ground that the legal total of, in Tound numbers, GO ships—3B battleships and 20 armoured cruisers with a "life" of 20 years—justifies this demand and makes it possible to provide substitutes at the proper time for the training-ships struck off the list." He went on to say: "Wβ consider, however, thnt it >is all the less impossible for us to dispense with the total,-number of large cruisers that is Tequired by the Navy Law because, in view of the rapid increase of our world interests, Germany finds political questions tending more and more to develop into world questions, the solution of which would, in. certain circumstances, only be possible by tho rapid dispatch of a more or less strong cruiser detachment."