PRICE OF SEA POWER.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 172, 19 January 1912, Page 7

PRICE OF SEA POWER.

A REVIEW OF THE NAVAL EXPENDITURE. Some very striking figures showing the terrible and increasing expense of sea power are given in a recent Admiralty return. Tlie amount of money now being poured- •out annually by the great Powers on naval armaments is almost incredible. Ten years ago the British public opened its eyes in wonder, and gasped at a naval estimate of less than £35,000,000. This, said people, must surely be the limit.. But it was not. Million by million the total crept up till the estimated expenditure for 1011-12 was no less than £44,882,000.

Meanwhile Germany has been making even bigger strides in naval expenditure. In 1901 the cost of her navy was rather below nirie and a half million pounds, •whereas the current estimates provide ;£pr. an outlay of a little over £'22,000,000. Italy lias gone ahead at an even greater rate, for Whereas a decade ago her naval programme rt #a& : satisfied with an alloca- , tion of rather less than £5,000,000, the estimates for 1911-12 provide for an expenditure of over-eight and a half inill'Ms. AM look Which way one may you are faced with increased naval matters. France is this year spending over 16y a millions, nearly three millions more than she did in 1901-2. Russia's expenditure will be about 13% millions as against 9%. The United States is spending 2f>M> millions as against 16 a decade ago, and Japan's estimate of £8,800,000 for 1912 is practically double that for the year 1901-2. But the most progressive naval State is Austria. Ten years ago her modest navy cost less than £2,000,000; her estimates for the current year are not far short of 514 millions. Here are the figures of Europe's pre-5 sent naval expenditure: — ■£ Germany 22,031,788 France 16,705,382 Russia 13,270,376 Austria 5,152,382 England 44,882,047 No account is taKen here of the expenditure on naval affairs of Turkey, Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands, which probably amounts in all to some I seven or eight millions per annupi. If we add to the European total the amount now being spent on the navies of America, Japan, China, and the maritime States of South America, it will be seen that the cost 'of the world's navies cannot' be less than 150 millions per annum at the present day. Ten years ago it was less than 100 millions.