FRENCH NAVAL DISASTERS.

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 13231, 26 September 1908, Page 9

FRENCH NAVAL DISASTERS.

A MELANCHOLY LIST

Unite- Press Ass~oi_tio_— By Electric , Telegraph—Copyright. PARIS, September 24. Two hundred a—<l «ig_ty-o£_:__ officers and men have been killed in dieasters in tho French navy since 1900, whilst the loss in money amounts to £3,400,000. Tho state of tbe French navy has for some time been causing anxiety to thoughtful Frenchmen and Englishmen. The service is known to be permeated by Socialistic doctrines and discipline is lax. Socialist and antimilitarist influence is particularly stroug at Toulon, tho great base, and' a series of suspicious lires thero have created a very uneasy feeling. Disasters have been frequent of late, as the cobro messago indicates. On on© ship there were three gun accidents in three years. According to one account the last, which occurred in August, was due to tha premature bursting ot' a shell. The hue»i explosion on the Latoucho-T'reville may have been due to tho same cnuso. Tho ''Echo do Paris" stated a Jew week- ago that a considerable proportion of the shells fired by the Mediterranean Squadron in its target practice a mouth before, burst -within a very short distance. Several other allegations -were also made with regard, to defective material. "What shall I say of our Navy?" recently asked M. do Freycinot, an exMinister oi War. "What shall I say of the continual accidents, tho failure of discipline among the mechanicians, the committees of enquiry, the results of whose investigations ore buried in the necropolis of Ministerial Blue Books? . . . We aro now in the third rank of naval Powers; to-morrow we shall rank to the fourth or fifth, •and nobody soenis to care anything about it." Tho Commission which enquired into the Jena disaster found that administrative anarchy reigned in tho service, and declared that the system of irresponsibility and general indifference would cause other disasters.