BIGGEST WARSHIPS IN THE WORLD

New Zealand Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 6089, 22 December 1906, Page 4

BIGGEST WARSHIPS IN THE WORLD

JAPAN’S NAVAL PROGRAMME. If Dreadnoughts alone make naval superiority, the premier naval powerwi.l icon bo Japan. Not content with the two Dreadnoughts and four cruisers superior to their best ship m the,late iur, tfiu Japanese are about to begin a still more ambitions programme, which includes warships beside which tho Die-.d-noughc is quite a mild affair. The new battleships, one ot which was (o ho laid down when the Sateuma, was launched at tho end of October is ot 21,09.) toils as against the Dreadnought s js'ono Her armament consists of twelve 12-iucii of tho latest pattern, ten 6-incii. and twelve 4.7. Her speed will bo twenty knot,-' with turbine machinery. She is to ho built at Yokoinka. A second monster of the same sort 16 to bo laid down next year. V couple of enormous armoured cruisers will accompany these two, and preparaliuos for laying them down are in progresis at Kure. These will be the longest warships afloat, being designed for nearly .-,Boft. Thev will carry tour 12-inch, eight 10-inch, and a dozen 4.7-inc.h guns. Ac linrae-power, with turbines, will bo as high as 44.000, and the speed 25 knots. .AS regards the ships now m hand, one ballesliip of the Dreadnought class was launched lately and the other at tho end of the year. Of tho four cruisers, two are nearly completed; the two others are about a year behind. By 1008 Japan will possess six vessels of the Dreadnought category; that is to say, ol the same number ae Great Britain, and sto will hare four others building. The anxiety of all tho Powers to cultivate friendship with Japan has therefore a distinct explanation, for the ,-TJnited States will not have more than two completed, it that, and Germany not over three at of this naval activity, is in pursuance of the Japanese ideal— a. navy that no other fleet' in the world can attack with any prospect of success. By 19]0 any navy whatever would have little better chance of success _ than had Rozhdestvensky in 1905. This impresses on ns tho rise of Japan as a great Power more forcibly than anything else in her strange career. Yet only 11 years ago she possessed no fleet to speak of—merely some cruisers or which lew people had heard till the battle of the Yellow Sea. She was impotent when Russia, France, and Germany robbed her of the fruits of victory over China.