The Progress of the World. 



463 



The total national expenditure of next year is thus 

 estimated to exceed the national Drink Bill for 1899. 

 The unappropriated surplus is 

 More another reminder of the inter- 



German Warships, fiepcndence of the nations. Eng- 

 land cannot spend her money until 

 she sees how Germany is going to spend hers. We 

 have not had long to wait. A fortnight after the 

 15udf;et came out the Navy Law Amendment Bill 

 was issued in Berlin, providing for a nett increase of 

 three battleships, three large cruisers, and three small 

 cruisers. Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg declared there 

 was no immediate menace, and rebuked alarmist 

 rumours. He was convinced that among the Great 

 Powers there was no Government which either desired 

 or was seeking to bring about a war with Germany. 

 But " their military strength was regarded as the 

 measure of their value as friends and allies, of their 

 importance as possible enemies, of the weight of their 

 opinion in international questions." So the weary 

 waste of increasing naval competition must go on. 

 As automatically as Germany increases her fleet, so 

 must we, holding faithfully to the formula of " two 

 keels to one." 



On this matter our chief speaks 

 his mind in an article just published 

 in the Neue Freie Presse of Vienna. 

 Mr. Stead wrote : — 



Those naval armaments are a real pest, and the irritation they 

 laiisc is militated only by the consolation that they are 

 approaching; an end. I am convinced that none of those 

 r)readnoui;hts or super-Dreadnoughts will ever fire one shot in 

 a real war. They are like the oppressive medieval armour 

 which was increasinjj in weight just when the invention was 

 approaching of gunpowder, which rendered that armour worth- 

 less. The airship and the aeroplane will ren<ler impossible 



Never to Fire 

 a Shot. 



Progress 



of 

 Aviation. 



the construction and repair of those leviathans. These new 

 machines will abolish frontiers, render fortresses untenable, and 

 destroy the ports where navies are armed. If ever a great 

 Kuropcan war should break out it will not be decided by 

 armies or navies, but by hunger ; by the millions of non-com- 

 batants who will be deprived of food by the stoppage of rail- 

 ways, ships, etc. 



The rapid advance of aviation has 

 been afresh advertised to the 

 world. On April i6th the English 

 Channel was crossed for the first 

 time by a woman aeroplanist. Women had crossed 

 as passengers before, but Miss Harriet Quimby, an 

 American airwoman, was the first to pilot an aero- 

 plane from English to French coast. This she did in a 

 Bleriot monoplane, covering the forty-mile distance 

 from Dover to Hardelot in forty minutes. Mr. Hamel 

 had previously passed from shore to shore in i2i 

 minutes. The Irish Channel has been crossed a second 

 time by flight. The Government scheme has been 

 published for establishing a Royal Flying Corps, with 

 naval and military sections, and with a school on 

 Salisbury Plain. The victory of the Henry Farman 

 hydro-aeroplane at Monaco, in rising from and alight- 

 ing on fairly rough sea. has set the Governments in 

 motion. H.M. battleship Iliberuia has put to sea with 

 four hydroplanes on board, and with special facilities 

 for launching the same. We hear that there are two 

 dirigibles on Italian w'arships at Stampalia, each 

 carrying twenty-four powerful bombs. 



May Day -sees the coming into 

 effect of the new scheme of organ- 

 isation of the Fleet. The changes 

 will be gradually introduced within 

 the next few weeks. Broadly outlined, the active 



Reorganisation 



of 



the Fleet. 



A Hydroplane Flying at Monte Carlo. 



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