Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1897-07-14
NEW NAVY OF JAPAN.
Vessels Building in This Country and
In Great Britain.


| In Great Britain.
| From the New York Herald
In discussing the probable annexation of
the Hawaiian Islands by the United States
one OF the London evening newspapers re-
| Gently made the assertion that Japan's
| navy was greatly superior TO ours.
Both powers have been making impor-
| tant additions to their fleets in The last
| two or three years. and perhaps the En-
| giish editors opinion was based upon the
| ohlted states navy as IL in 1881 a s
compared with the Japanese navy in 1sa5
| Japan's armored vessels ready or nearly
| ready for service are TWO battle ships the
| 1ashima and the Full, nearly completed in
| Engiand: battle ship. the Chinyen. cap
| tcred IRON China: turreted cruisers, the
| ltsukushima, the Matsushima. the Hashi-
| GATE. the Saiyen and the Heiyen; armorei
corvette, the Fuse, and steel bel:ed cor
| vettes. the Hi-Yei the Kongo and the
Riojo.
Among the protected cruisers of the Jap
| anese navy Of more than 1000 tons dis
placement are the Yoshino, the NaniNa
the Takachiho. the Suma the Akitslshima
the Chiyoda. the Heiyen. the Akashhi and
the Izumi. Smaller craft having dis
Placement between LOCO and 2.ooo tons.
the Takao. the Yayeyama, the Tsukushi
the katsursgi. the Musashi and the VA
mato.
TWO battle ship contracts have recently
bceh itt Dy Japan-One Tor q I,Ssb-tOn
Eship to the Thames iron works. England
and one for 11.0N-tcn ship to the Nessrs
| Thompson, Glasgow. Also two cruisers like
the sfoshiro have been begun In this coun-
try. ii Will be at least two years before
these four vessels will be ready for service
The 11.Ooo-ton ship. ii is said. will he re-
production of the British battle shin Jupi-
ter but as the latter has displacement of
li,Ho tons. there must be mistake in the
reported tonnage of the Japanese vessel.
The other battle ship building on the
l-Thames is to have displacement of Il so
tons, a length of f3S feet over all and 400
feet between the perpendiculars. n beam
of % feet inches and draught of % feet
3 inches. She will have a continuous wa
ter line belt of armor nine inches thick
and eight feet two inches deep abreast of
her vitals tapering to a thickness of four
| inches at the bow and stern. protected
deck covers her underwater body. having
a thickness of three inches on the fiat and
nVe inches on the slopes. The barbette and
the transverse armor will be fourteen
inches thick. Her battery will contain four
twelve-inch breech-loading guns and eight
six-inch rapid-frers. with twenty twelve
| Founders and twelve forty-seven-m illimeter
machine guns She is to be finished in
June, 1899
Taking the ships Japan has available Tor
immediate service it will be seen that her
| ravy is inferior to ours.
Against one old-fashioned and two mol
ern battle ships-the Chinyen. the Iashima
and the Futi-the United States could
diana, the Massachusetts. the Oregon and
the Iowa.
The second-class battle ships, the Maine
and the Texas. and the powerful coast de-
Tenders. the Puritan. the Monterey, the
Miantonomoh. the Terror the Amphitrite
| ard the Monadnock and the armored cruis-
ers, the New York and the Brooklyn. would
be able to chase and capture the remaining
poorly armored craft of Japan's navy, with
little or no risk to themselves.
In like manner, the Olympia. the Balt-
more. the Philadelphia. the Chicago, the
San Francisco. the Newark. the Charles
ton. the Columbia, the Minneapolis, the
Cincinnati. the Raleigh. the Boston and
the Atlanta would far outclass the Japa-
nese vessels of the cruiser type.
For the remaining smaller vessels of the
Japanese navy we should have the Detroit,
the Marblehead. the Montgomery. the
Yorktown, the Bennington. the Concord,
the Castine. the Machias. three gunboats
of the Helena class and five of the An
napolis type.
II our friends in England imagine that
the Japanese navy is superior to ours they
must be woefUlly ignorant of our recent
progress.