The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-12-26

The American. people are paying si0O 000 900 a year for the maintenance of their prestige on the high seas. If Congress follows the recommendations of the naval authorities. in ten years, or less, we win be paying twice as much. We now have twenty mine bat tleships built and building; two more have bean provided for and four are waiting No be launched of the Con- gressional ways. These make a total of thirty-ive. In tke next ten years the number will probably be brought up to forty, Based on the cost of maintaining a battIeship last year. this would require an annual outlay of s2s.000. 900 for battIeship maintenance.
 The Navy Department estimates that there ought to be at least one scout cruiser for every battleship FMs would mean an outlay of $4o,00o.oOO for construction. and perhaps Slb,OuV,- 900 a year for maintenance. Then the Nave Department figures that tbere ouRht to be four torpedo boat destroy CTS for every battleship. That would mean the construction of about i50 n addition to those we now have. Ths cost of constructing these would be about s7S.ee0, 900, and tue cost of main faining the entire 160 would be mose than $1200o.0o a year, and the assre. gate amount would be twice askgreat
 
 ation for the navy.
 But a navy built after this program would be one good to look upon Wei balanced as 1t Is possible for sea-poWer to be made. it could meet and over throw any conner. with the possiple exception of Great Britain When We consider the thousands of miles or ex- posed coast line, scattered In every sea. which that power must defend, America would have more than an sven chance Of making the British lion bite the dust of defeat third time. 1t seems that the American people are not worried about the add- ed expense a big navy may entail they appear to regard 1t as the cheap est insurance against foreign war that the United States can have. Even in a rural Alabama district Bank head went down before Hohson when the latter advocated a vast navy.
 The Navy Department wants Tour battleships this year, and will proba- blv want four each succeeding year for sorne time to come. And it wants shena to be of a kind which can give the Dreadnaught pointers in nEnI. It seems that all recent thought in naval circles tends toward the piggest possible ship. It is said that ten pat tleships of the North Dakota type' with a broadside fire of four f2-inch guns. eighty in all. would cost s10o.- 900. 1000. Twenty smaller vessels mounting no more than eighty big guns, would cost Sl30. 100000 to build i. The maintenance of the ten North Da- kotas would require about $t0,0o0.000 . year. and of the twenty smaller ships at least $15.000.G80. The North Dakota Ieet would require 5000 men and 200 officers to man it. The other would require 16,000 msn and 400 of- ficers.
 The relative efficieney of guns is . matter on which there is a wide diff ference of opinion. It will be recalled that 1t was the 13-inch, gun that told the tale during the Spanish-American war. Then other navies began to use the 12-fnch gun. taking the ground that 1t would penetrate the armor of a battleship as efficiently as a i3-inch she'll. Admiral Evans comedies the justice of that argument. but calls at tentfon to the difference of efficiency after the shell gets inside the armor. He says that 13-inch shell will hold eighty pounds of powder. while a 12- inch missile will hold but fifty, And he sets that lighting jaw of his in it's sternest notch as he contemplates what eighty pounds of high explosives would do to an enemy's ship when safely in- side its armor.
 Admiral Evans. Is in favor of the