Reuter's Paris representative has issued an anticipatory version of the
Report of the Parliamentary Commission on the Navy. According to him, the Report justifies in great measure the hostile criticisms passed in Parliament and in the Press. During the last ten years France has spent over £120,000,000 on naval programmes, and Germany rather less, with this difference, however, that the two countries have exactly changed places as naval Powers, France dropping from second to fourth, and Germany rising from fourth to second. The chief ground for dissatisfaction is the absence of organisation in the Navy Department. Owing to the bad practice of ordering ships before the plans are completed, the cost of building the six battleships of the Dalton' type will amount to 50 per cent. more than the original estimate. This method also involves serious delay. The new Dantons ' are to be completed in 1911, but their guns will not be ready till 1914 or 1915, and many of them have been ordered without models ever being tested. Again, large stocks of shells of a type condemned three and a half years ago were still being manufactured last year, and nothing has been done to give effect to the reforms in this Department ordered by the Chamber and Senate after the' Iena ' disaster., Reuter's summary is admittedly premature, and not official,' but unfortunately there is little prospect of its proving to be an overstatement of the findings of the Commission.
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