12 MARCH 1910, Page 3

The Navy Estimates for 1910.11 were issued on Wednesday, and

show a net increase of nearly five and a half millions, or a total of £40,603,700. The numbers required for manning the Fleet are a hundred and thirty-one thousand as against a hundred and twenty-eight thousand last year. New con- struction will cost £13,279,830 against £8,885,194 in 1909-10, and of this amount £11,850,790 will be spent on the-continua- tion of work on ships already under construction, and £1,429,040 for beginning work on ships of the new programme now announced for the first time, and independent of the supplementary programme of the current year. This new programme will consist of five large armoured ships, five protected cruisers, twenty destroyers, and a number of submarines, estimated to cost three-quarters of a million in all. "During the current year five battleships, two un- armoured cruisers, nine destroyers, six first-class torpedo- boats, and sixteen submarines will have been completed; and on April 1st next there will be under construction seven battleships, three armoured cruisers, nine protected cruisers, two unarmoured cruisers, thirty-seven torpedo-boat destroyers, and.nine submarines. Two large floating docks, capable of making any war vessel now building or likely to be designed, have been ordered, and will be completed during 1911."