Naval Supremacy : Who? By A. M. Laubeuf. (Siegle, Hill.
and Co. ls.)—This is an excellent summary by an able French. man of the naval situation of the day. 14f. Laubeuf has the gift of his countrymen for expressing ideas and facts clearly, putting them in a small compass, and last, but not least, in literary form. He first takes the German and English Fleets and the battleships 'Dreadnought' and the 'Bayern,' and says of the latter: "It is a bad method, when wishing to pass beyond any one, to follow behind him." The real answer to a 'Dreadnought,' he remarks, would have been a "swift armoured ship " of twenty-five thousand tons and twenty-two knots, and he declares that they will be built —ho does not say by whom—before 1915. In the second half of the pamphlet he discusses the probable contest for the Pacific between America and Japan. He has a poor opinion of the personnel of the American Navy, though he admits the inconclusiveness of such a war, which would be confined to the sea. One remark that he makes is profoundly true. " England loses by the appearance of a new type of battleship." His suppositions as to what may occur, and what line we may take to preserve our naval supremacy, are interesting, because the unexpected does happen, and there are other points of view than ours. Here and there are phrases which, permissible in Le Heir, are hardly dignified in a dis- passionate discussion,—" mercenary troops," " hereditary foes ; but these do not impair M. Laubeuf's able statement of his two problems.
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