The truth, the correspondent explains, is as follows. The German
Navy Act of 1900 does not fix expenditure for ten or for any other number of years ahead. It provides that the necessary funds for carrying out the law are to be set down year by year in the Estimates. A Resolution of the Reichstag in 1900 determined what proportion—a very different thing from amount—of naval expenditure was to be regarded as ordinary expenditure, and the remainder was to be met out of loan. The Act was revised in 1906, and again in 1908. According to the provisional calculation of 1906, the Estimates for 1909 and 1910 combined were to show an increase of 8,000,000 marks. Now that the Estimate for 1910 has appeared, however, it is found actually to provide, in combination with the 1909 Estimate, for an increase of 35,300,000 marks. It is quite wrong, therefore, to speak of the increase in this Estimate as having been settled ten years ago. A programme of construction indeed is determined on in advance, but the expenditure is a matter of secondary con- sideration. The amount of the Bill is announced year by year as it falls due. The German Navy Laws are thus absolutely elastic in all financial respects. Could one have a better proof of the determination of Germany ?
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