16 AUGUST 1902, Page 2

On Tuesday the German Emperor witnessed the launching of the

biggest ship afloat,—the new North German Lloyd steamship, Kaiser Wilhelm II.,' a vessel of twenty thousand tons and forty thousand horse-power. She will carry two thousand five hundred passengers, and be able to steam twenty-three and a half knots an hour. She will be at the dis- posal of the German Admiralty in case of war. No doubt she will act splendidly for the purposes for which she is built—. i.e., those of an ocean ferry-boat—but we greatly doubt her use in war. Remember what a terrible number of eggs are put into that one basket, and also how very few ports there are into which she will be able to put. She is designed to play only one part, but a cruiser to be really helpful in war must be able to be of " general utility."