The Berlin Correspondent of the Times states that Herr von
Stoech, the late Minister of Marine, was suffered to resign because his new ironclads, upon which part of the French Indemnity was spent, were found unfit for service. The new Minister, General von Caprivi, has inquired into the matter, and it is found that a new double-screw gunboat built at Elbing could not move beyond Kiel, that the ironclad corvette Hansa' is about twice as slow as a trading steamer, and that five iron- clad corvettes of a new type, intended for Baltic service, and thirteen ironclad gunboats of 1,100 tons each, are almost entirely worthless. The German Navy, moreover, possesses no corvette which makes more than fourteen knots an hour, and no torpedo- boat making more than sixteen, though other nations possess boats making twenty. These statements have all been made in the Frankfurter Zeitung, and are, it is affirmed, substantially accurate, the root of the mischief being the determination of the Department to borrow and buy nothing from other countries, and to male its dockyards self-contained. The oddity of the matter is that Germans are excellent sailors, and their commer- cial marine ranks next after that of England. The merchants, it is true, do not entrust the control of their building-yards to a General of Infantry ; but then, it is to be presumed, he has. skilled professionals under him.
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