In 1908 the naval officers numbered 493 and the petty officers and seamen nearly 6,000. There has been constructed at Belgrano, about 27 miles from Bahia Blanca, a naval port which will admit of the docking of vessels of 12,000 tons. In 1908 the cost of the army and fleet was £1,849,300. But in the future Argentina, like most other countries, will have to bear a heavier burden, for a scheme is being carried out which, it is hoped, will be completed in five years and will cost about seven million sterling. The new vessels will consist of three battleships of 15,000 tons each, nine destroyers, and twenty-one torpedo boats, as well as several vessels for harbour defence. In the course of a few years, therefore, Argentina will have a fairly powerful fleet. That there is any risk of a conflict between Brazil and Argentina no one believes. In both countries the same opinion is invariably expressed that as one country is building warships, it is necessary for the other to follow suit, and that though there is some jealousy there is little animosity and no material whatever for quarrel or any probability of war. It may be added that Argentina, at any rate, is well able to bear the extra burden, that it is for many reasons desirable that the principal South American States should possess some naval strength, and that an adequate fleet will add to the weight and dignity of Argentina in the councils of South America. For example, the decision of Argentina in the recent Peruvian-Bolivian arbitration case might have been repudiated by Bolivia and the insult to the Argentine Legation at La Paz might have been condoned, had Argentina been weak; and thus it was proved once more that it is strength and not weakness that preserves peace. In this case, of course, the fleet does not enter into the question, as Bolivia, like Bohemia, has no sea-coast, but the people of Argentina deserve every credit for the efforts and sacrifices which they are making to secure an efficient army and navy, and, in all probability, the money will be handsomely repaid merely in the matter of preservation from costly wars. In foreign affairs the present policy of the Republic is creditable as, on the whole, the past has been.