"_The title proposed for the new office:_ DIVISION OF STRATEGY AND OPERATIONS, _covers very completely the ground that I have in mind. As standing for Strategy this Division would plan what to do; and as standing for Operations, it would direct the execution of its plans. It would correspond more or less closely with the General Staff of the Army and the First Sea Lord of the British Admiralty, whose duties are thus defined:_ "1._ Preparation for war: All large questions of naval policy and maritime warfare--to advise._ 2. _Fighting and seagoing efficiency of the fleet, its organization and mobilization, including complements of ships as affecting total numbers, system of gunnery and torpedo exercises of the fleet, and tactical employment of air-craft, and all military questions connected with the foregoing; distribution and movements of all ships in commission and in reserve._ 3. _Superintendence of the War Staff and the Hydrographic Department._" * * * * * HOW MONEY APPROPRIATED FOR THE NAVY IS WASTED George von Lengerke Meyer, former Secretary of the Navy, has many times in recent years called attention to the fact that a large proportion of the money appropriated for the upbuilding and up-keep of our Navy has been misapplied to the building and up-keep of useless navy yards. During the first fifteen years of the present century, we spent $1,656,000,000 on our Navy, while during the same period Germany spent $1,137,000,000. Notwithstanding the fact that during this period Germany spent 31 per cent. less money on her navy than we did on ours, she has a more powerful navy than we have. This difference represents a sum of more than half a billion of dollars. With that amount of money we could have built two super-dreadnoughts a year, for the past fifteen years, costing $15,000,000 each, with $60,000,000 to spare for battle-cruisers, destroyers, and submarines. In short, had we spent our naval appropriations as economically as have the Germans during the past fifteen years, we might have had thirty more battleships than we now have, all super-dreadnoughts of the _Queen Elizabeth_ type, the latest and most powerful pattern. This number of up-to-date super-dreadnoughts would have far more than doubled the battle strength of our Navy. We should have out-classed England in battleship strength. The following facts are so pregnant and so important and so ably expressed that I can do no better than to give them in Mr. Meyer's own words: * * * * * "_Until within a few years no naval appropriation could pass the Senate which did not meet the sanction of both a Northern and Southern Senator, each of whom was a member of the Committee on Naval Affairs. It is interesting, in consequence, to analyze some of the appropriations between 1895 and 1910._