I therefore deem it advisable, as Admiral of the Fleet, to lay some facts before you to enable you to see clearly that it is absolutely nonsensical and untrue that the German naval bill is to provide a navy meant as a challenge to British naval supremacy. The German fleet is built against nobody at all; it is solely built for Germany's needs in relation with that country's rapidly growing trade. The German naval bill was sanctioned by the Imperial Parliament and published ten years ago, and may be had at any large bookseller's. There is nothing surprising, secret, or underhand in it, and every reader may study the whole course mapped out for the development of the German Navy with the greatest ease. Thirty to Forty Battleships in 1920. The law is being adhered to, and provides for about thirty to forty ships of the line in 1920. The number of ships fixed by the bill included the fleet then actually in commission, notwithstanding its material being already old and far surpassed by contemporary types. In other foreign navies the extraordinary rapidity with which improvements were introduced in types of battleships, armaments, and armor made the fleet in commission obsolete before the building programme providing additions to it was half finished. The obsolete fleet had to be struck off the list, thus leaving a gap, lowering the number of ships below the standard prescribed by the bill. This gap was stopped by using the finished ships to replace the obsolete ones instead of being added to them as originally intended. Therefore, instead of steadily increasing the standing fleet by regular additions it came to a wholesale rebuilding of the entire German Navy. Our actual programme in course of execution is practically only the exchange of old material for new, but not an addition to the number of units originally laid down by the bill of ten years ago, which is being adhered to. It seems to me that the main fault in the discussions going on in the papers is the permanent ventilating of so-called two to three or more power standard and then only exemplifying on one power, which is invariably Germany. It is fair to suppose that each nation builds and commissions its navy according to its needs and not only with regard to the programme of other countries. Therefore, it would be the simplest thing for England to say: "I have a world-wide empire and the greatest trade of the world, and to protect them I must have so and so many battleships, cruisers, &c., as are necessary to guarantee the supremacy of the sea to me, and they shall, accordingly, be built and manned."