The new battleships under construction will be 660 feet long, with displacement of 43,200 tons, with an extreme breadth of 105 feet and a mean draft of 33 feet. Engines developing 60,000 horse-power will drive them at a speed of 23 knots. Their twelve 16-inch guns will be mounted in four turrets, which revolve so that all can be fired simultaneously to either side of the vessel. In a single salvo these guns will throw 25,000 pounds of projectiles. In every way they outclass any ships of the line ever built. The six battle-cruisers will be larger than any warships heretofore constructed. Each will have 43,500 tons displacement, practically the same as the battleships, but will be longer by over 200 feet, their length being 874 feet, and they will be ten knots faster, making 33-1/4 knots, 38 miles an hour. No less than 180,000 horse-power is required to drive these immense vessels through the water. Their engines will develop as much electric power as is required to supply a good-sized city. The six battle-cruisers will have a total of 1,080,000 horse-power. Each will be armed with eight 16-inch guns, firing 16,800 pounds of projectiles. The weight of metal is not, however, nearly as important in gunfire as is the range. The guns of our battle-cruisers will easily outrange those of any ships now afloat. Both battleships and battle-cruisers will be propelled by electric drive, the new method which, first installed on the _New Mexico_, proved its superiority, and was adopted for all our later major vessels. With the completion of these eighteen capital ships, together with the scout cruisers and other types under construction, the Navy of the United States will be at least "equal to the most powerful maintained by any other nation of the world." That was the goal in view when the big three-year program proposed in 1915 was adopted by Congress in the act of August 29, 1916, to which, when this program is completed, the Navy will owe its supremacy. It is a matter of gratification that the United States, which brought forth the steamship, the ironclad monitor, the torpedo boat, the aeroplane, the flying boat, has again taken the lead in naval construction and will soon have the most powerful of all armadas. This country should keep that position for all time until--and unless--with a powerful navy and great national wealth, the United States succeeds in securing an international agreement to reduce armament. The very act making possible our supremacy on the seas, declared it to be the "policy of the United States to adjust and settle its international disputes through mediation and arbitration"; authorized the President to invite a conference of all the great governments to formulate a plan of arbitration and "consider the question of disarmament"; and declared that the ships authorized but not already under contract were not to be built if international reduction of armament could be secured.