It will be only an instance of the irony of fate if submarines come to be employed by Great Britain against France in the next great war, but the French writers who declare that England reaps where France has sown must remember that no nation can hope in these days to possess the monopoly of any one particular weapon of warfare. “We have seriously believed,” says a writer in the _Journal de la Marine_, “that in all the great modifications that have been brought about in the construction of submarines is the result of the important changes which the last fifty years of the century have produced in the art of naval warfare. All these changes have been sought out, experimented upon, studied, and finally realised by France, who has also been the first to apply them. These results have established in a brilliant and incontestable manner the skill of our engineers; but our rivals have not only appropriated the results of our labours, but they have not been slow to place themselves on equal terms with us, and finally to excel us in the application of these discoveries.... We have been only the humble artisans working for them to establish their superiority.” All this, it is added, is due to the industrial supremacy of England. France built a commerce-destroyer, _D’Entrecasteaux_, of 8,000 tons, and with a speed of 19 knots. She was to prey on English ships of commerce like a second _Alabama_. And Great Britain replied to the threat by building the _Powerful_ and the _Terrible_, each of 14,000 tons and 22 knots, and the efforts of France were thus brought to naught, and the _Journal_ wearily complains that, “It is easy for England to place three armed cruisers for service where we can only place one.” In the question of submarines Great Britain has pursued the same perfidious conduct. Very quietly the British sat still until France had done all the preliminary work of experiment and trial, and now, after something of the nature of a real engine for naval war has been produced by their engineers, Britain quietly steps in and begins at the point France had reached. “The English Government have not chosen to contribute by their own researches and work to upset a state of things to which the supremacy of the British Navy is due; the appearance of a boat which will plunge under the water and act on the offensive within a considerable radius of action has enlarged the question. At present all they wish is the protection of coasts and harbours.” But it was the intention of France to place herself in a position of offence towards England. “In the near future the types _Narval_ and _Holland_, being invisible enemies, would be in a position to operate against the English coasts and carry destruction into the midst of the naval forces which protect them. They would be able to seek and hunt out these same forces even in the harbours and roads where they are lying at anchor.”