This dramatic departure in German naval policy aroused hardly a ripple of interest in England. Then occurred the South African War, the seizure of the “Bundesrat,” and other incidents which were utilised by the German Emperor, the Marine Minister, and the official Press Bureau, with its wide extending agencies for inflaming public opinion throughout the German Empire against the British Navy. The ground having been well prepared, in 1900 the naval measure of 1898, which was to have covered a period of six years, was superseded by another Navy Act, practically doubling the establishment of ships and men. This is not the time, nor does space permit, to trace the evolution of German naval policy during subsequent years or to analyse the successive Navy Acts which were passed as political circumstances favoured further expansion. The story--and it is a fascinating narrative in the light of after events--may be read elsewhere. The fact to be noted is that the British peoples generally viewed the early indications of German naval policy without suspicion or distrust. Most men found it impossible to believe that any Power could hope to challenge the naval supremacy which had been won at such great sacrifice at the Battle of Trafalgar, and which the British people had continued to enjoy virtually without challenge throughout the nineteenth century. Happily, the hour when preparations had to be made, if made at all, to maintain in face of any rivalry our sea command, produced the man. In the autumn of 1901 Lord Selborne, then First Lord of the Admiralty, paid a special visit to Malta to discuss the naval situation with a naval officer with whose name not a thousand people in the British Isles were then familiar. Sir John Fisher had, as recently as 1899, taken over the command of the Mediterranean Squadron; he had already made a great name in the service as a man of original thought and great courage, possessing a genius for naval politics and naval administration. He had represented the British Navy at the Hague Peace Conference, but he might have walked from end to end of London, and not a dozen people would have recognised him. In the following March, thanks to Lord Selborne, he became Second Sea Lord, and a naval revolution was inaugurated. Elsewhere I have recapitulated the remarkable Navy of the renaissance of British sea power.[2] [2] _Fortnightly Review_, September, 1914.