After the Emperor's accession to the throne in June, 1888, and after the reorganization of naval administration, an effort was made to obtain an increased grant from the Reichstag, but only with partial success. From 1874 to 1889-90 the naval expenditure had increased gradually from £1,950,000 to about £2,750,000. In 1890-91 the Estimates had advanced to nearly £3,600,000, and in the following year they rose still further to £4,750,000, and then they began to fall once more under the pressure of the Reichstag, which viewed with no sympathy the new naval ambitions which were finding expression in the Press. During these years the Reichstag repeatedly reduced the votes put forward by Admiral von Hollmann, the Minister of Marine. Throughout his period of office, from 1890 to 1897, he failed signally to inoculate the Parliamentary majority with the new ideas and the new enthusiasm which dominated the Marineamt; and at last in 1897, after being repulsed, first by the Budget Committee and then by the Reichstag itself, the Marine Minister, whose ambitions were really extremely modest, retired from the scene, compelled to admit defeat. He was a sailor and neither a statesman nor an administrator, and his blunt methods were not to the liking of the politicians. No surprise consequently was felt when three months after this final humiliation the Admiral resigned his office. One of the pioneers of German sea-power, Admiral von Hollmann began, under the inspiration of the Emperor, the naval movement which, a few years later, under the impulse that the Boer War imparted to public opinion, and with the help of an elaborate Press Bureau, was carried to such lengths by his successor.