It was by such arguments that Admiral von Tirpitz justified his demand that the strength of the fleet, the date at which it should attain that strength, and the age at which each ship should be automatically replaced by a new one, should be fixed by legal enactment. No portion of his Bill was more hotly contested than this. It was objected that, by accepting it, the Reichstag would be depriving itself of a considerable portion of that power of the purse which constituted the only effective bulwark of its rights. But in the end the smiling and imperturbable patience of Admiral von Tirpitz gained the day, and the Reichstag satisfied itself with the formal right of drawing the absolutely unavoidable conclusions from its own enactment and passing every year the naval estimates, which could not be rejected without an infraction of the law. The repeated sections in the Act of 1898 which appear to reserve the Chamber's Budget rights, are, in reality, meaningless and valueless--except as a monument to the folly of those who believed they had a meaning and a value. Admiral von Tirpitz apparently drew from his first legislative experience the perfectly correct conclusion that the Reichstag can be made to do almost anything if one only treats it in the right way. In the explanatory Memorandum attached to the Bill, Admiral von Tirpitz was able to adduce two convincing reasons why the fleet should at once be considerably augmented. One of these was the fact that Germany's naval strength had in recent years actually diminished. In case of mobilization, it was pointed out, she would have had only seven efficient battleships, whereas she had once had fourteen. Of the armoured cruisers which had been adopted in other navies for foreign service in times of peace, she did not possess a single example, and their work had to be done by three antiquated battleships. Moreover, to the tasks allotted to the fleet in the Memorandum of 1873, another of great importance had been added--namely, the defence of Germany's newly-acquired colonial empire. Further, it was contended that the growth of the Empire's population, trade, and industry, the development of her sea-fisheries, and the increasing investment of German capital abroad, had all added to the possibilities of her becoming involved in quarrels with other nations. The fleet which Admiral von Tirpitz considered necessary to fulfil the old and the new sea requirements of the Empire was as under: The Battle Fleet. 19 battleships (2 as material reserve). 8 armoured coast-defence vessels. 6 large cruisers. 16 small cruisers. Foreign Service Fleet. _Large Cruisers._ For East Asia 2 For Central and South America 1 Material reserve 3 -- Total 6 _Small Cruisers._