At this point it becomes necessary to take up a new branch of the general subject, which is that of foreign work. [Illustration: MEDI-J-IEH LAUNCHING—TURKISH Copyright, 1904, by John W. Dawson] While the correspondence with the authorities of the Russian government above referred to was going on, our Minister at Tokio, Mr. Dunn, called the attention of the Japanese government to the fact that their expenditure of vast sums of money on a new navy in England principally, and also in France and Germany on a smaller scale, was well known; and in a diplomatic way he suggested that some of that kind of patronage bestowed upon the ship-building interests in the United States would be extremely gratifying to the American people. He also thought that the popularity of such a project in this country would be made universal if part of the proposed patronage should be awarded to the Atlantic and part to the Pacific coast. Minister Dunn’s suggestion was taken up by the American Trading Company in the Orient, and their joint advocacy of the scheme was crowned with success. Acting upon intimation of such a suggestion, the Cramp Company and the Union Iron Works of San Francisco sent agents to Japan, and when they returned, contracts were made with the Japanese Minister Toru Hoshi, representing the Imperial Government, and the two ship-building companies above mentioned. The ship built by Cramp is now known in the Japanese navy list as the “Kasagi,” and that built by the Union Iron Works of San Francisco as the “Chitose.” Up to that time the Japanese navy had been built almost exclusively in England, and with unimportant exceptions wholly by Armstrong. Of the vessels which won the naval battles on the Yellow Sea in the Chino-Japanese War of 1894 almost all, with the exception of a few torpedo craft, were built by Armstrong & Company at Elswick.