“Most well-informed people have a pretty clear general idea that the present is an era of unexampled naval activity throughout the civilized world; that great fleets are building everywhere; that the ships composing them are of new types, representing the highest development of naval architecture and the most exquisite refinement of the art of naval armament. Doubtless, a much smaller number of persons are aware that a new factor of imposing proportions has come into the general situation; that the newest member of the family of civilization is with rapid strides reaching a status of actual and potential sea power with which the older nations must henceforth reckon most seriously. “It is, however, questionable whether any one not intimately conversant with the current history of modern ship-building, or not qualified to estimate properly the relative values of actual armaments, can adequately conceive the vast significance of the prodigious efforts which this youngest of civilized nations was then, and still is, successfully putting forth toward the quick and sure attainment of commanding power on the sea. “In order to estimate accurately the significance of the current naval activity of Japan, it is requisite to trace briefly her prior development as a maritime power. “The foundation of the Japanese navy was laid by the purchase of the Confederate ram ‘Stonewall,’ built in France in 1864, surrendered to the United States in 1865, and shortly afterward sold or given to Japan. This ship was soon followed by another of somewhat similar type, built at the Thames Iron Works in 1864-65, now borne on the Japanese navy list as the ‘Riojo,’ and used as a gunnery and training ship. “From that time to the period of the Chinese War the naval growth of Japan was steady, and, considering her very recent adoption of Western methods, rapid. “At the beginning of that war, Japan, though possessing a very respectable force of cruisers and gunboats, mostly of modern types and advanced design, had no armored ships worthy of the name. The old ‘Stonewall’ had been broken up, the ‘Fu-So,’ the ‘Riojo,’ the ‘Heiyei,’ and the ‘Kon-Go,’ built from 1865 to 1877, were obsolete, and the ‘Chiyoda,’ the only one of modern design and armament, was a small armored cruiser of 2450 tons, with a 4½-inch belt, and no guns larger than 4.7-inch caliber.