“The unarmored fleet, however, on which she had to rely, was for its total displacement equal to any in the world. It embraced three of the ‘Hoshidate’ class, 4277 tons and 5400 horse-power; two of the ‘Naniwa’ class, 3650 tons and 7000 horse-power, which had been considered by our Navy Department worth copying in the ‘Charleston;’ the ‘Yoshino,’ 4150 tons and 15,000 horse-power, and about fifteen serviceable gun-vessels from 615 to 1700 tons. All of the cruisers had been built in Europe, but most of the gun-vessels were of Japanese build, and represented the first efforts of the Japanese people in modern naval construction. “Among the results of the war was the addition of several Chinese vessels to the Japanese navy, including the battleship ‘Chen Yuen,’ of 7400 tons and 6200 horse-power, and the ‘Ping Yuen,’ armored coast defence ship, which had been captured by the unarmored cruisers of the Mikado. “At the end of the war Japan had forty-three sea-going vessels, displacing in the aggregate 79,000 tons, of which seven serviceable ships, with total displacement of 15,000 tons, were prizes. “The navy of Japan in commission at that time (1897) embraced forty-eight sea-going ships, of 111,000 tons displacement, and twenty-six torpedo boats. The five sea-going vessels, of 32,000 tons total displacement, which had been added since the war, represented the most advanced types of modern naval architecture, and included two first-class battleships of 12,800 tons each, the ‘Fuji’ and ‘Yashima.’ “The ship-building programme then in progress of actual construction was calculated to produce by the year 1903 a total effective force of sixty-seven sea-going ships, twelve torpedo-catchers, and seventy-five torpedo boats, with an aggregate displacement of more than 200,000 tons. “To the navy in commission or available for instant service, already described, Japan now adds, in plain sight under actual construction in various stages of forwardness, a new fleet vastly superior to it in power and efficiency. “Here I desire to say that the word ‘progress,’ in its conventional sense, does not adequately indicate the naval activity of Japan. The word implies continuity, by more or less even pace, in one of two directions, or in both; one direction is an increase in tonnage, with but little or no improvement in efficiency; and the other is a marked advance of new ships in all the elements of offence, defence, staying power, and economy. “The first condition of progress is represented by the present activity of most nations who are sailing along evenly and with self-approval in fancied superiority. The second condition is represented by Japan, who suddenly appears as a cyclone in a smooth sea of commonplace progress.