Page:An Adequate Navy - The Navy League of the United States (1916).pdf/7

 cient. It advocates that the laws be amended so as to give to whoever our statesmen may name full authority, and to place upon their shoulders at the same time full responsibility.

To be efficiently administered the Navy must be economically run. At the present time it is most extravagantly conducted. This statement is not made as an accusation of any officer or official. Under present laws and present organization, every official is doing his utmost to be fair and economical with public funds, but the difficulty is substantially that already discussed. There is no man and no board endowed with authority and charged with responsibility for results.

By reference to the Government's own publication, "The Navy Year Book," one will find that from 1900 to 1915 we expended on our Navy $1,656,000,000, in round figures, while the Germans expended $1,250,000,000. Allowing for the difference of prices for material and labor in the two countries, we should have had a Navy substantially equal to theirs, but the facts are these:

(a) She had a tonnage, built and building, 1,304,000 tons, against our 894,000 tons.

(b) She had 320 great naval guns on her ships, against our 224.

(c) Instead of being the second naval power, the President himself fixed our position as fourth.

Naval officers are not trained business men. It is doubtful whether they could remedy all these defects of administration