New building for American, British, French,German and Japanese navies according to the Dutch newspaper Sumatra-courant dated 8 June 1898

An item dealing with the still increasing strength of the Japanese navy wondered for which purposes this was done. Despite the already strong fleet were millions spent for new building. A second question was why Japan needed as fast as possible 900 torpedoes ordered by the torpedo plant at Fiume. For the British Royal Navy were at that moment 3 battleships of more as 15.000 tons and 3 armoured cruisers 1^st class of about 10.000 tons and further more 8-316 ton destroyers with a speed of 31 miles under construction. For France were 1-9.450 ton armoured cruiser 1^st class and 8-4.227 tons armoured cruisers 2^nd class under construction, in Germany 1-9.800 tons armoured cruiser 1^st class and finally in the USA 2-circa 5.000 tons armoured cruisers 2^nd class.