Foreign Alliances.

Austria-Hungary and Italy, although not of themselves very important in regard to naval matters, become so when we take into consideration their alliance with Germany. This Triple Alliance makes the first mentioned powers of great importance from a naval point of view, particularly to the British. Their combined navies of 390,000 tons, together with the ships they are having built, which aggregate 95,000 tons more, when added to Germany's naval strength, give the alliance control of war vessels, actually built, having a capacity of 860,000 tons, and the future use of an additional 215,000 tons now in the course of construction.

Again the dual alliance between France and Russia gives these combined Powers war ships of a total capacity of 850,000 tons; while another 310,000 tons are already being built.

Of course the alliance between Great Britain and Japan, confirmed last year, gives these Powers a vast preponderance over any other probable or perhaps possible combination; but for all that it must be remembered that Germany is in deadly earnest, and is apparently taking her programme of naval expansion much more seriously than is any of the other Powers. It is Germany, moreover or a combination engineered by Germany, that Great Britain has more particularly to guard against.