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Show x oo THE PORTUGUESE NAVY. Tho statement in current dally Journals that the British minister to Portugal Is urging upon tho now republic re-public "as aurally" the reorganization of her navy to tho tune of $50,000,000 deserves, i'f authentic, tho serious attention at-tention of thetato department at Washington. No attempt is made to drape the advice in weeds of disinterestedness. disin-terestedness. The condition that all i tho money to bo spent with British , naval contractors follows logically and i is clearly expressed. I Only a moment's consideration Is I required to get lo the inwardness of this now move.. In England the big shipbuilders stand in a peculiar relation re-lation to tho , government. While avowodly private concerns, their expansion ex-pansion and outlay on new plnnt has to bo governed by the demand likely to be made upon them by the admiralty admiral-ty In times of national emergency. The exact profit made by them upon battleship construction Is Jealously ' guarded, but It Is no secrot that. I whatever the profit may be, it is scrl-I scrl-I ously offset by the upkeep of empty stocks and Idle machinery when n period of strcssti.". construction Is temporarily ocr. A fat foreign contract Is, therefore, there-fore, an eminently desirable thing, and when obtained for them through diplomatic pressure amounts to a thinly veiled system of subvention In tho first place, it keeps tho yards busy; in the second, it provides, without with-out burdening the estimates at all, a reserve of battleships In course of completion which in time of danger no ono doubts for u moment will bo transferred at a stroke of the pen to tho British navy. Its adantages to a country which Is already overloaded with taxes and needs money soreU for Internal development de-velopment along remunerative lines Is not in question now. Portugal is a free and sovereign power, and If she judges an armada of four or five Dreadnoughts essential to her peace and security, not even Andrew Carnegie Car-negie has a right to say her nay. Boston Horald fin |