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Show United States Unable to Keep Information From Foreign Military Staffs. Washington, Feb. 18. The British navy today is approximately twice as strong as tho combined fleets of Germany Ger-many and Austria, while the Teutonic combination has just about double the sea-fighting force of the United States, according to information in the possession pos-session of the navy department. The facts were disclosed to the house naval committee today by Captain Joslah McKean of tho staff of the chief of operations. Captain MoKean also said the French navy was from 15 to 25 per cent stronger than the American, according ac-cording to latest information. He explained ex-plained that these were rough estimates, esti-mates, and that charts showing the specific relations of the various navies would bo submitted later by Rear Admiral Ad-miral Benson, the chief of operations. So far a3 definitely known, the captain told the committee, the Japanese Japa-nese building program adopted several sev-eral years ago, and which will not be completed for several years to come, provides for a modern fleet of eight dreadnaughts and eight battle cruisers. cruis-ers. Ahead of Japan. It Is possible, ho added, that additional addi-tional building was in progress, as all-nations all-nations but the United States had secret se-cret building policies. On the strength of the known program, however, Captain Cap-tain McKean said Japan would have but sixteen capital ships when the seventeen American dreadnaughts built, building or authorized, were commissioned. The witness disagreed with Rear Admiral Grant, chief or submarine, who preceded him, as to tho advisability advisabil-ity of abandoning the present small submarino type in favor of 800-ton boats. He believed thirty of the large boats should be built and attached to tho fleets, but that smaller ones should operate from shoe bases established estab-lished at frequent intervals along the coasts. Neither the senate nor house military mili-tary committee considered preparedness prepared-ness measures today, tho house committee com-mittee having decided to take up the work Of adopting Its federalized national na-tional l uard bill nest Monday for conJ tinuous discussion until completed, while tho senate committee was diverted di-verted to other questions temporarily. Bill Too Sweeping. The house committee received, however, how-ever, a statement from Brigadier General Gen-eral William Crozier, chief of army ordnance, giving his views on the Tillman Till-man bill to prohibit the disclosure of military secrets. As drawn, General Crozier said, tho act was too sweeping and would forbid giving out information informa-tion of any character, whether confidential confi-dential or not. Ho thought this unwise. |