ual to any in
the world, and at the torpedo station we are successfully making the
highest grades of smokeless powder. The first-class private shipyards
at Newport News, Philadelphia, and San Francisco are building battle
ships; eleven contractors, situated in the States of Maine, Rhode
Island, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, and the State
of Washington, are constructing gunboats or torpedo boats; two plants
are manufacturing large quantities of first-class armor, and American
factories are producing automobile torpedoes, powder, projectiles,
rapid-fire guns, and everything else necessary for the complete outfit
of naval vessels.

There have been authorized by Congress since March, 1893, 5 battle
ships, 6 light-draft gunboats, 16 torpedo boats, and 1 submarine torpedo
boat. Contracts for the building of all of them have been let. The
Secretary expresses the opinion that we have for the present a
sufficient supply of cruisers and gunboats, and that hereafter the
construction of battle ships and torpedo boats will supply our needs.

Much attention has been given to the methods of carrying on departmental
business. Important modifications in the regulations have been made,
tending to unify the control of shipbuilding as far as may be under the
Bureau of Construction and Repair, and also to improve the mode of
purchasing supplies for the Navy by the Bureau of Supplies and Accounts.
The establishment under recent acts of Congress of a supply fund with
which to purchase these supplies in large quantities and other
modifications of methods have tended materially to their cheapening and
better quality.

The War College has developed into an institution which it is believed
will be of great value to the Navy in teaching the science of war, as
well as in stimulating professional zeal in the Navy, and it will be
especially useful in the devising of plans for the utilization in case
of necessity of all the naval resources of the United States.

The Secretary has persistently adhered to the plan he found in operation
for securing labor at navy-yards through boards of labor employment, and
has done much to make it more complete and efficient. The naval officers
who are familiar with this system and its operation express the decided
opinion that its results have been to vastly improve the character of
the work done at our yards and greatly reduce its cost.

Discipline among the officers and men of the Navy has been