"King of the Sea"

Frenchmen, girding themselves to defend their franc and keep it on gold, feel they have need of every weapon. They know that they possess Western Europe's most potent army. Last week their Navy Minister, pompous Georges Leygues, drew deafening Paris cheers with a speech which made British naval experts chuckle.

"The French Navy is second to none!" crowed Minister Leygues. "It can compete at present with the most powerful foreign navy. ... As regards cruisers we shall soon have the Dunkerque, which foreign admiralties agree already must be considered the world's most powerful capital ship. . . . Whether it be in mine layers, mine sweepers, submarines, light or heavy cruisers we possess ships equal if not superior to those of Britain, America or Japan. . . . The Dunkerque will be a veritable King of the Sea!"

Clearly Minister Leygues, after all only a landlubber, had let his imagination run riot. When Germany startled the world with her "pocket battleships," none of which mounts more than an 11-in. gun (TIME, June 1, 1931). France retorted by laying down the "super-cruiser" Dunkerque which is expected to take the line next year. Mounting 13.2-in. guns and with a speed several knots faster than Germany's "pocket battleships," the Dunkerque is perhaps the most efficient and potentially destructive war boat in the world. France also possesses a high proportion of new submarines and superspeed destroyers. But the French Navy, as every French naval expert knows, is no match for any one of the world's "Big Three" navies, so rashly disparaged by Landlubber Leygues.

Nimbly last week in the China Sea the French dispatch boats Alerte and Astrolabe planted the French flag on five minute islands midway between Indo China and the Philippines which the French Foreign

Office declared to be "previously unclaimed by any nation." A few placid Chinese, fishing from the islands for turtles, did not dispute the French seizure. Three years ago France acquired by similar means and has since held Tempest Island, also in the China Sea.

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