Frankly, between the two acquisitions, there is no hesitation possible.

Finally, if we must say so, we do not think that foreign powers, when they
believe it their duty to provide themselves with _materiel_ of great
caliber, will think of supplying themselves from the Essen works, on
account of the memorable accidents due to the imperfection of guns coming
from this celebrated establishment. The list of burstings that have
occurred, not only in Germany, but also in Russia, Bohemia, Italy, Turkey,
and Roumania, is already a long one. To speak here only of what occurred
in France in 1870-71, it is certain that out of seventy German guns of
large caliber in battery against the southwest front of the wall of Paris,
thirty-six--say more than half--were put out of service during the first
fifteen days of the bombardment, and that too through firing merely; and it
was the opinion of Mr. De Moltke himself that the German siege batteries
would have been reduced to silence, had the defenders been able to hold out
for a week longer. It is equally certain that, during the course of the
Loire campaign, eighty guns of Prince Frederick Charles' were put out of
service by the sole fact of their firing. Summing up the history of these
many accidents, the Duke of Cambridge asserted to the House of Lords (April
30, 1876) that _two hundred_ Krupp guns burst during the Franco-German war.
Have the engineers of the Essen works improved their processes of
manufacture since that epoch? It is permissible to doubt it, seeing that,
very recently, the Italian navy refused to take from Mr. Krupp some 15½
inch guns whose tubes were but very imperfectly welded.

Must the numerous accidents mentioned be attributed to defects in the metal
employed? Were they due to defective hooping? Were they due to some one of
the numerous inconveniences inherent to the cylindrico-prismatic system of
closing (_Rundkeilverschluss_)?