Mr. Gladstone spoke at Hastings on Tuesday afternoon, in the
Gaiety Theatre there, to as large an audience as the build- ing could contain. He was hearty in his praise of Lord Salisbury's foreign policy, but very severe on Mr. Gosehen's finance, which he accused of being uncandid, and of violating the best principles of finance in the mode in which it had recently applied money to the reconstruction of the Navy, by voting the supplies for seven years, instead of year by year. He charged Mr. Goschen's surplus last year with being an imaginary surplus, on the ground that if he had not distri- buted the preliminary outlay on the new naval plans over seven years, but charged the whole of that preliminary outlay on the first year, there would have been a deficiency of a million, instead of a surplus of three and a half millions. If, he said, the House of Commons were to part with the power of voting public money year by year, the liberties of English- men would soon be worth very little. He further accused the Government of so rendering the account as to try to conceal the total expenditure on the Navy in the year, and said that he would rather see five millions wasted, than one million spent without the guarantee of perfect publicity. He was very bitter on the seven-years scheme for the reconstruction of the Navy, eccentrically likening it to the folly of a lady who should order a supply of bonnets for seven years all at one time, without regard to the changes of fashion. Apparently Mr. Gladstone regards a first-class battle-ship as a structure requiring no longer time to put together than a fashionable bonnet.
