As to next Session, Mr. Goschen anticipates extending Local Government
to Scotland and a revision of the Navy as the chief constructive features of the coming campaign. -He thought that a great deal of the dissatisfaction with our Navy is not justified, and is simply due to the fact that it takes time to build improved ships, and that while they are building, invention goes ahead of them, and suggests all sorts of further improvements, so as to make even the newest ships seem " obsolete " as soon as they are ready. Even if a general European disarmament cannot be brought.about,-Mr. Goschen suggested that "a disarmament of inventors" would be a very great gain in preventing periodic panics. Inventors get so much in advance of builders, that they produce a general disbelief in the Navy ; while the malcontents forget that the same applies to foreign navies, and that the most recent con- structions there, too, are pronounced obsolete as soon as they are finished. All that is very true ; but Mr. Goschen should not forget that, according to the best authorities, the guns and armaments of our ships are never nearly as ready for service as the ships themselves, and that a Navy which had at the last moment to wait for its armaments would he a Navy not worthy of the name.
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