30 MAY 1891, Page 2

In the course of his speech, Sir W. Harcourt took

credit for having spent more on the Army and Navy in one year of his own reigli at the Treasury than any other Government out of the Estimates of the year, to which Mr. Gosohen replied that though he might have spent more out of the Estimates of the year, he had not spent it to very good effect, since he pur- .chased the guns but did not purchase the ammunition needful to make the guns of any use ; on the contrary, the then .Government,—and Mr. Goschen suspected that Sir William Harcourt had had a great hand in it,—struck out the charge for ammunition, although the guns had been ordered. To this Sir W. Harcourt had no reply. Yet no expedient for reducing the year's expenditure was ever more dangerous or misleading to the country than that.