Mr. Fuller's reply showed that he really knew nothing in
detail about the matter, but was relying on the vague asser- tions of Mr. Goschen's Parliamentary critics,—whereupon Mr. Goschen exhibited Mr. Fuller's blunders in all their enormity as charges of the most baseless kind against the honesty of the Budget statement, founded on nothing better than pure hearsay. We can cite only a specimen of Mr. Fuller's eager blunders,—the singular ignorance of his charge as to the sum borrowed to increase the Navy :—" You say that I borrowed £20,000,000 for the purpose of strengthening the Navy, and used some of it to make a surplus ;' and you actually refer to the Naval Defence Act as your authority for that statement. Clearly you can have done no more than read the title of the Act. It gave no authority whatever to borrow £20,000,000, but, with inexplicable recklessness, you not only point to the Act as if it authorised borrowing to that extent, but you also say that I have borrowed £20,000,000 under it. As a matter of fact, up to the end of the period you were reviewing, I had not borrowed £20,000,000 under it, but the modest sum of £696,000, as you would have seen stated in my Budget speech if you had read it." A man who makes blunders so gigantic in public controversy, on the strength only of his limitless ignorance of the very subject-matter of which he is talking, would not deserve notice were not , the constituencies almost or quite as ignorant as himself.
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