5 MARCH 1864, Page 21

CURRENT LITERATURE.

Dockyard Economy and Naval Power. By P. Barry. (Sampson Low, Son, and Co.)—The author has for some time, as he informs us, written on naval subjects for the Morning Herald, and his theory is that our war vessels should all be built in private yards. This theory is natu- rally pleasing to the shipbuilders, and they seem to have promised Mr. Barry to take a certain number of copies, but at least one of his supporters had the good taste, oh seeing the first part of his book, to decline to have anything further to do with it, on the ground that there was "so much entirely undeserved personal abuse of the dockyard officers," so many "entirely false charges against individuals," and that "the style of the whole is so scurrilous." This letter the author prints, and it is a very fair criticism on his book. The truth of the matter we believe to be that Government ought to make nothing which can be bought ready made in the market, but that everything which the pur- chaser must order from the manufacturer is better, though not more cheaply, done in the Government yards. Waste will always be the fault of public institutions, but reckless abuse will do nothing to check it, and Mr. Barry has really no other remedy to offer. The photographs attached to the book are very bad, and were, we think, quite unneces- sary. All engine-rooms are alike in a picture, and they are not beauti- ful.