Both the Army and Navy Estimates have been produced this
week, and very satisfactory they are. Mr. Childers, having no Horse Guards to bother him, can carry out his own policy, and his policy is to give us forty ironclad men-of-war, the largest, most powerful, and swiftest in the world ; 61,000 men, of whom 16,000 are marines ; and a reserve of 37,000 more, for 19,200,000 a year. He promises moreover, to build at the rate of 13,000 tons of armour-clad vessels a year until the fleet numbers sixty,—is superior, that is, to almost any possible combination of other fleets. He has reduced the "clerical" staff everywhere about a third, is gradually reducing the coastguard, which was doomed when the country accepted Free Trade ; is making every man work, turning out officers, for example, with a tendency to stick in har- bour; has a plan for compelling retirements on pension so as to secure younger and more efficient officers, which seems to please the Navy ; and has struck a hard blow at dockyard corruption by the plan described in another column. Finally, he ham greatly increased the aptitude of the service for battle by sending a Flying Squadron across the world, which will return thoroughly educated, by sending the coastguard ironclads to sea, and by laying down a general rule that a ship is in her place anywhere rather than in dock. All that sounds exceedingly well, and we only wish it had been possible to carry it all out with fewer dismissals of dock- yard hands. The perversity of the public upon that point seems incurable.
