There was a skirmish between Lord Salisbury and Lord Northbrook
in the House of Lords on Monday night. Lord Salisbury likes to make unprovoked attacks out of the House of Lords, but seems to be very much injured when they are answered in the House of Lords. In his speech at Devon- port he had intimated his fear that the Government were administering the Navy as badly as, in his judgment, they were administering Egypt. Lord Northbrook, therefore, stated in the House of Lords that at all events they are doing much more to strengthen the Navy in the department of the greatest importance than the late Conservative Administration did. Whereas in the six years between 1874 and 1880 the Conserva- tives laid down or bought eleven armour-plated ships, measuring 85,000 tons in all, against seventeen French armour-plated ships, measuring 128,000 tons in all,—and that with the aid of the vote of credit for six millions,—in the four years of the present Government the Liberal Adminis- tration has laid down eight armour-plated ships to four laid down by France in the same time. Lord Salisbury was, of course, very angry at being taken to task for his vague electioneering speech at Devonport, and intimated that he could not accept Lord Northbrook's statement without critically examining it, and that in any case it was no answer to a suggestion of incompetence to say that the opposite party had been more incompetent still. Perhaps not ; but if it had been granted at Devonport that the previous Government had been even more indifferent to the development of the Navy than the present Government, the electioneering effect of the statement would have been disastrous for the Conservative cause.
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