MR GOSCHEN ON THE NAVAL ESTIMATES M R. GOSCHEN'S reply to
the criticism of the Oppo- sition on his Naval Estimates was short, clear, and unanswerable. He disposed very easily of Sir William Harcourt's rather unwisely borrowed remark of Mr. Dis- :aeli's, that he could not criticise the Naval Estimates pro- perly till he knew the policy of the Government The policy of the Government, said Mr. Goschen, was to attack no one, but to be strong enough to resist attack from any quarter, if any attack should come. The Estimates depended, he remarked, on the Estimates of other Powers. They were Estimates intended to secure us against the zontingencies of events which had not taken place, but which might at any time take place. They were Estimates prepared deliberately before the alarms of December and January, and had not been increased under the influence of panic. But the alarms of December and January had shown us that these deliberate securities against attack had not been taken in any pessimist spirit, but had been wisely designed on the strength of reasonable forecasts of possible events. They were Estimates in keeping with the policy of preceding Governments, and not due to any sudden or spasmodic effort. In making them the Govern- ment were continuing to advance on the same line on which the policy of the late Government had been drawn out. It was not, we hold, a wise saying of Mr. Disraeli's, that you must know the policy of the Government before you could judge the Naval Estimates. You might as well say that you must know what the winter is going to be before you can get your winter clothes. The man who never orders his winter clothes till the long frost is upon him, is sure to shiver, and probably to catch a dangerous cold, before he can arm himself against the winter. We know enough of the possible and probable variations of the seasons to make ready against frost even if it never comes, and in the case of the Navy, there is this further very important consideration, that as it is a provision against human attack, and not against the purposes of providence, the mere fact of our preparedness is itself a most important security against attack. The world which sees that you are ready to defend yourself, will be twice as reluctant to make any attack as if it believed that you would be caught napping. The analogy, therefore, of providing against the cold of the winter is not even strong enough ; for the provi- sion against the cold does not even tend to prevent the cold, while the provision against attack does tend to prevent attack. With an exclusively defensive policy,—which is the policy of this nation,—it is easy to calculate what we need to guard us against any probable combination of assailants, and that is all the precaution we wish to take. Mr. Disraeli's super-sagacious apophthegm, like many of his apophthegms, was rather devised to suggest that his opponent's policy was offensive, without expressly saying so, than to magnify the difficulty of providing against attack. Of course, if you intend to attack, you must pre- pare for attacking, but adequate preparation against attack may easily be interpreted as elaborate preparation to attack somebody else; and it was in that sinister sense that Mr. Disraeli invented his apophthegm, and that Sir William Harcourt, we suppose, adopted it. Yet his own Govern- ment had wisely set the example which the present Government is honestly following.
Though the Naval Estimates were prepared in November, before President Cleveland's sensational Message had been delivered, and long before the German Emperor had assumed a sort of Protectorate over the Transvaal, there is reason to suppose that they were not prepared without some sort of expectation that the attitude of other nations towards us was jealous and suspicious. Mr. Goschen tells us that, not counting torpedo-boats and other small craft of that kind, the number of our ships now in commission is almost as great as that of all the other great Powers of Europe put together, and that our bill for coal alone (half a million sterling), is just double what it was not so many years ago. The Irish party of course attempted to make out that this great expenditure on our Navy is meant as a menace to the United States,—as if such a purely maritime Power as England, with an immense commerce to protect, and a commerce which would necessarily in great measure pass into the hands of neutrals so soon as we were engaged in war with any Power as great in means and enterprise as the United States, could afford to menace the United States for any purpose whatever except in pure self-defence. Of course there is no broad line to be drawn between defensive and offensive measures, except in relation to the taking of the initiative. When a great Power like the United States launches a thunderbolt against us out of the blue, it is not menace, it is not provocation, but the wisest kind of self-defence, to let all men know that, much as we dislike and dread war, we are not unprepared for it. Any attitude more deprecatory would invite attack, and not even the sneers of the Irish party would persuade us to invite attack. But we can hardly imagine any nation treating an unprovoked and most arrogant menace from another great nation, in a less irritable, we might almost say a less indignant, spirit., than that displayed by England when President Cleveland threatened us with war, and the Irish party threw up their hats for President Cleveland. If ever a nation gave the soft answer that turneth away wrath, we did so then, but we also showed, and very wisely and rightly showed, that there would be a limit to our pacific inclinations if the United States went too far. While the Western States went wild with delight at the prospect of war with England, and the Irish party warned us that their opportunity would be our moment of peril, we all expressed the utmost reluctance to engage in any such fratricidal struggle, but at the same time quietly displayed our complete readiness for any such terrible struggle if the worst came to the worst. And could we have done better ? To our mind, neither the Government nor the people of this country could have been less inclined to boast or to threaten than we were, and that was well. But nothing could have been less like the attitude of physical dread, and that was better. The Eastern States of the Union were all wise enough to condemn the mere thought of war, but that would not have been enough to restrain the Western States, if it had not been made evident to them that however eager they might be for war, they would have to undergo a very evil set of experiences before they could even hope to win the glory for which they appeared to pant. It was the wise self-control, but also the equally wise prompti- tude for effectual self-defence, which, in form at all events, must have been offence, that so soon led to the more reasonable and moderate spirit in the Uuited States which now prevails. We do not believe that if we had not been well prepared for war, this country would have been either so tranquil or so forbearing when it found itself apparently on the very brink of war. There is nothing like conscious strength for ensuring presence of mind and a serene temper in the hour of peril. On the whole, the discussion on the Estimates ha a been satisfactory, except in quarters where no one expected it to be satisfactory. Sir William Harcourt was anything but hostile, and though we think he would have done better not to hint that the large Estimates might imply an offensive policy, the hint was rather of that con- ventional kind which a leader who treats it as the duty of an Opposition to oppose, fancies it the right thing to throw out, than of the nature of real hostility. It would be better if Oppositions oftener gave cordial sup- port to the Government than they do, and this was just an occasion for such an attitude. The Government are but carrying out Lord Spencer's policy, and.of course Lord Spencer's policy was also Sir William Harcourt's. Still, making allowance for these conventional attitudes, which would often be better honoured in the breach than in the observance, the Opposition have criticised the Naval Estimates of the Government with both candour and patriotism.
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