There was a grand debate on Monday in the House
of Com- mons, Mr. Bentinck moving to strike Mr. Goschen's salary out of the Estimates, in order to compel the Government to appoint a sailor to the poet of First Lord. He attributed the blunders of the Admiralty to the professional ignorance of the First Lords, and believed such a system would not be tolerated in any country in Europe. It is tolerated in Germany, where the Minister of Marine is a soldier ; in the United States, where during the Civil War the Secretary to the Navy was Mr. Welles ; and we believe in Holland. In England it is absolutely indispensable, for the plain reason that we cannot rely on a succession of Admirals who would be acceptable to constituents or useful in the Cabinet. The only way to manage it would be to give the First Lord an ex- officio seat, but the result of that would be that the Opposition, being in opposition, would have no Naval ex-Minister in its ranks. We must put up like other people with the inevitable incidents of our system, and one of them is that Army and Navy must be governed by statesmen, and not by Wellingtons or Nelsons.
