• The Pall Mall Gazette publishes what it believes to
be an ex- haustive sketch of the condition of the Navy by a first-class and unprejudiced authority. The general conclusions are that although Great Britain could defeat any single Power, she needs, in order to be safe against even moderate combinations, more ironclads of the second-class, more forwardness with repairs, too many ships being unready, more men, and certain fortifications at important places like Singapore. We shall rot get the fortifications, and are not sure, if we can only remain supreme at sea, that they are needed ; and as to the men, we suspect that bounties would soon give us a sufficient supply. The countries with a naval conscription have not our Mer- cantile Marine to draw upon. It is quite probable, how- ever, that repairs have been postponed too much in order to spare expense, and any deficiency in ironclads ought to be made up at once. We do not quite understand why Radicals outside the Government should abandon this question of the Navy so completely to the Tories. It is their duty as much as that of their opponents, if only to show that a service is not necessarily stinted because it is placed directly under Parliamentary control. That is the permanent fear which helps to keep up that indefensible anomaly, the dual control of the Army, under which the Duke of Connaught is at this moment under training to become Commander-in-Chief.
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