Mr. Gladstone's reply was much more alarming than Lord George
Hamilton's attack. He treated the attack as a mere party move; declared that there was not any ground for naval anxiety, such as there was, for instance, in 1884, when his own Government admitted that the public had good grounds for anxiety, and when Lord Northbrook made a frank statement of his plans ; but now Mr. Gladstone declines to make any statement at all before the usual time. He declares that even if we made no additions to the Navy at all in the next five years, in 1898 France and Russia would have only a majority of eight battle-ships over us, and even those of less total tonnage than ours ; but it was ridiculous to suppose that we should make no additions to our Navy in five years. In other words, Mr. Gladstone declines to see any danger in the vast naval strides which the Navies of France and Russia are making, and in their rapidly lessening inferiority as compared with England, though we depend for our safety wholly on our Navy, and have a commerce distributed over the whole surface of the globe which it would be ruin to us to have destroyed, while France and Russia have need of Navies almost only for aggression, their vast armies being mach more than equal to the protection of their shores. Mr. Gladstone's refusal to recognise any ground for uneasiness is to us much more alarming than even Lord George Hamilton's dismay.
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