On Tuesday last, Lord Randolph Churchill seized the occasion of
the vote for the Dockyards to make a detailed attack upon the waste and improvidence connected with the administration of the Dockyards. His analysis went to show that £700,000 had been spent in charges incidental to the maintenance of the home dockyards while turning out work valued at £1,100,000. The case of the dockyards abroad was still worse, for there 2246,000 was spent for a return of 287,000 in direct service. Of course, these figures look very bad. in themselves ; but we must not forget that there is the answer, and one which specially applies to the dockyards abroad,—namely, that a fully equipped dock- yard, manned and organised and ready to begin work at a moment's notice, is a necessary form of war material.