We have endeavoured elsewhere to criticize the reform of the
Admiralty explained by Mr. Goschen on Monday—not a perfect reform, it is so wanting in simplicity—and on Thursday Mr. Goschen described the position of the Navy. The Navy is excel- lently manned, the rough boys whom we now train into blue- jackets liking the service so well that after the compulsory ser- vice of ten years they enter voluntarily for ten more, and will ultimately form a strong Reserve of older men, as entrance into the Reserve is to be the condition of pension. More than 20,000 tons of new shipping are to be built this year, the new fleet for home defence only may be considered complete, and the whole Navy is immensely stronger than that of France or any other power. Of new improvements, by far the greatest is the conversion of Greenwich Hospital into a Naval College, where sub-lieutenants will pass through a course of study, and engineers will be trained in the higher branches of their profession, and shipwrights will be taught Naval architecture ; Greenwich, in fact, is to be the Naval University, an admirable idea. The statement was warmly received, though of course there was the usual run- ning fire of criticisms, and the usual evidence that, with 55 iron- clads and 358 fighting ships of wood, we really had no fleet any- where, and ought to build much faster.
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