In the Commons, Lord Randolph Churchill's explanation, which was delivered
before the debate on the Address began, and was, of course, very eagerly listened to, was a skilful exposition of a very mistaken course. Lord Randolph showed that he had early committed himself to getting a substantial redaction in the Naval and Military Estimates, and that he had committed him- self not only to his colleagues, but to the country at large in popular speeches. He explained how steadily he had hammered away at the Cabinet to agree to such a reduction, and how shocking it is that we should be spending £6,000,000 a year more on those Departments than we spent on an average in the years between 1874 and 1884. He wished for a reduction of £1,000,000 for the coming year. He would have been contented, he said, with B530,000 ; but, after all that he had said both in private and public, he could not possibly be content without a substantial beginning. He intimated that it was Lord Salis- bury's foreign policy which rendered it so essential for the Government not to contract the military and naval expenditure at once, and with that foreign policy he did not agree. He wished for one more distinctly non-interventionist,
