Mr. Forwood, Financial Secretary to the Admiralty, in an able
and interesting speech at Liverpool on Thursday, declared that the Naval Estimates for next year, so far from being exces- sive, would show a positive reduction upon the figures of the last Administration. Nearly nine millions of the thirteen usually expended were automatic, being due to demands for wages, food, stores, and other direct outlays ; and the Admiralty could only control the expenditure on ship- building. That, however, was in the main inevitable, for the depreciation in the British Navy, as in the French Navy and in all private fleets, was at least 6 per cent. per annum. As the British Fleet was valued at £50,000,000, an outlay of at least £3,000,000 a year was required to keep it fully replaced, and though money might be saved by dawdling, it was at the expense of the force on which the nation first of all relies. Mr. Forwood appears to admit that the supply of ordnance is inadequate, and talks of ships "waiting for their guns ;" but he attributes the defect to the par- simoniousness of successive Administrations. It is clear that
there is a grave hitch somewhere in that branch of the depart- ment of supply, and it is as to its cause that controversy will rage. The deficits must be supplied ; but we do not see why a very serious investigation should not be made at once, and that within the Department itself.
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