THE NAVY ESTIMATES.
DEBATES on the state of the Navy are for some time. to come likely to be in all essential respects expositions or vindications of the policy of Mr. Childers. Mr. Goschen's clear and masterly, though somewhat prolonged, statement of the Admiralty Estimates on Monday evening, as well as the short debates which preceded and followed, certainly convey that impression, though some of the speakers, it may be - assumed, are far enough from wishing to produce such an- effect. A sound policy is best, if not only tested by time. It was in the nature of the circumstances with which Mr. Childers had to deal at the Admiralty, and it was also in -the character of the large and well connected plans which he de- vised for their settlement, that the whole system of his policy should only be apparent by its results after a period of in all cases several, and in some cases of many years. The Promo- tion, Pay, and Retirement orders, for example (improperly called Retirement Scheme), of February, 1870, will hardly have realised all their projected results before 1880. But they had already had the effect before the end of last Session of reducing the total numbers on the Half-pay list, which
areryone will agree with Mr. Childers in considering "the most unsatisfactory list in any service," from 1,268 to 838; and in reducing the total number of superior officers in the Navy from 3,585 to 2,875,—two-thirds of the way to the standard figure fixed by the orders, of 2,521—the subordinate and warrant officers being effectually reduced within the mate period from 3,700 to 3,000. Again, it has been abun- dantly demonstrated that this admirable and comprehen- aive, though necessarily complicated code of orders, so misrepresented as a scheme of false and mean economy at the time, had as its real end not the charge, but the interest and efficiency of the service. The fact was," said Mr.
Childers, referring to Sir James Elphinstone's statement on Monday, "we had got a redundant list, and it must be worked off, not in the interest of economy, because, as the honourable Raronet had shown, the charge was just as great as ever, but in the interest of the service. It was a great detriment to the service that a large number of officers were kept in en- forced idleness at a time when, owing to the advance of mechanical appliances, no officer could be thoroughly efficient after being on shore two or three years." Already the long- stagnant stream of promotion moves steadily forward ; but several years yet must pass before the full efficacy of the orders is equally felt by all classes of officers.
By far the most interesting part of Mr. Goschen's state- ment was his vindication of the class of ships of which the Devastation, ordered by his predecessor, was the first, and to which, notwithstanding the periodic clamour of correspond- ence, we are glad to see the present First Lord proposes to go an gradually adding. So far as it is possible to foresee any- thing in an age in which the conditions of Naval warfare 30 continually change, the Devastation promises to be the 'zee type of the great fighting ship of the future. May its :ate in war be prefigured by the success with which it has hitherto fought its way against varied attacks and strange allies ! Against one class of objectors who, like the late Mr. Corry, and the Conservative Lords of the Admiralty, except it now seems, Lord Henry Lennox, held the ship was too large ; against another class, who, like Mr. Reed and Sir Spencer Robinson, held she was too small ; against the old-fashioned devotees of canvas, who held she must be dangerous without masts ; against the class who may be called historical objectors to the ship, on the score that every improvement introduced in construction since the plan was first settled has been ill con- sidered and detrimental. It happened fortunately to illustrate Mr. Goschen's argument that the sister ship of the Devastation, the Thunderer, had on Saturday had occasion to round the Land's End against a very stiff head sea, with the force of the wind from 7 to 8. Far from being checked by conditions which it had been supposed would seriously affect the powers of ships of her build, the Thunderer remaining perfectly ateady, steamed easily far ahead of the paddle steamer Valorous, which accompanied her and was supposed to be able to regulate her speed. The particular experiment, of nurse, concludes nothing, though it surprises every one as an unexpected illustration of the fine sea-going qualities of the Ail). These have yet, in the case of the Devastation, to undergo the crucial test of a steady struggle with the full force of the Atlantic wave off the coast of Cork. Meantime, to put the case in a way that it is only too easy to apprehend, as Mr. Goschen said, "there is every reason to suppose that if the Captain had been an unmasted ship, she would have been now afloat." Apart from the question of the effect of masts, it is also to be observed that while the point of maximum stability of the Captain was only 21, that of the Devastation is 28'. The fighting power of the Devastation is also considerably greater, not merely by improved armament, but because, as Mr. Goschen showed, while bow or right- ahead fire is coming more and more to be considered essential, and likely to be decisive of naval actions in the future, masted turret-ships will not allow a perfect fire all round. On the whole, we see every reason to believe that the further contro- versy which the Devastation and her consorts have to encounter will only, like wave and war, when their real his- tory begins, show the stuff they are made of, and that in their type has at last been attained the ideal of the modern line- of-battle ship.
It will be regretted by some that Mr. Goschen could not speak with absolute confidence of the power of either the Devasta- tion or Thunderer to engage single-handed the Peter the Great. What the real strength and sea-going qualities of the Russian ship may prove to be, when she is finished—at present, her armour-plates are being manufactured at Sheffield
adding that England can afford to proceed with judgment and calmness in further shipbuilding, and need not be moved from her settled plans by each apparition of some new monster Monitor on the Baltic or across the Atlantic. Lord Henry Lennox will have ample opportunity to discuss the history of the Devastation next week, and we believe the public may await with interest and without alarm for his revelations, and the reply to them.
1 Meantime, Mr. Goschen's statement amply and easily shows that the Navy maintains a satisfactory state. We have 111 fighting ships, while France, Germany, and the United States added together have not quite 100. We have twenty-three ironclads in commission, while France, Germany, and America have only eleven. A new ship of the Devastation class will be commenced this year, raising the number of those vessels to four ; while of masted ironclads it is proposed also to build a ship of the same class as the Superb and Umeraire, but with batteries of much greater force. Such a fleet ought to be able to go anywhere, and do anything ; ought easily, at least, to be equal to the maintenance of the supremacy of the seas, the one modest demand which the English nation has a right to make on its foremost force. —remain to be seen ; and it mast be admitted that Russian ; ships have not hitherto, for one cause or other, as a rule, realised the expectation of their projectors or their Government. And after all, a ship is not a navy. While the First Lord is able to say that we have twelve ships which are so strong that all the other maritime countries together cannot name 'twelve ships of equal strength, he may be held justified in
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