4 MAY 1872, Page 2

Lord Clarence Paget and Mr. Goschen have had this week

a- somewhat lively passage of arms, in which the victory remains, unmistakably with the latter. Lord Clarence wrote to Monday's Times a letter, written, he said, under a very grave sense of re- sponsibility, and ascribing the recent ironclad disasters at sea chiefly to the want of steam-power, and the want of steam power- to the false economy of the Admiralty, which so often upbraids Naval officers for waste of coal, that these sensitive persons starve themselves in steam power even when that course really endangers- the safety of their ships.