The House of Commons on Monday rejected Mr. Cremer's amendment
refusing the money demanded for an increase in the Navy, by 256 to 85; and on Thursday also rejected Mr. Childers's amendment, to vote the money annually instead of at once, by 158 to 125. The Closure was then moved and carried, and Lord George Hamilton's resolution granting £21,000,000, the expenditure to be distributed over seven years, was carried by 215 to 128. The main arguments against the scheme were that the money was not provided out of taxes, and that it pledged not only this Parliament, but the next, which Mr. Gladstone observed might be a very different one. The answer given by Mr. Goschen and Lord G. Hamilton was that this was only financial pedantry, that expenditure intended to repair failures in the past and prevent &aims in the future ought not to be charged upon the revenue of one year, and that nothing could limit the right of this Parliament or the succeeding Parliament to refuse any payment it pleased. It should be observed that Mr. Gladstone refused altogether to resist the demand made. He deemed it excessive, but it was made on the responsibility of the Ministry, which alone knew the facts, and he would not oppose it.
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