The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1884-11-01 00:00:00

~,Rottrbrible ebseriyer,

SA.TURD. Y. NOVEMBER Ist, 1884.

THE CO lIRSE OF THE SESSION.

As the fur tunan session slowly winds it
way along, :its course corresponds pretty
nearly with t he anticipations which had been
formed respec ,ting it. Parliament Itavin2
been summon ed to transact the business ()
the Empire, finds itself called upon to dea: ,
with subjects other than that which forms
the main reas on for the Legislature being
summoned at this unusual period of the
year. It is uevitable that this should be
so. In the firs t place more money is wanted
for the Soadaal expedition, and when the
debate thereon arises there will be an oppor-
tunity for once more challenging the whole
Egyptian policy of the Govemment. Matters
in South Africa look by no means so promis-
ing, as we should like them to appear. There
are charges of duplicity against the Boers,
and expressions of regret that when Major-
General Sir F. Roberts was sent out in the
early summer of 1880, instead of being per-
mitted to accomplish the object for which
he had travelled over 8,000 miles of sea, the
word of the Boer Government was taken, and
the gallantofficer had to come home again. In
domestic snbjects the first night of the ses-
sion brought its usual crop of notices of
motion for the introduction of bills of all
descriptions, very few of which can be ex-
pected to make any progress even should
Parliament sit until within a few days of
Christmas.

The public interest in the franchise ques-
tion wilt not interfere w..th the attention
which has been lately directed to the condi-
tion of the navy. The difficulty of deciding
in the face of a disagreement amongst doc-
tors is proverbial ; nor amid the statistics of
contending critics is it easy to ascertain the
truth respecting the strength of the navy.
Sir Thomas Brassey, the Civil Lord of the
Admiralty, produces facts and figures to show
that our fleets are all that could be wished>
Mr. W. H. Smith, First Lord of the Admiralty
in the Conservative Cabinet; Sir E. J. Reed,
for some years Chief Constructor of the
Navy, and Sir William Armstrong, with
some pretension to a knowledge of naval
architecture, aver that it is not in the state
in which it ought to be as the chief arm of
, the first maritime Power in the world. Mr.
Cobden, in his "Three Panics," laid it down
as an incontestable axiom that so long as
England possessed two men-of-war for every
, one which France could place upon the sea,
there could be no possible reason for alarm.
Thatwas inthe days of the old wooden walls,
and before the construction of costly iron-
clads had revolutionised the conditions of
naval warfare. We entered upon the con-
flict with Russia, thirty years ago, so far as
the sea was concerned, with precisely the
same kind of material as had been in exist-
ence ever since the time of Noah. Ships
built of timber were the order of the day.
Within seven years of that time the Warrior
was afloat, and the powerful squadrons which
had gone to the Baltic and the Black Seas
were superseded utterly. A cry went up for
the reconstruction of the navy. France set
her La Gloire off against our Warrior, and
the two nations have since gone on building
vast ironclacis, not regularly, but fitfully and
intermittently. No doubt in the war with
Germany in 1870 France found her navy of
no use to her, as the Teutons could not be
attacked upon the sea. But it would be a
very different matter in case of a war with
England.
With the contention of those who main-
tain that not only- should we be superior to
France in naval strength, but to a possible
combination of all the European Powers
against us, it is not everybody who will be
disposed to agree. Why such a combina-
tion should exist it would be hard for the
most fervid imagination to suggest. The
Continental nations are already consumed
,by jealously of each other. There are no two
of them which have not been at war within
the recollection of even the young men of to
day. France has fought Austria, and after-
w irds Prussia, with different results ; Prussia
and Austria, after falling upon poor little
Denmark, quarrelled amongst themselves;
Austria and Italy have fought, and so also
have Russia and Turkey. Is it probable
liat a happy family of this description
could suddenly conceive such a bitter enmity ,
against this country as to combine against
w-; for our destruction ? Imagine not the •
whole of them, but France and Germany co-
operating cheerfully, or Germany and Rus-
sia, or Russia and Turkey, or even France
and Italy. In military. Europe Germany
occupies the same position as England does
upon the sea. The German army is un-
doubtedly the most powerful in the world.
But the Berlin newspapers do not live in a
continually scare of being attacked simulta-
neously by the armies of Russia, France,
Austria, Italy, and Turkey. Civilised
nations do not suddenly degenerate into the
practices of the Goths and the Visigoths,
the Vandals, and the Hans of old. Every
Englishman will gladly meet the tax-payer
when payment is demanded towards the
maintenance of an efficient navy; but to talk
of its being so overwhelming as to,Lbeat the
whole world in arms is to make a suggestion
which no Government would propose and no
Parliament would accept.