The Express.
London, England, 1866-03-02 00:00:00

TIM NAST lenitnim.

The Pose taws it to be generally ecairoded that re-
tneehment in our nary estimates is at present .impossible.
but that equal unanimity does not exist as to the mode in
which the money should be expended. If oar first experi-
meats have been inoomplete, it must be remembered that
we can at no time do more than use such knowledge and
fads uwe are in possession of. Had we poetponed the
building of our new navy until now, we should doubtless
have avoided many of the errors which we committed, but
meanwhile the country would have been left defenoeless.
No one oan say with conidenee that our boasted irooolads
may not, tea years hence, be as useless as the fleets which,
as many years ago, we sent to the Black Sea under Lyons,
and to the Baltic under Napier, are now. But the pout-
bility of such a contiogency should not prevent us making
provision for the present.
The rekgraph is of opinion that the individual ships of
England, as regards invulnerability and weight of guns,
contrast favourably with the individual ships of
Pniries. Had we only Pilules and the nations
of Europe wherewith to compare ourselves, we should
be able to make • good exhibition of strength,
but on the other side of the Atlantic gigantic strides are
being made in this respect, and it would have been
encouraging if Lord 0. Paget had given any evidence of hie
cognisance of the fact that there is such a country in
°Airtime as America. The TeiecropA then quotes Sir
IIL Pete's remarks, a lecture by Captain Horton, sad the
statements of Mr. Donald Itglay to shoe that the pro-
, oeedinp of the American government with respect to their
navy are well calculated to wound our vanity and to rouse
I •
lour vigilance.

M. Thies emphotically disolahns English preferences and
English associatioas, and the TiVICS is ready to acknowledge
that we do not give ourselves the least credit for the noble
inheritance of ooratitutionalism which in the abstract he so
much admires. We have it from an unknown antiquity,
and if we can sVI call it ours, it is because we never did try
the grand experiments the French have does, and attempt
to revolutionise the world as well as ourselves, and not only
govern ourselves, but make ourselves over 'gale.
The Tana describes the policy of President Johnson,
hitherto somewhat indefinite, as rapidly beoomiog more de.
aided and more conservative. He has declared that negro
suffrage would be ruinous to social order and to the destiny
of the negro moo itself, and he has emphatically denied that
the abolition of slavery was the object of the war. The
advanced Republicans have already come to an open breach
with him, and the President is carrying on the great work
of restoration in the face of a determined and unacrupulous
opposition. The result is the gradual development of •
new " administration party," pledged to stead by the mo-
derate policy of Mr. Johnson—a policy which, carried out
with great moral courage and honesty of purpose, has won
for him the respect and sympathy of this country.
The Daily News draws attention to the steady annul
i•oresse of private bills introduced into parliament, and to
the heavy duties with which the chairman of committees is
charged. It °outmode that justice to the suitors and to •
most hardly praised officser claim that the Commons should
at least consider the appointment of a paid vice-chairman,
who can answer for him in the house, sit for him on com-
mittees, and act as chairman of the board of referee, on
private bill,
The Post hopes that Sir Frederick Bruce has not troubled
Mr. Seward with any remonstrances on the subject of Mr.
Bancroft's remarkable oration, President Jolliness and
Mr. Seward cannot nerd to be informed of the impropriety
of the proceeding ; they must regret it as we do. The
ugly feature In the incident is that the address was
printed before it was delivered, and might therefore have
been tionaidered by those who took part in the ceremony.