d
encamped permanently in England, and fed by a considerable and
constantly increasing reserve.

It will in due time be officered by a class of men eminently
scientific, but with no relations necessarily with society; while
the militia is withdrawn from all local influences, and placed under
the immediate command of the Secretary of War. Thus, in the
nineteenth century, we have a large standing army established in
England, contrary to all the traditions of the land, and that by a
Liberal government, and with the warm acclamations of the Liberal
party.

Let us look what they have done with the Admiralty. You remember,
in this country especially, the denunciations of the profligate
expenditure of the Conservative government, and you have since had
an opportunity of comparing it with the gentler burden of Liberal
estimates. The navy was not merely an instance of profligate
expenditure, but of incompetent and inadequate management. A great
revolution was promised in its administration. A gentleman
[Mr. Childers], almost unknown to English politics, was strangely
preferred to one of the highest places in the councils of her
Majesty. He set to at his task with ruthless activity. The
Consulative Council, under which Nelson had gained all his
victories, was dissolved. The secretaryship of the Admiralty, an
office which exercised a complete supervision over every division of
that great department,--an office which was to the Admiralty what
the Secretary of State is to the kingdom,--which, in the qualities
which it required and the duties which it fulfilled, was rightly a
stepping-stone to the cabinet, as in the instances of Lord Halifax,
Lord Herbert, and many others,--was reduced to absolute
insignificance. Even the office of Control, which of all others
required a position of independence, and on which the safety of the
navy mainly depended, was deprived of all its important attributes.
For two years the opposition called the attention of Parliament to
these destructive changes, but Parliament and the nation were alike
insensible. Full of other business, they could not give a thought
to what they looked upon merely as captious criticism. It requires
a great disaster to command the attention of England; and when
the Captain was lost, and when they had the detail of the perilous
voyage of the Megara, then public indignation demanded a complete
change in this renovating administration of the navy.

And what has o