The jubilee week was not without its accidents, for the _Ajax_ and _Devastation_ collided at the rendezvous, and subsequently the _Agincourt_ and _Black Prince_ had a similar experience. These mishaps evoked much hostile criticism, and among other things gave currency to an extract from a speech made by Lord Randolph Churchill several weeks before. Speaking of the navy, he had declared that, “In the last twelve or thirteen years eighteen ships have been either completed or designed by the Admiralty to fulfil certain purposes, and on the strength of the Admiralty statements Parliament has faithfully voted the money. The total amount which either has been or will be voted for these ships is about ten millions, and it is now discovered and officially acknowledged that in respect of the purposes for which these ships were designed, and for the purposes for which these ten millions either have been or will be spent, the whole of the money has been absolutely misapplied, utterly wasted and thrown away.” Sir Charles Dilke does not agree with this pessimism of his political opponent, though he, too, has something to say of the British fleet, in relation to its influence upon the present position of European politics, which is well worth quoting. “There is less to be said in a hostile sense with regard to the present position of the navy,” he concedes, “than may be said, or must be said, about the army. Clever German officers may write their ‘Great Naval War of 1888,’ and describe the destruction of the British fleet by the French torpedo-boats, but on the whole we are not ill-satisfied with the naval progress that has been made in the last three years. There is plenty of room for doubt as to whether we get full value for our money; but at all events our navy is undoubtedly and by universal admission the first navy in the world, and relatively to the French we appear to show of ships built and building a number proportionate to our expenditure. The discovery of the comparative uselessness of automatic torpedoes is an advantage to this country, and no great change in the opposite direction has recently occurred. M. Gabriel Charmes has pointed out to France the manner to destroy our sea-borne trade, but excellent steps have been taken since his book appeared to meet the danger which he obligingly made clear to us. It remains a puzzle to my civilian mind how Italy can manage to do all that in a naval sense she does for her comparatively small expenditure, and how, spending only from a fourth to a sixth what we spend upon our navy, she can nevertheless produce so noble a muster of great ships. But our naval dangers are, no doubt, dangers chiefly caused rather by military than by naval defects. Our navy is greatly weakened for the discharge of its proper duties by the fact that duties are thrown upon it which no navy can efficiently discharge. As Admiral Hoskins has said, it is the duty of the commander of the British fleet to drive the hostile squadrons