A's the Alarm that the Country's defenceless. B's the Belief such assertions are senseless. C's the Commission that sits with regard to them; D's our Defences--the one topic barred to them! E's the Expense--it's supposed we shall grudge it! F is the Fear of increasing the Budget. G stands for Guns, which we thought we had got. H is the Howl when we hear we have _not_. I's the Inquiry, abuses to right meant; J is the Judgment (a crushing indictment!); K is the Knot of red tape someone ties on it; L's Limbo--where no one will ever set eyes on it! M is the Murmur, too quickly forgotten. N is our Navy, which some say is rotten. O's the Official who bungles with _bonhomie_. P's Party-Government--all for Economy. Q is the Question engrossing our Statesmen. R is Retrenchment, which so fascinates men. S stands for Services, starved (out of Policy). T is the Time when--too late!--we our folly see. U is the Uproar of Struggle Titanic; V is the Vote we shall pass in a panic. W's War--with the Capture of London. X our Xplosions of fury, when undone. Y is the Yoke we shall have to get used to. Z is the Zero our Empire's reduced to! [Sidenote: _The Race of Armaments_] Simultaneously Britannia figures in a cartoon as the "Unprotected Female" surrounded by a litter of burst guns, broken contracts, broken blades, unfinished ships, etc. Then we find _Punch_ suddenly appearing at Downing Street at "the first meeting of the Inner Cabinet," and shattering the complacent satisfaction of the Premier and the War Secretary by a peremptory and menacing demand for speeding-up in the supply of rifles and more energetic recruiting. In July, under the heading of "_Punch's_ Parallels," the tercentenary of the Armada is celebrated in a satiric perversion of the famous game of bowls into "a nice little game of Ducks and Drakes--with the public money," in which Lord George Hamilton, the First Lord of the Admiralty, is attacked as a lethargic aristocrat. Another cartoon shows Moltke rebuking the Duke of Cambridge for persistently discouraging the volunteer movement; while the enforced expense of life in the regular army is condemned in "The Pleasant Way of Glory." Commenting on the swamping of the subaltern's pay by compulsory but unnecessary outlay, _Punch_ remarks that "the life of the British officer, as thus revealed, seems to resolve itself into a prolonged struggle to keep up a false position on insufficient means"; and he regrets that Lord Wolseley seemed to acquiesce in the evil instead of encouraging British officers to be more frugal. Such criticisms are not unfamiliar even to-day, for the old traditions die hard. On the general question of national and especially naval defence, _Punch_ was not by any means a voice crying in the wilderness. Public opinion had been worked up by other powerful advocates, amongst whom _Punch_ rightly mentions Mr. W. T. Stead.