_Punch's_ view, expressed in comments on the debate in the following February, was that the matter should be left in the discretion of captains--as it had been for thirty-six years. He declared, not without reason, that both circulars were virtually dead, and that the country would not stand them. Meanwhile the growth of the German Navy, which in his earlier years _Punch_ had persistently ridiculed and belittled, had begun to excite attention and misgiving; _Punch_, though a Liberal, was a "big Navy" man, and, early in 1875, was concerned with the dangers of our falling behind in the race of naval armaments:-- RULE, GERMANIA! _The Times_ informs us that, of "iron-clad cruisers of the strongest type, Germany will, in the present year, have seven built against five of our own navy." The _Pall Mall Gazette_ is of opinion that "the Germans have too many irons in the political fire to give exclusive attention to any one of them." But very soon, unless we get beforehand with the Germans, will they not have too many irons in the water, too? [Illustration: NEUTRALITY UNDER DIFFICULTIES DIZZY: "Bulgarian Atrocities! I can't find them in the Official Reports'!!!"] The restoration of the monarchy in Spain under Alfonso XII, in the same year, also gave _Punch_ occasion for serious thought. We may pass over the cartoon representing John Bull's anxiety about Spanish bonds as a satire on British commercialism. But there is shrewd political insight in the picture of Alfonso between two fires--Bismarck and the Pope. The German Chancellor makes his support conditional on the withdrawal of the anti-Protestant edicts; while the Pope, on the other hand, maintains the claims of his Church. In 1876 the Queen assumed the title of Empress of India; Disraeli went to the Lords as Earl of Beaconsfield, Sir Stafford Northcote succeeding him as Leader of the House of Commons; and the "Bulgarian Atrocities" proved the first phase in the conflict which made the Balkans the cockpit of Europe for over forty years. _Punch_ did not cavil at Disraeli's earldom, though he thought his refusal of the Garter in 1878 well calculated rather than modest. He suggests, moreover, that Earl of Coningsby would have been a better title; and in the cartoon headed, "Empress and Earl, or One Good Turn deserves Another," shows Dizzy kneeling to the Queen and saying, "Thank your Majesty! I might have had it before! _Now_ I think I have _earned_ it!" More sympathetic are the verses in which _Punch_ describes the realization of Disraeli's triple dream of success in Fashion, Letters and Politics--the dream that inspired him when he was only an articled clerk and a Jew boy:-- After forty years' fighting, he steps from the fire To the height scarcely scaled in his Old Jewry dream; Adds a third to his two wreaths of boyish desire, Though sore set against him the stress of the stream.