There has been for many years past a general feeling in this country that questions of international relationship and of national defence should be withdrawn as far as possible from the arena of party politics. Such divergences of opinion as must exist on these topics have no obvious connection with the divisions of our internal politics; and it is surely legitimate to go further than this, and say that the main problems in these departments can be dealt with in such a way as to win the assent of every reasonable man, whatever his opinions may be on Trade Unionism or Elementary Education. At any rate successive Boards of Admiralty have for something like 20 years acted on the assumption--which has hitherto been justified--that their policy would be accepted by the public as based on a fully considered estimate of the requirements of national defence, and, if criticised (as it was bound to be from time to time), criticised on other than partisan grounds. Between the date of the Naval Defence Act and 1904 the Navy Estimates were approximately trebled. The increase was continuous under four successive First Lords, and under both Liberal and Conservative Governments. In 1904 the maximum of the curve of expenditure was reached, and the Navy Estimates began to decline, at first rapidly, under a Conservative Government, then more slowly, and in part subject to certain provisos, under the present Liberal Government. And this, it appears, is the moment chosen for the first considerable outbreak of political rancour in naval affairs since the modern Navy came into existence! It is, however, of such supreme importance to the Navy that the Admiralty Board should not be suspected of being governed in its decisions on matters of national defence by partisan considerations that it may be well to set out again, and very explicitly, what are the reasons which have led the Board to adopt the policy now impugned.