It is obviously inconvenient--perhaps it is even perilous--that interests so grave and so gigantic should fall for their guardianship into hands so incompetent and so petty.

It may be an inevitable accompaniment of our Parliamentary system that the naval debates should be so conducted; if so, one must put it down as one of the evils which must be taken as part of the price we pay for the excellences of a representative system.
[Sidenote: Sir Edward Reed as an alarmist.] I may dismiss the debate on the Navy with one or two further observations.

Sir Edward Reed, though he knows a good deal about ships--for he has had something to do with them all his life--is not an authority whom one can implicitly accept.

He is not a politician who has prospered according to what he believes and what are doubtless his deserts, for he is a very clever man, and politicians who are a little disappointed have a certain tendency to ultra-censoriousness, which damages the effectiveness and prejudices the authority of their criticisms.

Thus, Sir Edward has been always more or less of a pessimist with regard to the doings of other men.