Note 194 — Chapter XXVII · GENERAL GORDON’S MISSION.

This was not the only case in which Lord Northbrook had discredited the Administration. It was notorious that Mr. W. H. Smith had shockingly neglected naval ship-building when, in 1880, he handed the Navy over to Lord Northbrook. Lord Northbrook had worked hard to make up arrears, and he had built new ships as fast as he could to enable the British Navy to rank with that of France. But his best efforts to correct Mr. Smith’s negligence failed, and yet in July, 1885, he expressed himself quite satisfied with the Navy. When he was absent in Egypt a violent agitation, demonstrating the feebleness and insufficiency of the Navy, was raised in the Press. Ere the autumn Session ended he admitted that £5,000,000 above the ordinary estimates would be needed to strengthen the Fleet in swift cruisers and torpedo boats.