THE ENGLISH AND FRENCH NAVIES.

New Zealander, Volume XVI, Issue 1490, 28 July 1860, Page 3

THE ENGLISH AND FRENCH NAVIES.

Tin: Parliamentary Session of 1860, having sown its wild oats before Easter, came of age last night, and settled down to the stern business of life The change is decidedly for the better; and we trust there will be no relapse.' A serious practical conversation among half-a-dozen business-like and experienced men on dockyard expenditure and naval efficiency is to our thinking worth an immense amount of loose declamation on the " cradle" of the House of Savoy. If Count favour rubs his hands at his own bargain, it is almost time for us to cease to fret and fume about the transaction. There are more ways than one of discussing toreign politics as they affect ourselves, and perhaps the most practical mode of regarding our relations with the Continent is to consider them in their bearing upon our Naval Estimates. A debate on the condition of the Navy is, in point of fact, a debate on foreign affairs; for it is through our Navy that we are stiil one of the great Powers of Europe ; and it is through her Navy that England's voice is heard, and the weight of h*r arm most feared. Other Powers may stretch their natural boundaries by fraud or force beyond livers or mountains, but Ui- as the waves can bear is the only natural boundary of England. When we speak of "maritime supremacy," we arrogate no arbitrary or exclusive sway; we do but signify the vital condition of the greatest colonial and commercial empire the world has ever seen. Other Powers may add ship to ship, and gun to gun, to minister to a vain glorious ambition, a rankling jealousy, or a lust of dominaton; the duty and right of England is to carry high the flag of her own ancient freedom, and to keep her beacon-light burning clear on the broad highway ol the seas.