The Times

Under all the conditions which confront the country. it must be said that Mr. Reed's treatment of the seacoast defense bill reported to the House on Saturday was little short of disgraceful. Fully appreciating the Government's desire for strict economy. the War Department officials in making their estimates for the ensuing year had cut everything down to the plane of barest necessity. The department asked for $13,378,571. and Mr. Reed proposes to allow only $4,144,912. There are two purposes veiled behind this proposed action. In the first place the Administration is determined to subordinate everything, even, national defense. honor or what not, to an attempt to cover the deficiency producing power of the Dingley law. Nothing. outside of pensions. and perhaps the river and harbor steal, will be too sacred to go by the board for the Dingley benefit. The second object in crippling the War Department at this time is undoubtedly undertaken on a hint from Wall Street and London. It is to keep back defensive preparations as far as feasible, in order that the country may be in an unfit condition for hostilities. and thus furnish a practical security to the foreign campaign creditors of the Administration, and a strong argument with which to suppress so-called "jingoism" in Congress.

It is notorious that the War Department has not powder and projectiles for our coast batteries sufficient to put up a single decent fight against an attacking fleet. It asked for $943,691, a sum which would have produced about ten rounds of powder and ball to each gun and mortar to be in position by the end of the next fiscal year. It is cut down to $391,000. All the other allowances are on a corresponding scale of niggardliness and contempt for the safety of the country. Happily the matter does not end at the door of the House of Reed. This fortification bill is one upon which the Senate should make a relentless fight. The appropriations proposed by the Speaker are so ridiculously inadequate to the purposes for which they were asked that the whole business might better be pitched overboard. Last spring and summer, Mr. Reed was able to hold up the Senate. This winter it seems to us that the game might as well go the other way in the interests of variety and public policy.