The following, from the New York World, entitled, “A Necessity and a Luxury,” is a good commentary on Joel 3:9-12:— The British naval estimates of $180,000,000 are “unparalleled in peace or war,” and the secretary, in bringing them before parliament, felt compelled to apologize for this “enormous and unproductive expenditure.” Yet the British Empire depends for its existence on its fleet. The secretary of the Admiralty said that there would be under construction on April 1 “the enormous total” of eleven battle-ships, twenty-five cruisers, four scouts, two sloops, and twenty-nine torpedo-boats, destroyers, and submarines. Omitting torpedo craft, that makes an aggregate of forty-two vessels. On the same date the United States, to which a great navy is a luxury, not a necessity, will have under construction fourteen battle-ships, seventeen cruisers, three gunboats, and two training vessels—a total of thirty-five ships, probably exceeding in tonnage the forty-two on which England relies to protect her world-girdling empire.