§ MR. O'REILLYsaid, he rose to call attention to the provision for the spiritual wants of Roman Catholics in the Royal Navy; and asked the First Lord of the Admiralty, how far the recommendations approved of by Sir John Pakington in his Letter to Lord Derby, dated 1859 (see Parliamentary Paper, 10th February 1860, Navy) have been carried out By the principle acted on of late years all denominations of Christians in the Royal Navy were to be treated as on an equal footing. The proportion of Roman Catholics in the navy had been 16 per cent, and was now 12½ per cent. But while the total expenditure for religious instruction in the navy was £39,500, the allowance in respect of Roman Catholic clergymen was only £940, or less than 3 per cent of the whole. In 1859 a memorial in reference to Roman Catholics in the navy was laid before the Admiralty, and it was concerning the recommendations of Sir John Pakington upon this memorial that he wished to inquire. The first recommendation was, that when the Protestants were assembled for worship the Roman Catholics should be assembled separately, and prayers read by a Roman Catholic priest or officer. Secondly, that Roman Catholics should be assembled separately two or three times a week for instruction in their religion. Many of these recommendations could, of course, only be carried out when the ship was in harbour. Thirdly, that when a Roman Catholic was ill, he should, where it was practicable, be attended by a clergyman of his own persuasion. Fourthly, that Roman Catholics should, when in harbour, be assembled and marched to Divine service. Fifthly, that where a hospital ship was attached to the fleet, a Roman Catholic chaplain should form part of the staff. 316 Sixthly, that the small steamers which took the liberty men ashore should be employed to take men to the chapel ships. Seventhly, that when a man presented himself for entry to the navy, no question should be asked as to his faith until he should be pronounced fit for service, and that the religion should be added to the description of each seaman. Eighthly, that this description should accompany the man when he went into hospital, so that the chaplain might more easily know whom to visit. Ninthly, that when practicable, a Roman Catholic priest should perform the funeral service over members of that religion. Tenthly, that the authorities of naval hospitals should request the Roman Catholic ecclesiastical authority at the spot to name a chaplain to attend the sick Roman Catholics, and that this person should have free access to the hospital. Lastly, that arrangements should be made for performing Divine service and reading prayers in hospitals. Further, he wished to inquire into the position and pay of the Roman Catholic clergy in the navy. There were Roman Catholic chaplains at Sheerness, Portsmouth, and Devonport; their duties were such that they occupied their whole time, and yet their whole remuneration was £120 a year. Practically, these were permanent appointments, and the amount of pay certainly was not enough to permit these gentlemen to make any provision for old age. He thought that they were well entitled to a retiring allowance. In other ports very small payments were made to Roman Catholic clergymen. Last year there was an entry in the Estimates of £60 for Malta, but this year there was none. At Gibraltar and Hong Kong there were no allowances. At Bermuda, Jamaica, and the Cape of Good Hope the allowance was £20; and at Trincomalee only £10, At Haslar the Protestant clergyman received £620 and the Roman Catholic £30; and at Yarmouth £15. He would suggest that the naval authorities should take into consideration whether the system adopted in the army of payments per capita might not be extended to the navy.
§ MR. SPEAKERsaid, the noble Lord was not at liberty to speak again, as he had already spoken in the course of this discussion.
MR. OTWAYsaid, he knew that the engineer officers of the navy were most grateful for the benefits which had been 317 conferred upon them. They would regard it as a further boon to have their names inserted in the Navy List. He wished to put a question with respect to the pay of dockyard labourers, which he had no doubt the noble Lord (Lord Henry Lennox), whose able statement the other night he had heard with satisfaction, would be able to answer. He had always understood that the late Board had increased the pay of the dockyard labourers; and lie wished to know whether the increase was to be confined to the class of labourers who received only 13s. a week, or whether the augmentation applied to the higher classes of labourers?
§ MR. WHALLEYsaid, he wished Roman Catholic priests to receive such a liberal remuneration for their services to sailors in the navy as would render them more amenable to the rules and to discipline than their brother priests had been in regard to services in prisons. But he desired to know whether the services of Roman Catholic priests were to be appreciated by the importunity of their applications to the Government, and by the influence they exercised in that House, or were they to be regulated according to the exigencies of the service? He hoped the Admiralty would consider how far the services of Roman Catholic priests would conduce to the interests of the navy and to the safety of the country. He agreed with the hon. Gentleman (Mr. O'Reilly) that the remuneration of Roman Catholic naval chaplains should be at least on as liberal a scale as the pay of clergymen of other denominations. He might remind the House, however, that many clergymen of the Church of England had to live and maintain a respectable appearance on £80 or £100 a year; while, among the Dissenters, £100 or £150 was considered amply sufficient. In regard to Roman Catholic inmates of prisons, the attendance of the chaplains upon them was not compulsory under the Act of Parliament.
LORD HENRY LENNOXsaid, that it was from no feeling of disrespect to the House that he had been deputed by his right hon. Friend the First Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. Corry) to reply to the questions which had been asked; but his right hon. Friend had only been in office a short time, and had been obliged to turn nearly the whole of his attention as yet to the mastery of details. He could assure the hon. Gentleman the Member fur Peterborough (Mr. Whalley) that the pay and 318 appointment of Roman Catholic chaplains would be regulated, not by the importunities of hon. Gentlemen who professed the Roman Catholic religion, but solely by the exigencies of the service, in the hope that the men would be taught their duty to God and their Queen. He would now answer the points raised by the hon. and gallant Gentleman (Mr. O'Reilly). The recommendations issued in 1859 had been carried out as far as was practicable. The first question was whether the Roman Catholic seamen who entertained religious scruples about attending the service of the Church of England might absent themselves from its performance. That permission was already granted; but as it was indispensable that perfect order and silence should be observed in the ship during the performance of Divine service, the men so absenting themselves were obliged to remain in the mess room. As to the boys assembling on board the ships for religious instruction, he had to call the attention of the hon. and gallant Gentleman to the fact that as the Protestant clergyman was always on board the ship be could summon the boys and administer instruction to them at times which would not only be convenient to himself but which would not interfere with the discipline of the service, while a Roman Catholic chaplain could not fix certain hours or certain days in the week without interfering somehow with that discipline which it was necessary to preserve. The hon. Gentleman asked whether Roman Catholic priests were sent for when Roman Catholic seamen were dangerously ill. That, he might say, was already the invariable practice where it was possible. No orders, however, had been issued on the subject, and the matter was, as a rule, left to the humanity and good feeling of the captain. With regard to the next question, whether Catholic sailors were allowed in harbour to attend their chapel and mass, the hon. and gallant Gentleman had nothing to do but to turn to the printed instructions and see that those sailors, when there was a Catholic officer, were marched under his orders to the chapel where their religious service was performed. Thus far all the recommendations had been carried out. In answer to the next question, whether chaplains should be appointed to the hospital ships of the fleet, lie might observe that there were no hospital ships, as a rule, attached to the fleet. On the next point, the hon. and gallant Gentleman laid considerable stress, labouring apparently 319 under the impression that the recommendation had not in this respect been carried out. But in the case of ships at Plymouth Sound, Spithead, and Portsmouth, a small steamer was employed on Sundays to collect the Roman Catholic sailors, to carry them on shore, and after service to take them back to their respective ships. [Mr. O'REILLY: Will the noble Lord state when the practice was introduced?] He thought about eight or nine months since, but had taken no trouble to ascertain the date, regarding the fact as the all-important matter. The hon. and gallant Gentleman next asked whether persons on presenting themselves for entry into the navy were asked any questions about their religion, and whether Roman Catholic seamen taken to the hospital ship might not be placed in a separate ward, so that their minister might be able to attend better than he now could do to their spiritual wants. As to the first part of the question, the recommendation had been carried out in full, for no man was asked on entering the Royal Navy to what religion he belonged. The second suggestion it would be impossible to carry out, because the inmates of the naval hospitals were classified according to their diseases, and not according to their religion, and it was highly improbable that the whole of the Roman Catholics in a hospital would be afflicted with the same complaint. In answer to the next point, he would say that the funerals of Roman Catholic seamen were accompanied with the usual rites of their religion when vessels were in harbour, but with ships at sea, and no priests on board, such a thing was, of course, impossible. The Roman Catholic chaplain was permitted to read prayers to the sick on board, but he did not believe that there was any convenience for celebrating mass. Almost all the recommendations made in 1859 had been carried out by those who had succeeded his right hon. Friend (Sir John Pakington) at the Board of Admiralty. He confessed that the position of the chaplains at Plymouth, Devouport, and Sheerness was, to a certain extent, anomalous, and that they ought to have a pension on which they could eventually retire. These gentlemen devoted a great portion of their lives to ministering to the spiritual need of the sailors, and they were, he thought, entitled, if possible, to a favourable consideration of their claims. The next point touched on by the hon. Gentleman had relation to the salaries given to Roman Catholic chaplains on foreign stations. He in- 320 stanced two places, Hong Kong and Malta, as stations at which the Roman Catholic priests received no pay. He was happy to undeceive his hon. and gallant Friend, for at Malta £110 were taken this year for the payment of the Roman Catholic priest; and at Hong Kong a sum of £33. Then the hon. and gallant Gentleman expressed his opinion that the Roman Catholic chaplains in the navy should be placed in the same position as those of the army. He was happy to inform him that the Rev. Mr. Connor, at Haulbowline, was receiving salary under the capitation grant. Originally, when his congregation was very small he refused payment on this scale, and Lord Clarence Paget, then representing the Board of Admiralty, granted him an annual salary. Since then the numbers had increased, representations had been made which were felt to be perfectly reasonable, and the Board of Admiralty now in office had complied with Mr. Connor's request that he should be paid according to the capitation grant. The hon. Gentleman complained of the position of three chaplains sent to perform duties in various ports; but he must remember that they were on exactly the same footing as clergymen of the Established Church called on to officiate for small bodies of troops, and receiving exactly the same allowances. He had now answered seriatim the points put to him. He would only add that the right hon. and gallant Member for Huntingdon (General Peel), recently Secretary of State for War, had been first to take practical action in the direction of endowing Roman Catholic chaplains in the army, and to give practical proof of the respect in which their services were held. He should feel glad if it fell to the lot of the Board of Admiralty, of which he was a Member, to complete this act of justice to Roman Catholic chaplains in the navy by the grant of retiring pensions. In reply to the hon. Member for Chatham (Mr. Otway) he begged to say that the Establishment labourers, 885 in number, received 2s. 4d. per diem. There were 567 hired labourers of the first classs entitled to pensions who received 2s. 3d. a day. It was proposed to increase their pay 1d. daily, so as to bring them on an equality with the Establishment labourers. The hired labourers in the second class received only 2s. 2d. a day, and it was proposed that in the case of 2,142 men employed in the various dockyards 2d. daily should also be added to their pay, so as to bring them all up to 321 2s. 4d. a day. The whole cost of the increase to the country would be £7,750. He quite concurred in the belief that this money was well expended. He believed no class in Her Majesty's service was better deserving of recognition.