§ MR. O'BEIRNErose, pursuant to Notice, to call attention to the recent experiments at Shoeburyness with reference to the proposed Plymouth fortifications.
§ MR. DARBY GRIFFITHexpressed a hope that the hon. Gentleman would post- 1427 pone his Notice and allow the Appropriation Bill to pass its present stage, so that the House might at once proceed with the discussion on the Corrupt Practices Bill. This Bill was one that the Government had done everything they could to carry, and it was necessary that it should be carried to complete the Reform scheme. Sonic thought should he bestowed upon what would be the position of hon. Members if they had to go before the new constituencies without the protection that this measure would afford; and it should also be borne in mind that, while some Members were staying in the House and doing their duty in reference to this Bill, other Members were surreptitiously canvassing behind their backs, and thus obtaining an advantage over them. The hon. Member might very well delay his Question, which would not lose by waiting.
§ MR. O'BEIRNEI think, if the hon. Member had recollected for a moment, he would have scarcely made that request. This Motion stood in a fair position on Thursday last for discussion. It is one which has been watched with considerable interest by many Members of this House, and also by a large number of persons outside; and, at the instance of the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister, I at once postponed it, in order that the other Public Business then on the Paper might be proceeded with. The right hon. Gentleman at that time informed me that I should have an opportunity of bringing the matter under the notice of the House to-day, and therefore I am prepared to do so. I may state that I do not intend to occupy the time of the House at any great length. I therefore hope I may be permitted to call attention to the Motion. Although I agree with the hon. Gentleman the Member for Devizes, that the Corrupt Practices Prevention Bill is one of great importance, yet I think the House will scarcely say that the question I desire to discuss is one of less importance to the country generally, inasmuch as it affects the safety of the kingdom, and also the interests of the ratepayers, involving as it does an enormous amount of expenditure. Before entering on the question of which I have given Notice, I wish first to say one word to clear away a misconception which has arisen. I never entertained the opinion, much less expressed it, that the policy already decided upon—that a certain amount of expenditure for shore fortifications should be incurred—was an 1428 erroneous policy. I believe that a system of fixed fortifications is a necessary and proper expenditure. What I did object to was the principle on which the fortifications were being constructed, and not the policy which dictated their construction. I also wish distinctly to state—and I hope the right hon. Baronet the Secretary of State for War will give me his attention—that he was under some misapprehension when he answered a Question which I put to him some time ago. He then intimated that I ought to be in a position to satisfy myself on the information and figures for which I asked, because I was in connection with one of the contracting firms. This is a personal matter; and I now assure him that the statement was entirely without foundation; that I had no connection with any company, or any firm of contractors; and that I had no interest in the matter beyond that which I take as a private Member of this House and as one of the general public. Sir, in February, 1867, a Report was issued from the War Office giving us a very lengthened and precise account of the several fortifications which it was proposed to construct for the purpose of defending our arsenals and dockyards, and describing, with a considerable amount of detail, the principles and plans on which these fortifications were to be erected. As soon as the information given in that Report came to the hands of hon. Members, and reached the public out-of-doors, very many Gentlemen who had given great consideration to this question were struck with the insufficient character and faulty principle of the fortifications as proposed. The subject was much canvassed, and when the right hon. Gentleman last Session introduced the Appropriation Bill, asking for a further Vote of £800,000 to be applied to this purpose, I took the liberty of placing on the Records of this House a Motion to the effect that no further expenditure should be incurred on account of fortifications until sufficient experiments had been made for the purpose of testing the principles upon which it was proposed to construct them. In that Motion I was ably supported by my noble Friend below me (Lord Elcho), who moved an Amendment to my Resolution of a more moderate effect, that experiments should be undertaken to test the efficiency of the War Office plans. The result was an assurance from the right hon. Baronet that sufficient experiments should be made, and that the 1429 principles of the fortifications and shields should he fully tried. I am hound to say that these experiments have been largely and satisfactorily undertaken and carried out. And I now wish to deal with the results, and I think the House will agree with me that they are of a very remarkable character. The first experiment was to prove the power of the shields. The House is already aware of the result of that experiment, as it has formed the subject of a Report by the Committee which was appointed by the right hon. Baronet at the end of last year. That Report was delivered in the beginning of this Session. It contains an unqualified condemnation of the shields, thirty-five of which had been most unfortunately and prematurely sent to Gibraltar and Malta for the protection of those colonies. The experiments with reference to the Plymouth and Bermuda forts took place on the 16th of last month. There was on that occasion a large and influential attendance of gentlemen, many of whom were Members of this and of the other House of Parliament; the Commander-in-Chief was present, and many other distinguished persons who are interested in the subject. The firing on that day, although it was by no means of a satisfactory character, so far as any real test was in question, was quite sufficient to show that the Plymouth fortification which has been so much relied upon was an exceedingly inefficient mode of defence. But on the second day of the firing the result was still more disastrous to the target. As I have promised the House to be brief, I shall not enter into details as to the effects of the firing on the several days. Nor shall I attempt to describe the extraordinary damage done by each shot; it will be sufficient for my purpose to state that the effect of the three days' firing was to completely destroy the fabric, and to leave the impression on the minds of all present, that it was a most ill-adapted, and, I may say, a most useless structure. In order to give the House some idea of the general result of the firing, I will read a short extract from The Times, describing the effect of the shells, which penetrated completely the targets on the third day. The Times on the 9th of July states—
The next round, also a 10-inch shell with charge for 1,000 yards, was more successful, striking a little above the left-hand corner of the porthole. It did great damage, carrying away the whole of the shield above the embrasure up 1430 to the level of the under side of the roof. An enormous mass of iron, weighing about a ton and a quarter, was projected into the gun chamber, and two short pieces of iron planks, each weighing about 2cwt., were hurled, one nearly 150 feet, and the other nearly 100 feet to the rear. The shell burst inside the casemate, setting fire slightly to the rope mantlet, and sending fragments of iron flying in all directions. This was the most formidable result yet produced. Had it occurred in action it would have disabled the gun, and made a clean sweep of all the defenders in that part of the building.Such is the account, given by The Times' reporter, of the third day's firing. But the Committee were not entirely satisfied, and on the 8th of the present month they decided to fire what is called a salvo of guns at the structure. Four guns were laid in position,—one of them missed fire, but the shots from the other three struck the target. As soon as the smoke from the discharge had cleared away, the first object which met the view of those on the ground was the active effort of a gallant general to get through the breach which had been made in the face of the target—an effort in which he succeeded without much trouble, his purpose being to examine the damage sustained by the interior. This fact, I think, is sufficiently conclusive as to the target's inefficiency for defensive purposes. But before I leave this part of the question I am anxious to call the attention of the right hon. Baronet to the fact that that target was not a true representation by any means of the fort contracted for and to be constructed at Plymouth. The fort as contracted for was less than the target erected at Shoeburyness by 5 inches of iron in the interior supports, on which such structures mainly depend. The fort to be constructed at Plymouth presents also on its surface 15 inches of iron in three thicknesses, while the target shot at at Shoeburyness consisted of a thickness of twenty inches. The Shoeburyness target was strengthened materially on the inner side, and, in point of fact, as I am assured by those who examined both, was a very different structure to that which was contracted for in 1867. But this is not the most remarkable circumstance connected with this matter. The fort which was contracted for in February, 1867, and that which is being completed under a modification of that contract at this moment, are completely different in their characters. The alterations in the contract have added a great amount of strengthening, in fact, many changes have been made, but at great expense, 1431 which have altogether altered and increased the resisting power of the fort. I think it is perfectly right, wherever any improvement presents itself to the minds of those who have charge of the construction of these fortifications, that those improvements should be at once adopted; but I think these alterations fully and completely justify my noble Friend and myself in the course we adopted last year, when we urged upon the House the entire inefficiency of the proposed structure, and endeavoured to stop further expenditure upon it, the more particularly as many of the points of weakness to which I then referred have been since rectified by orders from the War Office. What has recently taken place has abundantly shown that, at the time we interfered last year, no experiments which could be relied upon had then been undertaken, and also proved that the experiments which have since been carried on have not been nearly sufficient to tell us what is the true system which ought to be adopted. The target representing the Plymouth and Bermuda forts has now been proved to be utterly useless for the purposes for which these forts were intended, and if this be the case it will scarcely require much argument to show that the forts which are now being contracted for in the North of England and on the Thames are utterly useless, and that the money which has been expended upon them up to the present time, amounting to little short of £35,000 for each fort, has been totally lost to the country. Now this, I say, is a serious question, which the House would do well to consider, and which requires that we should receive from the right hon. Baronet who has charge of this Department some assurance that the present system should be discarded, and that no further outlay should be permitted until the question shall be fully inquired into. I must also call the attention of the House to another remarkable circumstance. Two years ago, before the Plymouth contract was entered into, a casemate, called the War Office casemate, had been erected at Shoeburyness. That casemate was built upon a very peculiar system, with great care and after mature deliberation, I think after the plan of Colonel Jervois, one of the officers of the War Department, and I think that the principle of that casemate does that officer very great credit. It was designed at a time when the 12-inch guns had not been tried against any of our armour plates, 1432 and was simply intended for the purpose of resisting the artillery then known—the 7-inch and the 9-inch guns—and I am bound to say that it completely succeeded in throwing off the shot and shell fired from those guns. The casemate now offers the fullest evidence of its own success at Shoeburyness, where it stands perforated in many places by the 11-inch and 12-inch guns, having perfectly resisted the smaller class of artillery brought against it, which entirely failed to do it any mischief, although forty-two rounds were fired against it, or nearly double the number fired at the Plymouth target. It certainly does appear somewhat singular that such a structure, which stood ready at the hand of the authorities to be tried as a test of the resisting power of forts so constructed, should have been left undisturbed on the sands of Shoeburyness for so long a period, and that, notwithstanding the opportunity of learning something of the subject was thus offered to the War Office they should not have availed themselves of it, but should have entered obstinately and without trial into the large, and as I believe useless, contracts which I have described. I believe the right hon. Baronet the Secretary for War is now pretty well aware that the experiments asked for last year were very necessary and very desirable, and that a great amount of advantage will be gained by the country from the result of those experiments. Probably the right hon. Baronet will consider it within the line of his duty to tell us, in the observations he will doubtless make in reply to me, whether he does not think that the advice given to him, even by amateur Members, as he chose to call my noble Friend and myself last year, was not sound and good advice. I regret that the right hon. Baronet did not accept the caution which we then offered to him. I am sure it was offered in the very best spirit, and without the slightest feeling of hostility to the War Office. I have only one or two words to add. I desire to call attention to the last experiment which was made the day before yesterday, and I do so because it refers specially to the question of shields. The House will remember that the shields to which I have alluded as being sent to Bermuda and Gibraltar turned out to be failures. The question was then raised whether a shield could be constructed which would resist the heavy ordnance which could now be brought against it. Almost coeval with 1433 the War Office casemate was the shield constructed by Mr. Hughes, of the Millwall Iron Works on a principle he had long advocated. This shield was constructed and finished in 1865; but the War Office authorities did not believe in it, as the principle on which it was constructed was not their principle, and in consequence found no more favour in their eyes than the casemate, and therefore it was never tried. The contract for the construction of shields for our foreign colonies was entered into although this shield remained within the control of the War Department, to be experimented upon when they pleased, and, singular to say, it was not shot at until the day before yesterday—nearly two years and a half or three years from the date of its construction. The Committee appointed to superintend the experiments very properly and very fairly submitted this shield to precisely the same ordeal that was applied to the Gibraltar shield. The guns were the same, the distance was the same—seventy yards—the charges were the same, the shot the same, and, if I remember rightly, the number of rounds was the same; and the result was that the artillery entirely failed in producing any effect whatever upon it; as may be seen from the morning papers of to-day, it absolutely resisted without any injury the effects of the heavy firing against it. In fact, it was completely successful in beating the guns, as I believe the right hon. Baronet will admit when he receives the detailed Reports, which will no doubt be presented to him on the subject. I think, therefore, it is also very much to be regretted that this shield was not tried before the contracts which have cost the country so much money were entered into. It appears to me, Sir, that those who advised the right hon. Baronet to hesitate about having that shield and casemate tried, did not offer that sound, good and unprejudiced advice which they ought to have given. If the shield had been tried this time last year, when it was quite ready, a large amount of perfectly useless expenditure must have been saved, and we should by this time, if they were to be used at all, have had structures that would repel any shot that could be fired against them, so far at least, as the ordnance at present known could be brought to bear upon them.Notice taken that forty Members an not present; House counted, and forty Members being found present,
§ MR. O'BEIRNEresumed, I much regret that so much time has been lost by so useless a proceeding as has just been adopted by the hon. Gentleman behind me (Mr. Monk). It will of course be a question between the hon. Gentleman and his constituents whether the latter will approve of this attempt of his to keep back what I have stated is a grave public question, involving the expenditure of millions of money which, as I have asserted, has so far been uselessly expended, and with reference to which I have been earnestly, and I hope briefly, endeavouring to explain to the House the grounds upon which I have formed these opinions. The immediate object which led me to draw attention to the subject at this late period of the Session was this—I desired to impress on the right hon. Baronet the Secretary for War the necessity of giving to the House some assurance as to what his future policy will be with regard to this matter. I wished to recall the attention of hon. Members before the close of the present Session—before this House had sat for the last time—to a subject which I believe to be of serious moment, which has frequently and for a long period occupied public consideration, and which I believe to be second to no other in the general interest it has excited throughout the country. I have now only to ask the right hon. Baronet, whether after the various experiments to which I have alluded, and the results which I have stated, he will give the House some hope that he will stop further expenditure on fortifications and shields until we shall have attained, either by the Report of the Committee which he has himself appointed, or by further experiments, should they be considered necessary, such a degree of certainty as our present scientific knowledge will enable us to reach with reference to this most intricate and difficult question? I ask the right hon. Baronet whether he means to stay his hand and to prevent further outlay, or whether he means to accept before the House and before the country the grave responsibility which will fall upon him and his Colleagues should he persevere in the wasteful application of the public money to a system of fortifications which all the information we now possess emphatically and beyond all question declares to be entirely unsuited to the purposes of defence of our arsenals and dockyards for which they were intended?
§ SIR JOHN PAKINGTONsaid, he had no reason to complain of the course taken by the hon. Gentleman (Mr. O'Beirne) in bringing this matter under the consideration of the House; and he thought the practical reason assigned by the hon. Gentleman at the close of his speech for submitting this question was fair, just, and reasonable. He (Sir John Pakington), however, regretted, under the peculiar circumstances of the Session, that the hon. Gentleman should have felt himself compelled at that moment to raise such a question, because he confessed that he was not in a position to give so distinct and decided an answer to the hon. Gentleman's inquiry as he should be able to do if the matter were mentioned a few days later. The important experiments which took place at Shoeburyness upon the Plymouth target were carried on under the superintendence of the Committee especially appointed for the purpose. From that Committee he expected a full Report of their judgment of the result of those experiments, and until he had received that Report he thought the hon. Gentleman himself would admit it was impossible for him to come to a conclusion upon the course he should think it his duty to take. He could not, however, help remarking he thought the hon. Gentleman had a little exaggerated the effect of the firing on the Plymouth target. The Plymouth fort was no doubt designed to resist most powerful artillery, but not precisely the guns of that day. The hon. Gentleman had indeed pointed out the distinction between the guns in favour some few years ago and those at the present period; but he did not apply that distinction as he ought to have done to the experiments which were tried the other day at Shoeburyness. Those experiments of firing to which the target was exposed were of extraordinary force. The order which he (Sir John Pakington) had given upon this subject was that the fort to be fired at should be placed at the nearest possible distance at which an enemy's ship could approach in a time of war—namely, about 200 yards, and that it should be exposed to the fire of a 22-ton gun, with a full charge like the Armstrong gun. The hon. Gentleman must, however, candidly admit that the fort was not originally designed to bear the firing of a gun of that kind, such a gun not having been known at the time the fort was designed, 1436 and he was sure that he would also admit that an enemy's ship could hardly approach to within 200 yards of the fort, considering the ordinary chances of war. The hon. Gentleman said that the target on that occasion was knocked to pieces after a few days' battering. He (Sir John Pakington) indeed believed that the target was in a very infirm condition; but it must not be forgotten that it had been exposed to a trial of most extraordinary severity, and competent judges were disposed to think that the resisting power of the target was very considerable. There existed no defect in the principle on which the fort was constructed, and there was nothing to prevent its being made a very valuable and efficient one by taking advantage of the experience derived from the trial, and adding to the strength of the structure. He did not think that the hon. Gentleman was justified in his remark that the result of the trial showed that the fort was entirely inefficient for the purpose it was designed for. The old complaint had been revived that some alteration had been made in the construction of the fort; but on questioning some persons concerned in its construction he was informed that, though in one part there was an additional layer of iron, in other parts the alteration was very trifling. He did not admit that it was right to refuse permission to individuals who had the responsibility of building such structures to avail themselves from time to time of fresh inventions and discoveries, so that the fortifications might be as fit for their purpose as it was possible to make them. In reference to the trial of the Millwall shield, which took place within the last few days, it would, he thought, be premature to express any opinion upon those experiments. Judging, however, from the newspaper reports he had seen he had reason to believe that that shield had stood the firing to which it was exposed extremely well. He should be the last person to refuse the credit that was justly due to the contriver of that shield; but still, he repeated, it would be premature to pronounce an opinion upon its merits merely from the statements they read in newspaper reports. He would remind the hon. Gentleman, when he said that the Millwall shield the day before yesterday was exposed to the same kind of trial as was the Gibraltar shield last autumn, that it was not exposed to the same trial to which the Plymouth fort was 1437 exposed with the 22-ton gun. If he (Sir John Pakington) were not mistaken he had seen a further statement in the newspaper accounts of the Millwall experiments, which strongly contrasted with the complete success reported to have been achieved—namely, a statement to the effect that great pains had been taken to give support to the Millwall shield by certain artificial erections behind it. If that were the case it must necessarily deduct from the value of the construction; but he should very shortly receive a Report of the experiments from the same Committee that had superintended the experiments with the Plymouth target. In reply to the inquiry put to him by the hon. Gentleman, he should certainly exercise what appeared to him to be necessary caution under such circumstances. He could not give a definite answer to the hon. Gentleman until he had in his hand those interesting and important Reports referred to. Whilst, on the one hand, he was unwilling to interpose any unnecessary delay in this matter, on the other hand he felt that the result of those experiments imposed a heavy responsibility upon the Government not to proceed further in this direction without the fullest consideration of the Reports which were yet to be presented.
§ LORD ELCHOsaid, he thought that the hon. Gentleman who brought this subject forward deserved the thanks of the House, for his observation led him to the conclusion that the most ungrateful task which could fall to the lot of any Member on his side of the House was to submit for discussion any question relating to mal-administration in a great public Department, or to endeavour to bring about a reduction of expenditure. On such occasions the financial Reformers were generally absent, or, if present, cheered anything which fell from a Government official with a view to throwing a shield over mal-administration. No sooner did an hon. Gentleman propose to bring forward an important question like that under consideration than he was asked not to take up the time of the House, and thereupon the hon. Member for Brighton (Mr. Fawcett) cheered. Immediately afterwards another great financial Reformer, the hon. Member for Gloucester, got up and moved that the House be counted. The subject under discussion was one which concerned the national safety, and the due and proper expenditure of a vast amount of public money, 1438 and the hon. Member for Cashel (Mr. O'Beirne) had brought it forward that day upon a clear understanding with the Leader of the House. What he complained of was that these forts had been, contracted for without the system upon which they were constructed having been previously adequately tested, and the result had been that a large sum of money had been expended upon forts which were totally inefficient. On entering the railway carriage to go down to witness the trial of the Plymouth shield a paper was put into their hands which informed them that the trial was to be inductive only and not actual; that the guns were to be fired with reduced charges, at 200 yards, in order to ascertain the exact effect that would be produced were the guns fired at 1,000 yards with full battering charges. They were informed by that paper that no ship could come within 500 yards of a fort, whereas Admiral Dacres, Admiral Milne, and Sir John Hay told them that vessels could easily be taken within 200 yards of the forts, and that if a vessel was to be sunk a captain would sooner have her sunk in shoal water than in deep water. On the matter being pointed out to the right hon. Gentleman, he at once, on arriving at Shoeburyness, directed that the experiments should be conducted with full battering charges, an alteration in the programme that greatly astonished the Committee. The Plymouth fort was designed and tendered for to meet the gun of the period, but instead of that it was tested with the 22-ton gun, which was now said to be invented after the fort was designed. That was the whole point at issue. The Gibraltar shield and Plymouth fort were never tested before they were designed and constructed, and the consequence was that they went to pieces. If the subject had not been brought before the House the Bermuda and Gibraltar shields would have been put up at all the important ports. The fact was that they were designed by a Gentleman in the War Office on his own hook, without taking any account of the valuable information on the point possessed by the Admiralty. That Department had conducted a series of experiments, and had laid down certain data, which, if followed, would have prevented these continual complaints; but in spite of that they went on constructing Department shields at a great expense, which were proved defective, happily under fire of our own guns; whereas, if the course of these financial 1439 Reformers had been adopted on this point, which involved national safety, honour, and economy, the first notice the public would have had would have been the crumbling of these forts under the fire of the enemy's gun.
§ SIR JOHN PAKINGTONsaid, he was under the impression that the 22-ton gun was invented when the Plymouth forts were invented.
MR. HENLEYsaid, that owing to the assistance which the Government received from amateurs or from some other cause, the expenditure upon the army and navy had been enormously increased of late years. He protested against the time of the House being occupied by a discussion of this kind when they had met for the purpose of considering a specific measure.
§ MR. MONK, in reply to the taunt of the noble Lord (Lord Elcho) denied that hon. Members on the Opposition side of the House were anxious to obstruct measures for the reduction of expenditure. Few Members were more regular in their attendance than he (Mr. Monk) was when Supply was taken, and he invariably voted for reduction of expenditure; but he was unaware that any practical good would result from the discussion which had been raised to-day. The noble Lord (Lord Elcho) and the hon. Member (Mr. O'Beirne), however, had doubtless accomplished their object, which was to "air their oratory."
§ MR. FAWCETTprotested against the unnecessary attack which the noble Lord (Lord Elcho) had made upon him in accusing him of not being a sincere financial reformer. He expressed disapproval at this Motion having been brought forward at a time when they were brought down to consider a most important Bill for the prevention of bribery and corruption at Parliamentary Elections. So far as he (Mr. Fawcett) knew the noble Lord had never yet voted in favour of a Motion for the reduction of expenditure.