HC Deb 11 May 1871 vol 206 cc630-1
SIR JAMES ELPHINSTONE

asked the First Lord of the Admiralty, Whether he will propose a Supplementary Estimate to provide for the losses suffered by the widows of the officers who were drowned by the foundering of Her Majesty's Ship "Captain," if they cannot be met out of public funds any other way?

MR. GOSCHEN

said, in reply, that he did not consider it convenient to answer the Question of the hon. Baronet at the present time. He must express his surprise at seeing that the conversation which he had had with the hon. Baronet on this subject had been communicated to the public papers. He was unable to state absolutely what would be done by the Government in respect to these matters. He had already stated, in reply to a Question from the hon. Member for the Isle of Wight (Mr. Baillie Cochrane), that the Government thought it would be a dangerous precedent for them to make good losses of the character of those alluded to. They had therefore declined to recognize those claims, not from motives of parsimony, but in the interests of the public service; they considered that those matters should be dealt with in the same way as all other cases of a like nature.

SIR JAMES ELPHINSTONE

said, he had a Notice of Motion on the Paper for last Friday, and he remained in the House till 12, when the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government asked him to postpone his Motion, stating that the question would be dealt with in a spirit of liberality. He had no idea in the world that this was a private communication. He was one of the last men in the House who would betray any private communication. He believed that his Motion was for the purpose of settling a question which he was quite sure the right hon. Gentleman had as much at heart as he had. That was all that passed on the occasion, and as he was inundated with letters asking what had become of his Motion he communicated to "the leading journal" the state of the case, simply stating that he had withdrawn his Motion on the Government engaging to bring the subject forward.