SUPPLY—NAVY ESTIMATES.

HC Deb 08 May 1884 vol 287 cc1702-807

SUPPLY.—considered in Committee.

(In the Committee.)

(1.) Motion made, and Question proposed, That a sum, not exceeding £870,400, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the Expenses of Victuals and Clothing for Seamen and Marines, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1885.

MR. W. H. SMITH

I think it was understood that the discussion upon the Statement of the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Admiralty should be taken upon the present occasion; and I think it will be for the convenience of the Committee if I refer to some of the remarks made by the hon. Gentleman in introducing the Estimates some weeks ago. I do not propose to occupy a very great deal of the time or the attention of the Committee; but there are some points which I should like to refer to in detail; and I must ask for the indulgence of the Committee if I go into questions of figures, which are always exceedingly uninteresting, and require a certain amount of explanation in order to make them intelligible. I will refer, first of all, to the comparison between the Estimates of the present and last year which was made by my hon. Friend. My hon. Friend has shown that the Estimates of 1884–5, as compared with. 1883–4, show an increased charge, owing to an improvement in the position of certain officers—certain warrant officers and petty officers in the Fleet. I make no objection whatever to an improvement in the position of those men; but I regret to find that this increased charge is accompanied by a decided diminution in the strength of the Navy. There is an increase of charge; but with that increase there is a diminution in the strength of the Navy. That is a matter of some moment, because this reduction has been going on, more or less, from year to year for some time. I find no fault whatever with the Estimates as far as the charges are concerned. The practice which now prevails of re-commissioning ships abroad necessitates there being two crews for the same ship afloat at the same time. I believe it is the fact that ships are re-commissioned now at Malta and other foreign Stations; and the necessity for having two crews for the same ship gives us a smaller reserve of men to draw from in the event of any sudden emergency arising. My hon. Friend will correct me if I am wrong; but I suppose there never was a time in which our actual reserves were lower than at the present moment. I pass from that to a grave question to which my hon. Friend referred, and that was the insubordination among some of the seamen. The hon. Gentleman has done justice to the general improvement that has taken place in the efficiency, character, and general demeanour of the blue jackets as a whole. Everyone must have observed that during the last few years; but, unhappily, amongst the younger men there has existed a greater disposition towards insubordination than formerly existed. Whether this is due to the withdrawal of the fear of punishment, to which they were formerly subjected, or to any other circumstance, it is not for me to say; but I must repeat the objection which I strongly hold to the punishments which are, of necessity, inflicted upon young men who are sent to prison for considerable periods of time for the commission of offences which in themselves are exceedingly inimical to the preservation of good order and discipline, and must be punished when they occur on board ship in a service like that of the Navy. But, at the same time, I think they ought to be punished by some other punishment than imprisonment in company with persons of bad character. In many cases there are no other punishments available, under the orders of the present Board of Admiralty; and the result is to condemn men, simply for a freak of temper, for insubordination, or want of discipline, to become criminals for the greater part of their lives. I hold that those who have felt it necessary to withdraw from the Penal Code one punishment ought to find some other punishment which would not carry with it the stigma and disgrace and injury to a man's character which imprisonment among criminals for a long' term involves, altogether unfitting a man for future employment who might otherwise have served his country faithfully and well. Reference has been made by the hon. Gentleman to an exceedingly valuable change which has taken place in the character of the sick berth staff, of which I desire to express my most cordial approval. I come now to the larger and more important considerations to which my hon. Friend referred. We had a discussion on the comparative strength of the French and English Navy; and I do not propose, on the present occasion, to re-open that discussion. It would be impossible to convince hon. Gentlemen that the view which some of us hold upon that point is an inaccurate one, or that it cannot be sustained by facts which ought to be accepted as convincing by the hon. Gentlemen we address. Therefore, I will satisfy myself with leaving, as I did on the last occasion, the whole responsibility of the building programme for the British Navy, as compared with its necessities and duties, to rest upon Her Majesty's Government. The House will always be prepared to give to the Government sufficient Ways and Means to keep the Navy at such a strength as, in their judgment, is required; and the whole responsibility of making adequate provision for the Navy must rest upon Her Majesty's Government. I wish now to say a few words upon various topics connected with the efficiency of the Navy; and, first of all, I will notice the Marines. I observe that the Marines are still deficient in their full strength. The events which have occurred during the last year have shown how exceedingly valuable the force of Marines is. They have done admirable service; and that service has been warmly and generously acknowledged not only by the Admiralty, but by the country at large. They are now the only available force for services such as those which have been undertaken by the Government on the Coast of the Red Sea. There is, apparently, no other military force there which could be used at Suakin; but a Marine force may be one half afloat and the other ashore, and may in this way be maintained in a state of efficiency. I have always regretted the recent reductions in the strength of the Corps; and circumstances have proved that it is a most valuable force, and one which ought not to be neglected. It is one on which the country can place entire reliance, where they would not be equally able to place reliance on some other military nominally effective force; and it is the duty of the Government to keep it up at least to the strength which has been voted. As to the question of tonnage, my hon. Friend quoted a definition of a ton weight, given some time ago by the present Secretary to the Treasury. I think there are probably not three men on the Benches opposite who would understand and thoroughly appreciate the explanation then given, and which was given as a full and complete explanation of the practice of the Admiralty. If I may be permitted by the Committee to repeat the exact words used by my hon. Friend, and as I have extracted them from the expense account of the Navy, I should like to do so, rather than run the risk of not conveying to the Committee the official explanation of a ton weight of shipping— A ton is the standard of measurement of the proposed construction, and the word is used to arrive at a certain estimate of the cost of an assumed quantity of work. When a ship is designed the number of tons weight is estimated, and the total labour required in her construction is also estimated. The money value of that labour, divided by the number of tons, gives the cost per ton of the labour. This forms the measure of the progress of the ship, and, according to the amount expended for labour upon her, she is said to have added to her so many tons. In fact, what is called a ton is not, strictly speaking, a ton at all, but merely a convenient form of expressing the amount of money spent, or to be spent. It is impossible to say what money may necessarily have to be spent, and the figures given are, therefore, only approximate. If the Estimates for last year are taken, I think it will be found that by dividing the amount provided for wages by the number of tons intended to be built there would be a cost of something like £33 or £34 a ton, and therefore it may be taken that every £33 10s. expended realized a ton weight of material built into a ship; that is, that for every £33 10s. we add really a ton more or less to the strength of the Navy and to the size of the ship under construction. Well, Sir, I am bound to say that, although I believe it was intended to be a fair and reasonably just expression used by my hon. Friend opposite and by the able servants of the Admiralty, or rather of the Constructive Department, in perfect or complete good faith, nevertheless I think that the Estimate or statement is completely and absolutely fallacious. My hon. Friend admitted that when he said that a ton weight of material built into a ship did not give an accurate idea of the amount built, but was only more or less approximate. I have examined the ton weight of hull estimated to have been completed on the first page of the Estimates during the last three years, and I have compared them with the Estimates for this year on page 191. There are two sets of figures. There is a statement of the total armoured tonnage expected to be completed in 1883–4, and when the Estimates were framed, and there are the previous Estimates which purport to be the actual amount of tonnage completed in 1883–4. The Estimate of the amount of armoured ships intended to be built in the Dockyards was 10,299 tons, and in this year's Estimates it is shown to be 11,490 tons. That was built at a cost for wages of £383,000. Well, Sir, there is another page in these Estimates—page 204—which shows the tons weight of hull built by April, 1884—that is this year—and the tons to be built in 1884–5; and in order to identify the two we must compare the tons to be built in 1884–5 on page 204, and we shall find they correspond exactly with the tons to be built in 1884–5. in the Estimate on page 191. It is, therefore, clear that the tons intended to be built are precisely the same on one page as those referred to on the other. I hope my hon. Friend will follow me, and will admit that I am not making any mis-statement of the fact, that the ton on page 191 is the same ton intended to be built on page 204. I think that is a fair statement of the case. Well, the real fact of the case is, that the results have in no instance agreed; the particu- lars are absolutely and entirely fallacious as far as the work is concerned. Now, I make no charge against anybody with regard to these fallacious figures. Figures appear to have an irresistible charm for some persons, who deal with them, and put them together in such a way as to be entirely satisfactory to themselves, while, at the same time, they expect them to be satisfactory to everybody else. I have examined for three succeeding years the Estimates in the way I have stated. I have examined the amount intended to be done in the first portion of the Estimate—that is to say, at page 191 in the Estimates of 1881–2, and at page 197 of the Estimates of the same year. In order to understand the matter accurately, I was obliged to refer to the Estimates of the preceding year, so as to find what was the amount of the tonnage actually built into the ships according to the Estimates themselves in that year; and I found that, for the ships named on page 197 of the Estimates of 1881–2, 16,700 tons had been built in. The promise was to build in 10,816 tons in the Estimates of 1881–2, at pages 191 and 197. The two figures entirely agree one with the other; but in the Estimates of 1882–3, instead of 10,816, the Government proposed to add 207 tons, making 11,023. Adding to the 16,700 tons already built the 11,023 to be built, there should be a total of 27,723 altogether; but it is shown on the Estimates of 1882–3 that only 26,510 tons had been built into the ships named, showing not an excess, but a deficiency, amounting in 1881–2 to 1,213 tons. Therefore, this reduced the actual tonnage built into the ships to 9,810 tons (11,023 proposed, and 12,013 not built), instead of 10,800. I hope the Committee will forgive me for going into details, which I am afraid are not interesting; but they certainly seem to me to be of very considerable importance. In 1882–3, the tons built into the ships named on page 201 of the Estimates for the year were 26,510; and the number of tons to be built in 1882–3 was 11,016, as shown on pages 195 and 201 of the Estimates for 1882–3, making a total of 37,526 tons; but, by a reference to the Estimates, it appears that only 36,243 had been completed, including the Ajax, 5,900; the Agamemnon, 5,900; and the Polyphemus, 1,690, making 13,490, which, added to 22,793, gives a total of 36,253 tons actually built in 1882–3, show- ing a deficiency of 1,283 tons, or only 9,733 tons actually built in 1882–3. I can give my hon. Friend the names and tonnage of the ships themselves if he wishes it. I will now take 1883–4, because that is the year which has been spoken of as the evidence of the successful building programme of the Government and the Admiralty during the past year. In 1883–4 it was proposed to build in the Dockyards 11,224 tons of armoured ships. The iron-dads into which this tonnage was to be built is shown on page 204 of the Estimates for 1883–4. The number of tons built into them was 22,753 by April, 1883. The Estimates of 1884 withdraw the Mersey and the Severn from armoured ships, and this reduced the original Estimate of armoured ships to be built to 10,299 tons; but the previous Estimate of the tonnage to be built in 1883–4 and the tonnage asserted to have been actually built is 11,490, and I think that is the tonnage claimed by my hon. Friend as having been built in the Dockyards up to the 31st of March. Now, if we take the work done on these ships by April, 1883, as shown on page 204 of the Estimates, it was 22,753 tons; and if we add 11,490 tons claimed to have been completed, we have a total of 34,243 tons; but the actual condition of the ships shown at page 204 was that 27,878 tons were built, and if we add the Conqueror, 4,200 tons passed away and said to have been completed, the total would be 32,078 tons, showing a deficiency of tons weight of hull of 2,167 tons, or quite 20 per cent of the 11,490 tons claimed to have been completed, and leaving only 9,225 as having been shown to be added to the weight of ships. Here, again, I have the figures, and I should be glad to give them to my hon. Friend if he wishes to have them. I have spoken now of the apparent increase in the armoured strength of the Navy during the past year; and I contend that the Estimates themselves show that if it had been the practice—I am making no complaint against my hon. Friend—but if it had been the practice to take the actual tonnage weight of the hull built into the ships, and ascertained to have been built into the ships, and put into the programme in the first instance as having been built, we should have been able to see the actual result, rather than that other result which my hon. Friend would wish to say has been accomplished. My hon. Friend and the Admiralty had these facts before them, because they have given them to the House; and, therefore, instead of saying that there were 11,490 tons built into the ships, I contend they ought to have said there were 9,220 tons. But what are the wages taken per ton for the cost of the total tonnage? The total cost was £383,000 for, say, 11,490 tons at page 191 of the Estimates for this year, 1884–5. That would come to about £33 10s. per ton; but as there have only been, as is shown by the Estimates at page 204, 9,225 tons built, the labour has cost £41 10s. per ton weight of hull, irrespective of all their expense and charges. I have spoken of two sets of figures in the same Estimates which differ widely. The expense accounts shows a third set of figures, and I wish to call attention to it. Take the case of the Conqueror in the accounts of 1882–3, as shown in the expense account, it had had 3,049 tons weight of hull built by April, 1882. In the expense accounts for the year ending April, 1882, at page 14 it is shown that 3,052 tons were built at that time, so that the Estimates and the expense account agree within three tons, which is altogether an inconsiderable amount not worth referring to. That shows that the Estimate, as far as page 204 is concerned, giving the actual statement of the amount of work done on the ships more nearly approaches accuracy than the first page of the programme to which I have referred, and on which my hon. Friend claims a larger performance. In the expense accounts for 1881–2, at page 14, it is shown that 3,052 tons were built at that time; but in the expense accounts for the year 1882–3, at page 14, the tons built prior to the year are shown to have been only 2,518, so that in a simple case of bringing forward from one year's account to another 534 tons weight are lost without note or comment, and other ships show a similar loss. There is, therefore, no reliance whatever to be placed upon this information as to tons built, or the cost as far as wages are concerned per ton. We do not know from any Return in the possession of the House accurately what has been obtained for so large an expenditure. Now, if, instead of 11,490 tons having been built, the figures shown on page 204 of the Estimates are correct at present, and only 9,225 tons weight of hull are claimed to be built as upon page 204, there is every reason to fear that, as in the case of the Conqueror, Colossus, and other ships these figures will shrink again very materially when brought into the expense account, and the ultimate result for the year will be some 15 per cent less than 9,225 tons, or probably some 7,800 tons, at a cost for wages alone of £50 per ton. Now, to what is this due? I have confidence that the original Estimates made by the Controller and Constructor of the Navy were framed in perfect and complete good faith; but I think I have shown that there is a great probability that instead of our obtaining the actual tonnage which we hoped to get, and the increase on the actual strength of the Navy which we hope to obtain, we have got considerably less. I think my hon. Friend will recognize that the amount of the deficiency is very considerable indeed; 11,400 tons would represent two very large ships of war, and the deficiency between 11,400 tons and the possibility of having only 7,800 represents, at least, one-half of a very large ship, and it brings it down to the production of less than one first-class ship, instead of one and a-half in the course of the year. Now, to what is this due? I said just now that I believed the Estimate had been framed, in the present instance, by the Controller and Constructor of the Navy with the greatest possible care, and that there was no intention whatever to deceive the Admiralty or the country as to the cost of the ships intended to be built, and that probably £33 10s. per ton in respect of the building of a ship was a very fair and full estimate. The result is due largely to the alterations made in the construction of the ship after the design has been settled, while the ship has been in the stocks after she had been launched, and before she came into the Service. It is due largely to a conscientious desire to carry out those improvements to which my hon. Friend referred in the course of his speech. He said—"I think that it would be utter folly to shut our eyes to improvement." I entirely believe that that would be a correct and a wise policy, and that it would be the height of folly to shut our eyes to improvement; but it would also be the height of folly to wait for the perfection which hon. Gentlemen sometimes desire to see attained in any particular thing with which they have to deal, and which has a special and fascinating interest for persons whose reputation is supposed to be concerned in turning out a ship, or a gun, or any other article of mechanism. And if they had the entire and absolute control of the work to be done, they would, undoubtedly, commit a folly even greater than that of shutting their eyes to improvements, if they looked forward to effecting such improvements in the process of building a ship, or completing a great piece of mechanism which was not contemplated when the original design was settled, and which would result both in serious delay and a considerable increase of cost. Her Majesty's Government, when they took Office, promised, as compared with their Predecessors, to put these ships out of hand with far greater rapidity than had ever before been attained; and I am sure that no one in this House, and no one in the country, welcomed that decision on their part more cordially than I did. After having myself been two years at the Admiralty, I at last came to see some of the difficulties with which the Board of Admiralty had to contend; so also had my Colleagues. I had been a shorter time at the Admiralty than they had been; but I came to see some of the difficulties after two years' service there, and I feel that no greater service could be done to the Navy than to resolve that after the design of a ship has been settled, to push forward the completion of that ship with all the energy possible for a great manufacturing establishment to give to its work. Now, the Colossus was laid down in June, 1879, and it is said that it will be completed this year—that is to say, after five years. The Conqueror was laid down in April, 1879, and it is called completed, but it is not yet finished; and I shall have a little more to say upon that point by-and-bye. The Edinburgh was laid down in March, 1879, and it is only to be advanced to 73–100ths this year. The result is that we have no really completed ship either last year or this year. The Conqueror is spoken of as completed, and is removed from the building programme of the Navy. I venture to say that it is nothing less than a farce to call the Conqueror com- plete. She may be complete as far as her hull is concerned; but she has not got at the present moment the breech-pieces to her guns, and it has not yet been determined what breech-piece shall be fitted to them, nor are her loading arrangements yet determined upon, the loading machinery not having been settled yet. Many thousands of pounds will still be required to be expended upon her; and it will take many months after her breech-pieces and loading arrangements have been decided upon to complete her. Then, for my part, I think it is most unwise to call a ship completed until it is ready for sea. There is only one condition of completeness, and that is the condition of being ready to receive her crow. I am convinced in my own mind, as far as I could see with my own eyes at Chatham last year, that the Conqueror will not be ready during the course of the financial year, or, if so, it will be quite as much as she can do. I think we ought to have an alteration in the practice of the Admiralty, and I hope my hon. Friend will admit the justice of the claim to an alteration of the system. When ships are called complete they should be absolutely ready for service.

GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOUR

With their guns.

MR. W. H. SMITH

Undoubtedly with their guns, as my hon. and gallant Friend remarks. At present the guns are furnished; but the breech-pieces, without which the gun is only a tube of iron, are not ready; indeed, it is not settled what loading apparatus these 43-ton guns should have, and experiments have to be made to determine what the breech and loading apparatus shall be. I do not complain of care being taken that the guns should be as absolutely perfect as they can be made; but it must be remembered that this has been going on for six years. The design of the gun was settled when I was in the Admiralty in 1878; and it is at least unfortunate that now, in 1884, the Admiralty is unable to use some of their most powerful ships, by reason of the fact that at the present moment the breech-loading apparatus of the gun is not complete—has not been decided upon, in point of fact—that the loading arrangements are not even designed, and cannot be designed until the other arrangements have been completed. The complaint is not only with regard to the Conqueror I only mention the Conqueror as an instance of the condition of things I regard as unsatisfactory, in order to save the time of the Committee. I think myself the Leander class ought to be rendered complete, according to the arrangements undertaken by the Board of Admiralty, without loss of time. I know it is said that the Leander should be completed first; that then a trial of the Leander should be made; and that then it should be ascertained what improvements or alterations ought to be effected in the Arethusa, and the other ships of the same class. It is said that the other two are built and are almost complete; and I can only say that it is not only the cause of great delay, but of great extravagance, to effect improvements that were not contemplated in the first design. I have said that £33 10s. was the estimated cost per ton, in the first portion of the Estimate for its tonnage, which it was assumed would be realized—I mean £33 10s. per ton for wages. But in these Estimates, 13 pages later, it is shown that only as many as 2,000 tons were actually built; therefore, the wages go up to £41 10s. per ton. I think I have shown to the Committee that the wages are liable to be increased still further by the breaking down of the work contemplated; and then, after the final adjustment of expenses takes place, we may find that it amounts to £50 per ton for wages alone for the building of war ships in Her Majesty's Dockyards. I do not see any shipbuilder present in the House who has experience in the building of ships in private yards. I am not going to compare private yards with Her Majesty's Dockyards; but, still, some reference may be made to the cost of building ships of war in private yards, in order that we may be able to form some estimate as to the economy and results of the labour and expenditure in the public Dockyards. I have not been able, from the inquiries I have made, to ascertain that in the yards of the most experienced and capable private builders it would cost to get a ship completed, even as ships are completed in Her Majesty's Dockyards, anything approaching £50 a-ton for labour, exclusive altogether of establishment and fixed charges. Now, Sir, there can be no doubt whatever that the Dockyard work is as good as it can possibly be, and perhaps better than the work of even the best private yard. [Sir EDWARD J. REED: No.] I have a very high opinion of the work of private shipbuilders; but I am coming back to the suggestion I made a few minutes ago, that there must be some mode of carrying out the work in the public Dockyards, which would enormously reduce the cost of building, and yet give as good ships as under the present system of expenditure. I must say that I believe the excess which has been growing larger and larger in these Estimates is greatly due to alterations after the approval of the design, and also to new mechanical appliances. I am afraid that I am wearying the Committee, but I have consulted a gentleman of great commercial ability and intelligence, and also of great scientific attainments, in the matter. I asked him his opinion as to some of the new and most delicate discoveries and improvements adopted in connection with Her Majesty's ships. His answer was that while 10 years ago the Navy was, undoubtedly, slow to admit improvements, and slow to avail itself of that mechanical assistance which science was ready to afford it, he thought that now—and he had very good reason for making the assertion—there was a tendency to go a great deal too far in that direction; that there was a disposition to provide mechanical appliances for works which could be well and cheaply done by manual labour. He added that where manual labour already existed on board ship it certainly would be far better, where the work could be done by the men without placing too great a strain upon their strength, or adding too largely to the number employed on board ship, it should be done by manual labour instead of mechanical means. There was always the danger that a mechanical apparatus might at some time or other when in action get out of order and be strained, and consequently become useless. Now, I do not wish to insist too much upon this point; but I have no doubt myself that we are far beyond Foreign Powers in regard to the adoption of mechanical means for working our guns on board ship; and probably some of this increased cost is due to the additional heavy expense of mechanical appliances. I have, therefore, a grave doubt whether we have gained in absolute efficiency, as many people suppose, by the employment of mechanical appliances. Somehow or other, our expenditure seems largely increased; but the numbers and the efficiency of our ships have not. We have not obtained 11,400 tons of shipping in the year, or the rate of progress which we ought to have had according to the Estimates placed before us; but, on the contrary, the actual amount of tonnage built into the ship has been reduced to 9,200, and may be reduced still further. The practice is, undoubtedly, this—the hull is laid down and the ship half built when the guns are altered, her magazines are altered, and her weights are altered, by which the trim of the ship and her immersion are affected. Other things are changed; and the result is that you have a very costly and a very beautiful machine, but one that is very disappointing, for there are very few cases in which a ship entirely realizes the estimate formed of her by her constructor and designer in the first instance. If you ask why this is, the designer will tell you that he is really not responsible for the changes which have been effected, and the improvements which have been introduced into the ship during the progress of her construction. I venture again to say that if we wish to have economy and efficiency the design should be definitely settled, and that nothing less than a revolution should be allowed to change it. If that course were adopted by the Admiralty one half of the time occupied in building the ships, and one-third of the cost of building the iron-clads, would, I believe, be saved. In saying this, I am in no way attacking, politically, the Admiralty of the day. I am speaking of facts as I find them; and the course which I strongly recommend is in the interests of the country, and not in those of any political Party. Let the design be fully considered before it is settled; spend any amount of time beforehand in changing it backwards and forwards; appoint any Committee you please in order to settle the design; but when it is settled nothing on earth should be allowed to interfere with it. Only one person should be responsible, and that person should be the First Lord of the Admiralty. There is only one other person who would have to carry out the final orders, and that person is the constructor of the ship, and I would hang the constructor if he allowed alterations to be made after the design had been settled. I believe that if this course were taken the ship would be a better ship, a cheaper ship, and a more successful ship in every sense of the word. There would also be this advantage—that instead of taking seven or eight years before it is completed and ready for sea, instead of becoming an obsolete ship, as many of our ships are now, it would be at sea in three or four years, and we should then have the experience afforded by a complete ship carried out according to a complete original design. So that if future improvements be necessary they could be decided upon without doubt or hesitation. I read in the papers the other day that a ship laid down by a private shipbuilder, who has, I believe, built ships for Her Majesty's Service—an armoured ship built for the Brazilian Government—was completed in two years and five months from the day on which the contract was signed. There may have been reasons for the rapidity with which this ship was completed; but she is a powerful ship of about 6,000 tons, and such a result has never been obtained in Her Majesty's Service—such a result has never been obtained by a Government Dockyard. If we could do that—if we could complete a ship and send it to sea within three years of the time it was first laid down, we should make real progress and advancement. I will not trouble the Committee with the evidence which I have obtained myself as to the cost in past years; but I cannot help giving some figures, which are really remarkable in themselves, which have been furnished to me by a shipbuilder who has done good work for the Admiralty. I have been told that the cost of labour in the Nelson was only £18 per ton, delivered as she was to the Admiralty in 1876–7. I am aware that there has been a great increase in the cost of labour since; but the difference between £18 a-ton and £50 a-ton is very great indeed, and this difference is not due to the cost of labour in the Dockyard itself. Probably the labourer in the Dockyards is not paid so much as the artizan in the Clyde; but, somehow or other, better results are got on the Clyde, and I believe it is due entirely to the fact that an order is carried out in the one case, and that an order is not carried out in the other, but is varied and altered time after time and day after day. I must again apologize for having troubled the Committee at so great a length; but the subjects which I have felt it necessary to discuss are of the greatest importance, and touch the strength of the country. I earnestly hope that the Admiralty will, in future, have but one set of figures in their Estimates, and that they will see, as far as possible, that the figures themselves are correct. I trust, also, that attention will be given to the most important considerations which I have ventured to put before the Committee—that a successful effort will be made to stop these endless alterations in ships; that ships will not be returned to this House as complete until they are quite ready for sea, instead of requiring, as at present, several months' work, and an expenditure of several thousands of pounds, in order to render them available for service. It is quite useless to say that we have a large Navy if that Navy is laid up in our Dockyards, incomplete and unable to move by reason of bad boilers, or in consequence of being altogether out of repair. Any Report of the strength of the Navy under conditions like these is completely fallacious; and it is the duty of the Admiralty to maintain Her Majesty's Navy in a state of complete efficiency. I believe it could be done even within the Estimates which are now before the Committee if that discretion is exercised which I have shown to be necessary. It would be thus alone that we can feel that the Navy of the country is equal to the duties which it may be called upon to discharge. A noble and gallant Friend of mine in "another place" has referred, in fitting and just terms, to the services rendered to the country recently by the blue jackets in the Navy; and my noble Friend remarked that as long as we had such men as those we now possess it matters very little what ships we provide for them to fight in. Now, I am not of that opinion. I do not think it is either fair or just to our officers and men that we should place in their hands anything but the most complete weapons, or that we should place them in anything but the most favourable condition for doing their duty to the country and the Queen. It is painful for me to be obliged to say it; but I do not think the Admiralty have fully realized the importance of keeping the ships which are now at sea in such a state of complete efficiency in all respects as to enable them to move at full speed, if they are required to do so, as well or better than any ships that may be sent out against them. Certainly that is not what they are now. I refrain from saying any more at the present moment; but I reserve to myself the opportunity which is always afforded in Committee of taking part in any further debate that may arise.

SIR EDWARD J. REED

The right hon. Gentleman opposite has made a speech, the importance of which it is well to recognize. When the Speaker was putting the Question this evening that "I do now leave the Chair," I heard an hon. Member near me say—"You will now see the House go out almost to a man before the discussion of the Navy Estimates is proceeded with." That prediction was so far verified that to-night I observe that the whole Conservative Party in this House, or those who are so anxious for our foreign policy to be bold and efficient, and so ready for the country to exert itself against foreign nations, has been represented in the course of this discussion by six Members upon the whole of the Benches opposite; and the great Liberal Party, with all the intense interest it takes in naval economy, has been represented by not more than 12 Members. Now, I venture to think that we have, in this state of things, and in the condition of the Committee at the present moment, the true reason why it happens that Her Majesty's ships are seven years in building, and why, at this moment, the country has millions of money taken from its taxes and invested in ships of war, which millions of money might have been available for the defence of the nation and the assertion of its power, if a reasonable amount of efficiency had been put into the naval administration of the country; whereas these millions of money are absolutely useless for all the purposes of the country in any war which may arise, either this year or next. The right hon. Gentleman has incidentally mentioned the fact that the ships, in which this country has been investing its money so freely since 1879, are still lying useless, and must continue to remain as useless for this year and next as if the country had never voted 6d. for them. If we could only see the time arrive when the House of Commons took one-half the interest in its Navy which it constantly takes in miserable pettifogging personal questions, we should see a very different state of things arise, which I, for one, should not be sorry to see. I do not discern in the speech of the right hon. Gentleman any indication of the desire which I feel in my own mind—namely, a desire to place the whole responsibility for these shortcomings upon those Noblemen and Gentlemen who assume to manage our great Departments. I hold that Lord Northbrook and the noble Marquess who represents the War Department in this House are responsible for the non-completion of our ships, and the non-efficiency of their armament; and I do not wish to hold anybody else responsible. It is all very well to talk about hanging a constructor; but the constructors have no more to do with the matter than the House. It is because of divided responsibility and distributed authority that this state of things is allowed to go forward. The right hon. Gentleman has referred to the case of a ship which has been recently built, an iron-clad ship of 6,000 tons, which has been completed in about two years and five months. I drew the specifications of that vessel; and really it seems to me but the other day when I was discussing with the representatives of the Brazilian Government the type and the description of ship we should build. I do not know whether her armament is quite complete or not; but, at any rate, she is so far complete that she has passed through her steam trials; and I think I am correct in stating that the builders have received the final instalment of her price. But this ship now built was not thought of until many years after some of the ships which are still remaining incomplete in Her Majesty's Establishments, and which we are told are to remain incomplete for this year and the next. I must say that this, to me, casts a very serious slur upon the administration of our Public Departments. There is a ship now known as the Edinburgh which was begun under another name in 1879; and, as my right hon. Friend has told you, it is the intention of the Admiralty to advance her by the 31st of March, 1885, to about 73–100ths of her building. Well, if this House is willing to accept that state of things, and to pass it by without remonstrance, of course there will be little chance of this Imperial Parliament obtaining any reasonable result from the investment of the public money. If the House is willing to agree to such a course, the only wonder is that the Admiralty ever finishes anything at all. If Parliament itself will not insist upon having the money voted properly employed, it is not reasonable to expect that statesmen, who have so many other things to think about, will care whether the ships are completed or not. As to the armament of the Conqueror, I have known the Conqueror for some time. The right hon. Gentleman tells us that so much of the gun as consists of a big tube is ready; but that the breech-piece is still under the consideration of the Department. I do not see any Representative of the War Department on the Bench below me; and I do not know whether my hon. Friend the Secretary to the Admiralty is prepared to accept the whole responsibility for the delay in completing the Conqueror, including the breech-piece. If he is not, I think it is a pity that no Representative of the War Department is here to-night to hear the opinions I am going to express, and to learn the objections which some of us cherish in regard to these matters. I say that such delay is a discredit and a disgrace to the country, and to any Government, and especially to the productive skill of the nation in mechanical constructions. The more discreditable it is to a great nation productive of ships like England, and it is deplorable, as well as discreditable to the country, that such a state of things should be allowed to go on. Attacks were made upon the Government for the delay which the Navy Estimates of last year disclosed; but I then believed, and I still believe, that the Government, within the limits they recognize are acting up to the obligations they imagine to fall upon them in making efforts to get the ships finished. I believe the only pressure which can induce the Government to complete the ships and guns more quickly must come from this House. I really do not know how it is to be put in force; but it is impossible to know such, men as Lord Northbrook and the hon. Members now upon the Treasury Bench—the Secretary to the Admiralty, and the hon. Member for Hastings (Sir Thomas Brassey)—without feeling perfectly sure that, unless they are subjected to some influence they cannot master, or do not recognize, they would not submit to this state of things. The right hon. Gentleman has raised a very interesting, but I may say, and I am sure he knows, a very old, discussion about tonnage. In that discussion about tonnage in every point, as far as it has been stated by the right hon. Gentleman, I entirely agree. What the right hon. Gentleman said about measuring progress by tonnage indicates the ease with which the House can be bamboozled. The Navy Estimates themselves have shown for years the absolute nonsense of the distribution of the cost of a ship over the tons weight of hull. But I am sure that the alteration which the right hon. Gentleman proposes would not remove the defects of the present plan. What the right hon. Gentleman proposes is to have a column put in the Estimates, giving the actual weight and material built into the hull; but in building an armour-clad ship, as he is perfectly aware, a great deal of labour is spent upon parts that weigh very little. When we get a ship approaching completion and ready to receive her armour, weights might be put in which would disrupt all your figures and make matters even worse than, they are at present. The fact is, if we will only accept it, the words "tons built" in these Estimates mean nothing at all, and it is a waste of time to expend any pains upon them. If all the information we really received from the Admiralty were how much they proposed to spend on the ships; how much they have spent; and how much more they propose to spend, then we should know just as much as we know now. But I must say this on behalf of the Admiralty and of the form of the Estimates—that I think there would be considerable inconvenience even to this House in modifying the present arrangements, because it would sweep away all the old comparisons; and there is nothing worse in considering the National Estimates than to find the basis of them continually changed. The Admiralty—I do not remember whether it was the late or the present Admiralty, and I do not discriminate much between the different Boards of Admiralty—but I think it was the present Admiralty, who, in deference to remarks which were made from time to time, did introduce a different and better column in the programme of the works, giving us a percentage of the ships to be built in a somewhat improved form. The right hon. Gentleman opposite has laid down another proposition to-night, which I think is not only a very true, but a very important one, and that is that in the present state of Parliament, looking at those things which Parliament itself recognizes to be of importance, it would be useless to attempt here to make any change, or to fix the responsibility for the state of the Navy upon anybody but the Government. I am speaking now with regard to the number of ships we have. I see the right hon. and gallant Member for Wigtown (Sir John Hay) present. He has made many efforts, and exercised no small portion of his high faculties and great experience, in securing certain advantages for the Navy. Sir Thomas Symonds also has devoted great care and labour to similar improvements; but what can any individual do if all the time my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings (Sir Thomas Brassey), and my hon. Friend below me the (Secretary to the Admiralty, are ready to come down to the House and paint to us a couleur de rose picture of the state ef the Navy? We can do nothing. There are one or two minor matters in the right hon. Gentleman's speech which I should like to refer to. I could not agree with the right hon. Gentleman, and I was obliged to express audibly my dissent from him, when he said that the work done in Her Majesty's Dockyards is infinitely better than that done in private yards. I do not think the right hon. Gentleman intended to put it quite as strongly as that; and I do not think it is necessary to introduce any question as to the relative excellence of the work done between private yards and the Government Dockyards, because the length of time taken in building a ship is in no degree due to any considerations of that kind. The right hon. Gentleman has not, I think, had any experience as to completing war ships in private yards. I have had great experience. Since I left the Admiralty I have been supervisor of a number of iron-clad vessels, or men-of-war, which have been built in private establishments; and I must say that I do not experience any difficulty in getting them completed within a reasonable time and with all necessary excellence. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will accept that statement from me as having some weight. There is another point on which I wish to ask a question of my hon. Friend the Secretary to the Admiralty, and it is about the Royal Corps of Naval Constructors. No one here will suppose, for a moment, that I could possibly witness any improvement in the position of the naval constructors, who have been a very depressed class, without satisfaction; but it seems strange to me that we are told hi the Estimates that certain Votes are to be given for a Royal Corps of Naval Constructors without being told anything about the Corps itself. I do not know whether the Government, in these days, can undertake to establish any number of Royal Corps without reference to Parliament; but in this case, as far as I can make out, the Crown has not sought any kind of approval for the establishment of this Corps. As I have said, I do not know whether the Crown claims the right to establish any number of Royal Corps without reference to this House; but I should have thought that, in taking such an important step, some pains would have been taken to obtain the approval of this House, and to furnish it with all necessary information. It is to me highly gratifying, however, that this Corps has been established; and I think the present Administration deserves extremely well of the country for having made the change, and for having elevated a mechanical class into a higher and more recognized position. I believe, Sir Arthur Otway, I shall be in Order in saying a word in reference to the naval engineers?

THE CHAIRMAN

That question will come on more properly for discussion under Vote 6. The present discussion has been largely developed altogether, and it would certainly not be admissible to discuss items which will come on again under other heads.

SIR EDWARD J. REED

I thought the Committee were to understand that this was a discussion on the general question. All I was going to say was, that I wished I could say something tonight that would induce the Admiralty to take into consideration the propriety of giving the engineers of the Royal Navy something like the improved organization which they are now giving to the constructors. There is nothing; more lamentable to me in connection with the whole of the Navy than the fact that actually the engineers of the Navy are allowed to remain in such a degraded position—degraded as regards rank, and degraded as regards pay. I will not make any comparison between the class of naval engineers and the ordinary active class, because I am aware that a great variety of opinions might be held as to the relative importance of the engineers in the Royal Navy, and of the other executive branches; but I do not suppose that any Member of the Committee would not wish to see the naval engineers, considering the way in which they have been trained for their profession in order to acquire skill, and incur the tremendous responsibility they are intrusted with—I do not suppose anybody would think the naval engineers are inferior, for instance, to the paymasters, who are nothing more than clerks. Will it be credited that the Government of the country has continued to go on keeping its naval engineers not only in a position of inferiority, but in a position of marked inferiority to the mere clerks—the paymasters, and the clerical officers of the Royal Navy? I do not suppose there would be any difficulty in inducing clerks to go to sea in Her Majesty's ships. I presume it would be, at least, as easy to get a naval clerk as a naval engineer; yet I am sorry to say it is, nevertheless, a fact that the naval engineer, both as regards pay and rank, is, by comparison, in a position of great disadvantage. In deference to what the Chairman has said, I will not go into figures as to this class. It may be possible to refer to them when we come to the Vote for that Department of the Service, and as another occasion will arise, I will content myself with what I have said. I think a great discrepancy exists between the pay and rank, and other hon. Gentlemen who are familiar with them may feel it their duty to make remarks upon them. I hope that nothing I have said will be supposed in any way to be directed against the Admiralty. The remarks I have made tonight are a continuation of those which I made in the last Parliament, and which I am bound to continue to make, because the Naval Service is one of primary importance. Another reason why we should fee perfectly free in our remarks is this—that Her Majesty's Government must do the House the justice of saying that whatever topics they are ready to convert into political questions they are never ready to make the Navy a political question; and the right hon. Gentleman who has spoken to-night set an admirable example by indulging in free criticism without being animated by Party bias. I hope my hon. Friend the Secretary to the Admiralty will feel that the only object I have had in making these remarks has been to get Her Majesty's ships quickly built, and to see that they are promptly rendered fit for service.

CAPTAIN PRICE

said, he thought the discussion that night might be looked on, to some extent, as an adjourned debate upon the speech made by the Secretary to the Admiralty in introducing the Navy Estimates the other night. He believed that was the general understanding; and he wished to make a few remarks upon that speech, some parts of which had not yet been touched. He was very glad to hear the Secretary to the Admiralty the other night state that he was in a position to give some increase of pay to a very important branch of the Naval Service, or, as he called them, "the backbone of the lower class of the Navy"—he meant the petty officers. He understood that some increase was to be made to their pay immediately, and also prospectively. They were, he believed, after having served four years, to get an increase of 3d. per day. That was satisfactory as far as it went; but he should like to ask the hon. Gentleman why it was that the increase of pay was confined to the seamen class of petty officers, and why it should not have been extended to some of the non-combatants? For instance, to some of the ships' stewards and police, both of them important classes in reference to a man-of-war, and whose pay had not increased for a number of years—in point of fact, since 1867 he believed. Complaints had been made, as hon. Members might have seen, in the papers within the last few years of the want of honesty which was supposed to have existed among the class of ships' stewards. He would not go into that matter now. He did not know whether the complaints were well founded or not. He thought that some of the cases had been magnified; but he would suggest that an excuse, if excuse was possible at all, might be found in the fact that these petty officers found themselves at very considerable disadvantage compared with other classes on board ship. He presumed that was the one cause which had led to the cases of peculation which had originally been found to exist. He thought himself that the increase of pay ought to have been extended to them for another reason also, because they did not participate in that deferred pay which was now given to petty officers of the seamen class, and they were not allowed good-conduct stripes. In many ways they were at great disadvantage compared with their messmates on board ship of the same rank. He also wanted to know, because it was not made clear the other day, whether this increase of pay to the petty officers was to be extended to the Coastguard? He did not think it was; and the Coastguard also would be at considerable disadvantage. They constituted our First Class Naval Reserve, and were the first Reserve we could call upon in a time of war. He was glad to hear that improvements were to be made in the hospital staff, and that thoroughly trained nurses were to be obtained—both boys and also lady nurses being provided. He thought it was a step in the right direction; but in connection with matters of hospital treatment he should like to call the attention of the Secretary to the Admiralty to what he believed to be a real grievance. He was afraid that very few Members of the House were aware of the matter. The ease was this—when an officer went into hospital—say a retired officer, in order to make an exact comparison—he had a sum of money, ranging from 2s 6d. to 3s. 6d. a-day stopped, out of his pay, or pension, as the case might be, for board, lodging, and medical treatment in the hospital. That might possibly amount to something like one-fifth or one-sixth of the pay or pension; but in the case of a pensioner who was obliged to go into the hospital the whole of his pay was stopped if he was a single man; but if he was married then 3s. a-week was allowed out of his pay to his wife and family. If he was not married the whole of his pay or pension was entirely stopped. Now, he thought that was hardly fair treatment. In the case of an officer, one-fifth or one-sixth of his pay was stopped; but in the case of the man four-fifths or five-sixths of his pay or pension were stopped altogether. He did not know whether the matter had been represented to the Admiralty; but he could assure his hon. Friend the Secretary to the Admiralty that it was looked upon as a very great grievance at sea-port towns, and it was thought that something might he done to remedy it. He had been very much astonished, in listening to the very interesting speech of the Secretary to the Admiralty the other evening, to find that from first to last no mention whatever was made of the steam branch of the Navy. He thought he was right in saying that from first to last, in the course of that speech, not a single word was said in reference to that important branch of the Service. His hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff (Sir Edward J. Reed) had called attention to this matter; and he (Captain Price) would, with the permission of the Committee, make one or two remarks upon it. He did not know whether the omission was accidental, or whether it had been made on purpose; but he was afraid that the Admiralty were tired of listening to the grievances of those who were connected with that branch of the Naval Service. He had himself, as well as many other Members in that House, in the last few years brought the matter forward. He did not intend to repeat what he had said before. The grievance was well known at the Admiralty; but there was one particular point in the case which lie wanted to refer to. No doubt, he had referred to it before, and he would ask the leave of the Committee to refer to it again, because it was a very important matter—namely, the way in which the officers were allowed to count their time. The present system was one which bore very hardly. Hon. Members would know that he referred to what was called the "11 years' Clause"—that was to say, the arrangement effected in the year 1870, by which officers of the engineer class and officers of other classes also were not allowed to count the whole of their junior time until they had served 11 years in the higher ranks. Well, that was fair enough when the scheme first came out in 1870; but he was afraid that those who invented the scheme at that time did not look forward, nor did they seem to have availed themselves of the experience of the actuaries, who would have told them what was likely to occur. They did not seem to have availed themselves of the information which they might have obtained if they had done so. He could only say that they had deliberately inflicted an injustice upon a large class of men. To show the way in which the scheme acted in reference to the engineer class, ho would point out that in the year 1877, for he would not go further back than that——

THE CHAIRMAN

Order, order! I have already pointed out to hon. Members, and the hon. and gallant Member himself has given Notice of a Motion upon this point, which, as the hon. and gallant Member admits, was not referred to in the Statement of the Secretary to the Admiralty—that it will be irregular to discuss upon the present Vote items which are contained in Vote 6. The proper time for discussing these items is when Vote 6 is reached. No doubt, there is an understanding to discuss the general policy of the Navy upon this Vote; but it would not be in Order to refer to specific items in subsequent Votes which are to come on hereafter, and in regard to which the hon. and gallant Gentleman has himself already given Notice of a Motion.

CAPTAIN PRICE

said, he thought the right hon. Gentleman, had misunderstood him. What he was trying to discuss was the question of the Vote for the pay of the men. That had nothing to do with Vote 6. Vote 6 was for the Dockyards; and the question of the engineers' pay could not, he took it, possibly be discussed under that Vote. The Dockyard engineers of the steam branch would come under Vote 6; but it was the engineers of the Royal Navy that he was now referring to. He knew it was somewhat irregular; but he thought it had generally been allowed to discuss the whole question of pay upon Votes 1 and 2. Vote 1 was passed the other night, because it was important that the Government should get the men; but the discussion was cut short, and tacitly allowed to stand over and be discussed on Vote 2.

MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN

asked to be allowed to explain what the misconception was. The artificers in the Dockyards were provided for under Vote 6; but the class of men called engineer artificers were men connected with the Navy, who were provided for in Vote 1. The engineers and engineer artificers had always been provided for in Vote 1, and provision for victuals and clothing was made in Vote 2; so that the engineers of the Navy were, so far as this Vote was concerned, in the same position as the men of the Navy. The artificers who came under Vote 6 were not in the same class.

THE CHAIRMAN

If the class of engineers to which the hon. and gallant Member refers is included in the Vote for Victuals and Clothing in Vote 2, he will be in Order in referring to it; but I understood that he was referring to the artificers included in Vote 6; and it would not be regular to discuss any of the items which come under that Vote until the Vote itself is reached.

CAPTAIN PRICE

said, he did not propose to allude to any body of men for whom provision was made under Vote 6. He desired now to call attention to the peculiar way in which the engineer officers were allowed to count their time, and which, of course, affected their pay, their half-pay, and their pension also. In 1877 no fewer than 55 chief engineers, out of a rota of 220, were able to get the higher rates of pay, or over 17s. a day, and half-pay and pensions were in proportion. That was, perhaps, a very fair allowance—namely, 55 out of 220; but this scheme, called the "11 years' Clause," acted in this way—that in the following year, 1878, instead of 55 officers out of a total of 220 getting the maximum rates of pay and pensions, only 44 got them; and from that date the number had decreased with remarkable regularity, from 44 down to 39, 32, 30, 22, 17; and in the present year, 1884, down to five. So that, practically, there were only five chief engineers this year who could receive the higher rates of pay. When they discussed the question of pay in regard to the engineer officers they might be told by the Government—"These officers may get 22s. a-day, which is very favourable, compared with the pay received by other classes of officers in the Navy;" when the real truth was that this maximum of pay was almost purely imaginary, or, at all events, was so seldom attained that it might fairly be called imaginary. The real maximum was 17s. a-day, which the officers were able to attain. When he complained of the matter, he was told very naturally—"If we invented any other means of counting the time for the engineers; if we allowed them to count the whole of their junior time after they have served only eight years, we must do the same thing for officers in other classes." That was quite true; but there was just the same grievance attached to other classes, such as the accountant branch, and the assistant paymasters. It might not affect them to the same extent; but it was a real grievance with them as it was with the engineers, and it all arose out of that unfortunate Order in Council of 1870, which suited that time well enough, but certainly did not suit the present. As far back as 1867, an assistant paymaster served in that rank seven and a-half years before he was promoted; and if he was promoted after serving that time, he very soon got into the higher grades of pay, and counted the whole of his junior time. But, owing to the block of promotion, it was found in the following years that the average time of seven and a-half years in the lower grades was increased to nine years, and it went on increasing with the same regularity as in the case of the engineers. In 1869 an assistant paymaster had to serve 10 years; and in the following years 10½, 11, 12, 13, 14, 14½, 15, until in the present year it had reached 15½ years. The average time an assistant paymaster had to serve now in that rank was about 15½ years. He had to serve that length of time before he got promotion, and he had to serve 11 in the higher ranks before he could count the whole of his junior time. Now, he contended that such a result was not dreamt of in 1870, or they would never have had such a scheme as this. He could not help thinking that the Admiralty had been very badly advised, and really did not see what the thing was coming to. As an illustration, in order to show the perfunctory, hap-hazard way in which the scheme was prepared by the Admiralty in 1870, he might mention the rate of pay a paymaster got if he were able to put in his 11 years, and if by some accident lie failed of that period. A paymaster who had had 15 years' service as an assistant paymaster might be obliged, say by ill-health, to retire after having completed 10 years and 11 months' service as paymaster. The consequence would be that he could only count six years of his junior service, not having been able to serve the whole of his time. That gave him a pay of 19s. a-day, or, if he took the retired pay, £191 a-year; but if his health would allow him, or the Admiralty would allow him to serve one month longer, instead of having 19s. his pay would have gone up to 31s. 6d a-day, and his retired pay, instead of being £191, would be £350. He thought that fact showed the hap-hazard way in which the scheme was prepared in 1870. The Admiralty knew the ins and outs of the matter very well; and he did not think he could persuade them to do anything in regard to it. It was not for him to suggest what was to be done, nor was the Admiralty responsible for what was done in 1870. After all, they were only the inheritors of the legacy left to them; but they ought to see that the mistake was now remedied. The only thing he would suggest, if he might do so, was this—that the Admiralty should appoint a Departmental Committee to examine into the matter. He knew that Departmental Committees were not altogether satisfactory; but there would be no use in his asking for a Select Committee of the House. The grievances were so real and extraordinary that he was satisfied if any Committee of gentlemen were to look into the matter, it would be impossible for them not to declare that a most unsatisfactory state of things prevailed which ought to be remedied at once.

MR. STEWART MACLIVER

, said, he gathered from the ruling of the Chairman that he must not refer to one of the subjects which had been raised by the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Devonport (Captain Price). Something appeared to have been done on behalf of the naval engineers; but when they' examined into it, it was found, in reality, to be very trivial, and he could not understand that it could have been done with any real intention of improving the position of that class. The addition of 2s. a-day was given to certain chief engineers; but owing to its restrictions the addition only applied to the chief engineers on board rive ships—that was to say, that an increase of 2s. a-day had been given to five men. The arrangement was, therefore, perfectly illusory, and would only apply to the Inflexible, the Téméraire, the Polyphemus, and two other ships. Reference had been made by the hon. and gallant Member for Devonport (Captain Price) to the "11 years' Clause." That clause had been so frequently discussed in the House that it would be a waste of time to refer to it again; but what he would venture to suggest in the way of remedy, and to put before his hon. Friends who sat below him, would be this—that an engineer should be allowed to count one-eleventh for junior service for each year of his full pay as chief engineer. That, practically, would settle the whole of the "11 years' Clause." No doubt, it would entail a certain amount of increased expenditure; but that increased expenditure, as far as he could calculate, would not exceed £4,500, and it would remove a great grievance from a most important part of the steam branch of the Navy. Perhaps he might be allowed to show how the present system worked. Some allusion had been made to it by the hon. and gallant Member for Devon-port. The rates of pay laid down for the men after 17, 20, 21, and 22 years' service varied from 18s. to 21s.; but the whole thing was fallacious; and ha would suggest that different ranks should be introduced which should be allowed to carry with them all the advantages given, and which could be so arranged as to provide for a periodical revision of the position of all officers, from sub-lieutenants up to captains. Some reference had been made to the engine-room artificers. Strong complaints were just now being made by men of that class, who contended that they had to serve far too long a time in order to gain a pension. They were now called on to re-enter for 12 years, after having served 10, putting two years more to the service which entitled men to pension. The result was that the Admiralty found it extremely difficult to get the best men, and they were obliged to accept others of an inferior class. They could not induce the men to re-enter. He would suggest that the men should be somewhat differently dealt with; and that if they were called on to serve an additional number of years until they got a pension they should have some advantage from it. He would also like his hon. Friend the Secretary to the Admiralty to inform the Committee why Dockyard men who had served in the Navy should not be allowed to count their servitude for a pension, the same as men regularly in the service of the Navy? With regard to pensions, he had to complain that, while the age pension was given to Naval Reserve men at 50, it was withheld from the Marines, and that the enrolled Marino Reserves did not get it till 55. He hoped that his hon. Friend the Secretary to the Admiralty, when he rose to reply, would be able to give them some information as to what was intended to be done for the men in the Dockyards, who were anxiously expecting the improvement which had long been promised.

MR. GRANTHAM

said, they had already discussed the position of naval constructors, paymasters, and engineers; and he was desirous now of calling the attention of the Committee to the position of the naval schoolmasters, which was a very anomalous one compared with that of the schoolmasters of the Army and the Marines. It would be in the recollection of the Committee that schoolmasters of the Navy had only been appointed during the last 25 years. Up to that time education on board Her Majesty's ships was conducted by seamen schoolmasters, who proved themselves so, thoroughly inefficient that 25 years ago an application was made to the Privy Council on Education to provide some better system of education. It was then decided to provide a certain number of schoolmasters, who should devote themselves to the work of education in the Navy. Unfortunately, the teachers first appointed found the life and the emolument so different from what they had expected that almost the whole of them soon afterwards left the Service, and it became necessary for the Government to educate their own teachers specially for the Navy. Those teachers entered the Service under the impression that they would be treated similarly to the schoolmasters in the Army, and in the Marines; but in a short time it was found, both in reference to pay, pension, and promotion, that they were in a far worse position than their con- frères either in the Army or in the Marines. Their exceptional treatment was a great grievance to them; and there could be no doubt that, both in regard to pay and pension, they were in an inferior position. He found that the pension of a naval schoolmaster was only, on the average, £31 18s. 9d.; whereas that of the Marine schoolmaster was £63 17s. 6d., and that of the Army schoolmaster £63, or, in point of fact, rather more than double the sum which the schoolmaster got in the Navy. Then, in regard to pay, there was not so much to complain of, because within the last two years the pay had been improved; but, still, the naval schoolmaster only got £95 2s 3d., as against £101 in the Marines, and the same sum in the Army, including rations. The difference was not so very large in that case, being under £6 a-year; but both in the Marines and in the Army the schoolmaster had the sum of £31 allowed him for quarters, unless he had quarters actually provided, to say nothing of the value of his uniform, which the naval schoolmaster did not receive. That made a considerable difference; so that as regarded pay and pension the naval schoolmasters were in a far inferior position to the schoolmasters and teachers of the Army and Marines. They felt that they were not dealt with fairly, considering that when they were appointed there was an honourable understanding that their position would be similar to that of schoolmasters in the Army and Marines. Then, again, they were at a disadvantage with regard to promotion in the Service as compared with the schoolmasters in the Army, who could become Warrant officers after 12 years' service. He believed that out of 250 Army schoolmasters 27 were Warrant officers; 17 had obtained the rank of lieutenant; and three had retired with the honorary rank of major. Now, there were only seven head masterships which teachers in the Navy could hope to obtain, however long their service might be; and it was only natural that, under these circumstances, they should feel that their merits had not only been unrewarded, but unacknowledged. And, therefore, he thought that in asking to be put on an equality with their colleagues in the Army they were not seeking more than they were entitled to. He trusted this question, which excited a good deal of interest in the Navy, would be taken in hand by the Admiralty.

MR. GOURLEY

said, there were some points with regard to the present condition of the Navy which called for explanation at the hands of his hon. Friend the Secretary to the Admiralty. They had placed before them annually the fact that the Admiralty intended to build a certain number of tons of armoured and unarmoured ships; but although, of course, his hon. Friend was not responsible for the programme laid before the House, the Secretary to the Admiralty could never inform them how much the maximum cost of the armoured and unarmoured tonnage would be. From the statement of the hon. Gentleman he found that the programme of last year had been fairly carried out, there being only about 125 tons less than the quantity of new tonnage promised in that programme; but the work completed had cost £13,000 more than what was contemplated—that was, however, always providing that the money set aside for repairs had not been devoted to new work. Under the present system, however desirable it might be that the number of tons intended to be built by the Admiralty should annually be laid before Parliament, the result in the long run proved that the Estimates were entirely misleading, the reason being that the Admiralty, building ships morsel by morsel, lost the power of adhering to the original Estimates. Now, he wished to place clearly before the Committee the mode in which the Estimates that were laid before the House year after year were carried out, and, by way of example and proof, he might be allowed to call attention to the case of the Inflexible. They were asked, at the time the vessel was laid down, to vote £401,000 for her construction; but that had extended ever seven years, and the result was that the total cost of the ship when complete amounted to £800,594. The reason why the Estimate was so much exceeded was that the Admiralty had lost all control over the original Estimate, in consequence of the long period during which her construction was going on. He thought it would be far better that the Admiralty, instead of adding bit by bit to a number of ships, should state to Parliament that they intended to construct such and such a ship in the course of the financial year. And not only did heavily increased cost of construction result, but there was this fact also to be borne in mind—that ships became obsolete by the time they were completed under the system he had described. Anyone might see in our Dockyards numbers of huge hulks which were utterly useless for fighting purposes, and which were so many examples of the bad results of that system. The Estimate placed before Parliament in the programme of last year showed that 7,143 tons of unarmoured and 12,281 tons of armoured vessels would be produced, and that the total cost would be £1,979,443; and here he had to complain that the cost of producing this new tonnage was jumbled together with the cost of repairs, the result being that it was impossible to distinguish the cost of either. However, the cost which, in round numbers, was to have been £102 15s. per ton, had actually amounted to £103 15s. per ton. It appeared that the money voted for repairs was very often transferred to other work; and he would take that opportunity of asking on what grounds the Admiralty applied money that had been voted for one purpose to another? The money to be expended in repairs in the current year was £419,840; and he thought the Committee had a right to know upon what it was to be spent—upon what ships, and at what places, and how much would be expended upon the hulls and machinery respectively? The right hon. and gallant Gentleman opposite (Sir John Hay), on the occasion of the Secretary to the Admiralty making his annual Statement, asked for a Select Committee to inquire into the condition of the ships; and he (Mr. Gourley) apprehended that, in asking for that Committee, the object of the hon. and gallant Gentleman was that the House of Commons might not only have more control over the ships themselves, but also over the mode in which the money was spent upon them. Lord Northbrook, however, probably not understanding the question, had arranged to have a Departmental Committee to inquire into the subject rather than that advocated by the hon. and gallant Gentleman. He agreed with the wish expressed on the opposite side of the House that evening that if a Departmental Committee were appointed there should also be a Committee of the House of Commons to deal with the matter, because the former would, in all probability, be composed of Gentlemen educated in the traditions of the Admiralty, so that, so far as responsibility and the ultimate results were concerned, the House would be no wiser after the Committee had reported than they were at that moment. He said, also, that the appointment of a Departmental Committee, inasmuch as it implied that there were no hon. Members capable of dealing with naval questions, was an insult to the House of Commons. He remembered that, when Mr. Ward Hunt, who was at the time First Lord of the Admiralty, objected to the appointment of a Select Committee to consider the question of the designs on which their ships were being built, on the ground of want of technical knowledge, the hon. Member for Hastings (Sir Thomas Brassey) was all in favour of its appointment. He knew his hon. Friend had the courage of his opinions, and he believed he would not refrain from expressing the same views now as he had on the occasion referred to. Now, with regard to vessels like the Mersey, the Admiralty officials were so enamoured of ships of this type that they were going to lay down five of them. He believed the whole thing was an experiment, and he could not perceive what object the Admiralty had in view in constructing these ships. Were they to be used as broadside fighting ships, as rams, or as convoys? Perhaps the Secretary to the Admiralty would give the Committee some information upon that point; but, whatever the explanation might be, he certainly held that until they had more experience of these ships it would be wiser to lay down and finish one instead of working upon five of them; and when it was proved that the one vessel was a success they could very well come to Parliament and ask for the money to build the remaining four. To build five ships of one kind without knowing whether any benefit to the country would result was, to his mind, something beyond experiment. He would ask, also, whether they were to be armed with iron, steel, or compound plates?

MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN

They will have no armour at all; no side armour.

MR. GOURLEY

Then that made it all the more desirable to know for what purpose they were intended. If, as he apprehended, they were for convoy or cruising purposes, he would like to know what fuel they were to carry—whether they would be built to take five, six, or ten days' supply? Certainly, for the purposes he had indicated, they should be able to carry enough fuel to cover long distances. Again, at what distance would torpedo boats of the Scout class be able to discharge torpedoes? He understood they were specially intended to carry the Whitehead torpedo, and he would ask what was their consumption of fuel at 16 knots; because unless they could discharge their torpedoes at a safe distance from the enemy, and also steam at great speed, they would be rather an element of danger than otherwise. Then, he would ask, with what object were the Admiralty going to build two despatch vessels, a class of ships that, to his mind, had become totally unnecessary, and could be regarded as neither more nor less than yachts attached to their Squadrons for the use of the Admiral and officers? All their ships now carried steam launches, I which, as well as torpedo boats, could be utilized for despatch purposes, between the ships of the Fleet; and for service abroad in time of war, he was quite certain that the Merchant Service would supply vessels of greater speed and at less cost than those upon which the Admiralty were going to spend so much money. He now came to the subject of guns, with reference to which he would put this question to the Secretary to the Admiralty—What progress has been made in supplying breech-loading guns to vessels that are now, or have been, armed with muzzle-loading guns? He found that the work at Woolwich was almost at a standstill, as the result of the transition that was taking place from iron to steel in the manufacture of guns; and he contended that the Navy ought not to be dependent upon Woolwich for its armament, the consequence of which was that their ships were always kept waiting for their complement of guns. The Navy, in his opinion, ought to have its own Ordnance Department, separate from, and independent of, the Army Ordnance Department. Passing from that subject, he desired to call the attention of the Committee to the fact that it was proposed to increase, during the current year, the number of boys, which stood at 4,800 last year, to 4,950, of whom 2,450 were for service in the Fleet, and 2,500 in training ships. He would ask the Secretary to the Admiralty how many boys on an average were annually transferred from the training ships to the Navy; how many boys there were actually apprenticed on board the ships of the Navy; and where, and on board what ships, the 2,450 boys described as for service in the Fleet had been distributed? He believed it was generally understood, after the lamentable disasters that befell the Eurydice and the Atalanta, that instead of being kept so much on board training ships, as was then the practice, it would be in future for the benefit not only of the Navy, but also of the boys themselves, that they should be distributed amongst the ships of the Flying Squadron and those engaged in the Coastguard Service. It would, he thought, be wise on the part of the Admiralty to place the boys where they could learn the duties they would have to perform in actual warfare; and, therefore, he would like to know how far that policy had been carried out? He should also be glad if the Secretary to the Admiralty would state how many boys educated at Greenwich Hospital School entered the Navy; and how many went into the Merchant Service? The primary object of that Institution was education for the Naval Service; and yet he believed that a very small percentage of the boys entered the Navy, and the reason of this was not very far to seek. It was that, although the boys at Greenwich Hospital School received an education almost as good as that given to the boys on the Britannia, they had nothing before them in the Navy but the position of steward or petty officer; whereas the boys trained on board the Britannia, had before them the rank of midshipmen and upwards. The two systems required to be carefully looked into. Last year the Lord Warden and another vessel were sent to the Shetland Islands for the purpose of recruiting boys; and he would like to hear from the Secretary to the Admiralty how many boys were obtained. He held that, instead of having so many boys trained on board ships of the Navy, where the cost in wages and provisions was £80 or £100 a-year, it would be wiser for the Admiralty to recruit their boys from the training ships on the Thames and other rivers, from which they could be supplied prepared for sea at the very much smaller cost of £30 or £40 a-year. Then with regard to the Britannia. Many discussions had taken place, and many promises had been made, with regard to that vessel; but his own opinion was that, as a training ship, she ought to be abolished. In these days of equality of education she was totally unnecessary as a means of providing officers for the Navy, the higher ranks in which ought, in his opinion, to be open to every boy who entered the Service; no matter how poor he might be, he should have an opportunity of distinguishing himself as an officer; and he held that, so soon as the common sense of the country had grasped this question, public opinion would demand what he was now advocating. In concluding his observations on naval affairs, he desired to refer to a subject of considerable interest. The gallant conduct of Admiral Hewett at Suakin had already been the subject of commendation in that House. He was also bound to add his testimony to the admirable conduct of the officers and men of the Naval Brigade, who fell defending their guns at Tamanieb; at the same time, he thought it only right that the cause of the breaking of the square, which led to the men being placed in their unfortunate position, should be the subject of inquiry.

THE CHAIRMAN

pointed out to the hon. Member that as the proceedings he was then referring to occurred on shore, they could not be discussed in connection with the Vote before the Committee.

MR. GOURLEY

said, he had been under the impression that the conduct of the Naval Brigade could be discussed on the Navy Estimates. He would, however, take another opportunity of referring to the subject.

SIR JOHN HAY

said, as he had already had an opportunity of addressing the Committee, he should be very brief in the remarks he was about to make. He could not agree with that part of the speech of the hon. Member who had just sat down in which he recommended that there should be a separate Establishment for the manufacture of naval guns. He regretted exceedingly that there was no person in the House responsible for Ordnance affairs. He did not know whether the Secretary to the Admiralty would be able to answer the questions put to him with regard to the guns required by ships of the Navy, and also with regard to the want of guns for ships in process of completion. But with regard to guns made for the public service, circumstances might arise—such, for instance, as the retirement of a disabled ship upon a fortress, such as Malta or Gibraltar—in which it would be desirable that naval and other guns should be interchangeable. With regard to the Committee alluded to by the hon. Member, he entirely agreed with the remarks made by him upon that subject; and, having moved for the appointment of a Select Committee, he regretted to find that a Committee not of that House had been appointed elsewhere in its stead. There was no Naval Officer belonging to the Admiralty in this Parliament. The House wanted to have before it the First Sea Lord and the Naval Officers who were responsible for the advice given to the Admiralty. It was to be feared—and he believed his hon. Friend would not doubt it for one moment—that the strength of their Navy was far below that which was necessary for the national defence. This was the first year in which a French Minister of Marine had ever been reported to have said that the assertion that the French Navy was inferior to the English Navy was untrue. He entirely agreed with the French Minister of Marine that the French iron-clad Navy had increased with immense rapidity. The old fable of the hare and the tortoise was being repeated by this country and France in the case of their Navies. The gallant officer to whom he had previously alluded was reported to have said on a recent public occasion— It does not signify whether our ships are built of paste-board, iron, or steel; the Navy will continue to maintain its own reputation. He could not possibly conceive that the gallant Admiral could have really meant what he said. It was impossible to suppose that any officer in these days could say that without iron-clads the country was in a safe condition; and yet what he had quoted was the only public declaration as to the condition of the Navy which had been made by the First Sea Lord of the Admiralty. That declaration was now before the public, and many people believed it. It was most unfortunate that a gallant officer, who must know better, should in public, in returning thanks for the Navy, make such a declaration. [A laugh.] His hon. Friend (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman) laughed; but it was no laughing matter that a person who was responsible for the condition of the Navy should make the assertion that it was of no consequence whether their ships were made of paste board, iron, or steel. He knew his hon. Friend would say that the speech in question was an after-dinner speech, and one had no right to take notice of it. But the country had read the statement of the First Sea Lord; it was made in a public place; and his right hon. Friends below him, and, indeed, right hon. Gentlemen on both sides of the House, who had endeavoured to make the country aware of the inferiority of the Navy, of the terrible condition to which the Navy had been reduced, were deprived of the credit which was duo to them for their exertions by the observations, made by the most responsible officer in the country, which he (Sir John Hay) had just read to the Committee. The only means by which the First Sea Lord would be able to explain his words would be by being examined before a Committee of the House. No doubt, if he were examined before a Committee, it would be found that the gallant officer was of a very different opinion to the one he had given utterance to. It was only by means of a Committee that the country could obtain the information it ought to have as to the condition of the Navy; but his hon. Friends at the Admiralty took good care that there should not be a Committee. They would not even let the country know what the condition of the boilers was; they refused to give a Return of the iron-clad ships of the Navy, which contained such rubbish in the shape of boilers that no one dared send them to sea. He would not, however, go into that question again. His right hon. Friend (Mr. W. H. Smith), in introducing the subject to the notice of the Committee, had spoken of the programme of the iron-clad shipbuilding, and had pointed out that, although the Admiralty claimed that the programme had been completed, the programme had not been completed. His right hon. Friend was quite correct in the statement that the tonnage built was greatly below what was promised, and what had been paid for. The very Return which hon. Gentlemen had in their hands just now showed that the deficiency in the tonnage completed compared with that promised was still greater than was at first supposed. By that Return alone it was clearly shown that the credit which his hon. Friend (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman) had taken to himself was not deserved. He (Sir John Hay) had received, as many other persons had received, from that distinguished officer, the Admiral of the Fleet—Sir Thomas Symonds—some comparisons between the Navy of this country and the Navies of other Powers. He was sure the Admiral of the Fleet deserved the thanks of his countrymen for the pains he had taken to awaken the country and the House of Commons from the lethargy which had overpowered it with regard to naval matters. There was no cruising Squadron for the men and boys of the Navy to be exercised in—there was no Squadron of instruction; and yet his right hon. Friend (Mr. W. H. Smith), and right hon. Gentlemen on the opposite side of the House, had constantly said such a Squadron was absolutely necessary. The fact of the matter was that the Navy was starved; the Estimates were not large enough to provide for the building of ships or the training of the men; and the result was that the men and boys of the Navy were not now being trained at sea. His right hon. Friend (Mr. W. H. Smith) and the hon. Gentleman the Member for Sunderland (Mr. Gourley) had alluded to the condition of the Marines. The Marine Forces, who had done their duty so gallantly recently, were decreased in numbers; and yet we were about to occupy Suakin with a considerable force of Marines. That was an extra duty imposed upon them; and it seemed to him to demand that that force should not only be kept at its old strength, but that it should be increased by the number who were to be used as the garrison of the Red Sea ports. He trusted it was not true, but if it were true he regretted exceedingly, that no Vote of Thanks was to be proposed in the House of Commons to those distinguished and gallant man—soldiers, Marines, and seamen—who did their duty so well in the Soudan. It had been said that the force engaged in the recent military operations was so very small; but that was not a valid reason why their gallant services should not be recognized by the House of Commons. He was persuaded it would be felt by the country most unsatisfactory that because the numbers were limited to 4,000 men the House was not to be called upon to vote, as he was sure they would vote unanimously, its thanks to the men who fought so well in the two desperate actions at Teb and Tamanieb. He desired to confirm, what had fallen from two or three of his hon. Friends as to the assistant paymasters and naval engineers. The engineers of the Navy were men of the highest education, and their services were absolutely essential in the complicated condition of the present ships of war. The duties of the naval engineers were far more onerous and responsible than the duties which had to be performed by engineers some 20 years ago. The complicated machinery of particular ships required skill in working, which ought to be well paid for. The system by which pay was given appeared to him to be quite unnecessary and complicated. A Committee was appointed by the Admiralty some years ago which recommended an increase in the pay of these gallant officers. The suggestion in the Navy Estimates, that some improvement was to be made in the pay of the engineers, was of a very slight and limited character. Two shillings a-day was to be given to five gentlemen under certain conditions. It was throwing dust in the eyes of the country to say that this was attending to the claims of the engineers. There were some 200 odd of them, and their skill and very necessary services demanded for them the respect of the House of Commons. He hoped his hon. Friend (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman) would be able to give some promise that the position of the engineers would be improved. He had looked into the question as well as he could; and he believed the expenditure of a sum of £4,000 a-year would be quite sufficient to secure the retention of the services of men who were invaluable. The other class of public servants who had been mentioned in the course of the debate—the assistant paymasters—also required the consideration of the Admiralty. The scheme of 1870 had broken down. Instead of being promoted after 10 years' service, as he suggested, the assistant paymasters were 16 or 17 years in the Service before they got their rank. These gentlemen had enormous responsibility—responsibility for large cash transactions. Their accuracy—and he was going to say their honesty, but that no one doubted—their accuracy and their rapid performance of their duties were of the greatest consequence to the House and the country; indeed, the Estimates would swell with great rapidity if these gentlemen were not of the highest character. He, therefore, urged upon his hon. Friend (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman) to bring their case before the Board of Admiralty, and to see that officers whose duties were so necessary to the well-being of the Naval Service, and who had lost so much by the failure of the Order in Council of 1870, should be established in the position which that Order in Council suggested, and which the men had a right to expect.

GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOUR

said, he had no intention of speaking of the state of the Navy—that was not his province. He desired to refer to matters of which he had some knowledge. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Westminster (Mr. W. H. Smith) had spoken very strongly in regard to the importance of having ships of war completed as early as possible; and during his speech the right hon. Gentleman, of course, argued that no ship of war could be completed unless the guns were laid in or on board. But the responsibility for providing all the naval armaments was laid on the War Office; and the cost thereof, fully £500,000 a-year, was included in the Army charges; and though several hon. Gentlemen had contended that the Admiralty should be entirely independent of the War Office, yet it was contrary to all experience to suppose that the Secretary of State for War should add largely to his outlay to meet the many changes in patterns of guns and equipments that had been made in the naval armament during the last 25 years. He could conceive nothing more objectionable than the system they had at the present moment. The War Office had naturally failed to provide guns for the Navy. He, therefore, earnestly entreated the Committee to use its influence to get rid of such a scandal. It was not to be expected that the Army should incur large and unlimited expenditure, so as to provide proper and fit guns for the Navy to meet the frequent changes proposed by Naval Officers. The Navy ought, no doubt, to be permitted to decide upon the pattern of the guns it required; but it should bear the cost of the armament if permitted to do so. It would be found that Woolwich Arsenal was quite capable of turning out the requisite guns; or, if dissatisfied, then let the Admiralty try to obtain supplies from private firms. Last year the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. W. H. Smith) asked whether the Navy might not go to Newcastle for its guns? By all means it ought to go to Newcastle if it could not get proper guns from Woolwich. The present system involved the bandying of words between two great Departments—the War Office and the Admiralty, and the result was the asserted inefficiency of the Navy. He could not conceive why it should be expected that the Army should add £1,000,000 to its Estimates every year in order to supply new kinds of guns to the sister Service. He had hoped to see a change this year. A transference of duty from the Army to the Navy had already taken place in regard to the carriages and mounting of guns by the Navy paying for their equipments out of funds estimated for in the Naval Estimates; and the result, he understood, had been most satisfactory. In like manner the cost of ship transports, kept up for the movement of troops, ought to be transferred from the Navy to the Army Estimates. Further, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Westminster, when he was First Lord of the Admiralty, finding that the War Office was not supplying torpedoes in sufficient quantity, went into the market, and for two years a charge for these appeared in the Navy Estimates. He (Sir George Balfour) noticed that the War Office was about to supply the torpedoes again at the expense of the Army. Perhaps the Secretary to the Admiralty would explain the reason for the change. He had now earnestly to urge that the gallant Corps of Marines—and a more serviceable corps the country did not possess—should be more carefully looked after than it had hitherto been. In the matter of depots, the Marines had an excellent system, well deserving of imitation by the Infantry of the Line, but were very badly off as respected establishment of officers and men, who were mainly borne on the strength of the Divisions instead of being supernumerary, and in sufficient numbers to meet all the demands for service, he was afraid that just now they were being overworked. They were now being called upon to do more than their fair share of service; they were being wearied by repeated calls for battalions for service which the Infantry of the Line ought to perform. Nothing was more likely to disgust the corps than to be required to go on service very often, and in large numbers, at a moment's notice, for unpleasant Stations such as Suakin. Sudden and extraordinary demands could be made occasionally; but when they were made with great frequency, the efficiency of the Corps upon which the demands were made was greatly impaired. He entreated his hon. Friend (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman) to give his earnest attention to this subject; because when once soldiers wore disorganized it was difficult to restore them to their proper condition.

MR. T. C. BRUCE

said, that on a recent occasion he had an opportunity of expressing his views upon the general state of the Navy, and those views remained unchanged. He did not mean to repeat them; he only rose to endorse what had fallen from some hon. Gentlemen during the debate in reference to two classes of men in the Naval Service, and particularly with reference to the engineers. He did not think it had ever happened to him to be present at a debate on the Naval Estimates when the case of the engineers had not been raised; and he thought that alone showed there was something in the condition of the men that was not very satisfactory. The reason was not very far to seek. Not long ago a Committee of the Admiralty, presided over by the First Naval Lord, made certain recommendations with reference to the status of the engineers. The recommendations made were not at all in excess of the merits of the men, or of the important duties the engineers had to perform; but the recommendations had only been carried out piece-meal, and, indeed, a good many of them were unfulfilled. If the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman) really wished to give satis- faction to the corps of engineers, he ought at once to endeavour to soften the heart of the Secretary to the Treasury, and to get him to grant to the men what was their due. He (Mr. Bruce) would not repeat what had been said by different hon. Gentlemen with respect to the assistant paymasters; but he was bound to say that the position of those officials was really one of great hardship. Surely the Admiralty were not going to leave a very respectable class of men in such a position that they had to complain of hardships committed on every side. He hoped his hon. Friend (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman) would devote his attention to the matter; and that he would be able so far to alter the scheme of 1870 as to carry out the intention with which that scheme was drawn up, and to place the assistant paymasters in a more satisfactory position than they now occupied.

ADMIRAL EGERTON

wished to accentuate, if possible, what was said by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Westminster (Mr. W. H. Smith) with regard to the length of time occupied in the construction of their ships of war. The Colossus, for instance, was not oven yet ready for sea; but he thought that what the right hon. Gentleman had said in respect to the guns rather explained the difficulty, not only with regard to the Colossus, but all other ships. The great difficulty with regard to the guns was that the new ones were totally different to the old ones. They were different in length, and they required to have different platforms and various new arrangements affecting the whole plan of the ship. Such was the reason why the ships were not ready as soon as they ought to be. He quite agreed with the hon. and gallant Gentleman opposite (Sir John Hay), who said they ought not to have two separate establishments for the construction of guns. It seemed to him quite unreasonable that there should be two gun factories, one for the Admiralty and one for the War Office. He was of opinion, however, that the Navy ought to have a little more control over the sort of weapons furnished to them. He remembered that when the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. W. H. Smith) was in Office he Admiral Egerton) asked whether the guns to be supplied to a certain ship were, first of all, to be tried by the naval authorities? He had reason to believe that the right hon. Gentleman was extremely anxious that the guns should be tried by the men who had to use them; but owing to some influence or other the guns were not so tried. When the guns came to be used they were at once condemned. He had no accusation to make against the Woolwich authorities; but he could not help thinking that there was some sort of influence at work which went against the construction of guns other than those which came from one or two favoured factories. He endorsed what had been said by the hon. Member for Portsmouth (Mr. Bruce) with regard to the position of the naval engineers. For a long time past his impression had been that there ought not to be so many engineers on board ship, and that they ought to occupy a higher position than they now occupied. He thought a great portion of the duties now performed by engineers might be performed by a class of warrant officers. The overcrowding in ships of engineers, which was partly the reason why they did not occupy a higher position in the Service, might thus be prevented. A further opportunity would be offered of referring to some of these subjects; therefore, he would say no more.

SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFF

said, he had a very few words to trouble the Committee with; but he should be glad to endorse what had fallen from the hon. and gallant Admiral who had just sat down, and from other hon. Members in the course of this discussion, with reference to the naval engineers. It was impossible to say too much of the great services these engineers were now rendering the Navy, and how essential they were to our Naval Forces. At the present time, they undoubtedly suffered considerable grievances in respect of both rank and pay. One great grievance which he had heard from them was a very just one. It was that the retired pay they received was only £130 a-year; whereas it was shown by an official Report that it should be £170. It was also complained that they were unable to count the full amount of their time until they had passed 11 years in senior rank. He would press upon his hon. Friend the Secretary to the Admiralty how necessary it was to satisfy the just demands of these officers. Not only should their position be improved for their own sakes, but by doing that the Government would attract many valuable men into the Service who were now deterred from entering it. Then there were questions with regard to rank and uniform which should be considered—questions which some people might laugh at; but which, at the same time, were of great importance to the officers, as a great deal of the comfort and happiness of their lives depended upon them. He would urge the Secretary to the Admiralty to take into consideration the necessity of improving, all round, the position of the Royal Naval Engineers; and he would also ask him to give attention to the complaints of the paymasters in regard to the 11 years' senior service. They were not allowed to count more than a certain time as full paymasters until they had passed 11 years as full paymasters. The promotion of the assistant paymasters was getting gradually slower, and something should be done to quicken it. As to the naval schoolmasters, he fancied they were on a less favourable footing than the Marine Forces. Many hon. Members had taken up this question with great interest at different times. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Westminster (Mr. W. H. Smith) had, he believed, pressed this matter on the attention of the Government; and he (Sir H. Drummond Wolff) trusted the Committee would receive some assurance that night that the claims of these persons would be favourably considered. He hoped that the hon. Member (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman), who always paid so much attention to everything pressed upon him with regard to the Service—in the administration of which he took such a distinguished part—would pay some attention to the remonstrances brought before him that night.

DR. CAMERON

said, he also had a great number of schoolmasters and engineers in his constituency; but he did not wish to detain the Committee with claims for any amelioration of their position. What he wished to urge on the Government was the desirability of abstaining from incurring expense, and not the desirability of incurring increased expense. He wished to direct attention to the absurd use to which gunboats had been lately put in the Islands of Scotland—to their being em- ployed in services which should be relegated to policemen and process-servers. The Committee might have heard of the Glendale crofters' case. It appeared that some of the crofters had allowed their cattle to graze on a certain hill. An action was raised against the crofters, and they were interdicted from allowing their cattle to graze there; but they broke that interdict—that was to say, they allowed their cattle to graze on the hill after they had been ordered not to do so. A civil officer was sent to serve summonses on these people for contempt of Court; he was mobbed; the police were afterwards sent, and there was some rioting. He should not have complained if the gunboats had been called on by the Civil authorities to suppress rioting; but they had not been. A gunboat had been sent down with a Commissioner on board to say that unless the persons who had broken the civil interdict were given up Heaven knows what would happen. The poor crofters believed they were to be bombarded; and under fear of Her Majesty's Navy they gave up the offenders—the crofters, who had allowed their cattle to stray on this particular hill, as they thought, to save the Island. The men walked off without even the escort of one of those over-worked Marines, of whom hon. Members had heard so much, to the nearest important town—namely, Greenock, and there they wanted to give themselves up to a policeman. But, as they had committed no crime, the policeman would not take them. The lawyer who had conducted the civil process, however, sent a messenger, who took them in charge, and brought them to gaol in Edinburgh; but the officials there said—"We cannot take you—you are not qualified;" and the result was that the messenger who had the care of them had to keep them for a week at an hotel, where they feasted more sumptuously than, according to their own statement, they had ever feasted before. If rumour spoke truly, they had to be replenished with whisky toddy to keep them from bolting until, at length, they were tried for the civil offence, contempt of Court. He protested against the employment of gunboats in such a service; and the case he had quoted was not altogether an exceptional one, for in the Report of the Commission on the Islands and Highlands of Scotland the hon. Member (Mr. Campbell-Banner- man) would find another case of this kind which arose out of some evictions. A threatening letter had been sent to the proprietor—a letter written in a schoolboy's hand—and a search was made amongst the copy-books in the school to see whose handwriting could be identified with the petty crime. The Sheriff of the county and the Procurator Fiscal—that was to say, the Public Prosecutor—and the Chief Constable went to the Island in a gunboat and there prosecuted their inquiries. Nothing came of it, and he only referred to the matter because of the employment of the gunboat. This was not the sort of work in which Her Majesty's vessels should be employed in the Islands and Highlands of Scotland—which should be a nursery for their seamen. It had been mentioned that a vessel had been sent to the Shetland Islands to pick up recruits; but he would put it to the Government whether, if they sent one ship to the Shetland Isles to pick up recruits, and another to the Orkneys with Sheriffs, Procurators Fiscal, and policemen, to prosecute such a paltry case, they would not be neutralizing the one with the other? It was unworthy of the Navy to have to do such dirty work, he might almost call it, as he had described; and if the hon. Member was asked for naval assistance of this kind in the future he hoped that the matter would be looked into, and that care would be taken that the importance of the inquiry about to be instituted, or the disturbance to be suppressed, was in some measure commensurate with the demand made upon the Service.

SIR MASSEY LOPES

corroborated what had fallen from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Westminster (Mr. W. H. Smith) as to the present unsatisfactory method of estimating the cost of ships which were built in our Dockyards. There was scarcely an armoured ship built in our Dockyards which did not cost, before she was completed, a sum enormously in excess of the original Estimate. After a ship was commenced in the Royal Dockyards improvements and alterations were continually being effected, so that the basis of calculation in the original Estimate was bound to be erroneous. He did not hesitate to say that the system of computing by tonnage was altogether worth- less—he would almost say fictitious. He was glad to find they had the authority of the hon. Member for Cardiff (Sir Edward J. Reed) against the system. The hon. Member the Secretary to the Admiralty had, last year, expressed himself averse to the system; but had pointed out that, so far as the present Government were concerned, their proposals were honest, inasmuch as they adopted the same method of calculation as that which, had been practised for some years, and as the same persons had for years been engaged in making the calculations. But if the system was a bad one, however much it might have been practised in the past, the Government were not justified in continuing it. The hon. Gentleman had given them to understand that he had adopted the principle—and they thought he was going to carry it out—of commencing a ship and finishing it as rapidly as possible. If that system were adopted they would have no difficulty in ascertaining the real value and cost of a ship. There was no reason why any ship, however largo, should not be completed in our Dockyards in three years. This was done in our private years, where ships wore built for the Admiralty by contract; and if the Board of Admiralty showed some disinclination to adopt the constant alterations projected by their officials, the same results might be attained. With regard to the Marines, he was sorry to hear from the hon. Gentleman, when he moved the Estimates, that the complement was not full. If one thing more than another could have bettered the position of the present Board of Admiralty, it would have been the reversal of the decision which they arrived at two years ago. They reduced the number of the Marines by 600 men and 35 officers, and by that means saved £25,000. It was quite true they gave that amount in increase of pay to both commissioned and non-commissioned officers; but it was quite unnecessary that the reduction should have been made in order to give that increase. Bearing in mind how much the Royal Marines had signalized themselves of late, it seemed to him that it would be a very fit and proper compliment if the Admiralty would reverse the decision they came to some years ago. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman (Sir John Hay) had made some allusion to a speech delivered the other night by the First Sea Lord of the Admiralty at a public dinner. Well, there was another portion of that speech to which the attention of the Committee might be called—a portion very much to the purpose. He said— During the past year an important step has been, taken which I cannot pass over in silence. Our great Australian Colonies, in the vigour of their youth, desiring to maintain the same affection for and confidence in their parent, which they know full well their parent feels for them, are alive to the necessity of aiding in their own protection; and with this object the Colony of Victoria, already possessing an iron-clad ship of considerable power, has, during the past year, fitted out a small squadron of ships of war of the latest type, which are well built, well armed, well equipped, and well officered and manned, and has sent them out to Melbourne. The Colony of Victoria has intimated its desire of placing these ships at the disposal of the Admiralty; and, should the occasion arise, our officers will be proud to serve under the same flag, and to be associated with the Colonial Navy for the defence of the commerce and shores of the Colonies. I trust the day is not far distant when the Australian Colonies may unite their squadrons in one compact Service under one command for defensive purposes. If the hon. Member opposite (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman) could corroborate that statement it would be very satisfactory, not only to the Committee, but to everyone in the country. There was nothing like good feeling between the Mother Country and the Colonies—a feeling that in time of need, or when assistance was wanted, they would be willing to give it, the one to the other.

MR. JENKINS

wished to draw attention to the training of the seamen in the Navy. It was said that the training of seamen and boys had been neglected, and he hoped to hear from the hon. Gentleman that such was not the case. It was as essential to the maintenance of the efficiency of the Navy that their seamen should be properly trained as was the construction of iron-clads. With regard to the construction of ships, no doubt the expense of construction in their own Dockyards was greater than in private yards, and a much longer time was occupied in completing a vessel. This, however, was not altogether an evil. Improvements were continually taking place, both in gunnery and naval construction, and were adopted from, time to time whilst the ships were being built. In the case of private yards, however, specific contracts were entered into and were carried out, no matter what developments might be made in the art of shipbuilding before the vessel was completed. As to the personnel of the Navy, no doubt there were grievances in the various departments of the Service. The engineers were a class who considered themselves very much ill-used; but what he wanted to know was, whether the supply of these naval officers was equal to the demand? Could any better men be got than were to be found in the Navy to-day, even if the pay were increased? His own opinion was that the supply was quite equal to the demand. No doubt, however, there were grievances in this matter which ought to be considered. He was inclined to think that if the scale of pay of the assistant paymasters was altered it would tend to the efficiency of that part of the Naval Service.

LORD HENRY LENNOX

said, it must be admitted that the present was not a very encouraging atmosphere, or a very encouraging state of the Benches, for anyone to get up and discuss such—apparently in the opinion of Ministers, not one of whom was present—an uninteresting question as the maintenance of their naval supremacy and the protection of their coasts, Colonies, and commerce. He was sorry the matter was not of sufficient importance to induce a single Minister or Under Minister to be present on the occasion when he (Lord Henry Lennox) addressed the Committee on a subject of which even his worst enemy would admit he knew something.

Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; Committee counted, and 40 Members being found present,

LORD HENRY LENNOX

said, that, by the favour of the hon. Member (Mr. Arthur O'Connor), he had got a House to listen to the observations he was about to address, not alone to the Committee, but to the country. On a former occasion, when the Estimates were brought forward at the small hours of the morning, when it was too late to go into details—and it must always be so under the new Rules of Procedure—he had stated that the Estimates were not only insufficient, but misleading-. He should have been glad to have spared the Committee the trouble of hearing his remarks had it not been that he felt bound, after having made such a decided charge as that, to try to prove the truth of his words. He could only say that the more he had looked into the matter from that day to this the more was he convinced that the remarks he had made were justified. It was more pleasant to him to praise the Admiralty than to blame them—it was always more pleasant, because it was so rare that it was possible to do it. It had not happened more than once in the past four years. Now, however, he was bound to say how pleased he was that the Admiralty had been able to increase the pay of the lieutenants in the Navy. The increase had been given not one day too soon. He was glad, also, that the Government had seen their way to effecting an improvement in the position of Warrant officers; but he regretted that, in order to do it, they had reduced the number of those officers. The Committee knew very well that when an improvement was made in the position of the Marines the increased expense consequent thereupon was met by reducing the number of the force by 600. Now that there was this new departure on the part of the Admiralty, now that they seemed to be anxious to do justice and to meet the claims of every class of officer, he hoped that they would persevere in this course, and see their way to very much improving the position of the engineers. So far as he had been able to master their complaint—and he had had many documents sent to him with regard to it which he had read with the greatest attention—he thought it was unanswerable. The hon. Member for Cardiff (Sir Edward J. Reed) had referred to another claim—namely, that of the assistant paymasters, to whom he had referred in terms which he (Lord Henry Lennox) had very much regretted to hear. Certainly, this class had every right to the consideration of the Admiralty. So far as he could make out, the block in promotion amongst the assistant paymasters was a sort of perennial, permanent complaint which the Admiralty could not escape from. Reference had been made to improvements which were going to be effected in connection with the nursing staff of the Navy. Last year, if the Estimates had come on at a reasonable hour at night, he had intended to ask the Admiralty if they purposed appointing some sort of a Committee to consider whether the Navy could not be placed in some respects in a similar position to the Army in regard to nurses? Why could they not have, in connection with the Navy, an establishment like that at Netley, where there was an admirable staff of nurses and under nurses, as he could testify from, his own observation, having visited the place when the troops came back from Egypt after the battle of Tel-el-Kebir? Could they not establish in connection with the Navy something on the same lines as the Netley Hospital? When he went through the hospital used for the Navy he was received with the greatest courtesy by the authorities, Sir William Reed and Admiral Hoskins; but all he could make out from them was that when there was an unusual influx of sick and wounded into the hospital, the only means they had of meeting it was by sending out and gathering in, to act as nurses, the old Navy Pensioners, who had no more idea of what a bandage was than a man who had never been wounded, or had never been to sea. The medical staff were dreadfully annoyed, and were anxious to get someone to bring the case before Parliament. They could not meet the difficulties of the case unless they were supported by the Board of Admiralty, which, he was thankful to say, since that time they had been. His complaint against the Estimates, as he had said, was that they were insufficient and misleading. He would go further, and say that no Estimates that were brought into the House of Commons could be anything else but insufficient and misleading, unless they contained a settled programme—a settled line of naval policy to be carried out for the defence of the country. He saw no sign or symptom, of that either in the present or in any other Estimate that had been submitted to Parliament for years past. The Estimates this year were, he must say, most carefully and cleverly arranged to make ends meet with, the small sum of money dealt out to the Admiralty. Nowhere in the Estimates did he see any sign of a great naval policy, and still less did he see in any part a sign of their being adequate for maintaining the supremacy of England at sea, although, the Admiralty might believe they were based on what was right for the welfare and security of the country. The Estimates were simply what the Admiralty could screw out of the Trea- sury by one means and another. That was the only justification for them; and he should be sorry to think that any Member of the Board of Admiralty would be a party to such Estimates unless he felt that what he wanted he could not get, and that it was not his fault that things were as they were. If the Committee would allow him to detain them he should like to go into that which was the real question to be considered—namely, the policy of the Admiralty for the year. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Westminster (Mr. W. H. Smith) had dilated, with his usual ability, on certain deficiencies in the tonnage; and, as an enlargement of that point, he (Lord Henry Lennox) wanted to know what the programme for the year was? What did the Admiralty propose to do in the way of ships and guns—which subject he would deal with later on—to defend the country in case of need, and in the event of a storm arising? As he understood the naval programme it was this. It was intended to construct 10,500 tons of iron-clad in the Royal Dockyards, and 2,114 tons by contract, making a total of 12,614 tons of iron-clad; and of unarmoured ships 5,555 tons in the Dockyards and 2,510 by contract. This would represent a very large sum. So far as he could make out, this represented wages in the Dockyards to the amount of £541,220 on the advancement of ships, and £309,750 for contract, labour, and materials. What were they going to get for this large amount of money? It was hoped that they would get two iron-clads—the Colossus, a first-class iron-clad, and the Impérieuse, a second - class iron-clad. When they talked about the Colossus not having been completed by the time they were told it would be completed, it was said that the delay was owing to difficulties respecting the conning tower and mode of loading guns. Last year they heard it said, in jubilant tones, that the breech-loading guns had actually been sent safely, and had been got on board the Colossus. But what was the use of these guns if there was no possibility of firing them—no means of lowering them to the necessary extent? The statement which had been made was, in fact, nothing more nor less than an attempt to blow over the state of things. Unless they could rapidly find an improved method of loading the guns, the Colossus would be no more completed this time next year than she was now. The other ships to be completed were two small protected ships, virtually second-class cruisers—namely, the Camperdown and the Anson. They, he thought, ought to have been a little nearer completion than they were at the present moment. They were only to be advanced to 34–100ths; and as this was the third year of the Estimates he thought they ought to have been brought a little nearer completion. The Collingwood was to be advanced 421 tons, bringing her near completion to 83–100ths. Several hon. Members that night, and especially the hon. Member for Cardiff (Sir Edward J. Reed), had dwelt on the length of time the vessels were in hand before they were completed. He remembered that when the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Westminster was First Lord of the Admiralty the hon. Member for Cardiff complained of one of the ships—namely, the now celebrated Inflexible, having been eight or nine years in course of construction, declaring that in consequence of the delay the country had had to pay a third more for the vessel than it had originally consented to pay. Another remarkable case was the Edinburgh. It was promised that she should be completed in 1883; but she was not even to be finished this year. She was to be advanced, 254 tons, to 73–100ths. Even if the proposed arrangements were carried out she could not be completed until 1885, instead of 1883 as promised. He should like to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty for an explanation as to the treatment of this ship beyond his statement. She was brought from Pembroke two years ago; but nothing had been done on her of any kind or sort from that time to this. He was told—and he believed it to be true—that even her turrets were not put in. He would like to know if any steps—and if any steps what—had been taken to provide proper armaments for the Navy? He was not at all clear that the line of policy adopted by the Admiralty was one which would be adopted in any private yard where prompt replies to the charges brought against them had to be made. The Committee were aware of the delay in the completion of the Colossus. He was afraid the Edinburgh and the Camperdown were being delayed, because if the guns were made they were not on board, and if they were on board they could not be fired. He hoped his fear was not well-grounded; because if it was in the case of one of those ships it must be equally true in the case of every one of that class which was to be similarly armed. He should be very happy, indeed, if the Secretary to the Admiralty could give him some little comfort about the Edinburgh, because the sum spent upon her was an enormous sum to lie idle in the Dockyard for years without some attempt to turn it to good account. The next point he had to touch upon was the same he felt it his duty to allude to on a previous occasion. He desired the Secretary to the Admiralty to tell the Committee that night when the gun-fittings would be completed, when the country would see the end of the controversy about guns. For years and years the authorities were unable to arrive at a settlement upon the question of the pattern of gun; then the House were told, with a flourish of trumpets, that the pattern was decided upon; then it was a long time before the pattern was completed; and then, when the guns were got on board, they could not be fired. The controversy concerning guns had been most painful and ignominious. If the guns could not be fired, the whole strength and utility of their fighting Fleet was paralyzed in the event of sudden war. They might as well not have built any ships at all if they had not got guns to put on board. There was another point to which he wished to advert, and it was one on which he was very much snubbed last year by the hon. Gentleman the Surveyor General of the Ordnance (Mr. Brand), who did not seem to take much interest in naval matters; for he had not been in his place at any time during the present debate. The hon. Gentleman took him very severely to task for having said something, and then not having been present to hear the answer. He had taken much trouble to go through the figures respecting the guns; and, of course, he entirely agreed with all that had been said as to the absurdity of one Department ordering stores for another Department, unless there be ample and full account taken of the stores. He saw from the Army Estimates that the total expenditure for the Navy in respect of guns in the last four years was £899,137. There was spent on guns in 1881–2, £137,799; in 1882–3, £322,109; in 1883–4, £249,997; and in 1884–5, £189,232. Upon gun carriages there was spent in the same years, £78,989, £117,327, £66,404, and £84,980 respectively. On machine guns there had been spent in the last two years, £14,701 and £15,843 respectively; the total for the various stores in the last four years being, in 1881–2, £433,715; in 1882–3, £690,715; in 1883–4, £528,176; and in 1884–5, £522,691. It was curious that these vast sums should be voted in the Army Estimates for the guns and stores of the Navy, and that it should be impossible to find any account of them. The Committee knew nothing of any value; they only knew what sums had been voted, but they did not know how they had been applied. There ought to be an Audit Account submitted to the House by the Comptroller and Auditor General, if hon. Members were to have anything like a clear and proper idea of what was going on. But the reverse was the result; hon. Members knew nothing. He would give an example of the plight in which hon. Members found themselves. The other day he moved for a Return—a very simple and innocent Return—of the iron and steel guns that had been supplied to the Navy by the War Office within a certain cycle of years. His hon. Friend the Secretary to the Admiralty, with his usual courtesy, allowed his secretary to write to him (Lord Henry Lennox) to tell him he might have the Return. When, however, he came down to the House, he was told that the Surveyor General of the Ordnance would not allow him to have the Return unless he would alter the wording of it by omitting the words "supplied to the Navy." They might just as well attempt to play Hamlet with the part of the Prince of Denmark struck out. What he really wanted to know was, what guns were supplied to the Navy; and whether, if they were supplied, they were supplied in such a condition as to be of use? That was only one of many instances of the way the affairs of the country were administered. He believed it was his right hon. and gallant Friend (Sir John Hay) who moved for a Return of the condition of the boilers. It was quite true the Secretary to the Admiralty stated that the boilers of the ships were never in so good a condition; but if they were in a good condition, why was information refused? One would have thought it would have been a pleasure to the Secretary to the Admiralty to have given the Return, and to have allowed the House to participate with him in the satisfaction he experienced on the subject. Complaint was made last year that they had not a sufficient number of iron-clads. Over and over again the Committee had been told there that the number of iron-clads was large enough, and that the Naval Service was quite able to maintain their supremacy at sea; and yet, shortly after the House of Commons broke up last autumn, another iron-clad was laid down, showing that the protestations of himself and Friends were perfectly right and valid, and that the Admiralty, in their protestations that no more iron-clads were required, were mistaken. There were some people who really believed that what was called the new ship proposed to be built this year was an iron-clad. There were scores of hon. Gentlemen in the House of Commons who believed that a ship could be called a ship which was only to be advanced 338 tons in the year. What did an advance of 338 tons in a year mean? He challenged the Civil Lord of the Admiralty (Sir Thomas Brassey), or the Secretary to the Admiralty (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman), to deny that 338 tons to be worked on an iron-clad meant nothing but one of those paper ships which the First Sea Lord of the Admiralty described at the banquet at the Royal Academy; it meant nothing but payment for the drawings and for the expenses preliminary to laying the ship down. He could not understand how any Board of Admiralty could seriously announce an iron-clad which was only to be advanced 338 tons in the year. It was only recently that the hon. Member for Hastings (Sir Thomas Brassey) descanted upon the strength of their Fleet abroad as well as at home, and he particularly referred to the Scorpion, Wivern, Viper, and Vixen, which, he said, were at Bermuda. He (Lord Henry Lennox) hoped Bermuda would never find itself confronted by a serious foe; if it did, and had only such vessels to rely upon, it had better retire at once. In addition to the new ship, it was intended to advance the Mersey 67–100ths, and the Severn 48–100ths, and to begin three new protected ships; but neither of the five was to be completed this year. One was only to be advanced 61 tons. It was to appear in the Estimates, and the country were to believe it was an addition to the Navy. He thought the time had come when the Admiralty should ask for the money they wanted, and not to offer paper or phantom ships. He could not help contrasting the present state of things with that which prevailed two or three years ago. The then Secretary to the Admiralty (Mr. Trevelyan) came down to the House and promised, not one, but four new iron-clads. All they had got this year was one iron-clad laid down. There was a somewhat extraordinary circumstance about the Mersey and the Severn. Last year, he ventured to draw a comparison between the Iron-clad Navies of France and England. To his great surprise, as he mentioned at the time, he found included in the English iron-clads or armoured ships the Mersey and the Severn. He could not understand on what principle the Mersey and the Severn could be counted as armoured ships. The Estimates of this year, with remarkable naïveté, contained a note stating that those ships were no longer to be considered iron-clads. He could not help noting and being amused at the circumstance. He was very much surprised indeed to read the statement of the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Admiralty in regard to the protected ships. He had not the slightest doubt that the protected ships would be very useful vessels in their way, and do very good service; but they were not ironclads; and he was perfectly startled when he read that the Secretary to the Admiralty had said that— If mounted with heavy armour-piercing guns, they would, in. the fullest sense, be battleships. Did he suppose that the Mersey or the Severn would be a battle-ship of a match for any of the iron-clads of other Powers? Another subject had been touched upon in the course of the debate; and were it not that he really considered it of very great importance, he would not refer to it. It was the subject of what tonnage was, and what it was not. Last year, in the House of Commons and in The Times newspaper, he produced a statement showing the amount of tonnage that had been built, and the amount that was supposed to have been built; and he must do himself the honour to think that the Secretary to the Admiralty must have been impressed with what he stated, or he would not have made the observations he did. He did not make any charge against the Secretary to the Admiralty, or against anyone; but he could not refrain from remarking that there must be something radically wrong when so honourable and so straightforward a Minister as the Secretary to the Admiralty could come down to the House and tell hon. Members that he had not only carried out his pledge as to the building of iron-clads in the year, but he had exceeded the amount promised to be completed by 267 tons. In the face of the Estimates, it was extraordinary that such a statement could be made. As a matter of fact, he had made it out that, instead of their being an increase of iron-clad tonnage built over that which was promised to the amount of 267 tons, there was a deficiency of no less than 2,147 tons—1,249 tons in Dockyard, and 898 deficient on Benbow, building by contract. He trusted the hon. and learned Gentleman would be able to explain this discrepancy, which, however, appeared from the Estimates themselves. There was one other matter to which he desired to allude; and he trusted that if he was wearying the Committee they would bear with him, as he did not often address them. He saw there was to be expended this year, on repairs and refits, £415,432; and the number of men to be told off for the work was to be 6,291. He noticed that, amongst the repairs at Chatham last year, the celebrated Polyphemus was to be fitted with new boilers; and for the purpose, in conjunction with the repairs of the Orontes, £18,000 was voted, and 250 men were told off. It was very curious that when he looked at the head "Portsmouth," he found, this year, £61,631 and 892 men voted for "Emerald, Cormorant, and refit Shah, and complete new boilers for Polyphemus." He did not suppose for one moment that the Polyphemus had new boilers at Chatham last year, and that this year they were to pay for new boilers for her at Portsmouth. That was another discrepancy to which he hoped the Secretary to the Admiralty would direct his attention. That was not all, because he saw that at Devonport, in 1883–4, the large sum of £129,726 was voted, arid 2,016 men were told off, "to complete the repairs of the Bellerophon, Raleigh, and other ships;" and then he noticed that, this year, £130,773 was voted, and 2,036 men were told off, "to complete repairs of Raleigh and other ships, and to advance repairs of Bellerophon and other vessels." He would dearly like to know where the money which the House of Commons had voted had gone? The next question on which he had to touch—that of the Marines—was one in regard to which he had no grievance against the Admiralty, except it was that the number of men had been unnecessarily reduced. He agreed with all that had been said about the Marines. The Marines were a very willing Force; but he did not think it was wise always to push them forward wherever there was fighting. He was convinced the Marines did not object; but, still, they ought to be treated justly and reasonably. As to the personnel of the Navy, he saw, by a statement which he had taken some trouble to make out, it had been decreasing for the last five years, and it was now at a lower point than it had ever been. He did not want to sail under false colours, but to admit honestly that his attention was first drawn to the question of the personnel of the Navy by a speech of a gallant officer who was once a respected and esteemed Member of the House of Commons—namely, Lord Charles Beresford. In the last Parliament Lord Charles Beresford made a most interesting speech, in which he pointed out that the personnel of the Navy was utterly defective, and that often 50 per cent of the men in English ships were non-combatants. Talking of the ship which he (Lord Charles Beresford) commanded some years ago with so much ability and distinction, the Thunderer, Lord Charles said that when the boats were manned and went off there were only left on board the Quartermasters and some 15 Marines; that, he added, was a most alarming state of things, because the French had no non-combatants. He should like to ask his hon. Friend the Civil Lord of the Admiralty (Sir Thomas Brassey) whether he would endeavour to persuade the Admiralty to adopt some scheme which should secure that a larger number of the men on board their ships should be trained to arms? This was a subject which his hon. Friend would do well to consider and to bring before the Board, because what was possible in the French Navy must be possible in ours. He (Lord Henry Lennox) felt that he must say a few words more on the subject of the French Navy. He had no desire to enter into a comparison of the number and character of the ships in the French and English Navies—he had done that so often—but he had carefully studied the French Estimates; and he had found that the French were now spending more money on the personnel of their Navy than they had ever done before. The Return he had prepared showed that for 1885, for Service Marine, the French had voted 200,000,000 francs, as against 197,780,696 francs for 1884; for Artillery, under the head of Sources Extraordinaires, there was put down 8,700,000 francs; and there was an increase of 2,500,000 francs under the head of Invalides de la Marines. There was thus, this year, an absolute increase of 13,400,000 francs in the Vote for the French Navy. He would like also to be told what was the meaning of that most extraordinary Return of "Fighting and Sea - going Ships," which was issued contemporaneously with the Estimates? Included in the Return were the Northumberland, Minotaur, Agincourt, and Achilles, which, a previous Secretary of the Admiralty said, only very recently, were only useful as drill ships. How could any Board of Admiralty represent to the House of Commons those ships as fighting and seagoing vessels? The next lot comprised a series of venerable iron-clads—namely, the Warrior, Black Prince, Resistance, Lord Warden, Hector, Valiant, Defence, Repulse, and Penelope. To put these vessels down as a powerful element of the naval strength of the country was most misleading. Such ships could not be counted as fighting ships, and they were not sea-going. They had light armament of a very obsolete kind, and they had no speed at all. He would not go further on the point, except to say that last year the Secretary to the Admiralty said that the progress of the Board of Admiralty was neither startling nor ambitious. Had he said otherwise, he would have been the first Secretary who ever charged the Admiralty with, having a startling and ambitious programme. The hon. Gentleman, last year, made a comparison of the relative merits of the English and French Navies, and had gone back for his purpose as far as 1867; but in doing so he had not given the name of any ships, nor their tonnage, speed, or armament. Nevertheless, he triumphantly stated that their ships were superior to the French. But it turned out, with regard to three years of his comparison, that he was comparing the ships of the English Navy with old wooden French ships which had no existence at all. He wished to help the Admiralty in their endeavour to persuade the Treasury to give them a little more money to maintain the safety of their Colonies and commerce and the supremacy of the country at sea; and it was for that purpose he had risen, under rather depressing circumstances, to address the Committee.

MR. GORST

said, he was certain that the Members of the Government must have been struck with the fact that the burden of every speech delivered that evening on either side of the House was virtually this—"Why do you not spend more money on the Navy?" But, unfortunately, there had been no one present to whom the question could be addressed; and he was himself almost afraid that in making these observations he should come within the Prime Minister's definition, of Obstruction, which the right hon. Gentleman said consisted in making a speech without attempting to persuade any one. Had he, however, the eloquence of Demosthenes there was no one on the Treasury Bench whom he could address or attempt to persuade. They were discussing the naval policy of Her Majesty's Government, and there were two Members of the Government before them who had no share in directing that policy. Now, if the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Admiralty were, as he ought to have been, First Lord, the Committee could address their speeches to him with some effect; but, unfortunately, the Government had placed at the head of this great spending Department of State a Peer, who dwelt in the serene atmosphere of "another place," without fear of criticism and without fear of being asked the question—"Why do you not spend more money on the Navy?" What had become of the other Members of the Government? The Chancellor of the Exchequer was absent, and he observed that the right hon. Gentleman always carefully avoided these naval debates; doubtless because he feared an attack upon the financial policy of the Government. All they could do, then, was very little—they could force upon the Government, or rather upon the two Members of it who were present, the fact that the country was dissatisfied with that portion of the Expenditure which the Government devoted to the Navy of the country; and it was a notorious fact that the Admiralty shared that dissatisfaction. The Secretary to the Admiralty came down to the House, and was obliged to make the best defence he could of the Government with the materials at his disposal; and the noble Lord who had just spoken had given them a specimen of the shifts to which the Admiralty were put in order to make out the number of the paper fleet which they presented to the people. But they would not say that the expenditure on the Navy was satisfactory. Well, they had not got the Chancellor of the Exchequer to address; but he would like the Secretary to the Admiralty to tell the Committee on what ground the Government justified this inadequate expenditure on the defence of the country? In the accounts of their Expenditure, the cost of the Navy was treated in an unusual way. If the accounts were those of a commercial Company, instead of a great nation, all this expenditure on ships and materiel would be charged to capital; but being a great nation they put them, down to Revenue. The expenditure on the Navy was nothing else than an investment of the property of the country for the purpose of defending its wealth and Possessions, and it ought to appear as such in the accounts. The hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands) was, no doubt, a great economist; and if he should address the Committee on this Vote he would, no doubt, accuse him of extravagance, and say that it was because he represented a Dockyard constituency that he was always in favour of spending money on the Navy. But was the course pursued by the Government really an economical one? They were actually leaving the defences of the country in an unsatisfactory condition; and it could not be because they had no money, for they were spending £7,000,000 every year in the reduction of the National Debt. If the Admiralty could induce the country to believe that the Navy was kept up to an efficient strength; that there was really nothing in the criticisms addressed to them upon the subject by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Westminster (Mr. W. H. Smith), the noble Lord the Member for Chichester (Lord Henry Lennox), and other Gentlemen on that side of the House, all experienced in affairs of the Navy—if they could show that those criticisms were but the views of alarmists, and that they had expended all the money that was proper to be spent on the defences of the country, well and good; but if not, then he said that some Member of the Government should defend its position in this matter, and point out why so much money was spent in the manner he had alluded to, while the Navy itself was being starved. He did not wish to go into details, further than to say that the grievances of the engineers, naval schoolmasters, artificers, and others, were all due to the same cause—that the Admiralty had not enough money, and was obliged to resort to shifts in order to keep down the expenditure to the lowest point. All those cases had been presented to the Committee in the course of the evening. The discussion on the Navy Estimates differed entirely from those which took place on the other Estimates; no one ever dreamt of refraining from criticizing naval expenditure; on the contrary, Member after Member of the Committee rose to say the same thing, and to ask why so little money was spent, and why the Service was not made efficient. He thought at least that the Chancellor of the Exchequer might favour the Committee with his presence, in order that he might defend the policy of the Government, which was thus attacked. He might further observe that, although a great part of the criticisms of the evening had been upon the question of Ordnance, and the delay in the arming of those vessels which had been built, there had been no one present in the House to represent the War Office and answer the questions which had been put on those subjects. As might have been expected, an attempt had been made about an hour before to count out the Committee. At that time there were, he believed, but four Members present; and one speaker remarked that little interest was taken in the Navy Estimates. Of course, they could take no interest in them under the circumstances; and he therefore protested, and should continue to protest, against there being no responsible Minister of the Crown present to defend the policy of the Government against the charge of having reduced the Navy Estimates to a point below that which the country believed to be necessary.

MR. RYLANDS

said, his hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Gorst) could scarcely have been in his place at the commencement of the discussion, or he would have heard the important speeches delivered by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Westminster (Mr. W. H. Smith) and by his hon. Friend near him (Sir Edward J. Reed). [Mr. GOEST: I heard them both.] Then his hon. and learned Friend, who generally displayed wonderful acuteness, seemed to be under some obfuscation of intellect, because he understood his hon. and learned Friend to say that Members had been complaining that so little money was spent; whereas they had asserted that while they voted a large sum of money for naval purposes every year they did not get the return for that money which they had a right to expect, but although they spent £11,500,000 a-year for naval purposes, the hon. and learned Member for Chatham, like the daughter of the horse-leech, cried "More, more!" He (Mr. Rylands) contended that more money was spent than ought to be spent, and that the country had no sufficient result to show for it. He entirely agreed with the speakers in the early part of the discussion who said that it was most unfortunate that, in regard to the question of naval expenditure, it was so difficult to get the ear of the House or the attention of the public. One set of political officials succeeded another at the Admiralty; and although they were in power they were the mere mouthpieces of the permanent officials. Instead of dealing with this great question as a matter of business, and in the interest of the public, they allowed the permanent officials to influence them, with the view of keeping up the old traditions of Admiralty administration. He was delighted to hear the allusion of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Westminster to the manner in which the Admiralty accounts were presented to the House. He thought the speech of the right hon. Gentleman was perfectly fair, and that it was delivered in the best possible spirit, because he admitted that the present mode of making up the accounts was one which had the sanction of former Administrations; but the fact was, the Members of the House of Commons were hoodwinked in respect of the amount of expenditure. They had been led to believe that the cost per ton of iron ships built in the Dockyards was very much less than what it actually was. But what did the right hon. Gentleman say? He said that he had received information, from a private shipbuilder of great respectability, that the cost of labour on iron vessels built by him was only about one-half the cost of labour expended on vessels built by the Government. The right hon. Gentleman made a most true remark in regard to that, although he rather tried to lessen the effect of the statement—namely, that Dockyard work was necessarily dearer than private work.

MR. W. H. SMITH

I beg the hon. Member's pardon. I said it was dearer, but, in my judgment, not necessarily so.

MR. RYLANDS

said, he was glad to hear the correction of the right hon. Gentleman; he understood that, as a matter of fact, Dockyard work was dearer, though not necessarily so, than private work, and he entirely agreed with the right hon. Gentleman. The Dockyard work was, however, so dear that if any private shipbuilder carried on his business in the way the Dockyard business was done, he would very soon be in The Gazette, even if he had the Bank of England to back him. He said that the dearness of the work of the Admiralty was patent to everyone. Again, the speech of the right hon. Gentleman was full of wisdom and good judgment; and he entirely agreed with him in pointing out that it would be far better if the Admiralty were to decide upon the plan or type of a vessel and at once proceed to build it, because if that were done they would keep more abreast of the discoveries of the age than they did under the present system, the effect of which was that while they were deciding upon the type of a vessel the whole stream of discovery changed its course, and after, perhaps, seven years the ship, when completed, was found to be obsolete. His hon. Friend near him (Sir Edward J. Reed) made a statement which, coming from him, was of the greatest possible importance—namely, that from his experience he did not believe that the ships built by private contract were in any way inferior to those built in Her Majesty's Dockyards. What did that teach them? Looking at the fact, not as the Representative of a Dockyard constituency, as was his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Chatham (Mr. Gorst), but as a business man accustomed to manufacturing operations, he (Mr. Rylands) had no hesitation in saying that by going into the open market, after deciding upon the kind of ship required, the Admiralty would get a ship constructed and delivered in a stated time and at a less cost, from a private shipbuilding yard, than they were paying now. If that system were adopted, they would be able to cut down the Naval Estimates, and the country would get in return for its money a much larger number of vessels of war. Now, he was only repeating the language used by Mr. Cobden 20 years ago in that House, when he pointed out that the cost of the Shipbuilding Department of the Navy had increased in every ramification. It had gone on increasing ever since that time; and if the Committee would analyze the accounts before them they would see that for every pound expended in wages they paid 5s. more for superannuation charges. The police charges and establishment charges alone were something incredible; and he asked whether any man in his senses could imagine that an establishment so conducted could be carried on at a profit, if in addition to all this the management of the shipbuilding department was in the hands of a gentleman who knew nothing practically of shipbuilding establishments? It was not because a man was an Admiral that he understood manufacturing operations; nevertheless, such gentlemen were put into the Dockyards to preside over shipbuilding arrangements; and after three years or so, having done as much mischief as possible, they were withdrawn to make room for others. The whole practice appeared to him to be contrary to those common-sense principles which ought to guide the administration of the affairs of the country. Therefore, he hoped that an end would be put to a system under which the construction of a vessel, planned and laid down by some officials years before, went dragging slowly on until, after the lapse of seven or eight years, caused by interference with the process by persons who considered themselves to be more ingenious than their predecessors, a vessel was produced that, after all, was open to objection. His hon. Friend near him had said, with perfect truth, that the country had spent during the last four or five years many millions of money which were not represented by anything that could be brought to bear in the event of war, and that this vast absorption of capital was in unfinished ships, which at the present moment could not be brought into play, and which for every month they were delayed ran an increased risk of having to be written oil as obsolete when they were completed. For these reasons, he thought the Committee, not in a parsimonious, but in an intelligent and business-like spirit, should criticize strongly the unbusiness-like and wasteful manner in which the millions voted year by year for naval purposes were expended without that return which they, as Representatives of the taxpayers of the country, had a right to demand from Her Majesty's Government.

MR. A. F. EGERTON

said, the policy of the Admiralty was, in fact, the policy of the Prime Minister, the Secretary to the Treasury, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, without whose consent the Admiralty could do nothing. The hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands) had, he thought, slightly misrepresented the right hon. Member for Westminster. That right hon. Gentleman had made some criticisms on the forms in which the accounts of the Admiralty were presented in the Estimates, and had conclusively shown that they were deficient in some respects; but he ventured to think that the hon. Member for Burnley had gone too far in attributing to the right hon. Gentleman the statement that the money provided in this Estimate would be sufficient for the purposes of the Navy. His own opinion was that, although a certain saving might be effected by a better form of accounting, the amount was insufficient; and he ventured to think the Committee would agree with him when he said that if the Admiralty were to ask for a considerably larger sum of money for Navy purposes they would be supported by the House and the coun- try. He did not wish to make a long speech on this occasion; but there were one or two points upon which he should like to ask for some information from the Surveyor General of the Ordnance. The Committee had heard a good deal, in the course of this debate, about the guns for the Colossus and the Edinburgh; and he should like to know exactly how that matter stood, if the information could be given to the public? He thought that not only the House of Commons, but the country generally, had ground to complain of the very great delays that had occurred in the Ordnance Department in supplying guns to the Navy. He ventured to say that that Department was too much under the influence of Elswick and Woolwich, and he thought the Department ought to get inspiration from other quarters. There was a great foreign gunmaker—Krupp; and there was a great English gunmaker—Whitworth; but the House never heard of any trials and results either on the Continent or at home, though he believed there had recently been some very important trials of Whitworth guns of large calibre. He did not know whether the Ordnance Department knew anything of them; but if they did not they ought. He should like to know specifically what was the cause of the delay in regard to the guns of the Colossus and the Edinburgh? In the course of this debate complaints—and very legitimate complaints—had been made of the delays with respect to the completion of ships laid down in Her Majesty's Dockyards. The causes of these complaints had been very specifically stated. There was no doubt that, to a great extent, these delays in the completion of Her Majesty's ships were caused by some conflict of opinion between the different Departments of the Admiralty. These guns had to be considered minutely; and, as he had said before, the great object of the Admiralty was to obtain absolute perfection—and a very legitimate object that was; but in order to obtain complete perfection they had very frequently to encounter serious delays. But there was another cause of the delays complained of in the completion of Her Majesty's ships, and that lay with the House of Commons itself. The ship that had been delayed the longest time, he believed, was the Inflexible. He would not now go into the old story of the Inflexible; but he thought those who were Members of the last Parliament would agree with him in saying that the real cause of the delay in the completion of that ship was the action of the House of Commons; and the hon. Member for Cardiff (Sir Edward J. Reed) legitimately had a great deal to say upon that. The Inflexible took seven or eight years to complete; but he did not think the result could be complained of, for he believed the Inflexible, as she now stood, with her 80-ton guns, was superior to either of the two great Italian ships. She was stronger than they were in many respects, and was a highly creditable addition to Her Majesty's Navy. He hoped the ships that were to succeed her, of similar calibre, but differently armed, would be as admirable ships as she was. He did not say that any ships could be perfect; but the Inflexible had, on the whole, been a great success. The noble Lord (Lord Henry Lennox) had complained that the Admiralty had no general policy. Well, the noble Lord had himself belonged to the Administration of the Admiralty, and knew a good deal of what went on in the arcana of that Body. He ventured to differ from the noble Lord—and he spoke not of one Admiralty, but of successive Admiralties—in saying that they had no policy; for he thought all Admiralties had a policy. He would not, however, say that that policy was not interfered with in detail by the Treasury; but he wished it was not so interfered with. No Admiralty could completely carry out the policy it professed; but, still, he did not agree with his noble Friend in thinking that the Admiralty had no policy. The fact was, every Admiralty must have a general policy, not only in shipbuilding, but must have an idea of what was required for the defences of the country. To his mind, a complete policy of the Admiralty involved not only the building of ships, but a complete policy, such as, say, General Moltke had in the invasion of Prance by Prussia in 1870. Every Admiralty must have in mind a general scheme of defence not only for the commerce of the country, but for the shores of this country. In fact, every Admiralty, that was worth anything as an Admiralty, ought to have every point of naval policy perpetually in mind; and he ventured to say that the Admiralty presided over by Lord Northbrook, and represented in this House by the hon. Member opposite (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman), had all these points in mind; but, although they might have a perfect policy in mind, it was impossible to carry that policy out without the consent of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Prime Minister. He was happy to see that night that, instead of only about five Members, there were at least 50 present; and he hoped the House would continue to take more interest in the affairs of the Navy, and a more intelligent interest in the Navy than it appeared to have done in times past; and that the Admiralty, when they attempted to increase the shipbuilding of the nation, would be backed up not only by public opinion out-of-doors, but by the House of Commons generally. He believed there was no nation in the world that took greater interest in the affairs of its Navy than did the people of Great Britain; but, still, so far as the House of Commons was concerned, that interest had not been shown very minutely by the Representatives of the nation. He hoped that in the future the state of things would be considerably improved, and that the House of Commons would support the Admiralty in all the attempts they made to force the janitors of the Treasury, in order to obtain such a Navy as they ought to have to ensure the defence of the country.

MR. DAWSON

said, the absence of a more responsible Ministry than those who now occupied the Treasury Bench had been already referred to; but for his purpose the able exponent of the Admiralty now present would be sufficient. He wished, first of all, to call attention to a matter which struck a layman—namely, the grievances of the paymasters. He conceived that the hon. Gentleman would allow that the prospect these officers had of getting promotion was getting longer and longer away; and that, through no fault of their own, it was quite possible that the period when they might expect promotion might be extended even to 1889–90. And while the term of promotion was postponed, when they got the promotion, or the advantage of their long service, that advantage would be proportionately decreased. If they had only 10 years and 11 months, and so did not reach 11 years, they would only get six years' junior service; whereas, if they had passed that time by even one day, they would at once jump into full service of 15 years. He could not see, upon any logical, or actuarial, or just ground, why that extraordinary state of things should exist, or, being in existence, should be allowed to continue. The hon. Member had himself referred to the unjust position in which those men stood. Like the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands), he looked at these matters as a business man; and it seemed to him that this was a cheeseparing policy, while the Admiralty were spending money in providing guns that would not go off. Apart from that subject, he wished to say that he thoroughly agreed with the hon. Member for Burnley as to Government Establishments, and the extravagant manner in which they did their work, compared with private builders upon open contract. In the matter of Army Clothing he had moved for the Returns, which were not yet presented; and when they were presented he should be able to prove that the cost of the work done by the favoured Government factories was greatly in excess of the work done by open contract. It appeared, from the debate that night, and from the speech of the right hon. Member for Westminster (Mr. W. H. Smith), that the cost of the work done by the Government factories was unnecessarily great. The whole issue of this debate appeared, therefore, to be that the matters upon which saving could be made were the very matters upon which the Government were most lavish and profuse. In regard to ships, they ought to spend money judiciously; and in the matter of the paymasters, they ought to be generous and just; but they were cheeseparing in the extreme, and he hoped the hon. Gentleman would give a satisfactory answer upon the points to which he had ventured to draw attention.

SIR JOHN JENKINS

said, he could not quite fall in with the whole of the remarks that had been made as to lavish expenditure in all the Dockyards. Last year he was several days at Pembroke Dockyard, of which the gentleman in command had spent a great deal of his life in the Naval Service; and he was glad to be able to bear testimony to the efficient manner in which that Yard was conducted. Naval gentlemen, from their long training, undoubtedly knew exactly what was necessary for the Service; and as to the practical departments under their charge they were able to select men who had the necessary techtical knowledge. He could certainly testify that as regards Pembroke Dockyard the men were all practical men, and did their work in an efficient manner. He rose more particularly to express his disappointment that no provision was proposed for improving the position of that very important branch of the Navy, the Royal Naval Artillery Volunteers. This question had cropped up year after year; and he thought that if this Service received more encouragement from the Government, a large amount of money would eventually be saved to the country. There was a good class of men enrolled in that Service, who would be able to render valuable aid in the defence of the country in an emergency. They had a large number of gunboats lying idle at two or three ports, which might be most usefully employed and turned to profitable account by being used at the various ports round the Island, not only for the protection of those ports, but for the training of men for the Naval Service. He hoped the Admiralty, in their next Estimates, would make some provision for a capitation grant for the Royal Naval Artillery Volunteers. Many appeals had been made to the Admiralty in that direction; but, so far, those appeals had been made in vain. He sincerely hoped the Admiralty would do something in the coming year to give encouragement to this important branch of the Navy.

MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN

I wish, in the first place, to revert to the very important and instructive speech which my right hon. Friend opposite (Mr. W. H. Smith) made at an early period in this discussion. It has been alluded to by several hon. Members who have spoken during this debate; and there has been a substantial general agreement in the views expressed by the right hon. Gentleman. There were two points to which he specially alluded. In the first place, he referred to the great waste, both of time and money, which was involved in alterations from the original designs of ships, and to the desirability generally of proceeding as quickly as possible to the completion of any ships which have been taken in hand. With regard to that principle, I believe the right hon. Gentleman was preaching entirely to the converted, when he addressed his observations to my hon. Friend the Civil Lord of the Admiralty and myself. We entirely agree with him; and I am sure I am speaking for the First Lord of the Admiralty and other Members of the Board when I say that they altogether agree with him that that is a most important principle. As I remember, the hon. Member for Cardiff (Sir Edward J. Reed) pointed out two years ago, with great clearness, any delay in the completion of a ship involves the loss to the nation of the use of the capital which has been expended upon the ship; and that is a consideration which ought to induce us to hasten the completion of a ship as much as possible. But, besides that, there is no doubt that if we go on changing and departing from in the original design we ultimately produce a ship of which the main design may be obsolete, or somewhat out of date, and which is not so effective an instrument of war as if it had been taken in hand and finished at once. Well, having made that statement—I will not say that admission—of what I believe to be a cardinal principal in the matter, I must, at the same time, ask the Committee to remember that there is something to be said on the other side. In the first place, I said, when introducing the Estimates, that it was impossible for us—it would be folly in us—to shut the door upon improvements; and in these days improvements do not take place through the caprice or fanciful inventions of constructors. If we were to leave it to our Naval Constructors, I believe they would be more anxious to adhere to the original designs than anyone else. The Committee must remember that we live in changing times, in times of inventions, every one of which affects shipbuilding. We live in times of inventions with regard to armament, to guns and their carriages; to torpedoes, and the machinery connected with the ejection of torpedoes; to machine guns and quick-firing guns, and to their fittings, and mountings, and racers; besides, hydraulic and electric machinery. These, and some other things which I might mention, account for nearly all the delays which are com- plained of. A great deal has been said, and will be said, as to the delays in respect to guns; and I may have something to say with respect to detailed points later on. I cannot too strongly impress it on the Committee, as I have before had occasion to state, that the delay with regard to the guns has not been in regard to their manufacture. The delay has been with respect to fixing and settling the types and details of the guns. When the present Government came into Office, we found the country in this position—other countries had gone ahead of us, and it was necessary for us to enter upon a great wholesale change of armament, that change being necessitated not by any peculiar advantage of breech-loading, but by the use of slow-burning powder, which involved an enormously long tube in the gun; and when you have the great length of tube which that implies you must load at the breech. There were many grounds for hesitation, because we all know what delay is involved in the appointment of a Committee on such a subject; but the question was so large, and the amount of expenditure was so great, that the Government thought they would not be justified in proceeding without securing the very best advice that could be obtained, and they appointed an Ordnance Committee consisting of naval and military officers, and certain civilians and engineers possessing great knowledge of the metals employed in the construction of guns. Of course, a Committee like that having been appointed, it proceeds steadily with its investigation, and for a long time no apparent progress whatever is made. We have now passed through those years when there was nothing but delay and disappointment, and, apparently, alteration of opinion; but I was glad to be able to say, when I introduced the Estimates, that during this last year a very great stride has been made, and we at length see daylight at the end of this long investigation. I am told that the most important points are settled; and although there will still, no doubt, be considerable hindrances with regard to many of the smaller details, I believe I may say substantially that there will be no hindrances on any such scale as there have been hitherto. This, I think, constitutes a satisfactory position of the question, because now my hon. Friend at the head of the Ordnance Department enters upon the duty of constructing the new guns with a knowledge and confidence which he could not have possessed by any other means; and we may hope that we have avoided the danger we should otherwise have incurred of rashly entering on the rearmament of the Navy after a hastily-considered plan, and then, after a few years, finding that we were all wrong, and must incur all the expense over again. There have been difficulties not only with regard to the form and design of the guns, but with regard to the material to be used. That is one of the great causes of delay; and the other considerations I have named are all factors which tend to the same result—the development of torpedo warfare, and the greater use of electricity and hydraulic machinery. But if the object of what hon. Members have urged is to impress upon us and our Colleagues the necessity of completing ships as quickly as possible, and altering the original design as little as possible, I can assure them that every word that has been said is entirely concurred in by us. The other point to which my right hon. Friend alluded was the notable, and now becoming rather thread worn, question of tonnage. I take some credit to myself for honesty in this matter, at all events, because I was almost the first that had the courage to attempt an explanation of this thorny subject; and I from the first stated what I now repeat—that my own personal opinion is not in favour of this system of computation. I admit all that has been said upon it. The unit varies, and whatever the value of the unit may be the multiple varies also; but what are you to do? The same thing happens if you do not talk of tons at all, but talk of so many hundred parts of a ship; and I find, on looking at the Estimates of other countries where they use this other mode of computation, that when they had nominally built a ship, perhaps up to 99–100ths, there is still something to be built, and in the end they build more than a whole ship. That is precisely what we do with our tons; but the advantage of this system of computing by tons is that it has always been followed for many years past, and it affords a means of comparing the work of one year with the work of another year. In fact, I may candidly say that my noble Friend at the head of the Admiralty and myself, being rather impressed by the doubtful quality of this unit, thought that in the expense accounts for this year we had better show an amended table, going back and making the necessary corrections in the previous years, because it would not do merely to deduct what was necessary for last year. You must also take into account the error which had accrued relating to the year before, and so on. We proceeded thus until we came to the years of the Administration of my right hon. Friend the Member for Westminster; and then the question was, whether we should tamper with his figures, or should stop there? If we stopped there, it would be misleading to the House, and not very fair to ourselves. If we went back on these figures, where were we to stop? Again, probably the whole thing would have been misunderstood; and we came to the conclusion that it was better to leave things as they were. To say it is a misleading statement is not accurate, for it does give a fair mode of comparing one year with another, and it does not mislead those of us who are acquainted with the manner in which the figures are dealt with. The hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands) spoke of the fallacious mode in which the accounts of the Admiralty were made up; but this does not affect the accounts at all; it is a mere question of stating in the Estimates the progress made. After all, the real test of what is done is the number of ships that are completed. That is the only thing we can fall back upon; but seeing that in one year you may not complete any ships, and in the next you may complete three or four, you want some mode of comparing the actual work done with the work intended.

MR. W. H. SMITH

I referred to the question of the completion of ships.

MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN

A ship ought not to be called complete until it is, at all events, capable of being in a very short time made perfectly ready for sea; but, unfortunately, there comes in the other element of which I have been speaking in the early part of my observations—that is, that at the last moment there are some little fittings, connected, for instance, with machine guns, which require to be done, which cost a great deal of money, and which prolong the detention of the ship in the Dockyard, and yet the ship may be, for all practical purposes, called complete. With regard to the tonnage, my right hon. Friend alluded to two parts of the Estimates. He will forgive me if I am not able to answer all that he said, because it is very difficult to follow figures quoted in debate. Although he alluded to them the last time we debated these questions, I did not follow, as closely as, perhaps, I ought to have done, what he said. There is this point, however, to be borne in mind—that in the one case the figures relating to last year are the number of tons estimated as building during that year, and in the other case the figures are the number of tons that have been built altogether on the ships then under construction. Some of the ships have been completed in the meantime. However, I will look into the matter closely, because I am not really certain as to how it stands. The noble Lord (Lord Henry Lennox) alluded to a considerable discrepancy in the amount of tonnage, and he has been good enough to give me the figures he quoted. I will promise him that I will have the matter looked into, and let him know what I find. The hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Chatham (Mr. Gorst) addressed a few remarks to the Committee, to which I listened with great pleasure, as everyone must have done, seeing that he always puts his case in a decided, as well as a fresh and easy, manner. He made a complaint—with which, I must say, I entirely sympathize—in regard to the First Lord of the Admiralty not being in this House. He has made the complaint often before; and although as I say, I sympathize with him, still it is not an altogether unmixed evil that we have the First Lord of the Admiralty in the other House. My hon. and learned Friend himself made a great point of the fact that almost every Member who had spoken had urged upon the Department increased expenditure. Well, we have not had a great many speakers to-night; but of those we have listened to, no fewer than five are Representatives of Dockyard constituencies. I do not blame the hon. and learned Gentleman and his brethren who occupy that distinguished position, for urging the claims of all classes of Dockyard employés who form their constituents, or in whom their constituents take an interest. I find the claims of these people are always reasonably and temperately put forward in this Committee, and I hope I am always ready to listen to what is said; but, still, I say it is obvious that the fact of these hon. Members representing Dockyard constituencies accounts for many of the demands made every year for more money in connection with the Navy Estimates. I observe this of the class of Members to which my hon. and learned Friend belongs—namely, that if one of them speaks they all must speak, as it would not do, I presume, for one of those champions of that part of the community to appear more energetic than another. I therefore see some advantage in the absence of the First Lord from this House. I am really glad that before it reaches my noble Friend at the head of the Department, the force of the stream of demand is somewhat abated by its having passed through me. I may, however, assure my hon. and learned Friend that, as far as I am concerned, I will do all in my power to bring before my Colleagues all the cases that he has put before us. My hon. and learned Friend thinks we ought to spend more money, and declares that we ought to be able to justify our inadequate expenditure on the Navy, taking for granted that we admit that expenditure to be inadequate. But I do not admit anything of the kind. I do not admit that there is any discrepancy between the views of the First Lord of the Admiralty and of the Treasury. The First Lord of the Admiralty is a Member of the Cabinet; and the Cabinet, as my hon. and learned Friend knows, is bound to have not only some regard to the various classes in the employment of the Admiralty and the interests of the Service generally, but also the interests of the people. They are bound, for the sake of the public, to exercise all the economy they can, consistently with properly conducting the Service of the country; and they are certainly of opinion that what the Admiralty asks for this year is sufficient to meet that object. I believe that the Estimates are quite sufficient to maintain the Navy in such a position as that it shall be able to discharge its duties thoroughly. We hear very extraordinary statements on this subject; and I have been much astonished at a remarkable statement recently made as to the relative position of the Navies of this country and France. Some Members of the Committee may have seen it, and it has been directly alluded to to-night by more than one hon. Member. The statement to which I refer is very misleading; in fact, it is entirely wrong, and in so serious a document shows such carelessness in its compilation that it is highly desirable I should avail myself of this opportunity of pointing out where it is inaccurate. I am speaking, of course, of the letter, or pamphlet—I am not sure which—which was recently put forward by Admiral Sir Thomas Symonds. Sir Thomas Symonds is a most distinguished officer, of whom I will not speak with anything but the highest respect. He is, no doubt, animated by the very best of motives, and thoroughly believes that the Navy is insufficient; and he is obviously anxious to arouse the opinion of the country. Well, I think, though I have always taken the line of declining to enter upon any comparison between the Navies of this country and our great Neighbour—as I believe it to be entirely opposed to the public interest—though, I say, I have always consistently taken that line, yet, when a statement of this sort is made, and so publicly cast at the head of the Government, and held out to the public as a ground upon which they should demand a large public expenditure for the Naval Service, I think it is right that I should state how erroneous it is. I will do so in a very few words. Sir Thomas Symonds, in his estimate—I might point out other errors, but the one I will indicate is so glaring that I think I may say, Ex pede Herculem—gives a comparative statement of the Navy Estimates of England for the present year, and the French Projet de Loi for 1885. He shows, or professes to show, that the French vote £906,905 more per annum than we do in building 15 new armour-clad ships to our 12.

SIR JOHN HAY

My hon. Friend will allow me to say that the statement has been amended, and that I have seen a letter from the Admiralty acknowledging the receipt of the amendment.

MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN

An official amendment?

SIR JOHN HAY

Yes.

MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN

I was not aware that any amendment to the statement has been officially made to the Admiralty.

SIR JOHN HAY

There certainly has been.

MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN

I was not aware of it; but, at any rate, it is right, as there are hundreds and thousands in the country who have read the statement, and have not seen the correction, that I should take this public opportunity of correcting the mistake. I say the statement was that this year the French are spending £906,905 on their armour-clad Navy more than we are. How does the gallant Admiral arrive at this sum? I will begin with the smaller items first. In the first place, he leaves out altogether our proposed expenditure on a new vessel of £12,744. Then he leaves out a sum of £160,000, which we take under these Estimates to spend on the Benbow, which is to be built by contract. He takes a detailed estimate in his French calculation for labour and materials; but in the English estimate he calculates labour only. This, in itself, makes a deficiency of about £500,000. And then, lastly, having taken all the figures from the French Estimates out of the resumé, or summary, of the ships to be built, he proceeds to add to it £794,000 for payment to contractors, although it was already included in the summary given; so that I make it out from this document, which is gravely put forward by this gallant officer—of whom, I say, I will speak with nothing but the highest respect, so highly do I esteem his motives—that he is only some £l,300,000 out in a very obvious calculation which can be made by anyone. I only quote this, because I have seen the document to which I refer alluded to as a wonderful disclosure of our inferiority, and because it is a very good sample to give the country of the way in which these comparisons are sometimes made—comparisons always redounding to the credit and exaltation of the shipbuilding policy of others, and always depreciatory of the poor efforts of this country. Now, to come to some of the detailed observations which have been made by the noble Lord the Member for Chichester (Lord Henry Lennox). He found fault with us in respect to many individual points. He said a great deal about guns, in regard to most of which I have already made a sufficient statement. He also made some inquiries about the Edinburgh, When introducing the Estimates I explained that the Edinburgh was being delayed on purpose, because we wished to avoid the necessity of doing and undoing work—because we wished to have the experience which will be gained in building her sister, the Colossus. I trust the delay which is taking place will be amply compensated for in time to come by the advantage we shall gain. We are now proceeding in other instances on the policy of building several ships of one type. If you go on building new ships of fresh types, you have in each case new difficulties to overcome, now departures and new variations to make in the process of building; but if you repeat a type which has not been very long out of hand, and is still a new type, then the experience you gain in building the first stands you in good stead, and enables you to largely improve upon your first plan in building the second. That is just what we are anxious to do in regard to the Edinburgh—that is to say, we wish to give the Edinburgh the advantage of our experience in connection with the Colossus. I may say with regard to the 43-ton gun for the Colossus, it is quite true that there has been some delay in regard to the breech mechanism. The gun is on board; but it has been discovered that some little alteration must be made in the screw of the breech, and that has brought about some delay. At the same time, this is not a matter which will cause any very serious delay. The noble Lord made a statement which I was greatly astonished to hear him make. He complained, on this question of guns, that a certain Return that he had moved for had not been given to him in a useful condition. He paid me a compliment, which I did not deserve, for having answered a certain letter of his, when I told him that, so far as the Admiralty were concerned, they would not object to this Return being given. I was not aware that my hon. Friend the Surveyor General of the Ordnance (Mr. Brand) had any objection to the Return being prepared; but he says my hon. Friend objected to this Return of guns supplied to the Navy being given. He said my hon. Friend required that he should leave out the word "supplied;" and that if he did the Return would be like the play of Hamlet with the part of the Prince of Denmark left out.

LORD HENRY LENNOX

Hear, hear!

MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN

"Hear, hear!" says the noble Lord; and I must say I am astonished to hear him cheer that statement, because I am informed that a note was sent to the noble Lord in which it was stated that the word "supplied" could be kept in if the words "and manufactured" were included.

LORD HENRY LENNOX

That note I have never seen or heard of. I wrote to the Surveyor General of the Ordnance, as I was leaving London, saying that if "manufactured" and "supplied" were nut in I should be willing, but that without the word "supplied" it would be worthless.

MR. BRAND

I must say I regret to hear the noble Lord say he did not receive any communication. I had a letter sent to the noble Lord's private residence, some three or four days ago, stating that there would be no objection to the Return, and that he might keep in the word "supplied," so long as he would consent to the insertion also of the words "and manufactured."

LORD HENRY LENNOX

I did not receive it.

MR. BRAND

I am very much surprised to hear the noble Lord say that he did not receive that letter.

MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN

I am glad the noble Lord is to get his Return in a satisfactory form. Then the noble Lord raised the whole question he brought before us a few weeks ago. He complained that we had refused to give information about the boilers, and I think I disposed of that point at the time; at any rate, I have nothing to add to what I then said. Then he complained that we had begun a new ship at the end of the year, though we had said here in the spring and summer we did not want any more iron-clads. We did not say we did not want any more iron-clads. What we said was, that we did not think it necessary to begin any more as at present advised. But in the course of the year changes occurred in the distribution of the labour of the Dockyards, and an opportunity presenting itself for use- fully employing some of our labour on a new ship, instead of waiting for the new year, we commenced in the course of last year. The noble Lord also said that a new iron-clad is to be laid down this year, but that the Estimate was very low, and that it really meant nothing. If the noble Lord's argument means anything, it is that no iron-clad is to be begun except in the month of April; because the meaning of our taking a small sum is simply that we wish to lay in materials for the ship before the end of the year. The noble Lord complained that the Mersey and Severn were classed as iron-clads in last year's Estimates. Well, I, myself, was the first to announce that these ships should not be classed as iron-clads; but they were so classed, for this reason—that they were intended to be, if I may say so, successors to the Polyphemus—not identical with her, but of much the same character, especially in the matter of torpedo discharge. When we looked into the matter last year, the Board of Admiralty agreed that before the Estimates were moved in the House, this year, it would be better to treat these vessels as a new class of ship, and I announced that opinion in moving the Estimates last year. When I said that they were battle-ships, I also said "as auxiliaries to iron-clads;" and I am prepared to maintain, on the authority of our Advisers, that this will be so, and that they are perfectly capable of taking their part in a great naval engagement. The hon. Member for Sunderland (Mr. Gourley) asked me to describe these vessels; but I said so much about them last year, that I do not think I ought to take up the time of the Committee any further now in regard to them. Roughly speaking, they have horizontal steel decks, covering the magazines and machinery, and protecting the boilers, instead of armour-plating on the sides; and in many respects the protection is quite as good in the one case as in the other, though the upper part of the vessel may be totally unprotected against shot and shell. A reference was made to the Committee which has been appointed on the invitation of the Admiralty, and there was an idea expressed that it was in substitution of the Committee that was proposed in the House by my right hon. and gallant Friend (Sir John Hay). The two things are utterly different, and the subjects on which they were appointed are utterly dissimilar. The right hon. and gallant Admiral moved for a Committee of Inquiry into the condition of our Iron-clad Fleet; but the Committee I have mentioned have nothing whatever to do with such an investigation. I stated before that what we have done is to call to our assistance some of the most eminent men of experience connected with private Companies, both as shipbuilders and owners, to give us their advice as to two points—first of all, as to the conditions under which ships are built by contract—so as to secure to ourselves the full benefit of the experience and building powers of the private yards—and, in the second place, to advise us as to what we should do in the very difficult question, of repairs, either in our own Dockyards or by contract. The Committee is not a Departmental one, as has been stated. It consists of three Members of this House, two gentlemen connected with great lines of steamers, and a naval officer, who was associated with the others in order that there might always be someone present at their inquiries to point out the actual requirements of the Navy. There is no one connected with the Admiralty on it; and it is entirely independent, its inquiry being confined to the subject I have referred to. Coming to questions of a personal nature which were brought forward by the hon. and gallant Member opposite (Captain Price) as to the engineers, they, no doubt, are in a position to complain of some inequalities in the system on which their pay is arranged. I am not aware what was the cause of the original adoption of that 11 years' rule, which has been so frequently alluded to in connection with the engineers and paymasters. I cannot myself see any advantage in. it, and I cannot see what the object of it was; and I am bound to go a little further, and say that I have not been able to discover anybody who does. Then arises the question, should it be altered? It applies to several classes, and any alteration in the system would involve a considerable re-arrangement of the pay of all these classes. Well, some of these classes are not in a condition that seems to require a rearrangement of their pay. In the engineers, taking them first, I am told that promotion goes on very fairly, and that they have really not much to complain of in that respect; and applying to them the test that the hon. Member for Falmouth (Mr. Jenkins) applied, I am bound to say there is no difficulty in procuring officers to serve in that branch of the Profession, and, therefore, there is no urgent demand for a large increase of pay. There is, moreover, this difficulty—that the position of these officers has been so recently settled that it would be difficult to disturb the arrangements again without a longer experience of the working of the present system. At the same time, I will say, irrespective of what has been stated to-night, that I will look into the matter to see whether there is any anomaly or grievance which can be removed without opening up the general question. Then as to the petty officers. The pay of the artificer class is regulated by the pay of similar men outside the Government service. The stewards are in a much bettor position, and any number of respectable men can attain to that position; so that there is no very strong case, such as there was in regard to seamen petty officers, for improvement in pay. I do not think we shall be disposed to open that question. The case of the schoolmasters I am not very familiar with; but I will look into it. And now as to paymasters. Some years ago, unfortunately, there were far too many entries made in that class, so that it is now overstocked, and promotion, therefore, is not so quick as it ought to be. As a matter of fact, promotion will get a little worse than it is; but after a while it will get better. All round, however, they are not insufficiently paid. They are subject to the 11 years' rule, like the engineers, and I will see whether that rule can be modified; although, if its modification is found to involve any considerable increase of expenditure, I cannot hold out any hope of a change being made. It is true there is a deficiency of strength in the Corps of Marines. We are fully alive to the necessity of doing all we can to keep the Corps up to its proper strength. With regard to the men of the Fleet, we are taking boys in a sufficient number to make up the losses which have occurred. My right hon. and gallant Friend (Sir John Hay) alluded, somewhat to my astonishment, to the speech made by the First Naval Lord of the Admiralty at the Royal Academy dinner. The first Naval Lord of the Admiralty, I understand, quoted the words of oven a greater authority than himself—Lord Wolseley—who had said it mattered nothing whether our ships are built of iron, wood, or pasteboard, our seamen will fight and do their duty. I am sure everyone understood what that meant. It meant that our seamen are of such character and spirit that they do not look twice or thrice at the description of the ships; they are always ready to do their best under any circumstances. The right hon. and gallant Admiral, in order to justify, I suppose, his character as a Scotchman—who is said to require a surgical operation to enable him to see that a thing is not meant in sober earnest—quotes the remarks of Sir Cooper Key, and says—"This is a solemn declaration made in public by the Chief Naval Adviser of the Government, that a pasteboard ship is as good a ship as any other." We have heard of paper ships, but we have never vet heard of pasteboard ships; and it is not the intention of my gallant Colleague to propose that any of them should be constructed. Now, I have only one word to say in regard to the point raised by the hon. Member for Glasgow (Dr. Cameron). The hon. Gentleman has alluded to the fact that gunboats are being used, as he thinks, for improper and illegitimate purposes in the West Highlands. The Board of Admiralty have great disinclination to use gunboats for any purpose not directly connected with the service of the Navy; but they have been used on some occasions to check riots and preserve the peace. I promise the hon. Gentleman I will look into the documents from which he derives his information, and see what explanation can be offered.

MR. DAWSON

said, the hon. Gentleman had not said anything about the comparative cost of work done in the Dockyards and that done by contract.

MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN

I think the Committee we have appointed will probably assist us in that matter. There is no doubt at all that Dockyard work is more expensive than contract work; but it is more carefully and more elaborately done. I know that contractors, in many places, greatly dislike taking Government work, because it requires to be so skilfully done—the stan- dard of excellence is so high. The hon. Member for Sunderland (Mr. Gourley) has asked for information as to the number of boys. The total number borne is 5,755, distributed as follows:—In training ships, 3,690; in harbour ships, 246; and in sea-going ships, 1,819. All the answers I have received to inquiries made have convinced me that we get an extremely good class of boys. There is one thing which is most satisfactory. I have found that boys who are allowed to go home for their holidays very often bring a boy back with them. That is a very good sign that the Service is popular in the various districts of the country, and also that our boys are well treated, and like their life. In answer to the inquiry of the hon. Baronet the Member for South Devon (Sir Massey Lopes), I have to say it is the case that the Victorian Government have, with great public spirit, gone to some expense in providing themselves with certain ships; and on the occasion of the recent difficulty in the Red Sea they offered the use of those ships to the Imperial Government. Although the ships were not called into requisition, the Admiralty, and I am sure the Committee likewise, entertain the highest sense of the spirit which prompted the offer. Nothing can be more desirable than that the Mother Country and the Colonies should assist each other in these matters.

SIR JOHN HAY

said, it was but fair to his gallant friend, the Admiral of the Fleet, Sir Thomas Symonds, to say that when he discovered the mistake he had made in his Circular he at once took every means to send to all who had received it, and to the Admiralty, the correction which he found to be necessary. He (Sir John Hay) had ascertained from his gallant friend that this morning he received a letter from the First Lord of the Admiralty acknowledging the receipt of his communication, and thanking him for it.

MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN

My right hon. and gallant Friend (Sir John Hay) will understand, that although I thought it necessary to make the statement which I did in this public way, I did not mean the slighest disrespect to Sir Thomas Symonds. I regret he should have put forward so misleading a statement.

MR. W. H. SMITH

said, that before they came to a vote he desired to direct the attention of the Secretary to the Admiralty to the Sub-head "I" of Vote 2. The total for "Seamen's Clothing, Soap, and Tobacco" was £149,008, against £211,500. That showed a decrease of £62,492. There was a note to the effect that— The sum of £37,500, for Clothing Allowances hitherto provided for under Sub-head I, has been included in Vote 1. The actual decrease, therefore, is £32,200. Anyhow, a decrease of £32,200 upon £211,500 was a very large one indeed. The sum to be voted was £149,008; but if his hon. Friend (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman) would turn to page 15, he would find under "Credits," letter "O"— Estimated Amount of Charges against Wages of Seamen, &c., for Issues of Seamen's Clothing, Soap, and Tobacco, and of Credits for Supplies of the same on repayment to Officers of the Fleet, to Royal Naval Reserves, and to Coast Guard on shore, £187,063," or £38,000 more, "Seaman's Clothing, Soap, and Tobacco. The items were very remarkable. First of all, the decrease was very large—one-seventh of the whole—and at a time when one would suppose the exigencies of the Service called for a larger than a less expenditure on seamen's clothing. The Committee were entitled to an explanation of the figures if it could be given.

MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN

First of all, as to the £37,500. That represents commuted allowances in lieu of seamen's clothing, which the Treasury decided ought to be charged in Vote 1 instead of Vote 2. The decrease of £32,200 arises because there is less required for working suits and clothing for Reserve men, and to replenish the stock of seamen's clothing. I heard of this at the time the Estimates were being prepared, but I do not retain in my mind the precise reasons. The stock of clothing may have been a great deal higher than it was found necessary to maintain.

MR. EDWARD CLARKE

asked if the hon. Gentleman could not give a little more definite promise with regard to the inquiries he proposed to make into the 11 years' rule? The hon. Gentleman had made what he called a sentimental concession which was very pleasant to listen to; but it was not very effective. Was it proposed that an in- quiry into, the operation of the rule should be made by a Departmental Committee? If so, it was likely the sentimental concession would be translated into a reality.

MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN

I have said I could not see any particular virtue in this 11 years' rule; but I am not prepared to say more. I will look into the matter; but I am afraid there will be great objections to the abolition of the rule, if it were found it would lead to any substantial increase of the pay of the whole class. If, however, the anomalies can be removed I will endeavour to remove them.

MR. TOMLINSON

said, his principal reason for wishing to make a few observations that night was that both last year and this year he had received communications from that distinguished officer, Sir Thomas Symonds, calling special attention to what he considered the great inferiority of the intended additions of their Fleet as compared with those of the Navy of France. He confessed that the statements made by Sir Thomas Symonds filled him with alarm; and that alarm had not been much mitigated by anything that the Secretary to the Admiralty had said. The hon. Gentleman had put forward a theory which, so far as he (Mr. Tomlinson) knew, was an entirely new one. He believed he was correct in saying that from the time of Admiral Lord Hawke, if not from an earlier date than that, the authorities of the Admiralty had always considered it was necessary for us, in considering the proper strength of our Navy, to have reference to the strength of the Navy of France especially, but also to those of other countries; and until the present time he was persuaded no member of the Admiralty Board had thought it desirable to disregard that consideration. The hon. Gentleman challenged some of the money figures in the statement of Sir Thomas Symonds. But the money question was only a secondary one. Sir Thomas Symonds rested his argument chiefly on a comparison of ships. He gave a list of ours, and compared them with a list of French vessels. He (Mr. Tomlinson) did not think that any instructed person would hesitate, on reading the statement in question, to affirm that, at all events, we were drawing near to a position of very consider- able peril. Such was the conclusion he had arrived at, and that conclusion was not affected by the monetary inaccuracies which the hon. Gentleman had laid stress upon. Sir Thomas Symonds also drew attention to the fact that a great many more men were employed in the French than in the English Dockyards. Now, these were matters which every Englishman ought to take the greatest interest in; and he (Mr. Tomlinson) was the more encouraged in making these observations by the remarks which were made—and not unfairly or unjustly made—by the hon. Member for Cardiff (Sir Edward J. Reed) in the early part of the evening. That hon. Gentleman spoke of the meagre attendance of Members on both sides of the House during the discussion of these naval subjects. It was certainly to be regretted that the important questions of the strength of their Army and Navy did not excite the attention they deserved. Hon. Members had one excuse for their non-attendance, and that was that in any remarks they, who had little or no technical skill and knowledge, made were comparatively helpless. The hon. Gentleman (Sir Edward J. Reed), of course, spoke with great authority on these subjects; and whether he succeeded or not in inducing the naval officials to give greater consideration to one part of naval matters or another, every word he uttered was weighty and worthy of note. But they who were simply laymen in naval matters felt, themselves in the difficulty that they were at the mercy of the officials, and must, to a great extent, accept their explanations. He desired to support, as far as he could, the remarks of his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Chatham (Mr. Gorst) as to the grave injury and loss to the country which arose from the kind of control which was exercised by the Treasury over the Army and Navy Services. He believed that the result of this control was frequently to prevent the judicious expenditure of small sums, whereby millions of pounds might be saved in the end. It appeared to him that the only thing that could really allay the anxiety of the country would be the adoption of some such suggestion as was made some time ago—namely, that a strong Committee should be appointed to consider the question, which was not a Party ques- tion, and he hoped never would be made one. The great point was—what was required for the defence of the country; what amount of expenditure was needed? Let them adopt the principle which was, he believed, the basis of the military administration in Germany—namely, that there was no economy in an expenditure which stopped short of efficiency. If they did that, their Services would be based on the only true principles of economy.

MR. RYLANDS

said, that last year he drew attention to certain frauds which had occurred in the administration of this Vote. He should be glad to hear from the hon. Gentleman what steps had been taken to prevent fraud in the future?

MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN

said, a Report was made on the subject by gentlemen connected with the Admiralty, and then the Accountant General himself went down to make investigation. The result was that arrangements had been made which it was believed would have a most salutary effect.

MR. WARTON

said, the explanation of the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Admiralty, with reference to the statement of Sir Thomas Symonds, was very unsatisfactory. It was of small importance whether the French Estimates exceeded ours by £900,000, or whether they fell short of them. That was not the point they should discuss; and he was rather astonished that a Gentleman, so able and so clever as the Secretary to the Admiralty, should descend to arguments of that sort. The point was that the cost of the Navy of France was nearly equal to our own. The position of the two countries was utterly different. France was a country with very few Colonies; England had Colonies in every part of the world. He doubted whether any hon. Gentleman on the Treasury Bench knew exactly the number of our Colonies; and he said that the preponderance of our Colonial Empire over the French Colonial Possessions made it important that we should have a very much stronger Navy than France. We had to send our ships to the Pacific, to the India and China Seas—in short, to all parts of the world; and even if our Navy were twice as large as the French Navy, that proportion would be nothing more than a right one, considering the immense Colonial interests we had to de- fend. As an hon. Member had pointed out, it was not a question of money—it mattered not whether more or less was spent—but to have fewer ships than the magnitude of our commercial and Colonial interests required was a perfect disgrace to any Ministry. He had been much impressed by the weighty and solemn language used by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Westminster (Mr. W. H. Smith), on several occasions, with regard to the Navy; and he regretted to be unable to perceive any improvement in this year's Estimates, as compared with those of last year. The Government seemed not to be aware of the importance of our Colonial Empire, to judge by the kind of comparison they made between the Navies of the two countries. There could be no doubt that our Navy should be strong enough to meet the combined Navies of other countries; and in the old time it was so. This was particularly necessary now, because we were not likely to find many allies. But the disposition of the Government was to shirk every difficulty, and to creep out of every obligation, whenever they could; the old traditions of national honour had faded away under their hands, and the character they had lost to the country was the only one which could add strength to the Empire in times to come. A Government with a cowardly policy and a poor Navy would meet with the contempt of the world. It was once the custom of foreign nations to take the word of England seriously. When Lord Palmerston said anything it was known to mean something; but the custom in these days was to say that the utterances of the Government meant nothing at all. With an Army and Navy kept in. a state of inefficiency, and with a Government ready to creep out of every obligation, he felt ashamed, as a patriotic Englishman, of the position they occupied, and of the miserable explanation given by the Secretary to the Admiralty of the formidable figures which had been put forward relating to the Navies of France and England.

Question put, and agreed to.

(2.) £188,600, Admiralty Office.

SIR JOHN HAY

wished the Committee and the Secretary to the Treasury to take notice that the expenses of this Establishment were increasing every year. He merely recommended that fact to the attention of economists and the Secretary to the Admiralty without any wish to reduce the Vote, which was, no doubt, necessary to the Public Service.

MR. RYLANDS

said, he should be glad if the Secretary to the Admiralty could give an explanation of this increased charge of such a character as might be satisfactory to the Committee. On two or three occasions there had been some sort of reconstruction of the Naval Deparment; and he had been assured by the Government at the time the proposal was made that the effect would be to secure considerable economy therein. He was bound to confess, however, that he entertained great suspicion that such a result would not be obtained. It appeared to him that the process which went on in these reconstructions of Public Offices was something like this. The officials regarded it as a most unfortunate circumstance that there should be a stagnation of promotion, and they wished to get an improved position; in order to get promotion they impressed upon the authorities that by making a reconstruction of the Office they would be able to get rid of a number of clerks, and be able ultimately to secure economy. But he always found that in a short time the number of clerks sprang up again to what it was before the reconstruction took place. He knew there were numbers of men in the vigour of life, and fully capable of performing public duties, who had been retired on pensions, simply under the arrangement of reconstruction of the Departments in which they served; and he thought there was no greater abuse in Public Offices than the way in which gentlemen, very often in the prime of life, who had capacity for public duty, were placed upon the Pension List and; compulsorily retired, with the object, as he supposed, of making things pleasant for those who remained in the Office, He protested against this practice; and he thought the right hon. and gallant Gentleman (Sir John Hay) was justified in pointing out that, on the face of it, there appeared to have been no economy in the reconstruction of the Department in question. Moreover, while this Pension Charge on account of the Army and Navy was becoming most alarming in its proportions, as far as he could see there was no corresponding advantage in the adminis- tration of the two Services. He objected altogether to this increase of charge, and he should be glad to find that his hon. Friend the Secretary to the Admiralty could lay such facts before the Committee as would satisfy them that it was justified by the requirements of the administration.

MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN

said, he could, assure his hon. Friend that there had been no reconstruction at the Admiralty, in the sense of pensioning certain men and taking on others in their stead. The additional expense was the result of the appointment of the staff required for the Intelligence Department, and of additional provision for the Constructive and Engineering Staff of the Controller's Department. The latter, which was represented by the sum of £4,000, was part of a scheme elaborated by the Committee, over which his hon. Friend the Civil Lord presided, for reconstituting on a better and, as they thought, a more efficient footing, the body of Naval Constructors.

MR. W. H. SMITH

said, he was as much averse as the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands) to any unnecessary expenditure; but during the time he presided at the Admiralty both he and his Colleagues felt the great importance of having information on purely naval matters; and therefore he entirely concurred in the course the Admiralty had taken of placing the Intelligence Department under one responsible official, whose sole duty would be to furnish the Department, and therefore the Service at large, with information which, under circumstances that he hoped would never arise, might be of vital importance. With regard to the Constructors' Staff, he should regard as money well spent any reasonable expenditure incurred in securing the services of the most qualified persons for the purpose of designing and constructing ships of war; and he would add his belief that if they could by any means attract into the Service men who had not been originally trained in the Dockyards a great benefit to the Service would be obtained. He did not in the slightest degree grudge those gentlemen who now occupied the position of Constructors all the distinction and credit which belonged to them, although he was of opinion that the Service would be benefited by the infusion of a little new blood, inasmuch as the result would be a rivalry advantageous both to the country and the men themselves; and he hoped the moderate scheme which the Civil Lord had settled, and to which he had given so much attention, would secure that very important result.

SIR JOHN HAY

said, it appeared that, under the new arrangement, the First Lord of the Admiralty would not have a house, and that the First Naval Lord would have a house. However that might be, he considered it rather an unfair arrangement for the Admiralty that the Offices were to face the north, which, although it permitted a view of Nelson's Monument, would prevent the officials over seeing the sun. He hoped the hon. Gentleman would be able to say that, under the contemplated arrangement, the Admiralty were not to be left out in the cold.

MR. ASHMEAD-BARTLEIT

said, the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands) had expressed much surprise that the Government had broken its promise of effecting economy in this Department. It was well known that the hon. Member was a humourist; but on this occasion he had surpassed himself, because it was impossible to discover which promise the Government had not broken with regard to any subject. For his own part, he was glad to find that the conduct of the Government had met with such general disapproval. The Secretary to the Admiralty had explained that a portion of the increase under this Vote was due to arrangements in connection with the Intelligence Department. But he would ask, what was the use of such a Department, if the Government did not avail themselves of the intelligence received? They had, for example, some time ago, received information that there was in the China Seas a foreign cruiser capable of "mopping up" all our cruisers and gunboats, and of devastating station after station before we could catch her. Yet, nothing had yet been done to protect our Eastern commerce. If the Admiralty were unable to act upon intelligence of that kind, he thought the money asked for might as well be saved.

MR. GORST

said, he had often observed a disposition on the part of the Admiralty to plunder the funds of Greenwich Hospital as much as they could, and his remark applied, not to the present Board alone, but to all. He thought the Committee ought to insist upon all the charges made upon the funds being set out as clearly as possible in the Estimates. Besides the amount of £789 charged for work done by the Accountant General's Department, there was a sum of £500 for work performed in several Departments of the Admiralty in connection with the business of Greenwich Hospital; and that not being sufficient, there was a charge on page 22 of the miserable sum of £52 for the salary of a messenger. He trusted the hon. Gentleman in charge of the Estimates would be able to afford some explanation, for the confusion in the accounts was such that it was impossible to make out what the Charity had to pay.

MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN

said, the right hon. and gallant Gentleman opposite (Sir John Hay) was incorrect in thinking that there would be no house for the First Lord of the Admiralty, although, perhaps, the question would more properly have been addressed to the Chief Commissioner of Works. The First Naval Lord would also have a house. The Offices might look towards the north; but they would certainly be placed on the most advantageous side of the building. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman remarked that they would never get the sun; but he (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman) did not know that exposure to the sun was an advantage to a Public Office. At any rate, the arrangement would be made under the direction of the Board of Works; and he had no doubt that the fullest accommodation would be secured. Amongst the reasons in favour of the present arrangement was this, that the erection of the new building would not interfere with the present Offices.

Vote agreed to.

(3.) £196,900, Coast Guard Service and Royal Naval Reserves, &c.

LORD HENRY LENNOX

said, he thought the Royal Naval Artillery Volunteers had been treated by the Admiralty with but scant courtesy. They were a most valuable body of men, or would be if they were properly treated. Last year, and again this year, he had put a Question on the subject to the Secretary to the Admiralty; but he had not yet got a satisfactory reply. The year before last these Volunteers applied to the Admiralty to be allowed to man the gunboats at the Naval Volunteer display, engaged in attacking the forts; but they were told by the Admiralty that no gunboats would be employed; yet the event proved that that was not strictly accurate, for some gunboats were employed. They applied again this year for permission to man the gunboats engaged at Portsmouth, but it was not granted. He should have to deal specifically with this case when the Report came up, and state the grievances of these men; but he could not allow this Vote to pass without entering an energetic protest against the way in which these Volunteers had been treated by the present Administration in regard to a capitation grant, as well as in other respects.

SIR JOHN HAY

desired some information with regard to the Royal Naval Reserve. He understood last year that a considerable addition was to be obtained by the enrolment of men from the Orkney and the Shetland Isles, and from the Isle of Man; but only 17,000 men were at present on the list of the Reserve, and money was only being taken for 18,000 instead of 20,000. As he had understood, the object of enrolling men from the Orkneys and Shetlands and the Isle of Man was to bring up the strength to 20,000; and he would like to know whether these hardy and excellent seamen had been enrolled; if so, whether they had proved satisfactory in regard to drill; and whether the number of 20,000 would be made up?

SIR THOMAS BRASSEY

said, the visit of Her Majesty's ships to the Orkneys had not been attended with the success which had been looked for with regard to the enrolment of men from that part of the Kingdom. In the Shetlands there was already a considerable force of men enrolled of fine physique, whose drill had received the highest approval from the inspecting officer. With regard to the Isle of Man, the arrangements had not yet been completed; but when they had been, enrolment would be proceeded with, and he believed with the success which was desired. He naturally took great interest in the Royal Naval Volunteers, and he was sorry that they had been disappointed in regard to a capitation grant; but this was a matter that lay with the Naval Advisers of the Admiralty; and the scheme for the utilization of this Force was not sufficiently matured to justify the Admiralty in proposing a capitation grant. A good deal was, however, done to encourage the Naval Volunteer movement. They were given an opportunity of drilling with the Royal Naval Reserve, and also of cruising in gun-vessels, which were appropriated to that purpose in the summer, and that privilege he believed was greatly appreciated. He need hardly remind the Committee that it cost a considerable sum to provide those boats; but he believed that the annual cruise was a greater attraction than a capitation grant would be.

Vote agreed to.

(4.) £112,670, Scientific Branch.

MR. GORST

said, last year a promise was given that the course of instruction on board the Britannia should be examined, and a Report presented to the House. He wished to know what progress had been made by the Admiralty in that matter?

MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN

explained that a difficulty which had been experienced was that a special examination would cause an interruption of the cadets' studies, while, if the examination was not specially conducted for the purpose of the Report, it would be one upon which their future naval career would be founded. The position of the cadet in the Navy was determined by the place he took in the examination; and it was very undesirable that that examination, which was to determine his future career, should be conducted by gentlemen appointed for a special purpose unconnected with the ordinary system of the training school. It was important that there should be some sort of uniformity in the examinations. The ordinary examination was conducted by independent Examiners of good University standing; and he thought he had not only fulfilled his promise, but had done what was best for the Institution itself, by laying on, the Table the Report made to the Admiralty on the occasion of the last examination. He saw no reason why the Report should not be presented to Parliament every year.

MR. W. H. SMITH

asked whether the Report was satisfactory? At pre- sent the cadets were admitted to the Britannia by competitive examinations; and he wished to know whether the result of that system, with the two years' training on board this ship, had been as entirely satisfactory as had been anticipated? His recollection of the Report upon that system was that the system was not so entirely satisfactory as it had previously been, and that there had been a falling off in the number of boys passing.

MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN

said, the Report was in the hands of hon. Members, and he had not heard any expression of dissatisfaction; on the contrary, the Report was considered very satisfactory by the Director of Studies, who had said it showed that the school was in a good condition, except in respect to some particular points of detail.

MR. RYLANDS

said, he had not received the Report as to the Royal Naval College at Greenwich, showing the number of students, the various classes of instruction given, and other details.

MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN

replied, that the Report would be issued.

MR. RYLANDS

said, this was a matter to which he had several times called attention, for it seemed to him that the entire cost of the Establishment was excessive, having regard to the service. The charge was £31,992 in the Estimates; but, in addition to that, there was the Navy pay of the officials, which did not appear in the Vote; so that altogether the amount was very excessive, considering the character of the Institution. He hoped the hon. Member would pay some attention to this subject.

Vote agreed to.

MR. W. H. SMITH

proposed that Progress should be reported.

MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN

said, he proposed only to take Votes 7, 8 and 9, and to postpone Votes 6 and 10.

LORD HENRY LENNOX

objected to this course, because he should have to trouble the Committee somewhat with regard to Votes 8 and 9. It would, therefore, be better for the Committee to swallow the pill at once, and proceed no further now. There was generally a dispute over Vote 6.

MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN

suggested that a compromise should be made by taking Vote 7.

MR. RYLANDS

said, he thought it was a most inconvenient plan to take Votes out of order; and as they had been engaged so many hours he hoped the Committee would now report Progress.

MR. DAWSON

also objected to the Votes not being taken in their order, and said, he and his hon. Friends were interested in Vote 6. They were anxious to draw attention to the exceedingly small sum allowed for Dockyards in Ireland as compared with England. He, therefore, moved that Progress be reported.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."—(Mr. Dawson.)

MR. GORST

asked the Secretary to the Admiralty to give the Committee some information as to when the Estimates would be taken again? They had now reached Vote 6, in which some of his constituents were much interested; and upon that the Secretary to the Admiralty had promised to give an explanation, which would be looked for with interest by the Members for Dockyard towns. He hoped the hon. Member would not postpone the Estimates until August, as had frequently been done; and he felt sure that, so far as the hon. Gentleman was concerned, that would not be done; but he hoped that some Member of the Government would be able to give a pledge that they should not be so delayed.

MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN

said, he could make no definite statement as to when these Estimates would be taken again; but he thought he might appeal to hon. Members whether the Estimates had this Session been postponed to a late date? Already they had been discussed for two nights; and the promise made that the second night should be before Whitsuntide had been very handsomely fulfilled by so early a date being taken. He hoped hon. Members would trust the Admiralty not to take any undue advantage of a postponement now.

MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR

asked when the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Admiralty was likely to make a statement with regard to the case of the paymasters and assistant paymasters?

MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN

said, the matter had been fully stated that night by several hon. Members, and he had expressed his general opinion on the subject, and stated that the Admiralty would look into it. But it would be quite impossible to look into a complicated question like that, affecting three brandies of the Service, between now and the Report, which was usually taken a day or two after the completion of Supply. He thought he might again appeal to hon. Members as to the way in which the Government had so far acted with regard to these Votes.

MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR

said, this subject had been over and over again pressed upon the attention of the Admiralty, but without the least effect, he himself having addressed several Questions to the hon. Gentleman upon the matter, but only received curt replies. Now that there was some prospect of the Government being driven to pay some attention to the subject, he wished to know when the decision of the Government might be expected? He would bring this matter up on the Report.

Motion agreed to.

Resolutions to be reported To-morrow, at Two of the clock.

Committee to sit again To-morrow.