SUPPLY—NAVY ESTIMATES.

HC Deb 08 July 1885 vol 299 cc4-83

SUPPLY—considered in Committee.

(In the Committee.)

(1.) Motion made, and Question proposed, That a sum, not exceeding £194,300, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the Expenses of the Admiralty Office, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1886.

SIR JOHN HAY

said, he was anxious to say a few words which he might fairly say on this Vote, and at the present moment, because he observed that the Second Naval Lord, Admiral Hoskins, was now absent from the Admiralty, having been sent in command of the Squadron at present carrying on certain evolutionary proceedings in Bantry Bay, Blacksod Bay, or somewhere on the Coast of Ireland. He was anxious at that moment to congratulate his noble Friend sitting below him (Lord George Hamilton) and the Admiralty on having secured the assistance of such men as Admiral Hoskins and Admiral Hood—than whom no one could be more capable— and Captain Codrington. They were all men most capable of fulfilling the duties of their posts. The absence of Admiral Hoskins with the Evolutionary Squadron enabled them to direct attention to the services which that gallant officer had recently performed. He (Sir John Hay) was the more induced to call attention to those services, because he found that the late Civil Lord of the Admiralty the Member for Scarborough (Mr. Caine) who was not now In the House, but who, he believed, would be in his place very shortly—[Mr. CAINE here resumed his seat]—had made a statement which had been reported in the newspapers to this effect— Our Navy was stronger than that of any two Powers combined. When the shipbuilding programme of the Government was complete it would be as strong as the Navies of any three Powers of Europe. We could take every ship in the French Fleet and lay alongside her as strong a ship as hers, and find ourselves at the end with a reserve Fleet equal to that of any other Power. He should like to refer the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Caine) to an hon. Friend who was sitting behind him (Sir Edward J. Reed), and who had a Notice on the very subject to which the late Civil Lord of the Admiralty had alluded in those very misleading terms. In the first place, it was not correct to say—as shown by the Evolutionary Squadron — that they had anything like an efficient supply of ships to perform such special duty, although the hon. Member said— We could take every ship in the French Fleet and lay alongside her as strong a ship as hers, and find ourselves at the end with a reserve Fleet equal to that of any other Power. The whole reserve Fleet in Blacksod Bay, that the Second Naval Lord of the Admiralty was in command of, consisted of 13 iron-clads, and of those only five, including the Ajax, could steam 14 knots, and he would appeal to the hon. Member for Cardiff (Sir Edward J. Reed) whether six of them were fit to go to sea at all? Of those six ships, there were none sufficiently armoured, and there were some whose boilers were in such a condition that they could not steam nine knots an hour. Of the remaining ships he would venture to say— and the hon. Member for Cardiff would confirm him in saying—that only three of them were reliable in the sense in which the hon. Member for Scarborough had dared to toll the country that it was defended. The fact was that the Ajax, the most powerful ship of the Squadron, would not steer. It was impossible to steer her in a seaway; and he was sure that when Admiral Hoskins returned to his duty at the Admiralty as Second Naval Lord he would confirm this statement—that the Ajax was a vessel which could not be relied on to go alongside a French ship at all. She could not steer more than nine knots to overtake a French ship, and if she did overtake one she would not be able to steer alongside it. There were only three ships in the Squadron—including the Ajax —sufficiently armoured to be reliable. And that was the Squadron which was paraded before the country by the hon. Gentleman the late Civil Lord of the Admiralty and other authorities as an example of the efficiency of the Fleet of England; and he thought it was due to his noble Friend below him (Lord George Hamilton), and those who were associated with him, to point out, on the first legitimate opportunity, —and this was a legitimate opportunity, when the Second Naval Lord of the Admiralty was himself in command of a Fleet — the entire insufficiency of the naval strength on which the country relied. The hon. Gentleman the late Civil Lord of the Admiralty had gone on to say, in the speech from which he had read an extract— We had shown that at a week or two's notice we could sweep the seas with merchant cruisers, and could build more ships of war, from an iron-clad to a torpedo boat, in a given time, than all the nations of the world put together. Until the spread of Christianity and common sense reached the Governments of Europe we must maintain our supremacy on the seas, and this was the view taken by the Ministry. He (Sir John Hay) had in his hand a Return as to the fittings of those ships moved for by the Secretary of State for War (Mr. W. H. Smith). That was not the time to allude to it, but that Return would show that those 16 cruisers under Admiral Hoskins were not sufficiently armed—or at least only one was sufficiently armed—to perform the duties they were intended to perform. It was no use pretending to the country that the noble Earl the late First Lord of the Admiralty (the Earl of Northbrook) and his friends had left the Fleet in an efficient condition, and that his (Sir John Hay's) noble Friend (Lord George Hamilton) and those below him had succeeded to an efficient Fleet, when it was proved beyond doubt that the Evolutionary Squadron in Blacksod Bay was thoroughly inefficient. It would be soon proved beyond doubt by the Report of the Second Naval Lord of the Admiralty, who had been in command of the Fleet— which Report, he trusted, would be in the hands of his noble Friend very shortly—that a more misleading and fallacious attempt to gammon the country into believing that it had an efficient Naval Force had never been perpetrated by persons in authority than the attempt of the late Civil Lord. He trusted to hear from his noble Friend (Lord George Hamilton) that there would be no relaxation in the attitude which was taken up by the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War (Mr. W. H. Smith), when he acknowledged his short-comings, and pointed out to the late officials of the Admiralty in the House that he himself had not done sufficient for the defence of the country. That was not the time to raise a naval debate of the character which was necessary, and he did not wish to forestall the Notice of Motion which he saw still stood on the Paper in the name of his hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff (Sir Edward J. Reed), and which he trusted the hon. Member would bring on in the House. But he had thought that with this statement of a late official of the Admiralty to which he had referred before the country, and with the facts now apparent in Blacksod Bay of the total insufficiency of the only Fleet available for special service—for there were no reserve ships to be sent to it—it was necessary to say a word or two to prevent the public from being misled. He did not know whether his noble Friend could confirm the statement, or whether or not it was correct; but he had seen it asserted since the noble Lord took Office at the Admiralty that the order for the construction of the boilers which were required for the Minotaur and her two sister ships, the Northumberland and the Agincourt, had been suspended or stayed. There might be good reasons for it. No doubt it would be far better to build efficient ships than to refit those old ones; that he fully acknowledged; but unless some large addition were made to the shipbuilding programme, he ventured to say that this country at the beginning of next year would be in a most desperately defenceless condition that a country could be in. He hoped the Second Naval Lord of the Admiralty when he returned from Blacksod Bay fresh for his official duties would point out that what the present Government ought to do, seeing that their tenure of Office might or might not be long, was to take care and expend the extra Tote they had in hand, not in building as fast as possible a certain number of ships, but in committing the country to the building of at least 13 iron-clad ships on the 13 vacant mercantile slips of the country, so that whoever might be in authority hereafter might be compelled to complete the programme. Anxious as he had been to see ships completed as fast as possible, yet looking at the fact that a considerable sum of money was in the hands of the Admiralty not yet appropriated, ho should like to see 13 ironclads laid down on the 13 vacant mercantile slips on the Tyne, the Clyde, the Mersey, the Humber, and the Thames. He apologized to the Committee for raising this question; but it was one of such vital importance to the country, and it was so prejudicial to the national interests that hon. Members who had held Office for a short time should make statements of such a misleading character as those of the hon. Member for Scarborough, that ho had thought it but right to call the attention of the Committee to the subject with which he had dealt.

SIR EDWARD J. REED

said, there were one or two points connected with the constitution of the Board of Admiralty that he would like to advert to, with a view to eliciting some explanation from the noble Lord (Lord George Hamilton). The Committee was, of course, aware that there had been all but a total change in the constitution of the Board since the Navy Estimates were last before the House; but one point to which he wished to draw attention was the exclusion from the present Board of a Civil member of the late Board in the person of Mr. Rendel. He confessed he could never quite understand how it was that that gentleman, whoso function it was to look after the minor, or secondary, details in connection with Her Majesty's ships, should become a Lord of the Admiralty, while the designers of the Fleet had not a position on the Board. Still, Mr. Rendel was put on the late Board, and as he was put there with the assent—which, of course, was not necessary, but still it must be regarded as valuable to the late Administration—of the present Secretary of State for War (Mr. W. H. Smith), the Committee perhaps would be glad to know how it was that no corresponding member occupied a seat at the new Board. Of course, if the answer was that Mr. Rendel declined to go on, and had resigned his office, then he should like to know whether the reappointment of such an officer was contemplated? If the Board of Admiralty had been completely and totally changed, he should have felt a little better satisfied than he did at the moment. [An hon. MEMBER: It has been.] No; there was certainly one member of the Board who had occupied the same position on the late Board. He referred to that very able and distinguished officer, Admiral Brandreth, Controller of the Navy. He (Sir Edward J. Reed) was quite sure that no one would suppose he had a word to say or suggest, still less to insinuate, against that gallant officer; but what he was afraid of was that the continuance on the present Board of a member of the late Board might actually carry with it a greater continuance of the policy of the late Board than, in his opinion, would be beneficial to the country. The Committee were well aware that there were questions of most vital importance concerning the well-being of the Navy resting with the Department of which Admiral Brandreth was the head; and he thought the Committee would understand that the prolongation of the engagement, or the re-appointment on the Board of the Controller, who was the most responsible of all the members of the late Board for their shipbuilding policy, made men like himself anxious as to the future policy of the Board. He did not hesitate to say that, in his opinion, a great deal more than the successful administration of the Navy for the time depended on the policy of the new Board; for, in his humble opinion, if this Board of Admiralty did not avail itself of its present somewhat unexpected opportunity of rendering the State some service in connection with the Navy, it was likely to be the last Board of Admiralty that would have the same opportunity of neglecting the interests of the country; for ho hoped and trusted that England would find a class of politicians who would insist on a greater economy and efficiency in the Naval Service than they bad ever known, and who would insist upon the necessary steps being taken to bring about those consequences.

He felt sure the new Board had a very great opportunity, and upon the Shipbuilding Vote he proposed to advert to some points well deserving consideration. He must say he looked to the new Board with a considerable amount of confidence, seeing the men of whom it was composed. The right hon. and gallant Admiral (Sir John Hay), who had just spoken, had remarked upon the composition of Sir Anthony Hoskins's Squadron; and he must say that with those remarks he sympathized in the largest and deepest manner. It was represented to the country that that Particular Service Squadron, or that Special Service Squadron, and to the command of which Sir Anthony Hoskins was appointed, was originally collected, scraped together, he might almost say, to form a Baltic Fleet. Now, if the whole ingenuity of man had boon exercised to get together as a Baltic Fleet, or if the absolute and total ignorance of man had been exercised to get together a set of ships least likely to do the service required of them, the result could not have been more successful than the collection of that Squadron—a collection of the most diverse character, and in every respect, and under all circumstances, eminently unsuitable for Baltic service. But he did not propose to consider the Evolutionary Fleet in the character of a Baltic Squadron; he would take it only as a Special Service Squadron—as being, from a point of view, the best and the only Squadron of ironclads that could be taken from the ports, independent of the Squadrons at home and abroad. He would even go further, and say that this Squadron could not be collected without almost breaking up the Channel Fleet. Several ships had been taken from the Channel Squadron. In pursuance of the statement made by the right hon. and gallant Gentleman (Sir John Hay) there was a word or two to be said which he would put from a financial point of view, because this Vote justified financial references as regarded the action of successive Boards of Admiralty. He did not wish, of course, to bear with undue severity on the late Board; but he did wish to bear with considerable severity on many previous Boards, because they were, more or less, responsible for the figures he was going to mention. Of course, he did feel somewhat severe towards the last Board. The reason why he condemned it was because that Board was collected from a party that pretended, and professed all through the country, to aim at and to be willing to make sacrifices for efficiency and economy in public Departments. In his humble opinion there had never been less efficiency and economy. There had never been more insensibility to instigation to economy and efficiency than the late Board of Admiralty had displayed throughout its career. But, to return to the Particular Service Squadron. Since 1870, taking that date, if he might be allowed to do so, as a point of departure, the year in which ho left the Admiralty, there had been expended by successive Boards of Admiralty £24,500,000 on new ships of all kinds. Now, with the expenditure of such a sum as that it might have been expected that when, in 1885, 15 years after that expenditure commenced, a special and particular Squadron had to be got together for the defence of the country, under particular circumstances, to perform special services, that out of that £24,500,000 there would have been provided some ships which would form part of the Squadron. He knew, of course, part of the amount expended on ships dated from the period of his own service under the Admiralty. Still, £24.500,000 was so large a sum, and the interval of years so long, that it might well be supposed that some of the ships resulting would be found in the Squadron. And so there were. Three vessels laid down during the time mentioned were to be found in the Squadron —three ironclads, for ho was speaking of only armour-clad vessels. There were three ships, of which two certainly had some armour; but the third he was doubtful whether he ought to call armour-clad at all, and the doubt was shared by the Admiralty itself, for the ship as often appeared among the unarmoured class as among the armoured vessels; the fact being she carried only 3-inch armour, and no heavy guns. He alluded to the ram Polyphemus, about which so much had been said in the Press as to its being a typical kind of ship, because when no gun was fired at her—and she was incapable of giving or receiving serious fire — she broke through a boom and a couple of hawsers. Well, the Polyphemus, with 3-inch armour and no considerable guns, was one of the ships produced out of the £24,500,000 spent. Another ship in the Squadron due to that expenditure was the Shannon, and a remarkable thing about that vessel was that she never had been in the list of unarmoured ships. Though, however, she was in the list as an armoured ship, she, was not really an armoured ship, except that she had a belt of armour and a bulkhead not protected by armour. The whole of the guns of the Shannon were exposed to destruction from the tiniest machine gun afloat in any Navy, and it had always puzzled him to know how she could be put forward as an armoured ship. But she was one of the ships called armoured—the product of the £24,500,000. The other vessel was the Ajax, to which the right hon. and gallant Admiral had referred—a vessel which, from wildness of temperament or something else, had a little uncertainty of behaviour. Touching the fearfully defective steering of the Agamemnon and the Ajax, it was only right to say, in justice to the designer of those vessels, that it was within his (Sir Edward J. Reed's) own experience that a considerable amount of wildness of steering had been found to exist in twin-screw vessels after changes were effected in the original design. He did not believe that any blame was attributable to the designer of the Ajax and Agamemnon for defective steering in the first instance; but what he did think was that blame attached to those who allowed the ships to remain just nominally complete for a couple of years, when it was shown all the time they were incapable of steering properly, and nothing was done to remedy this defect, and the Ajax was left to join the Squadron with all the risk attending this wildness of steering. That did seem to reflect very little credit indeed on any branch of the Admiralty Service. He could not understand how the Controller, the Naval Lords, or anybody connected with the Board, could possibly have sent the Agamemnon away to China, knowing she was incapable of steering, or could have left the Ajax doing nothing, knowing her defect was perfectly remediable. No doubt, after considerable scandal and discredit had been brought down upon the Department, the remedy would be applied; but it was a great pity the remedy was not applied as soon as the defect was discovered. Such was the state of things. Out of £24,500,000 spent on new shins since 1870 — the Particular Service Squadron had the A/ax, the Shannon, with her unprotected battery, and the Polyphemus, with her 3-inch armour and no considerable guns. And how was the rest of the Squadron made up? In the first place, there was a couple of old wooden ships, which the hon. Member for Hastings (Sir Thomas Brassey)—who, he trusted, was more pleasantly occupied that pleasant July day than in discussing Navy Estimates —described three years ago as the last remnants of obsolete plated wooden ships. Three years ago they were the last remnants of obsolete, unprotected ships, and those ships, forsooth! were brought out by the late Board, and paraded before the world in the Special Service Squadron. He must say he agreed with the right hon. and gallant Admiral in thinking that, in justice to the noble Lord (Lord George Hamilton) and his Colleagues in the Admiralty, it should be known that they had succeeded to the control of the Navy in the condition he was describing, and not a Navy which the heated imagination and unrestrained desire of the hon. Member below (Mr. Caine) led him to describe. Besides those two old wooden ships, condemned by the hon. Member (Sir Thomas Brassey) three years ago as obsolete, there were two ironclads from the Channel Squadron, which he was told, would be paraded for admiration before Her Majesty and the country in the naval display which was soon to take place—the Agincourt and the Minotaur —which, three years ago, the hon. Member (Sir Thomas Brassey) told the country were wanting in some of the first elements of ships of war, owing to their antiquity — nothing else. Those two ships had been trotted out into the Special Service Squadron, and the rest of the Squadron consisted of ships, some of them, ho was proud to believe, notwithstanding the lapse of time, efficient ships designed by himself more than 15 years ago. But, he asked, would the present Admiralty Board go on in the same way, and show such a miserable, discreditable result after spending millions of the people's money, a result that showed not one modern and efficient ironclad'? No, not one. Not a single iron-clad ship of which it could be said she was at once modern and efficient. Would the present Board go on spending money, holding out expectations to the House of Commons and the people of the country that were never realized? He must say, from his knowledge of the noble Lord now presiding over the Board of Admiralty, from the known and understood character of the present Secretary to the Board (Mr. Ritchie), that he did not believe the present Board would act as their Predecessors had done; and he would add this belief—that the hon. Member for Eye (Mr. Ashmead Bartlett) would bring to the Office to which he had been appointed considerable ability and zeal, and that he was one of those from whom good service might be expected. There were some other points to which he wished to advert, but they would be more applicable to the Shipbuilding Vote. In the meantime, he hoped the noble Lord would render some explanation of the policy of the new Board, and the intention as to an appointment such as that held by Mr. Rendel upon the new Board in the future; and that he would give some assurance that the fact of the Controller of the Navy sitting both on the late and the present Board would not be treated by his Colleagues at the present Board as a reason why the just expectations and requirements of the House and the country, in regard to shipbuilding, should not be realized.

THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (Lord GEORGE HAMILTON.)

said, he rose for two purposes. In the first place, he wished to draw attention to the nature of the Vote under discussion —the Admiralty Vote. The hon. Gentleman who had just sat down was aware that the conversation was somewhat trenching on a subsequent Vote; and it must be evident that if it went on in that way they would drift into a conversation not altogether germane to the Vote before them. He desired to thank both the hon. Gentleman who had just addressed the Committee (Sir Edward J. Reed) and the right hon. and gallant Admiral (Sir John Hay) for the kindly manner in which they had spoken of the new Board of Admiralty. The Naval Lords were gentlemen all of administrative experience and thorough knowledge of the various branches of the Department which would be brought under their supervision. He was satis- fied to find, on both sides of the House, an opinion that the combination of officials whom he had been fortunate enough to secure for the purpose of co-operating with the Representatives of the Navy on the Board was satisfactory. As to the exclusion from the Board of Mr. Rendel, and the inclusion of the Controller of the Navy of the late Board, the facts were very simple. Admiral Brandreth, as Controller, held a five years' appointment, and the Controller had recently, by an Order in Council, been added to the Admiralty. Admiral Brandreth was an old officer, who enjoyed the respect of all who knew him; and it would have been most improper if he (Lord George Hamilton) at the commencement of his tenure of Office had made an innovation according to which officers appointed to a post for a term of five years would be changed whenever a fresh Board of Admiralty was constituted. As Admiral Brandreth had been willing to continue his services, he (Lord George Hamilton) had been glad to avail himself of them. As 1o Mr. Rendel, who had been added to the Admiralty as Civil Lord by the late First Lord, he was an engineer of great skill, and, in the capacity in which he had served, had rendered great and valuable service to the Admiralty. But, unfortunately, some time back some members of Mr. Rendel's family had been in delicate health, and he had been compelled to spend a great part of his time abroad. He felt that he was hardly able satisfactorily to perform his duties, and he more than once intimated to the late Board that if any change took place at the Admiralty he should cease his connection with it. It had been necessary to constitute the new Board of Admiralty as speedily as possible. It had been so constituted, and even then had only been able to sit for the first time on Saturday last. Letters had been put in his(Lord George Hamilton's) possession, by the late First Lord, which showed that Mr. Rendel had definitely made up his mind to retire. He had telegraphed to Mr. Rendel, on communicating the names of the Members of the new Board to Her Majesty, stating that the Admiralty would be glad to avail themselves of his services, and urging him to remain at his post. Mr. Rendel replied that it was impossible for him to do so: but he expressed a hope that the Admiralty would so far avail itself of any service he might be able to do them by submitting to him any matters which it might bethought useful to refer to him. Thus, then, the new Board of Admiralty would have the advantage of valuable outside opinion on important matters affecting shipbuilding. Various suggestions had been made as to the policy to be pursued by the Admiralty. He could assure the Committee that, the new Board deeply felt the responsibilities entailed on them in accepting Office at this critical time; but their present duty was to give effect to the Estimates of their Predecessors, and if he passed by many of the recommendations made, it must not, therefore, be assumed, from his silence, that he either assented to or dissented from any of the suggestions which had been offered. The Government would do their best to consider all the recommendations which had been made. Their only object was to place the Navy in as efficient a condition as possible; and, above all, to make such financial arrangements at the Admiralty as would ensure that the nation got the full worth of the money expended. Further than that he did not expect the Committee would wish him to go. He would postpone any remarks as to shipbuilding until the Vote for the administration of the Admiralty Office was reached.

MR. CAINE

said, that in reply to the remarks which had been made by the right hon. and gallant Member for the Wigtown Burghs (Sir John Hay), he had no intention of entering into any vindication of the statement he had made at a public meeting some time ago; because the statement which he had then made was almost identical with a speech he had delivered in that House, on the 20th of April, a report of which he had now before him. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman would find full details in Barnard of that date, and he (Mr. Caine) saw no object in continuing the subject now.

MR. PULESTON

said, he had no wish to continue the discussion; but he desired to congratulate his noble Friend the First Lord on the position he now occupied. He thought they were very fortunate in having a Civil Lord and a Secretary to the Admiralty in the two hon. Gentlemen who now occupied those positions 'Mr. Ashmead-Bartlett and Mr. Ritchie). The industry of the Civil Lord was indomitable, and he was quite sure that what his hon. Friend did not know about the Navy now he would learn in a very short time; and he was satisfied that both of the hon. Members to whom he had referred would discharge their duties with ability and efficiency. He had risen now for the purpose of asking a question upon a matter which might appear to be somewhat small—namely, the employment of temporary clerks and copyists. Those temporary clerks were really permanent officers, and many of the persons styled "copyists" were, in fact, clerks. The system obtained throughout all branches of the Civil Service; and the question might as well be raised in respect to the Admiralty as to any other branch of the Public Service. He strongly objected to the practice of employing permanent officials; because, practically, to all intents and purposes, those individuals were permanent clerks, although called "temporary"— in doing the work of clerks. He thought the Government ought to take steps to remedy the great injustice which was done to a respectable body of servants who were still called "copyists," although in reality clerks, who were styled temporary when really permanent, and only received remuneration at the rate of 10d. per hour.

THE SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. RITCHIE)

said, with reference to the question which had just been put to him by his hon. Friend the Member for Devonport (Mr. Pule-ston), he wished to explain that in the Civil Service there were two classes of clerks, one of which was permanent, while the other was only temporary; one was borne on the Establishment, while the other, although employed continuously, was not on the Establishment. The permanent officials who were on the Establishment possessed rights and advantages which did not belong to the temporary clerks. He was sure that his hon. Friend would not expect, on the question of the employment of clerks in the Admiralty, that the Admiralty would consent to introduce so serious a modification in existing arrangements. The suggestion of his hon. Friend would, if carried out, effect a complete change.

MR. MITCHELL HENRY

said, that before the discussion closed there was a question which he wished to address to the Government—namely, whether they contemplated any alteration of a most extraordinary Minute drawn up, he believed, by the late Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Childers), which had the effect of relieving the Lords of the Admiralty of responsibility, and of throwing the whole responsibility upon the First Lord. He was of opinion that the Minute to which he referred was the most mischievous Minute which had been issued for many years. During the time ho had had the honour of a seat in the House he had heard on several occasions the statements made on behalf of new Boards of Admiralty, and the excuses of those who had left Office. They all desired and hoped that the new Board of Admiralty would act like a new broom, and do much better service than their Predecessors. Ho wished, however, to know how it was they found that the most creditable and powerful ships of war were turned out, not by the Board of Admiralty, but by the private shipbuilders of the country? He could not but regret to see in the present Exhibition at South Kensington how much more satisfactory were the designs of the private shipbuilders than those of the Board. He hoped that some Member of the Board would go there, and see the designs of some of the ships which had been turned out for the Chilian Government.

MR. PULESTON

said, he did not wish to interrupt his hon. Friend, and would not have risen except upon a point of Order. His hon. Friend was now speaking on the Shipbuilding Vote, and certainly that was a Vote upon which he (Mr. Puleston) would have a few words to say when the question was legitimately before the Committee.

THE CHAIRMAN

said, he thought it would be more convenient and more in Order if the hon. Member deferred his remarks upon this subject until the Shipbuilding Vote was reached. He conceived that the hon. Member do-sired to speak upon the policy of the Board of Admiralty in regard to shipbuilding. He would take that opportunity of saying that, with a view of securing the order of debate, it seemed to him indispensable that hon. Members should confine their remarks to the various Votes before them. It was al- ways allowed, no doubt, that the question of general policy should be discussed on one Vote; but in this case that had already been done, and after a lapse of time, having reached a second Vote, the question of general policy was again being raised. He did not think that that was a convenient course; and he would, therefore, request hon. Members to defer any remarks they might have to make on the subject of shipbuilding until the Vote for that purpose, which would come on presently, was reached.

MR. MITCHELL HENRY

said, he bowed to the decision of the Chair, and would do what the right hon. Gentleman desired. He was, however, on the point of concluding his remarks when the hon. Member for Devonport (Mr. Puleston) interposed; and if he had referred for a moment to a question of general policy, it was only in order that he might express a hope that the Board of Admiralty would avail themselves of the talent which was to be found in private shipbuilding yards.

MR. PULESTON

said, he was sorry to interrupt his hon. Friend again; but the observations he was making did raise a very large question, and one that would require careful ventilation. He did not object to going on with it if it were to be understood that the discussion would be general.

THE CHAIRMAN

said, he had not interrupted the hon. Member, because ho had intimated that he had brought his remarks to a close.

MR. MITCHELL HENRY

said, he would prefer to defer the observations he desired to make until the Committee came to the Shipbuilding Vote.

DR. CAMERON

said, he wished to address the Committee upon a matter which was strictly germane to the Vote now under the consideration of the Committee—namely, the deficiencies of the Marine Transport Department, and the extraordinary manner in which transports had recently gone to the bad. He should feel compelled to move the reduction of the Vote by the amount of the salary of the Assistant Director of Transports, who was responsible, he believed, for the circumstances to which it would be his duty to refer. Before, however, he proceeded to the specific case in connection with which he proposed to move the re- duction of the Vote, he proposed to mention one or two instances in order to show the manner in which the Transport Service had been conducted in regard to the recent war. According to a statement published in Truth, on the 10th of June, 1855, the hired transport, Lydian Monarch, was detained in Suez Harbour for three days, waiting for an ass which had been presented by somebody to the Queen, orders having been received that the beast was to be conveyed to England in that vessel; but the animal did not arrive on the appointed day, so the ship was kept till it turned up, to the indignation of her officers, as she was full of invalids and horses, and the detention must have involved considerable expense to the public. A point which must have struck everyone in connection with the Transport Service and the recent war was the extraordinary number of vessels which were disabled. Every second day they heard of some accident to a transport ship. On the 11th of April a Report appeared in The Admiralty and Horse Guards Gazette, in which several cases were referred to. The Report said that— The transport ships which were hurriedly despatched to Egypt have not been an unqualified success. One of the first came to grief off the Coast of Portugal, striking on a rock, and some of those on hoard her came back to England, and started by the overland route, rather than go by a second hired transport. The Arafat is reported by Commodore Molyneux at Suakin on Saturday last to be 'full of water: over upper deck. Nobody seen.' All on board escaped so soon as she was hard and fast, whereupon the Arabs promptly put off and began to plunder the ship. On Tuesday Lloyd's Agent at Ismailia telegraphed that the transport Ashington, bound from Hull to Suakin, had grounded in the Canal, and had to lighten to get off; and the same day a telegram from Gibraltar announced that the machinery of the storeship Somerset was out of order, and must be repaired to enable her to proceed. We hope this may be the concluding misadventure to the Transport Service for some little time at least. That did not exhaust the list of cases. He had a copy of The United Service Magazine for the present month, in which very strong language was used as to the character of the vessels employed. The article said— Taking the first 30 vessels on the list of transports, it will be found that no class is provided by Lloyd's Register of British and Foreign Shipping for one-half the number of these specimens of 'slopwork,' so that our troops, seamen, and stores are subjected to far greater risks in being sent across the sea in 'iron crates,' unworthy of the lowest class at Lloyd's, than might be anticipated as the result of war and climatic casualties. Several of these vessels bear such a notoriously bad character that no one will employ them when they can get any other. Some of the rattle-traps have been the cause of extensive litigation between owners and builders on account of the inferior material and workmanship embodied in their construction; others were a short time back offered for sale at the price of old iron: and, again, vessels only valued at a charter price of 9s. per ton in the mercantile world have been eagerly taken up by our Government at 19s. per ton. The 15 unclassed ships of the first 30 taken up for transport service were chartered at a period when the shipping trade of the United Kingdom was in a very depressed condition, and whilst scores of thoroughly sound ships, classed 100 A-l at Lloyd's, were laid up for want of a freight. In addition to taking up vessels structurally defective to a notorious extent, the Transport Department of the Admiralty made many other arrangements of a most unbusinesslike character. In one case a charter was made for a small vessel, by which the owner received £o00 per month for the hire of his ship, ho being required merely to find the crew, provisions and stores, the Government being responsible for coal and port charges. This owner engaged the services of a Commander for the transport at the rate of £3 10s. per week, out of which the said Captain was to find himself in provisions, &c, and purchase a chronometer for navigating purposes. A small crew was also engaged on extremely low terms, and as the owner had no stevedore's bills to pay, his heaviest outlay per month, inclusive of about £50 for insurance, would amount all to about £100. It is generally under the poor pay system that the greatest casualties occur in the Merchant Navy, so it is not surprising that after this craft put to sea some alarm was caused because she was not sighted in due time from different signalling stations, &c, which she should have reached, and it was quite a relief to many to find that, after considerable delay, she turned up at Malta, with nothing worse than her machinery and steering gear out of order. Another slop craft whose name stood out at Lloyd's as not yet heard of for some time, put into Gibraltar with machinery so disarranged and smashed up that it became necessary to refer her cargo to other vessels. This unclassed iron pot was previously put up for sale at the price of old iron. The Suez Canal has several times been blocked by the break-down of different jerry transports lately chartered by the Government, and various total losses or damage to vessels and stores occurred amongst other slop transports in different parts of the world. Again, the minimum rate of speed required of transports was 10 knots per hour, and a specified coal bunker capacity for several hundred tons of coal. Some of the transports do not possess the necessary bunkers' capacity by some 60 tons, although accepted by the Transport Department as equal to every requirement, the consequence being that every voyage made puts the Government to the expense of a considerable sum in excess of the actual cost of coal, which finds its way into the pockets of the owners, and, in the case of speed, at least one vessel at her best never reached the lowest limit of 10 knots per hour. This brief review of the first 30 vessels on the list of chartered Government transports might be continued throughout the whole fleet (about 150) lately taken up for national purposes, and from beginning to end the Transport Department of the Admiralty show themselves to be most unbusinesslike and extravagant, their dealings being seriously detrimental to homo preparations for foreign wars, and fraught with danger to life and limb. Those statements showed the extremely slipshod way in which the business of hiring transports in many instances proceeded. They were, however, all taken from newspaper reports; and he did not wish to occupy the time of the Committee in basing his claim for a reduction of the Vote upon anything which had not been proved and admitted by the Representatives of the Admiralty. In the case of the Notting Hill, a transport employed in carrying mules from the Cape to Egypt in connection with the Egyptian Campaign of 1882, the facts of the case had been arrived at from the evidence of a number, of witnesses before a Committee which sat upstairs to inquire into the Transport Service during the Egyptian War. He should not have considered it necessary to bring that case again under the notice of the Committee if it had not been for the fact that on a previous occasion, when ho had referred to it, among several others, he was replied to by the Representative of the Admiralty, and was debarred from returning an answer to the statement that was then officially made. The statement of the then Civil Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. Caine) was a most extraordinary one, and it showed how, in a very short time, even a most advanced Member of the House, when he took his seat on the Front Bench, became imbued with the official atmosphere in which he lived, and was found to be even more of an Admiralty man than the Admiralty officials themselves. He ventured to say that the officers of the Admiralty, if they had had a similar duty thrown upon them upon that occasion, would have freely admitted that if the same circumstances were to occur again very different and much more rational arrangements ought to be made. His hon. Friend, however, went so far as to say that if the circumstance were to occur again it would probably be dealt with in precisely the same manner. Now his (Dr. Cameron's) opinion was that if, after having made that extraordinary fiasco in 1882, any official of the Admiralty was prepared to repeat it in future, the sooner that official was got rid of the better for the country. The Notting Hill was a vessel of 4,000 tons, chartered on behalf of the Admiralty by the gentleman whose salary he proposed to reduce. There were a number of superfluous mules belonging to the Government at Port Durban (Natal). They were being sold off at that time, and the War Office telegraphed out to stop the sales and send on the mules to Egypt for service in the Egyptian War. The Admiralty were asked to provide transport, and instructions to that effect were given by the War Office to the Admiralty on the 24th of July, 1882. On that date there was abundant transport on the spot. That was proved before the Committee by the ordinary naval agent at Natal, who was also the Commissariat Officer in charge of the mules. It was also proved by a telegram from the Admiral commanding at Cape Town. The arrangement was made by the Assistant Director of Transports. It was said that the Director of Transports was incapable of attending to the work at the time, and the arrangement was therefore made by the Assistant Director. Although there were vessels on the spot, an arrangement was made by the Admiralty in this country by which a vessel lying at the time 500 miles away from Natal, laden with cotton, and altogether unfit for the work upon which it was proposed to employ her, was chartered. Time was given to enable the owners of the Notting Hill to get rid of the cargo. The broker who conducted the negotiations went first to one line of steamers engaged in the Cape trade, and then to another line, and asked if they would take the cargo, so as to allow her to ship the mules. These at first refused, because the Notting Hill had gone to the Cape, and the regular traders had filled up with wool, and they were not particularly anxious to oblige her owners. It was suspected from the pertinacity with which the matter was urged that the owners of the Notting Hill had a better thing in reserve, and therefore the Steam Companies to whom the offer was made refused to entertain it, and to take her cargo. There was at the time a vessel belonging to one of these regular lines lying at Durban, which was quite ready to perform the transport work required by the Admiralty. She was offered for the conveyance of the mules, but her services were declined, on the ground that the vessel was too small. Nevertheless, she was precisely the kind of vessel which had previously been employed in transporting mules, while the Notting Hill was a vessel of a class which was of inconvenient size. In the course of a few days it became evident to the owners of the other Cape steamers that they had no chance of getting the conveyance of the mules into their own hands. They therefore did the next best thing they could, and allowed themselves to be bribed into taking off the wool with which the Notting Hill was laden. The Castle Line of steamers was, he believed, induced to relieve the Notting Hill of her cargo in consideration of the payment of £2,000. Having made that arrangement with the Castle Line, the owners of the Notting Hill went to the Admiralty and completed a contract, by which they were to receive £3,000 in consideration of the expense of transferring the cargo, and the vessel was then chartered at the rate of £1,000 a-week, the Government allowing the owners a week for the purpose of discharging the cargo. Therefore, although the Government had everything ready at hand that was necessary to be employed in the service, they took a vessel such as had never been so employed before. Moreover, the arrangements were made at an absolutely needless expense of £3,000 to cover the expense incurred by the owners of the Notting Hill in transferring the cargo, with an additional £1,000 to cover the time taken up in transferring it. In the end the cargo was transferred into a vessel belonging to the Castle Line, which vessel would have been available for the service of the Government, and the vessel actually steamed backwards and forwards between England and the Cape three times before the Notting Hill arrived in Egypt. It was agreed in the charter that the Notting Hill should be fitted out at Simon's Bay, and it took three weeks in the Government Dockyard there to have her fitted up. By that time the War Office were becoming impatient, and the ship proceeded to Cape Town to take forage for mules on board. But at Cape Town was smallpox, and on her arrival at Natal she found herself in quarantine, the result of which was that another delay occurred. Notwithstanding all the elaborate equipments with which she was provided at Simon's Bay, it was found that the vessel could not take the number of mules she was required to carry by 200, and in a number of cases the mangers for the mules were placed not at the heads of their stalls but behind their tails. After all this chapter of catastrophes the vessel got under weigh, and ultimately arrived at Suez just a week after the fall of Tel-el-Kebir and Cairo, and the termination of the Egyptian War of 1882. Thus the whole expense incurred in this matter was absolutely lost, and the service of the Army for which the mules were intended suffered great detriment. The vessel was sent on to Bombay, and the mules disposed of there; but it was then necessary to bring back the drivers who had been taken along with the mules from the Cape. Those operations cost this country at least £25,000, and probably £30,000, because the Government had to pay for coal, as well as hire and other expenses. The mules were sold to the Indian Government at such a price that it would have been infinitely better to have slaughtered them at Durban and to have sold the hoofs and hides. He knew that it might be considered invidious on his part to bring forward a Motion of this personal character, and it might be suggested that he could have raised the question upon another Vote, and in another way. He had always, however, found by experience in connection with the Estimates that the best course for a Member to pursue was to take the first opportunity ho could got; and, therefore, although he had originally intended to avail himself of another opportunity he bad changed his intention. It might be said that it would be bard to deprive an official of his salary of £800 a-year; but in consequence of the blundering of this officer the country would have to pay an annuity larger than his salary. Why, then, should they continue the services of the Director General of Transports? The hon. Gentleman who bad given what he was pleased to consider an explanation of the matter on a previous occasion (Mr. Caine) had given what amounted to no explanation at all. He had admitted all the facts, and yet, at the same time, be told the House that if similar circumstances occurred again be would do the same thing. To his (Dr. Cameron's) mind that was an aggravation of the offence; and, under the circumstances, he begged to move the reduction of the Vote by the salary of the Assistant Director of the Transports —namely, £831.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That a sum, not exceeding £193,469, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the Expenses of the Admiralty Office, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1886."— (Dr. Cameron.)

MR. CAINE

said, that his hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow (Dr. Cameron) had delivered a speech which was identical, and almost word for word, the same as the one he had delivered in the House of Commons on the 16th of March last. [Dr. CAMERON: No, no!] There was only this difference—that on the previous occasion his hon. Friend had mentioned the shipbroker by name; whereas on this occasion be had wisely abstained from importing personalities into his speech. No doubt the House never tired of listening to speeches from his hon. Friend; but, unfortunately, he could not claim the same indulgence for himself; and, therefore, be would refer hon. Members to the pages of Hansard for the reply which he had made to the accusations of the hon. Member when they were first preferred. On that occasion the Motion made by the hon. Member was— The system of chartering and managing hired transports pursued by the Admiralty officials is unbusinesslike, extravagant, and detrimental to the satisfactory working of homo preparations for foreign wars. On that occasion the case of the Netting Hill was referred to by his hon. Friend; but the course pursued by the Government in reference to that vessel was defended, not only by himself, but by the hon. Member for Greenock (Mr. Sutherland), who had had a large experience in connection with such matters as Chairman of the Peninsular and Oriental Company, and also by the Members for Falmouth (Mr. D. Jenkins) and Southampton (Mr. Giles). He (Mr. Caine) was quite prepared to stand by everything he had said in March in defence of the Admiralty. He did not think that it was possible to get better men to do the work, or to do the work better than it was actually done for the transport service in connection with the Egyptian War. It was quite true that there were one or two unsatisfactory points connected with the Notting Hill; but they were matters which were entirely unavoidable, and in no way attributable to neglect or incompetence on the part of Admiralty officials. He would remind the Committee that when the question was discussed in March his hon. Friend did that which he had seldom done before—namely, refused, at the close of the debate, to go to a division. He thought that in taking that course his hon. Friend had acted very wisely, and he would also display wisdom if he took a similar course today.

DR. CAMERON

wished to explain that the speech he had delivered to-day was not at all the same as that which ho had delivered in March. On the former occasion he went over a wide field of subjects, and moved the Resolution which his hon. Friend had referred to. He had alluded to-day to a great number of points which he had not touched upon before, and he had confined himself to-day to one specific point. His hon. Friend had referred to the opinion expressed by the hon. Member for Greenock (Mr. Sutherland). Now, the hon. Member for Greenock had not said one word in approval of the Notting Hill, but had simply defended the general policy of the Government, which was very natural on the part of a Gentleman whose steamers had been largely employed.

MR. MACLIVER

said, it was gratifying to find on both sides of the Committee a perfect willingness to afford a fair opportunity for new officials to take Office under a new Administration. He thought the Government would find quite enough to do in conducting the affairs of the Department without devoting their time to an inquiry as to what had been neglected by their Predecessors, or done in excess. Unfortunately it was the system, and not the recent Administration, that had been in fault in this matter. The present system of administration in the Admiralty was slow, cumbrous, and inefficient, and would be tolerated nowhere except in an Administration which followed routine, and in which true responsibility was very seldom found. He complained not only of the slowness of the Board of Admiralty in introducing measures, but of the contemptuous manner in which, during the last five or six years, Memorials presented from the Dockyards to the Admiralty had been treated. The result was that many persons naturally felt aggrieved, and great discontent existed in the Dockyards, the real cause being the very inefficient way in which the affairs of the Admiralty were administered. Such a state of things could not be beneficial to the Service. He believed that a change was inevitable; and he hoped it would be such a change as would make the future administration more in accordance with the wants and wishes of the country.

MR. ILLINGWORTH

desired to say a few words in the interests of the taxpayers of the country. It was a patent fact that gentlemen selected for appointments connected with the administration of the Admiralty knew nothing of the kind of work they were called upon to perform, and, in a very short time, the country would find that there was no improvement upon the previous condition of things. He believed it would be found that they had merely stimulated other countries, and had done nothing for themselves. He believed that the money spent at the Admiralty had never been worth more than 10s. in the pound at the outside; and, therefore, he had suffered very little disappointment from the various confessions, admissions, and reproaches indulged in by the two sides of the House, depending upon which Party happened to be in power. It was a melancholy reflection that even if they were to get the finest Government in the world, fully adequate to sustain the dignity and the requirements of the country, all they would have done would have been to stimulate other nations to increase their own weapons of mischief. As a matter of fact, we were continually rolling up the hill this tremendous load. He had an immense admiration for the hon. Member for Cardiff (Sir Edward J. Reed); but the hon. Member undoubtedly lent himself to this scare by indulging in unnecessary criticism as to what had been, or rather what had not been, done in the way of naval expenditure. He would only point out that the enormous total of £24,250,000 had been spent on shipbuilding alone since the year 1870, that having been the period when, unfortunately, a great change came over the minds of a good many persons in regard to the administration of the Admiralty. In 1870 there was the same complaint and outcry as at present, and he was afraid it would be BO to the crack of doom. Although they were constantly inventing new engines and improving the machinery of war, it was folly to suppose that they would ever get beyond experiments, and be able to arrive at perfection. There must always be in every vessel constructed something new, unless they were altogether to discard the progress of invention. Therefore, in criticising the performances of the Admiralty there was nothing easier than to say that one vessel was not so capable, and so well fitted for the purposes for which she was designed, as another. He believed that no improvement would take place in the proceedings of the Board of Admiralty under the present system, and that it was hopeless to expect any. He was satisfied that they were only, by their criticisms, helping to maintain a state of things by which other nations were led into the same miserable policy of unduly increasing their outlay instead of restricting it within rational limits.

CAPTAIN PRICE

said, that on page 17 of the Votes there was an item of £500 for services in connection with the Intelligence Department. He wished to know whether that item covered the whole of the money which had been expended under that head?

THE CHAIRMAN

said, he thought the hon. and gallant Member had better reserve his remarks upon that item until they came to the Vote for the Intelligence Department.

THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMI-RALTY

said, he had no wish to enter into any question of controversy between the hon. Member for Scarborough (Mr. Caine) and the hon. Member for Glasgow (Dr. Cameron); but as coming from one recently connected with the Department, and an able business man, the hon. Member for Scarborough's (Mr. Caine's) argument must be accepted. However, for some time past the hon. Member for Glasgow (Dr. Cameron) had been dissatisfied with the Transport Service, and he had brought forward certain cases in which he believed there had been considerable waste of money. He said at once, in common with his Colleagues, that there was no doubt there had been an enormous expenditure unnecessarily incurred by the Transport Department; and he said frankly that he had looked into that expenditure, and ho was very much dissatisfied with the present system of financial control exorcised over the Transport Service. Therefore, be did not wish that the criticisms of the hon. Member for Glasgow (Dr. Cameron) should pass by without comment, lest it might be assumed that, in his opinion, the Transport Service was satisfactory. He certainly intended to substitute some more efficient check than at present existed. He thought, however, that the proposal was invidious; and perhaps, after the statement now made by the hon. Member, the hon. Member would not divide the Committee. Unfortunately, whenever any hon. Member was dissatisfied with any item which appeared in the Votes, and wished to censure the Department, the course he took to evince his dissatisfaction was to move the reduction of the salary of some one connected with the Department. He thought that was a very unpleasant way of calling attention to a grievance; because whatever the views of the hon. Gentleman might be, he could not deny that the knowledge, zeal, and ability of the Assistant Director General of Transports, and the assiduity with which he had discharged his duties, entitled him to remuneration. He promised to have a thorough investigation made into the administration of the Transport Department; and, under those circumstances, he hoped the hon. Member for Glasgow (Dr. Cameron) would withdraw the Amendment.

DR. CAMERON

said, the noble Lord appeared to think that because the hon. Member for Scarborough (Mr. Caine) had been connected with the Department his hon. Friend must be right and he (Dr. Cameron) must be wrong. Ho certainly failed to see the force of the argument. Like the cuttle fish trick of obscuring the water when endeavouring to escape from a position of danger, those who were responsible for the waste of public money which he had pointed out attempted to get out of the difficulty under cover of a cloud of darkness. The noble Lord said he thought that everything was right; but, at the same time, the proposal of the noble Lord to institute a thorough investigation into the matter seemed to indicate the notion that there was a great deal that was wrong. He had moved the disallowance of the salary of the Assistant Director of Transports because the action of that officer in relation to the Transport Service had lost to the country more than the capitalized value of the salary, and he was, therefore, a gentleman whose services might be retained at too great a price. In any private business it was a matter of moral certainty that a servant who had been guilty of such blundering would be got rid of. No business man would attempt to retain in his employment a servant who had cost him so large a sum of money. However, the statement made by the noble Lord was much more encouraging than the defiant assurance of the hon. Member for Scarborough (Mr. Caine), that if he had to do it over again ho would do the same thing. The whole question of the Transport Service in connection with the Admiralty was of the highest importance. It was a subject which appeared to have escaped attention; and if the noble Lord would carry on an investigation in a thoroughly efficient manner he could not fail to do great good to the country, and he would certainly save a much larger sum than would be gained by the reduction of the Vote he (Dr. Cameron) had proposed. Therefore, he thought he was warranted in departing from his original purpose of dividing the Committee. He could only express a hope that the question would be dealt with in a businesslike manner, and he withdrew the Amendment because he was satisfied with the important undertaking the noble Lord had given upon what he considered to be a most important matter.

MR. CAINE

asked whether the statement of the noble Lord was based upon the management of the Transport Service in the Egyptian War? That was all that he cared specially to defend.

THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY

declined to enter into the controversy between the hon. Member for Scarborough (Mr. Caine) and the hon. Member for Glasgow (Dr. Cameron). He had only said that he believed, from his official connection with the Department, the hon. Member for Scarborough (Mr. Caine) was the most likely to be right.

MR. CAINE

remarked that it was only a matter of assertion on the part of the hon. Member for Glasgow (Dr. Cameron).

THE FIRST LORD or THE ADMIRALTY

said, he had to deal with things as he found them; and he found that there was a large—indeed, an enormous—expenditure incurred for the Transport Service, and he was not satisfied with the financial check. He did not wish to blame any individual; but certainly, so far as lie had been able to go, he was thoroughly dissatisfied with the system of check.

GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOUR

took advantage of the salary of the Director of Transports being in this Vote to raise the objection to the large expenditure in Vote 17 on Sea Transports for the Army being debited to the Naval Estimates, instead of being included in the Army Charges. He also objected to the cost of the guns and ammunition for the Navy being debited to the Army instead of the Navy; but of that item he should not at present make more mention. He had had some experience in India about transports, and when in the War Office he watched the action of the Transport Service, from which he was justified in asserting that by making the Naval Estimates bear the money charges created by the requisitions of the War Office for ship transport they opened the door to waste, extravagance, and inefficient control. It might be likened to the old saying of riding another man's horse with your own spurs, a practice certain to take all out of the animal. The curious part of this sea transport system was that the charges for vessels conveying troops and stores along the coast were charges on the Army Votes; whereas the charges for foreign transports were, as he had said, included in the Naval Estimates. The result of that bad system was that the financial control, which could alone be made to be felt by the party knowing the cost of an order, was entirely lost. The idea of the audit of that expenditure proving a check on the orders issued from the War Office was futile. The examination to which transport charges could now be subjected was thereby arithmetical. The best and most effective kind of audit, that of the propriety or necessity of the order, was lost. On those grounds, he urged that the present defective system be promptly altered by transferring the cost of Sea Transport to the Army Estimates.

COLONEL NOLAN

said, there was no doubt that this question must be taken up as a whole. He did not think that a mere Departmental Committee would be sufficient; because, as far as he could judge, the Heads of the Departments of the War Office, whose action might be touched on by the Committee, would be present the whole time, listening to what was said by the various witnesses called. That was the case on a Committee within his knowledge; the Heads of the Departments used to attend throughout the sittings, and watch the witnesses as a cat would watch a mouse. Now, he asked how they could expect a satisfactory result in cases of that kind—how could they expect witnesses to come forward from the various Departments of the War Office, knowing that their superiors were watching them, and waiting to note every word they uttered? He thought the first campaign had been planned and managed extremely well by Lord Wolseley; but it seemed to him (Colonel Nolan) that both the sea and land Transport Service was in a state of inextricable confusion. What had happened? Since then they had had three campaigns—two on the Red Sea, and one in the Soudan; and although the troops fought splendidly, there had been no result but complete failure, and in all cases for the same reason—they were too late. Had they been begun earlier, he had no doubt that they would all have been successful.

THE CHAIRMAN

said, the observations of the hon. and gallant Gentleman appeared to him to have no connection with the Transport Service and to be inapplicable to the Vote before the Committee.

COLONEL NOLAN

said, he was pointing out that the Marine Transport was not very efficient. He had had ample opportunities of judging of the efficiency of the Marine Transport Service, and as he thought it had not been satisfactory, he was of opinion that a grave Inquiry should be held with regard to it, and that the Inquiry ought, in his opinion, to be Parliamentary and not Departmental. He hoped that when the next Parliament met he believed it would be for the interest of the Service and the country that the whole question of the Egyptian Campaigns should be made the subject of inquiry; and he should advise that the question of Transport should be taken up. He repeated that there should be a Parliamentary and not a Departmental investigation; because it was, in this case, necessary to find fault with so many of the Departments of the War Office. No doubt, the officials at the War Office were good men in their various capacities; but, as a general rule, they were good friends among themselves, and he did not think them qualified to carry out an inquiry of this kind satisfactorily.

MR. SHAW LEFEVRE

said, he gathered from the remarks of the noble Lord the First Lord of the Admiralty that he did not intend to make any imputation against the officials employed at the Admiralty. So far as the questions raised by the hon. Member for Glasgow (Dr. Cameron) were concerned, he understood him to concur in the main with what had fallen from the late Civil Lord (Mr. Caine), and to say that, after the few days ho had been at the Admiralty, he did not think there was a sufficient financial check upon the Transport Department, and that the subject required to be investigated. He (Mr. Shaw Lefevre) believed he was right in saying that the Transport Department followed the directions of the War Office, that they received orders from that Office and carried them out in the best manner they could. Whether an insufficient financial check arose from the want of supervision at the War Office or otherwise, he was unable to say; but for many years past he knew that the administration of the Transport Department of the Navy had been under the supervision of one of the most efficient and energetic of officers, Admiral Sir William Mends. Further, his recollection of the Assistant Director of Transport was that he was a man of great competence, and that he had the confidence of the authorities under whom he served. Of course, it might be that the control exercised over the Department at the Admiralty or War Office required supervision, and he should be glad to hear what were the noble Lord's views on that matter; and he would add that, perhaps, it might be found that the noble Lord's want of confidence in the financial check on the Transport Department after so short an experience was not well founded.

SIR JOHN HAY

said, that having held the position of Lord of the Admiralty, he felt it his duty to make a few remarks upon the subject of the supervision of the Transport Department. With regard to the Office of Director he hoped it would not be supposed that the present holder of the Office, Admiral Sir Francis Sullivan, was not also an officer of very great merit. The gallant Admiral had been selected for the post from a number of other officers in consequence of the special knowledge of the business of the Transport Department which he possessed, and he (Sir John Hay) was sure that Sir William Mends would be the last person to wish his character for competency to be advanced at the expense of his successor's character in that respect.

MR. SHAW LEFEVRE

agreed with the right hon. and gallant Baronet in that remark; but he might say that he had not that personal knowledge of the gallant officer now presiding over the Transport Department, which he had of Sir William Monds, although he was glad to hear the tribute paid to him by the right hon. and gallant Baronet.

GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOUR

submitted to the noble Lord (Lord George Hamilton) that the proposals made failed in one essential of that strict financial check which was desired. He meant that the propriety or necessity, of taking up a transport for the movement of troops or Army stores, could only be judged of by and in the War Office. Then the requirements for Sea Transport, though issued from one branch of the War Office, yet the right and duty to examine the order and its financial effects would rest with another branch, which had access to all the information. His own experience enabled him to assert that this independent or separate inquiry was very fairly exercised. Then there was the check of the Secretary of State, who, if held responsible for the Transport charges, might and would on many occasions desire movements of stores and of men to be lessened. In this form the economies would be considerable. At present, he agreed with the noble Lord that financial check over Sea Transport was wholly deficient, except of the simple and weak kind resulting from mere arithmetical calculation.

MR. PULESTON

said, he hoped the noble Lord who presided over the Admiralty Department would take notice of what had been said by the hon. and gallant Member for Galway (Colonel Nolan), and the hon. and gallant Gentleman who had just spoken. It was clear that the action of the Admiralty was hampered by the War Office, and the War Office by the Admiralty, in respect of the Transport Service. He reminded the Committee that when he seconded the Motion of the hon. Member for Glasgow (Dr. Cameron), for inquiry by Select Committee into this matter, he had taken up the ground that the only efficient way of controlling the Transport Department, was by forming it into an independent Department. What had fallen from the hon. and gallant Member for Kincardine (Sir George Balfour) and the hon. and gallant Member for Galway (Colonel Nolan) fully bore out the view which he had expressed.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

Original Question again proposed.

CAPTAIN PRICE

said, he had a question to ask with regard to an item on page 17 of the Estimates, Vote 3. He referred to the charge of £500 for a captain of the Royal Navy for service in the Intelligence Department of the Admiralty. He wished to know whether that sum represented the whole of the salaries of the Foreign Intelligence Department? He presumed that it did so from the footnote, which stated that the Foreign Intelligence Committee consisted of one Captain of the Royal Navy and one Lieutenant of the Royal Marine Artillery with full pay and subsistence allowance, as shown on the page he had indicated. Were the Committee to understand that the officers who used to serve the Department on the Continent and in America had been withdrawn;. was the gallant officer who superintended the Intelligence Department at the Admiralty—the only officer they had now to collect information relating to the Navies of Foreign countries throughout the world? He hoped that was not the case; it was his opinion that it would be a great mistake to withdraw those officers, and, on the contrary, he thought their number ought to be increased. Every Foreign Power had a Naval Representative in this conntry, who gathered information and sent it to the respective Embassies, and their system of obtaining intelligence "was very excellent and complete. He hardly thought that was the case" with the system of this country; because, although he was quite aware that the officer presiding over the Intelligence Department at the Admiralty was an exceedingly able man, and that no one was bettor qualified than he to discharge the duties of the office, yet it must be impossible for him to get all the necessary information without competent assistance on the Continent. He considered it a very desirable and necessary thing that they should obtain this intelligence respecting the naval position of foreign countries, for one reason, because he believe it would put a stop to the wild and extravagant speeches that were sometime made both inside and outside the House by ex-Lords of the Admiralty. There had been extravagant and misleading statements made in that House and elsewhere; and, as an instance of it, he would refer to the time when the Navy Estimates were last before the Committee. The hon. Member for Hastings (Sir. Thomas Brassey) then said on the subject of torpedo boats, that of these France had 10, Italy 12, and Austria 4; but the right hon. Gentleman the present Secretary of State for War (Mr. W. H. Smith) rose immediately the hon. Gentleman sat down, and having a considerable amount of information and knowledge in those matters, he pointed that France had 56 and Russia 115. There was a most extraordinary discrepancy between those two statements, and that, he thought, constituted one reason why they ought to have the very best information obtainable with reference to the naval affairs of Foreign Powers. He had to make another suggestion to the noble Lord—namely, that he should take into his most earnest consideration the question of having on the Board of Admiralty a General Officer of Marines. He was aware that there was a Department of the Admiralty presided over by a General Officer; but that officer had not the power he would have if he were on the Board of Admiralty, and he knew that suggestion after suggestion and recommendation after recommendation was made by the gallant officer referred to, but his letters were treated as waste paper; they were pigeon-holed, and nothing resulted from them. That would not be the case if an officer of Marines had a seat on the Board of Admiralty. Before sitting down he desired to add his congratulations to those which the noble Lord and his Colleagues at the Admiralty had already received, and to assure him that the Service had the most perfect confidence in the noble Lord's ability, and in the Naval Lords by whom he was advised. He hoped that those Naval Lords, having tendered their advice on matters of supreme importance as regarded the strength of the Navy, and therefore as regarded the safety of the Empire, would, as honourable Gentlemen ought to do if their advice was not received and acted upon, resign their offices.

MR. BIGGAR

said, he hoped the noble Lord would give some attention to the subject of contracts for stores. He believed it was the custom at the Admiralty not to allow the general public or persons in the various trades to know the prices at which contracts were taken, and that he hold to be a very injudicious mode of procedure. If it became the custom only to contract with a few people engaged in the manufacture of a particular article, the result would be that those engaged in the manufacture would enter into a combination in order to get the highest price for that article. On the other hand, if other persons in the trade were allowed to know what price was paid, the result would be a larger number of tenders and less opportunity of particular persons getting an unfair price. He had a very clear recollection of what occurred in the time of the Crimean War. At that time there was a large and constant demand for provisions for the Navy, and an enormous profit was made by the contractors owing to the price not being known; but after the public got to know what was paid, the Government succeeded in obtaining the supplies at a fair price. It should be borne in mind that the goods of manufacturers had various degrees of trade merit; for instance, one manufacturer notoriously supplied ail excellent and genuine article; another was known necessarily to supply one less perfect, and a third a less perfect article still. But he did not mean to argue that the Government ought either to accept the highest tender, or to allow the article to fall off in quality; all he was asking for was that the public should he allowed to know the price at which tenders were made, and particularly the price at which tenders were accepted. In that way they would obtain better value for the money spent; whereas, under the system which at present existed, there was more opportunity for contractors getting unfair prices and entering into unfair combinations. In making those observations he was not speaking in the interest of any class of manufacturers, but of all, and he maintained that the system which he advocated would be beneficial to the country, and that it ought to be adopted.

SIR JOHN HAY

said, with reference to what had fallen from the hon. and gallant Gentleman behind him (Captain Price) he would remind the noble Lord that within the last 10 years, or less, the number of officers employed in the Intelligence Department of the Admiralty had very considerably diminished. Down to 1881 there was a naval officer attached to all the Embassies abroad, which communicated information of the greatest possible value to the Government; but he believed that, solely for the sake of economy, the number had been diminished, and that now only one officer was employed. That officer was, he believed, occasionally admitted to foreign Courts, but he had not the influence of a resident officer speaking the language of the country, and associated with the members of the various Embassies. He thought the present system would, if it were allowed to continue, prove a source of weakness to the country, without resulting in the saving of any considerable amount of money; because while the former system allowed the acquisition of information which could be utilized on subsequent occasions, the salaries of the officers employed in the service was only at the half-pay rate. He, therefore, hoped that the First Lord of the Admiralty after being a little longer in Office, and after consultation with his Colleagues, would be able to see his way to the extension of this Service as one which could not but be very useful to the State. As he had already pointed out, Foreign Powers were represented in this way, and, if for no other reason, we ought to have similar representation abroad. With reference to the question to which his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Devonport (Captain Price) had referred, it was now 23 years since he (Sir John Hay) first made a Motion for the Marine Corps being represented by an officer on the Board of Admiralty, and he believed he had urged the point on several subsequent occasions in that House, seeing that one-third of their Naval Force was represented by the Marines, whose number he hoped would be augmented; he believed that the presence of a General Officer of Marines on the Board of Admiralty would be of the greatest advantage to the Service. But, on every occasion when this subject was referred to, he had to express regret that nothing had been done; and he would again express the hope that when a vacancy occurred on the Board it might be filled up in this way.

THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY

said, in reply to the hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar), who wished, as much as possible to increase the competition for the Admiralty Contracts, in order that the best article might be obtained for the service of the country, that he believed a very large proportion of the stores required by the Department were publicly advertised for, and that a certain proportion was not so publicly advertised. The latter were, he believed, goods of a special character; and with regard to them, so far as the Admiralty were aware, no other manufacturers than those who now supplied them could compete. He quite agreed with the hon. Member that when tenders were invited there should be, as far as possible, bond fide competition. In reply to the remarks of the hon. and gallant Member for Galway (Colonel Nolan) he could only reply that the first act of the new Board, of which he was the Head, was to pass an Order distributing the business, as far as it could be distributed, amongst the Members of the Board. By that Order each Member of the Board would be able to administer the affairs of his own special Department, being of course subject to the First Lord; and would also have the advantage of seeing personally that not only the officers connected with the Department, hut also the officers of the Dockyard, performed their duties in an efficient manner. His hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Devonport (Captain Price) had asked, him about the Intelligence Department at the Admiralty, and upon that subject he might say that his Predecessor in Office attached considerable importance to it; and, as he (Lord George Hamilton) believed that all military nations derived the greatest advantage from their Intelligence systems, it seemed to him that the Admiralty also ought to develope their Intelligence Department.

GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOUR

said, he hoped the noble Lord would appoint a Select Committee to consider and report upon the matter before he decided upon what course be would follow.

MR. BIGGAR

said, he had not raised any question particularly with reference to the special contracts of which the noble Lord had spoken. His contention was, that the prices and qualities of the different contracts should be announced in the newspapers, so that they might become public property; and, then, at any future time, if persons wanted to offer for similar contracts, they would be in a position to do so on intelligible grounds.

MR. STEWART MACLIVER

said, that from his own experience he could say that the Intelligence Department was not sufficiently attended to by the authorities. He hoped that in future more men of experience would be appointed, and that a larger amount of money would be expended in the development of this very important Department.

Vote agreed to.

(2.) £203,800, Coast Guard Service and Royal Naval Reserves, &c.

SIR JOHN HAY

said, he had to ask a question of his noble Friend upon a subject connected with the Royal Naval Reserve. The original number of men contemplated was 30,000; for that number a grant in aid was made on the recommendation of a Royal Commission; that number of men were receiving the amount due to them, and an excellent force they were; besides them there was the Volunteer movement under which a number of men had been enrolled with great advantage to the country. But there was an amphibious body of men in the country who were neither employed at sea, nor on land. He al- luded to the pilots, watermen, and, others of similar calling, who were at that moment willing to come forward and give their services on the same terms as the men of the Royal Naval Reserve for the defence of the estuaries and harbours of the country. They all knew that lately the defence of the harbours and estuaries on the coast had exercised the mind of the country. The noble Lord would, no doubt, be aware of that, because many of those who had taken part in the movement were his own constituents; he would know with what loyalty those he had referred to came forward to defend the estuaries and harbours on the Thames. Similarly, on the Clyde, it was within his own knowledge that the men of this class had tendered their services for the same purposes. It was not necessary for him to discuss at that moment with what it would be necessary to provide this class of men; but it would include torpedo boats and materials necessary for the defence of rivers. He believed the people of the country were bent upon having the estuaries on the coast defended; and for that purpose he believed that no more efficient means could be provided than the enrolment of those men as a portion of the Naval Reserve Force of the country, giving them the pay and the same amount of subsidy as was given to the men of the Royal Naval Reserve, as well as efficient training for the purposes he had indicated. He trusted the First Lord would look into that question, and that he would see that the Vote which the Committee were now discussing was applied hereafter in part to the subsidising of this valuable and patriotic body of men who were ready to place their services in readiness for the defence of the country.

THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY

said, he thought he could give a reply on this subject which, would be satisfactory to the right hon. and gallant Baronet (Sir John Hay). The late Board of Admiralty had appointed a Committee, over which Admiral Vesey Hamilton presided, to investigate the subject of the defence of harbours and ports, and to report on the best means for the purpose. Admiral Vesey Hamilton had inspected several ports, and found the authorities there most anxious to assist in providing means of defence. It was evident that if those places were to be defended it must be by means of voluntary aid which should be obtained from the various local bodies, and everyone likely to render assistance. He had not had time fully to go into this question; but it was his personal impression that, if the Volunteer movement had been beneficial in aid of the Military Force of the country, and had become more and more efficient, it was a question well worthy of the consideration of the Admiralty whether similar benefit might not be derived from a Volunteer movement for the defence of the ports, and whether a somewhat similar course should not be taken with regard to it as had been taken in the case of the Royal Naval

MR. STEWART MACLIVER

said, that offers had been made to engage officers and men in various ports, and he would urge upon the noble Lord the consideration of the question whether their services should not be accepted. He had to point out that those offers had been systematically refused, and as he considered that very unwise on the part of the Admiralty, he trusted that in future another course would be taken.

MR. E. W. HARCOURT

said, that as far back as the year 1860 he had endeavoured to establish such a corps as the hon. Gentleman opposite had alluded to, under the sanction of the Admiralty and the War Office. He had the authority of the Admiralty to establish such corps all round the coasts of Great Britain. The Admiralty, however, declined to furnish gunboats for the instruction of the men. The consequence was that, after a few years trial, he found it was wasting the money of the country to draw a capitation grant for men who had no sea legs. Since then, he believed that the hon. Member for Hastings (Sir Thomas Brassey) had taken up the matter. However, he wished to say that, after the experience he had had of the men along the South Coast, he had come to the conclusion that men of the class found there—that was to say, beachmen, were utterly useless for the purpose in view, unless they had a proper amount of sea training. Therefore, he said it was quite impossible that the ratepayers should pay money year after year for men who, when an emergency arose, would be perfectly useless to the country. Ho hoped the noble Lord would take that matter into consideration; because, if the Admiralty could not give the use of a gunboat for the purpose of training those men at sea, he was convinced that they would in time of need be of no service whatever.

Vote agreed to.

(3.) £112,100, Scientific Branch.

SIR, JOHN HAY

said, he did not know whether any Member of the Committee wished to call attention to any items of the Vote before page 34, because he wished to ask a question with regard to the extra pay of surveyors on foreign stations. His object in doing so, was because he saw that there was no special provision for the further examination of the coasts of the China Seas, and he was induced to ask a question on the subject, because when he had had the honour of serving in those seas in 1845 a survey was made of Port Hamilton which was now a place of considerable interest to the people of this country. He was not one of those who approved of many of the acts of the late Government; but the acquisition of Port Hamilton was, in his opinion, of the greatest possible value to the interests of the country for the protection of their trade eastward of Singapore, and he was therefore anxious to know whether the survey made in 1845 was to be extended and repeated in reference to their recent acquisition. Port Hamilton was formed by three islands and many islets, lying off the southern point of the Corea, 534 miles south of Vladivostock, and commanding the entrance to the sea of Japan. He wished to urge upon Her Majesty's Government, and upon his noble Friend, the great importance of this place as a naval coaling station which would allow them in time of war to keep those seas. He thought the survey of the port should be completed; and he asked, whether the item for extra pay of surveyors included the pay of surveyors engaged in surveying Port Hamilton?

THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY

said, he was unable to answer the question of the right hon. and gallant Baronet (Sir John Hay) at that moment, but the matter should be inquired into.

MR. MITCHELL HENRY

said, he understood three weeks ago, that the country had not acquired Port Hamil- ton, and he now asked whether that statement was accurate?

MR. HALSEY

asked for information as to the recent outbreak of scarlatina on hoard the Training Ship Britannia?

MR. CAINE

said, he was not in a position to state the details; hut the result of the inquiry was that no serious blame attached to anyone in the matter.

Vote agreed to.

(4.) Motion made, and Question proposed, That a sum, not exceeding £1,G29,300, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the Expenses of the Dockyards and Naval Yards at Home and Abroad, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1886.

CAPTAIN PRICE

asked the indulgence of the Committee, while he made a few observations upon this very important Vote. He desired to preface the remarks he had to make by expressing the very great regret which he was sure they all felt at the loss the country had sustained in the death of Rear Admiral "Wilson, who was lately the Admiral Superintendent of the Devonport Dockyard. He had the pleasure of Rear Admiral Wilson's acquaintance for a great many years, and he felt sure that by that officer's death the country had sustained a serious loss. He also had the honour, some years ago, of serving with Rear Admiral Wilson on expeditions in Central Africa, and he could bear witness not only to Rear Admiral Wilson's courage, but to his great ability and incessant activity. He had made those observations, because he thought it was right that some notice should be taken of the sad event. Now, he had entertained the hope that the Committee would hear a statement from his noble Friend the First Lord of the Admiralty (Lord George Hamilton) as to the future policy of the Admiralty in the matter of shipbuilding in the Dockyards. They were promised, some time ago, a Paper on the subject, a Paper which purported to give information to the House upon the action which the Government intended to take upon the Report of the Earl of Ravensworth's Committee. He was rather puzzled to think what action could be taken upon such an insufficient and incomplete Report. He said it was an, insufficient and incomplete Report, because they had as much acknowledged in the Report itself. Several Memoranda were appended to the Report; one by Captain Codrington, who was at present at the Admiralty, and another by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Hull (Mr. Norwood). In his Memorandum the hon. Member for Hull used very strong expressions, for he said— Whilst concurring generally with the Report, I desire to record my opinion that the important questions under our consideration require a more thorough investigation than is possible within the narrow terms of the Reference to the Committee. It appears to me that an exhaustive examination into the system adopted in the construction, repair, and refit of Her Majesty's ships would necessitate an inquiry on the spot into the details of Dockyard expenditure, management, and control. He (Captain Price) thought the Commit-tee were entitled to ask why an inquiry on the spot into those details had not been made, and whether it was the intention of the present Board of Admiralty to make such an inquiry? The Memorandum appended by Captain Codrington was very much to the same effect; and, in the body of the Report itself, the Committee, referring to the incidental expenses of shipbuilding, which it was well known formed a large item, said— The evidence given by the Accountant General of the Navy is sufficient to show that the whole question of incidental charges is so obscure as to render unreliable any comparison between the cost of shipbuilding in public and private yards. Now, if that was the case, if the evidence so tendered was so thoroughly unreliable as to make a comparison impossible between the cost of shipbuilding in public and private yards, he was at a loss to know how any action could be taken on the Report, unless it be in the direction of re-opening the inquiry. It was commonly believed that their ships could be built more cheaply and more quickly in private than in public yards. He maintained that the whole evidence given before the Earl of Ravensworth's Committee tended to show that the matter was still in very great donbt; indeed, it was not as yet known how the matter really stood. The main conclusion which appeared to be drawn from the Report, and which was eagerly taken up by so-called Economists in the House, was that the Government ought to build all ships of war in the private yards of the country, and to leave to the Royal Dockyards the repair and refitting of ships alone. Such a policy as that would, in his opinion, be one fraught with the greatest danger to the country, and for various reasons. In the first place, as he had shown before, they would, by the adoption of such a policy, create nothing more or less than unprotected arsenals all over the country. It would be absolutely necessary that the private shipbuilding yards should be protected, and they could only be protected at very great expense. In the Royal Dockyards, however, they had protected arsenals where ships of war could be built in any number. Then there was the question of time. It was attempted to be shown that their ships could be built far more quickly in private yards than in the Royal Dockyards; but the matter had never been thoroughly tested. The ships built by contract were, to a great extent, completed off-hand. It was true they were delayed from time to time; but the delay which occurred in making alterations in ships built by contract was nothing like the delay which took place in the building of ships in the Royal Dockyards. The only test that could be applied in this matter would be to have two ships, exactly similar, laid down, one by contract in a private yard, and another in a Royal Dockyard. It would then be seen which ship could be built first, and which at the less cost. Whatever alterations were made in one ship would, of course, have to be made in the other, the object being that the two vessels should be quite similar. It was only by an experiment such as this that a just conclusion in the matter could be arrived at. As was shown by the Report of the Committee, and by the evidence tendered to the Committee, there was great difficulty in arriving at the comparative cost of building ships of war in private and public yards, and that difficulty arose from the impossibility of ascertaining what were called the incidental, or Establishment charges. No one had as yet ever given a definition of Establishment charges. On the last occasion that the Naval Estimates were before the Committee the hon. Gentleman the Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands), who, unfortunately, was not now in his place, made a long speech on the subject. The hon. Gentleman said they must recollect that in the Royal Dockyards, there was not only the cost of material and the amount of wages, but there were very large incidental charges, and he talked about the large salaries and allowances which amounted in the Naval Yards to a sum of £224,000 per annum. But the hon. Gentleman never attempted to say how much of those salaries and allowances ought to be apportioned to the building of ships, and how much to the hundred other duties which their Dockyards had to perform. Let him (Captain Price) reduce the thing to an absurdity. The salaries and allowances at the Devonport Yard, which was not, strictly speaking, a building yard—in which very few ships were built— amounted to £48,000; but the salaries and allowances at the Chatham Yard, which was essentially a shipbuilding yard, were only £38,000; so that if they were to apportion the salaries and allowances at Devonport to the few ships built there, the apportionment would, of course, be something enormous—10 or 20 times the apportionment in the Chatham Yard. The same might be said of the other expenses which the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands) referred to, such as the charge for police. Of course, that was a large charge; but if they added it to the cost of shipbuilding, the apportionment would be very large in one case—in the case of Devonport — and very small in the case of Chatham and Portsmouth. There was one argument which was very often used in favour of building ships in private yards, and that was, that the men of private yards could acquire a familiarity with the work of building ships of war; that the more they increased the building of war ships in private yards the more experience was gained by the builders. But hon. Members must remember that whilst that familiarity was being increased in private yards, the more it was being decreased in the Royal Dockyards. If they ceased to build ships in the Royal Dockyards, and a naval war was waged against them, in which their private yards would very likely be destroyed or shut up, and they had to fall back on the Royal Dockyards, they would probably rind that the plant had been neglected, or it might be sent elsewhere, and that the men who were for- merly engaged in building ships had lost their experience, or, perhaps, were no longer at the yards. It might be said it would be very easy to transport the men from the private yards which were being bombarded, or destroyed, or shut up, to the Royal Dockyards; but they had some experience in the last great war of such things as strikes. Hon. Members would remember that during the Crimean War, when the Admiralty wanted ships building, the men of one or two private yards, notably of that of Mr. Scott Russell, struck work, and said they would not return unless they were paid exorbitant wages. That was a matter which was altogether left out of consideration by some Members of the Committee. He must make a remark upon the constitution of the Earl of Ravensworth's Committee. That Committee seemed to him to have been most extraordinarily constituted. It was a Committee called together to decide whether it was better to build ships in private yards instead of in the Royal Dockyards, and nearly every Member of it was a gentleman who had had something to do, commercially, with private yards. He did not wish to cast any reflection upon the Members of the Committee; he was sure they did their best, and that they served their country on the Committee faithfully and honourably; but still the constitution of the Committee was such as to give rise to some suspicion. There was only one Gentleman on the Committee who had any experience whatever of the building of ships in the Royal Dockyards, and that was Captain Codrington, and he dissented from the Report of the Committee, and said sufficient evidence had not been tendered. He (Captain Price) hoped they would hear something that afternoon from the First Lord of the Admiralty (Lord George Hamilton) as to the intention of the Government in this matter. He looked upon it as a very great mistake to transfer the building of ships from the protected yards to the yards which might at any time be destroyed or shut up. He also wished to call attention to a question affecting the personnel of the Dockyards. That was a question which had been brought before the Committee previously; but he thought that, considering the altered circumstances, it was well to mention it again. It was felt that the compensa- tion given to men who were discharged from service in the Dockyards was much too small. There were two classes of men employed in the Dockyards. The class of men who were on the Establishlishment of the Yards served at a certain rate of pay, and at a' certain age were discharged with a pension. The other class were men who were taken from time to time, as they were wanted; they were called hired men. Those hired men very often served quite as long and quite as regularly as the men who were on the Establishment. They got a slightly higher rate of wage; but at the age of 60 they were compulsorily retired, and got what was really a very small gratuity—a sum of money which was hardly enough to keep body and soul together for a twelvemonth. It might be thought, perhaps, that if they had liked to have been put on the Establishment they might have been, and thus secured to themselves a pension. But that was not so, because only a certain number of men were allowed on the Establishment. He was in hope his hon Friend the Civil Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. Ashmead-Bart-lett) would turn his attention to that matter. If the hon. Gentleman did so, he would find there was a very serious disproportion between the two classes of men who really did exactly the same amount of work. He (Captain Price) believed he was correct in saying that the Superintendents of the Dockyards bad reported that the disproportion was too great, and ought to be rectified. It had been suggested that those men, many of whom at 60 years of age were at the prime of life, should be allowed to serve in the Dockyards five years longer, and that, on coming in, they should either receive a higher gratuity or some kind of pension. In conclusion, he hoped that the subjects to which he had called attention would receive serious consideration at the hands of the authorities.

MR. STEWART MACLIVER

said, that the hon. and gallant Member for Devonport (Captain Price) had taken up some subjects which were of great importance and which he (Mr. Stewart Macliver) hoped would be recognized as such by the new Civil Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. Ashmead-Bart-lett). There was now an opportunity for the new occupants of the Admiralty to show their gratitude to the Dockyard constituencies who had been faithful to them for a long series of years. There were certain points he wished to bring before the Committee, points which were pertinent to the Vote, and which he was persuaded the present Board of Admiralty would recognize and appreciate. One of those points had been referred to by his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Devonport—namely, the scale of retiring pensions. At present a man who had served 30 years did not get any more than a man who had served 25 years. He certainly thought that a man who served 80 years was entitled to a greater retiring allowance than a man who had served only 20 or 25 years. It was very necessary that the attention of the Admiralty authorities should be directed to that point. It was clear that as much attention should be paid to the interests of the men who built the ships as to those of the men who sailed the ships. Something was done by the late Adminstration in that direction, but it was not enough. For instance, the late Administration appointed Inspectors of Shipwrights. That was a very good move indeed in the right direction; but it had given dissatisfaction because it had been unaccompanied by a similar move in regard to other classes of men in the Dockyards. The leading men of the joiners and of the engineers were entitled to the same consideration as the shipwrights, and to the "claims of both of those classes he hoped attention would be given. Then, again, for some time past; hon. Members had drawn attention to the position of the chief engineers. For five or six years the Admiralty had had under consideration the question of the rank of those men; but as yet it was undecided whether the men should wear an extra bit of lace on their sleeve. He trusted the new Board would show its gratitude to the Dockyard constituencies by conceding this point. It was a matter which involved no expense; it simply meant that the chief engineer should rank with a lieutenant. This concession, in point of rank, would give great satisfaction to this very important body of men. The naval artificers, too, had their complaints, and they asked that consideration should be given to their complaints.

For many years past they had petitioned the Admiralty in vain; indeed, it was one of the defects of the present system of administration, that Memorials addressed to the Admiralty received no attention until they were dragged before the House by some hon. Member. There was plenty of scope for the energies of the Members of the new Naval Administration in the direction which] the hon. and gallant Member for Devonport and himself had pointed out.

SIR EDWARD J. REED

said, that while he very strongly sympathized with the two classes of Dockyard employes to whom his hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth (Mr. Macliver) referred, he wished to take exception to his conclusions. One of the most injurious things which could happen to Dockyard officials, or to naval officials, was to set up claims on behalf of one class simply because some other class had been benefited. He was sure that every Member of the House who had served on the Board of Admiralty must be aware of cases in which legitimate and reasonable claims had been put forward—claims which the Board of Admiralty would have been glad to meet had they been able to deal with them on their merits. The Board had often been deterred from meeting claims put forward, by the consideration that no sooner did they do an act of justice to a limited class of persons than there sprang up claims by other classes, who, somehow or other, persuaded themselves they were unjustly treated. The truth of the matter was, that it was in the interest of the men of the Dockyards that they should refrain as much as possible from the system of starting a new set of demands every time the Admiralty made a concession. The setting up of these demands was most fatal to the whole Service; because, in times like the present, there did arise special claims. Special services had to be performed; and if the Admiralty could not do clear and simple justice in cases as they arose, without raising the spectre of applications from every quarter, he saw great injury to the Service. He felt it would be very unfair and very futile to ask the Board of Admiralty what their intentions were in regard to shipbuilding. It was perfectly obvious that in the circumstances under which the noble Lord the Member for Middle- sex (Lord George Hamilton) and his Colleagues occupied the Treasury Bench, it was impossible that they could have even begun to settle the question of shipbuilding. He should not attempt to set up any claim upon them; but he should like to say a word or two upon some points which he regarded as of very great importance to the Dockyards, and which, he hoped, they would now consider, as it were, from a new point of view. The Committee was well aware that he had been most reluctant at all times to admit that the time had arrived, or begun to approach, when this country could afford to do away with armoured ships. It was quite clear that unarmoured ships must be the scene of bloodshed and slaughter in action which would be perfectly unendurable to the moral sense of mankind. It was impossible for this country, with its vast naval interests, to think of abandoning armoured ships, and yet he was bound to say that, after inspecting the recently constructed ironclads, and reflecting upon those now about to be constructed, he believed it would be better for them to give up building armour-clads altogether, and to trust to the chances of what they might be able to do without them, rather than to spend such enormovs sums of money upon such an extraordinary construction of ships as was now laid down. There were now in the Royal Dockyards of the country a number of ships of the Admiral class, though none of them were approaching completion. Those ships were of very large construction—they were of 10,000 tons, and of course their raison d'étre, or their whole object, was that they should go and fight in action. It seemed to him that one of the first requirements of such a construction was, that it should be able to receive some blows as well as to give some, without being rendered hors de combat. He had stated at length his views as to this line of ships, and he would not repeat them; but he wished to call the attention of the Admiralty to the almost absolute certainty of those ships being put hors de combat by reason of the exposure of the only important guns they carried. Instead of being held by the old trunnions, they were held solely and only by a couple of straps, themselves exposed to a direct blow. Altogether, those ships seemed to him to be productions eminently in- teresting as articles for exhibition; but what could be their efficiency in war, he really was at a loss to understand. He did not say that by way of complaint, but simply laid stress upon the point as one of first-class importance attaching to their position as a naval country. Anyone who took an interest in this question must be desirous that their ships should be able to show something like fight; and what he wished the Admiralty to consider was, whether it was not possible to give to the armaments of those vessels some additional protection against injury from the multiplicity of small guns by which they would be attacked. The hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Devonport (Captain Price) had raised the vexed question of building men-of-war in the Royal Dockyards and private yards. Now, those of them who were favourable to the construction of ships of war in private yards were so favourable, not because they doubted the efficiency of the Dockyards, or their capability to produce ships, but because they doubted whether the Admiralty and all the Royal Yards could produce ships quickly. There were three right hon. and hon. Gentlemen, Members of the late Board of Admiralty, present, every one of whom in his turn had told the House that it was the special intention and act of the late Board of Admiralty to build ships quickly, and get them out of hand as soon as possible. At Chatham, the other day, he noticed a ship, the Hero, which, after the laying of her keel, was brought very rapidly into an extremely forward state. He did not hesitate to say it could have been completed as quickly as it could in any private establishment in the country; but the work had been totally suspended, and there was no knowing when the vessel would be finished. Again, at Portsmouth Dockyard, he noticed that all work on the Camperdown had been stopped, although the House had received the positive assurances of the Admiralty that the ship would be completed as soon as possible. And this was in the face of probable war! In this Vote there was no provision for any improvement in the future; and, therefore, the present Board of Admiralty would do well to consider whether part of the Vote of Credit which they had the option of spending should not be spent in advancing the ships he had mentioned. The Dockyard system itself prevented the rapid completion of iron-clads. There was certainly a deficiency of plant in some of the Royal Dockyards; but it was a libel upon the workmen of those establishments to suppose that they could not produce as good and as quick work as any other establishment in the Kingdom. But they were not allowed to do it. The fact was, there were too many cooks, and, as a consequence, the broth was spoiled. Personally, he expected some advantage from the change which had taken place at the Admiralty; because he believed the First Lord (Lord George Hamilton) and the Secretary to the Admiralty (Mr. Ritchie) would not be satisfied with any inefficient arrangements. He thought there would be an attempt, at least, to conduct the naval business of the country upon a sound principle; but, under the circumstances, the Committee could not, as he said, expect from the Government a statement of policy now upon the shipbuilding question. Although hon. Members did not press for such a statement, it must not be inferred that they were any less anxious on the point than they had hitherto been.

SIR JOHN HAY

desired to join his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Devonport (Captain Price) in expressing the deep regret which he was sure they all felt at the loss by death of Rear Admiral Wilson. That gallant officer was an unfortunate victim of the terrible explosion on board the Thunderer. He never recovered from the effects of the accident; but, in spite of the suffering from his wounds, he continued to give most efficient and valuable service to the country. With regard to what had fallen from the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Devonport and the hon. Gentleman the Member for Cardiff (Sir Edward J. Reed), he (Sir John Hay) wished to say two or three words. The question of building ships in the Royal Dockyards and in private yards had been constantly brought before Parliament; but the Committee must remember that the building in the Dockyards could not be as rapid as the building in private yards. Private yards had nothing to do but to build; but the Dockyards ought not to be increased in the number of the men they employed, beyond what was necessary for repairing a Fleet if it came there to be repaired. It was idle to compare public and private yards. The Establishment charges were, after all, only a blind. It was necessary they should have Dockyards; it was necessary they should have docks to which a disabled Fleet might come for repair, and it was necessary Establishment men should be employed for the purpose of making any repairs to a ship which were required. During the time the men were not engaged in repairing the Fleet it was desirable they should be employed in the practice of their profession by building ships. He had always been averse to increasing the amount of shipbuilding in the Dockyards beyond that which would give due and proper employment to the number of hands which ought to be employed there for the paramount object of repairing ships. He was sorry to think that the number of vessels forming their Fleet had been so reduced that there was ample room for the employment of both public and private yards in the building of iron-clads. On reference to page 196 of the Estimates it would be found that, although the country was under the impression that a very considerable addition was being made to their shipbuilding, the number of men to be employed was reduced. Last year 8,823 men were employed in the Dockyards; but this year the number was to be diminished by 419. Looking to the number of ships which were given in the Estimate for building, and to the number of ships which were known to be owned by Foreign Powers, the amount of building now going on in the Dockyards was the very lowest that might be expected. At that moment they had five first-class iron-clads—the Inflexible, the Edinburgh, the Dreadnought, the Thunderer, and the Devastation —and the French had three. Of the second class, they had nine ships, and the French had nine. They had, therefore, 14 efficient sea-going ships, capable of steaming 14 knots against the French 12. Building and fitting they had 27 ships against the French 30. If it were necessary to have twice as many ships as France, which they always had up to 1850, they must build 33 new iron-clads. They would then have an efficient and sufficient Navy. He agreed with what had fallen from the hon. Gentleman the Member for Cardiff (Sir Edward J. Reed), on the question of giving some protection to the water line of vessels of the Admiral class. Looking to the fact that, in the Estimate which was now under discussion, there was not sufficient provision, by any means, for the increase of the Navy, he would again urge upon the Admiralty to compel the Treasury to do that which was done in the case of the Fortification Vote in 1860—to take the sum of money which might be necessary in order to complete the Navy, so that his gallant Friend (Admiral Hood), who was responsible for the defence of the country, might, should war break out, be able to defend all the lines of commerce, all the great ports, and all the Colonies, which it was the duty of the Navy to defend.

THE SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY

said, he was sure that those who represented the Admiralty in the House would join most cordially in what had been said by his right hon. and gallant Friend (Sir John Hay) and his hon. and gallant Friend (Captain Price) as to the loss the country had sustained by the death of Rear Admiral Wilson, a most valuable and efficient public servant. His hon. and gallant Friend (Captain Price) commenced his remarks by suggesting that his noble Friend the First Lord of the Admiralty (Lord George Hamilton) should make a statement as to the policy of the Government in regard to shipbuilding in the Royal Dockyards. He thought his hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff (Sir Edward J. Reed) showed a greater appreciation of the position in which the present Government stood, when he said that, looking to the extremely short space of time that the Government had held Office, a statement of policy from the Representatives of the Admiralty was hardly to be expected. With reference to the questions concerning the Dockyards which had been referred to by the hon. and gallant Gentleman (Captain Price,) he (Mr. Ritchie) might say that the Report of the Earl of Ravensworth's Committee had been referred to a Committee for consideration, with a view of seeing how far it could be acted upon. When he said that the Chairman of the Committee was Captain Codrington, now one of the Lords of the Admiralty, and that on the Committee was Lord Walter Kerr, who was now Secretary to the noble Lord the First Lord of the Admiralty, hon. Members would see that there was every probability, under the present Administration, of such conclusions as the Committee might arrive at on the Report of the Earl of Ravensworth's Committee being carried into effect. He hardly thought it was necessary to refer at length to the observations which had been made, and the comparisons which had been drawn in reference to the building in private yards as against the public yards, because that, of course, was the great issue which was before the Committee just appointed. But in regard to the question of time, he agreed with what had been said—that there seemed no reason at all why, if the same arrangements could be made in the Dockyards of the country as in private yards, and if definite conclusions as to what was to be done could be arrived at, ships could not be turned out in the same time in the Royal Dockyards as they could in the private yards. It was needless for him to refer to the reasons which had prevented ships being turned out of the Royal Dockyards as rapidly as could have been desired; but he was sure he was speaking for his noble Friend (Lord George Hamilton), when he said that one great object which the present Administration would have before it, was to quicken the building and equipment of ships for the Navy, not only in private yards, but also in the Dockyards of the country. Something had been said by his hon. and gallant Friend (Captain Price) with reference to the Establishment charges referred to in the Report of the Earl of Ravensworth's Committee. It must be evident to every one, that it was altogether unfair to take the Establishment charges of the Dockyards, and assume that they must be distributed over the ships built in the yards, because there was a large number of works which the Dockyards had to do, and which ought to bear their share of the Establishment charges. As to the personnel of the Dockyards, the Board of Admiralty entirely agreed with what had been said by the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Devonport (Captain Price), and by the hon. Member opposite (Mr. Stewart Macliver). The Board appreciated the great value and excellence of the work performed by the men employed in the Dockyards, and everthing they could do to render the employment of the men satisfactory to themselves, and beneficial to the Public Service, the Board would regard it as their duty to do. But he must remind his hon. Friends and the Committee generally, that the Admiralty were bound to consider all those questions' from a commercial point of view. If the Admiralty had nothing else to consider but the convenience and wishes of those they employed, they would, he was sure, be only too glad to concede, with no stinted hand, that which the men had so often asked; but they were bound, in spending the money which was entrusted to them by Parliament, to act upon commercial principles. He did not say that the fact of their being able to get far more men than they required, when vacancies occurred, was in itself an indication that the position of the men was everything that could be desired; but he maintained it was an important element in the consideration of the question. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Plymouth (Mr. Stewart Macliver) had referred to the question of superannuation. That was by no means the first time that the question of superannuation had been brought before the Committee of the House of Commons by the hon. Gentleman himself and by others, but when he (Mr. Ritchie) said that the scale of superannuation allowances which at present existed was similar to the scale which existed in the highest classes of the Civil Service, the Committee would see that it was hardly possible for the Admiralty to promise compliance with the demands which had been made on behalf of the men. The hon. Gentleman (Mr. Stewart Macliver) had spoken of several classes of employes in the Dockyards who had grievances. He (Mr. Ritchie) could only say that everything that had fallen from the hon. Member would be considered by the Board of Admiralty in a full and frank manner, and if they found there was any way in which they could meet the wishes of the hon. Gentleman and those whom he represented, without detriment to the Public Service, it would give them pleasure to avail themselves of it. He had now dealt with most of the matters which had been referred to in connection with the Naval Dockyards. [Mr. STEWART MACLIVER: The engineers.] The complaint of the engineers simply concerned their rank, and he had it in mind when he said the Board would be pleased to give earnest consideration to the suggestions the hon. Gentleman had made. He had now dealt with all the questions put in connection with employment in the Dockyards, and with reference to the Earl of Ravensworth's Committee. Matters of policy had been referred to by the different Members who had addressed the Committee, and those he thought had better be dealt with by his noble Friend the First Lord of the Admiralty (Lord George Hamilton).

SIR H.DRUMMOND WOLFF

wished to bring before the Committee one or two points which had been brought forward on former occasions. One or two Petitions which had been presented by various classes of the Dockyard workmen had not yet received an answer from the Admiralty itself, and others had not received a reply from the circumstance that the Treasury had not confirmed the decision of the Admiralty. He trusted that his noble Friend (Lord George Hamilton) would endeavour to expedite the decisions, whatever they were to be; because the length of time taken in the promulgation of decisions gave rise to great anxiety on the part of the workmen. Various classes of men in the Dockyards had grievances which were more or less well founded, and which, therefore, required attention. The point mentioned by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Plymouth (Mr. Stewart Macliver) concerning the engineers certainly required the earnest consideration of the Admiralty. The question of rank and distinctive mark was one which the engineers felt very deeply, and one which he trusted would be decided in their favour. He hoped the new Board of Admiralty would take the different representations made to them into serious consideration, and endeavour to spread as far as possible a spirit of contentment amongst the different classes of workmen.

MR. PULESTON

expressed a hope that the present holders of Office so far as the Admiralty was concerned would occupy their positions for a long time to come. The difficulty in regard to the various classes in the Dockyards, he wished to point out, arose not so much in relation to wages, as to the discrepan- cies in ranking between one and the other. The shipwright, for example, complained that he worked more hours and got less pay than men who did a similar class of work in other Departments, and all he (Mr. Puleston) wished to impress on the noble Lord (Lord George Hamilton) was that there was nothing easier than to obviate the large number of just grievances that constantly came to the Admiralty from the Dockyards. It could be done by setting to work on reorganization, so as to put the various classes on terms of equality. They had got rid of wooden ships, and yet they retained various distinctions amongst the classes of workmen, as though those ships were still being built. The need for revision had been recognized in the case of the engineers, and he hoped that what had been done in the case of those men would be done in the case of others. Some progress had been made, and he hoped that the Admiralty would not fail, now that they had a good opportunity, to put the finishing touch to the work, and give the various classes of Dockyard employes what they were justly entitled to. Some years ago, a Committee was appointed to inquire into the position and the wishes of the engineers. Yet, though many years had passed since that Committee had held its inquiry, it was not until the present day that the suggestions of the Committee with reference to the engineers had been acted upon. He wished also to draw the attention of the noble Lord to the question of the Establishments. He was sure that nothing would conduce more to the efficiency of the Dockyards than the judicious increasing and strengthening of the Establishments. In that way great satisfaction would be given to the men employed and the work would be done at much less cost than was the case when the Departments had to make large calls upon hired labour. The case of the hired men was very hard. Their employment was nominally of a temporary character; but, as a matter of fact, it was permanent. When, however, those men ceased to work, they were not pensioned like their fellow-workmen on the Establishment. They received a bonus of some £20 or £30—a total sum no more than the amount paid annually in the form of pension to the men who had been on the Establishment. Anomalies of that kind were to be found from one end to the other of the Dockyards, and he would say to the Civil Lord of the Admiralty that, if he would take the question seriously into his consideration, he would find that an enormous amount of trouble would be saved in the Admiralty, and that a great deal of satisfaction would be given, and grievance removed, by reducing the organization of the Dockyards to some system. The organization which was required it would not be difficult to effect, if taken in hand and carried out vigorously and systematically, but to be constantly making spasmodic efforts—at one time, increasing the pay of one class, leaving others alone; and at another time, increasing the pay of another class, leaving other classes alone—although they might effect amelioration in some quarters, they produced new grievances in others. It would be far better to abandon that piecemeal work and take in hand the work of thoroughly reorganizing the Dockyards. The question was a most important one, as was also that of the position of the naval school teachers. There was no more just complaint than that of the naval teachers, that they were not on terms of equality with teachers doing similar work outside the Navy. There was no reason why they should not enjoy, with their brethren in the Army, and in the Marine Corps, equality. As a matter of fact, this dissatisfaction ran through all classes employed, more or less, in the Dockyards — those anomalies and discrepancies were existing everywhere, and were constantly giving rise to Memorials and complaints at the Admiralty. And on the subject of Memorials, he should like to say that there was room for great improvement in the manner in which these were dealt with at the Admiralty. The sending of replies should be facilitated, and answers should be framed on the principle that "a soft word turneth away wrath." Memorials were sent one after another to those who represented Dockyard constituencies, urging them to worry the Admiralty constantly on this subject. All that would be avoided by the adoption of the system he had proposed. He did not wish unnecessarily to occupy the time of the Committee, and he had only one other word to say. It was not, per- haps, necessary to refer to the question of Government work in private yards. Probably no one was more familiar with that subject than the noble Lord (Lord George Hamilton); but he wished to say that it would be a great mistake if ships were built in private yards, to the sacrifice of their Dockyards. The magnitude of the Dockyards, and the facilities for constructing ships there, ought to render the work done in them better and cheaper than that done elsewhere. Moreover, the Dockyards must of necessity stand them in good stead in time of war or panic. He remembered that during the war with Russia, when Government ships were being built in private yards, it was found necessary to send men from the Royal Dockyards to finish them, as, in consequence of strikes and so on, the private firms were unable to complete their contracts.

MR. LABOUCHERE

said, they would all, on both sides of the House, be agreed that it was necessary to have a strong Navy, and that in order to have a strong and effective Navy, they should have commodious and well-appointed Dockyards; but, at the same time, as that involved a very large expenditure, it was necessary to examine the Estimates very carefully, and strike out all unnecessary items. Now, he found that £58,000 had been expended on repairing the Royal Yacht Victoria and Albert, in the Royal Dockyards, and he proposed to move a reduction of the Vote by that sum. It was true that in a naval country like this Her Majesty ought to have a yacht.

THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY

The £58,000 has not been spent this year.

MR. LABOUCHERE

said, he had come to the conclusion from the Estimates that that amount of money had recently been spent on the yacht; and if the noble Lord denied it, he would appeal to the late Civil Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. Caine), who would, naturally, know more about the matter than the noble Lord, seeing that he had been concerned in the preparation of the Estimates. If the hon. Member was prepared to say that £58,000 had not been spent on the Victoria and Albert, but some lesser sum, he (Mr. Labouchere) should be prepared to withdraw his Motion, and to move the reduction of the Vote by the lesser sum.

MR. CAINE

said, he believed £56,000 had been spent on repairing the vessel.

MR. LABOUCHERE

said, they would say £40,000—he was not so particular as to the amount, as to the principle of the thing. Her Majesty had other yachts besides the Victoria and Albert. She had the Alberta, the Osborne, and, he thought, another—the Fairy. The Committee would remember that last year frequent questions were asked as to the Victoria and Albert, and that great complaints were raised with regard to the yacht being repaired. The vessel originally cost £200,000. It was hardly ever used. He forgot what hon. Gentleman it was, but some hon. Gentleman had moved for a Return of the number of times during the past 10 years that this yacht had been out of harbour. That Return was granted, and it was found that the ship had hardly ever been out of harbour. There was a captain and a crew to the yacht, and he believed its officers enjoyed special privileges. They lived almost always on land, doing absolutely nothing, the expenditure on the vessel and its crew being, therefore, purely a fancy one. The other yachts were used for practical purposes; and it was only on occasions such as Royal marriages that the Victoria and Albert was used. If he was not mistaken, he gathered from the newspapers that this yacht was to be used, with others, to bring over wedding guests to the marriage of the Princess Beatrice. As it was not likely that another marriage would take place in the Royal Family for some time, it seemed to him useless to keep up an expenditure on this yacht. It certainly seemed to him that £56,000 was too much to spend on this yacht, which had hardly ever been used. There had been a discussion on the subject of a Royal yacht in the Spanish Cortes this year, ho thought. It had been proposed by some ardent friend of Royalty that the King of Spain should have a yacht; but the Cortes, having considered the matter, it was decided that a cabin should be fitted up in one of the iron-clads for His Majesty whenever he wanted to go to sea. It was held that the King would be able to sail with greater dignity, and more in State, on an iron-clad than in a yacht. In the case of the yacht he (Mr. Labouchere) was referring to, however, the country was being put to an enormous annual expense for that which was of no use, or, at all events, which was not used. It possessed a crew, almost such a crew as it would have at a time of war. The officers, as he had said, lived almost entirely on land, they being gentlemen enjoying Court favour. Prince Leinin-gen, he believed, was in command of the vessel—it was always some German Prince or other who got the appointment. He would move the reduction of the Vote by £40,000.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That a sum, not exceeding £1,599,300, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the Expenses of the Dockyards and Naval Yards at Home and Abroad, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1886."—(Mr. Labouchere.)

THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (Lord GEORGE HAMILTON)

explained that the hon. Member was labouring under a mistake with regard to this Vote. There had been, so far as he was aware, no expenditure on the Victoria and Albert yacht this year; at any rate, no very considerable expenditure. The £56,000, or a sum approaching that mentioned by the hon. Member, had been expended on the Royal yachts last year. The hon. Gentleman came forward as an economist, and he told them that the only occasion on which this Royal yacht, the Victoria and Albert, was used was the occasion of a Royal wedding. Well, this yacht, by the expenditure which had taken place last year, had been rendered thoroughly efficient; and it was hardly consistent on the part of the hon. Gentleman, therefore, to object to the use of the yacht now that a Royal marriage was about to take place. So long as Her Majesty remained the Sovereign of the greatest Naval Power in the world, so long should she have a suitable Royal yacht. The common sense of the hon. Member, he thought, would show him that it would be unreasonable to reduce the Vote.

MR. LABOUCHERE

declared that his common sense pointed out nothing of the kind. He would put it to the late Civil Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. Caine) whether any of this money had been spent on the Royal yachts this year; and if he replied in the negative, of course the Motion to reduce the Vote would fall to the ground. He (Mr. Labouchere) had not objected to the Queen having a Royal yacht. He had said it was desirable that the Queen of these Islands should have a Royal yacht; but Her Majesty had four Royal yachts. Moreover, he did not think that a Royal yacht should cost originally £200,000, or that it should be necessary, after she had gone out perhaps a dozen times, and had laid up in harbour for a certain number of years, that £56,000 should be spent in repairing her. He should have thought that a very efficient and suitable yacht could have been built for £50,000, or the price of these very repairs. Those were the reasons why he protested against the expenditure, not because he objected to Her Majesty having a yacht, but because he objected to her having four yachts, one of which she did not use except on special occasions, although it had been built at a cost of £200,000. Perhaps the late Civil Lord of the Admiralty would explain the item.

MR. CAINE

explained that the £56,000 had been expended last year, and that the actual sum spent on the Victoria and Albert this year had only been £3,000.

MR. LABOUCHERE

Then I will move that the Vote be reduced by £3,000. The noble Lord the First Lord of the Admiralty seemed shocked that we did not protest against the Vote last year. At any rate, he will not be shocked at our omitting to do so this year.

THE CHAIRMAN

Does the hon. Member withdraw his first Motion?

MR. LABOUCHERE

replied in the affirmative.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

Original Question again proposed.

Motion made, and Question put, That a sum, not exceeding £1,636,300, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the Expenses of Dockyards and Naval Yards at Home and Abroad, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1886."—(Mr. Labouchere.)

The Committee divided: —Ayes 37; Noes 128: Majority 91.—(Div. List, No. 214.)

Original Question again proposed.

MR. T. C. BRUCE

said, he wished to call attention to the desirability of having some information as to the method of building ships in the Royal Dockyards, for everyone who was familiar with the Navy knew that an estimate for such building would be absolutely necessary for some years. He would remind hon. Members of the Report of the Earl of Ravensworth's Committee, as affecting the construction of ships in the Dockyards. He had not a word of complaint to say about that Committee. He believed it was chosen of men of ability and high standing, and that its Report, so far as it went, was a valuable document. But there was a peculiarity in the instructions given to the Committee, which, he thought, ought to be alluded to, because the conclusion arrived at would otherwise leave an erroneous impression in the minds of the public. The Committee were instructed to inquire into the relative cost of repairing ships in the Royal Dockyards and by private contract, and into the method of building ships by private contract, but not into the method of building ships in the Royal Dockyards. The result of the Committee's investigation was that, while they reported in favour of repairing ships in the Royal Dockyards, they made certain recommendations with reference to the method of building ships by private contract, but did not extend those recommendations to the building of ships in the Dockyards. It would have been going beyond their instructions to do that. What he wished to press particularly on hon. Members was that if anyone went through this Report of the Committee they would find that every difficulty which they called attention to in the present system of building ships by private contract extended, to a much greater extent, to the building of ships in the Dockyards under the existing method. The Committee called attention to this—that the original specification and plans for the building of ships by contract were not sufficient—that if it were desired to build rapidly and economically the plans must be completed; and they strongly called attention to the necessity of reforming the system at present adopted, if ships were to be built by contract on reasonable terms and in proper time. But every one of these defects in the building of ships existed in the Dockyards, because the plans were not completed; and the Admiralty authorities, having the original plans in their hands, went into a series of alterations even greater and more numerous than those made in the plans of ships built by contract. If the building of ships by contract was to be made economical and efficient—as he had no doubt it could be—those errors that the Earl of Ravensworth's Committee drew attention to in the method of building ships by contract ought to be more strongly considered in regard to the question of constructing ships in the Dockyards. He trusted the present Board of Admiralty would not fail to pay attention to this matter. The Constructor's Department should prepare the plans efficiently, so as to make the best ships they could with their present knowledge. Having commenced a ship on a certain plan they should finish it on that plan. They should not let a ship lie on the stocks for years because every year some alteration was introduced into its construction, or equipment, or fittings; and the result was that the building was prolonged for an indefinite period, and the building was neither effected as cheaply nor as efficiently as it ought to be. He made those observations in the hope that the Board of Admiralty would pay some attention to them, and go into this question of construction thoroughly. He had not the slightest doubt that it would be found that they could construct ships in the Dockyards quite as efficiently and cheaply as anywhere else, and that they would immensely add to the effective power of the Navy by having the ships turned out in reasonable time, instead of having them left for years on the stocks.

Original Question put, and agreed to.

(5.) £71,300, Victualling Yards at Home and Abroad.

(6.) £67,600, Medical Establishments at Home and Abroad.

(7.) £21,700, Marine Divisions.

SIR JOHN HAY

wished to know whether there was any intention to increase the number of Marines—whether it was true, as reported, that a considerable number of Marines were to be added to the existing force? It was formerly thought desirable to reduce the number, but it had been kept at the present figure; and recent events had shown that Marines could be employed in large numbers with great economy and distinction in all the small warlike operations—he would not call them wars —in which this country was engaged all over the world. They were of more tough material, and were to be more relied on, than short service soldiers; and for that reason enormous duties had been thrown on them, which duties they had always discharged with ability and distinction. He trusted, therefore, that the great strain which had been thrown on the Marines by their additional service might be relieved, to some extent, by an increase of that most valuable corps. He was sure that no corps under the Crown rendered more distinguished service, and that there was none the country would see increased with greater satisfaction.

THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (Lord GEORGE HAMILTON)

said, the right hon, and gallant Admiral (Sir John Hay) knew the Government could not increase the Establishment beyond the number voted by Parliament. It had been intended to increase the number voted, or rather to make provision for an additional 1,000 men, half of them in the Reserve, out of the money which was to be supplied out of the Vote of Credit. The present Board of Admiralty fully recognized the admirable service which the Marines rendered, and had every desire to keep the corps up to its full strength.

Vote agreed to.

(8.) £1,348,000, Naval Stores for Building and Repairing the Fleet, &c.

(9.) £1,926,000, Machinery and Ships built by Contract, &c.

GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOUR

said, he believed he was in Order in speaking on the Guns of the Navy, seeing that, in this Vote, at the bottom of page 121, there was a charge for gun carriages. In that case, he begged to be allowed to state that he believed this to be the twelfth year of his advocacy in Parliament for the transfer of the charge for guns, ammunition, and stores for the Navy, from the War Office Estimates to the Naval Estimates. He was glad to think that some progress had been made to give practical effect to that proposal. The present Secretary of State was, he hoped, nearly converted; when First Lord of the Admiralty he took on the Naval Estimates a considerable sum for the purchase of torpedoes, and for two years relieved the War Office of that outlay. In this year's Naval Estimates there was the large charge of £308,000 for naval gun carriages, again relieving the War Office of a considerable outlay. He (Sir George Balfour) now urged that the remaining portion of the charge for the naval guns and equipments be also transferred. He must here explain that whilst the late Sir John Pakington was at the War Office, the proposal for transferring this Expenditure to the Naval Estimates was strongly advocated; unhappily, a change of Government took place, and the right hon. Gentleman (Mr.Childers), on succeeding to the Admiralty, so decidedly opposed a transfer that would swell the Naval Estimates, that the question was dropped; since then, various indications had been shown that the bad practice of making the Admiralty depend on the War Office for the funds to provide naval guns and equipments had caused serious anxieties, from the incomplete and inefficient state of the guns for the ships of war. That had been shown by the total absence of a definite responsibility as to whether the Admiralty failed to give clear details of their wants and kinds of guns, or whether the War Office was unable or unwilling to furnish the guns and equipments. That was a state of affairs open to the gravest censure. Indeed, if war had broken out and a disaster had occurred, the Heads of the Admiralty and War Office would have stood in peril before the nation. Ho maintained that so long as the responsibility for ordering and paying for the naval armament was not fixed on the Naval First Lord, but the duty of providing the money for paying the cost was placed on the Secretary of State for War, so long did they expose the national interests to the serious risk of inefficiencies. The change was one that had been several times urged by the right hon. and gallant Admiral (Sir John Hay)—namely, that the arrangements made in 1850 be reconsidered, when the separate and independent Board of Ordnance, as also the Commissariat, were amalgamated with the War Office, whereby the incongruous charges for stores and buildings became mixed up with the ordinary pay of the troops. He did not raise objections to the general control of these amalgamated branches being placed under the supervision of the Secretary of State—that was a separate question. He proposed, in agreement with the right hon. and gallant Admiral, to separate from the War Office Estimates the accounts of the manufacturing establishments—Gun Foundry, Carriage Manufactory, Laboratory, Small Arms Manufactory, Gunpowder Manufactory, and Clothing Factory, and place them under a reponsible head, who would meet all the requirements of the Army and Navy, on funds being supplied by the respective branches.

SIR JOHN HAY

said, he held in his hand a Return moved for by the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War (Mr. W. H. Smith) on the subject of Naval Gun Fittings, which had just been laid upon the Table of the House; but if a person wanted to find out anything about naval guns or naval armaments he did not know where to go to. They might go to the First Lord of the Admiralty, who would refer them to the Surveyor General of Ordnance; but that official could not properly take any part in the debate on these Estimates on behalf of his Department, because, very naturally, the Chairman would say there was nothing in the Estimates on the question of guns. It was true, he would be in Order in referring to gun carriages and fittings, because there was a certain portion of that subject which could be taken now under the Contract Vote of the Admiralty; but that was not enough. The present system was unsatisfactory to all who were anxious to see efficient guns in the Navy and Army. They had to go to three separate Departments to obtain the information, and they had to go to three separate Votes in order to ascertain why there were delays in the necessary armaments of Her Majesty's ships, or why there were not sufficient stores for the purpose of completing the armaments. If one looked at the Return, one would find that the gun fittings of the 43-ton guns had been five years in process of manufacture. That meant that the ship in which they were placed could not be completed without constant changes in all the more important fittings, for the 43-ton guns were not yet made. Day by day changes took place which cost the Naval Constructor great trouble and the country great cost. Here in his hand they had an account of the armaments for Her Majesty's ships. The greater number of fittings for the large guns had been five years in course of manufacture, and a very small portion of them were delivered in a state in which the Naval Architect could make use of them, or attach them to the ships to which they belonged. He saw the Surveyor General of Ordnance in his place. His Predecessor had been obliged to confess that certain guns—four of them—and gun fittings had been appropriated to a certain ship; but when questions were being asked about another ship they were told that the four guns belonged to that ship. Here, then, they had four guns doing duty for eight. He (Sir John Hay) hoped that sort of thing would not take place in the time of the present Surveyor General of the Ordnance; but he was very much afraid that it was likely to occur. They had been told that 16 merchant ships had been appropriated to the service of the State. He had had occasion to visit Woolwich Arsenal lately, and he had ascertained there that the 5-inch rifled guns which were necessary for those ships were not yet completed. The gun carriages only were completed for one ship — namely, the Oregon. He had asked where they were; but the Arsenal was so full of the Suakin-Berber railway that he could hardly move about in it. He had, as he said, been able to ascertain that the guns were not completed which were necessary for the 16 ships which the hon. Gentleman the Member for Scarborough (Mr. Caine) said were such valuable additions to the Navy. The Ordnance Department of the Navy had been associated with the Army during the Crimean War. There was at the time great alarm in the country, and the Department was put under the Secretary of State for War, with the view of securing what was necessary for the siege. The result had been that the Army Estimates had become enormously swollen, and that the country had become frightened at their magnitude, not recognizing the fact that a large portion of the sum voted in the Army Estimates was the Ordnance Vote for the guns which were necessary for the defence of Her Majesty's ships and for Her Majesty's forts, as well as for the service of the Army in the field. It was unfair to throw on the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War—the Return moved for by whom he (Sir John Hay) held in his hand—responsibility in re- gard to ordnance stores for Her Majesty's ships, over which, he could have no control. It was unfair, again, to throw that responsibility upon the Surveyor General of the Ordnance, who had nothing to do with the Navy; and it was still more unfair to the Admiralty, because there was no one to whom they could apply within their own Department to ask how soon guns required would be ready, and whether there was a proper supply of guns for the ships. The Committee, he thought, would do well to revert to the old practice of having a separate Department which should be responsible for the supply of the necessary stores and guns to the Army and Navy, and for the expenditure of this £6,000,000 or £7,000,000. They should have an individual Minister directly responsible for these matters, a Minister who should say to each employing Department to whom they should go and purchase and what they should have. That Master of the Ordnance, or Surveyor of the Ordnance, should be responsible to the House; and the First Lord of the Admiralty and the Secretary of State for War should obtain from him what was necessary for the purposes of their Departments. This official should have it in his power either to manufacture what was necessary at Woolwich, or to go to the private trade for what might be wanted for the defence of the country. Until that was done there would continue to be this spending of £6,000,000, £7,000,000, or £8,000,000, with no one responsible for it; there would continue to be cases like that of the Benbow, in which guns which were required for the ship were under process of manufacture for two years; and there would continue to be such cases as that of the 16 extra steamers which had been hired in an emergency months ago, but which were not even yet fitted with the guns it was decided they should carry. Why was it that these 16 steamers which had been obtained from the Merchant Service were not yet armed? Where were the guns which were to be used in them? Were there, or were there not, guns for the other 280 merchant ships which, he believed, were available for the service of the State should they be needed? The reason these things were in doubt, and the reason necessary armaments were so backward, was that there was no one responsible. Until someone was made responsible, they could depend upon it that neither the stores nor the ships required by the country, by the Colonies, and by India would be available.

THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMI-RALTY (Lord GEORGE HAMILTON)

said, the anomalies of the present system could not be better illustrated than they had been by the right hon. and gallant Admiral (Sir John Hay), who had pointed out that the only means by which those who wished to discuss how far Her Majesty's Navy were adequately provided with naval guns could bring the subject on was by calling attention to a Vote relating to other items. No doubt the present system was inconvenient in many respects. There was a division of responsibility which did not tend to efficiency of administration. There were three courses open. They could go on as they were; they could make the Navy responsible for the manufacture of their own guns, and the Army responsible for the manufacture of theirs; or they could set up a separate Ordnance Establishment to supply both Services. He was certain they ought to travel in the direction of giving the Navy greater control over the manufacture and purchase of their own guns. It had been suggested that the Navy should be allowed to have a control over its own guns similar to that the War Office exercised over the guns required in the Army. At first sight that seemed a very reasonable proposal; but he thought it only right to point out to the Committee that there were two objections to be overcome before effect could be given to any such suggestion. The first was that a very large Vote would have to be sanctioned by the House for the purpose of giving the necessary storage room and wharfage at their naval ports. At present there was no place to put guns and stores, if the control of those were taken over by the Navy. It would be impossible at the naval ports to part with any of the room at present possessed. There was another thing to be considered. If they gave to the Navy entire control over their guns and stores, they would have to form a branch of the Service to be entirely devoted to gunnery. There were, he knew, many very efficient gunnery officers in the Navy: but it was not the practice in the Navy for any one branch to continuously devote their attention to the subject, as it was the practice of Artillery officers in the Army. So that, unless they had a class of naval officers confining their attention to the manufacture, the penetrating power, the fittings, and ammunition of guns, there would be considerable difficulty in giving the Navy control over its guns. It would be satisfactory to the Committee, perhaps, to learn that considerable progress had been made during the past 18 months in making up leeway and in getting nearer to their requirements as regarded gun mountings. There was a large increase in this respect in the Vote this year, £172,000 having been spent in the purchase of torpedoes, gun mountings, and torpedo plant. He had had some conversation with the Director of Naval Ordnance yesterday, and he had informed him that, so far as the ships on the stocks were concerned, they would not be delayed. The question of ordnance and the body to control it was of such great importance that the Committee might rely upon the Government giving their closest attention to it. He was fortunate enough to have as Senior Naval Lord Admiral Hood, who was specially conversant with all matters affecting naval guns, so that, so far as professional advice on the subject was concerned, the Government was fortunately situated.

SIR EDWARD J. REED

said, he fully realized the difficulties they suffered from in regard to the armament of ships; but he must say nothing could be more preposterous than to set up two separate Government establishments — one in connection with the Army, and the other with the Navy— to work out all the problems bearing on the manufacture of guns, seeing that all those problems would, theoretically and practically, be precisely the same. He must condemn anything like a separate establishment for the Navy whilst they had an Ordnance Establishment for the Army.

GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOUR

said, he might be excused for remarking on the noble Lord's statement. First, as regarded the dread of making naval officers too devoted to guns and gunnery, he replied that he wished to God the opportunity had been afforded to naval officers of knowing more about guns and equipments. He was confident that that experience would have been of great use. A better kind of gun would have been invented, and the naval armament greatly improved. The objectionable practice of building ships and, then requiring guns to be made of such a length and weight as might be suitable for the carrying power of the ship would have been avoided. The system would have been reversed. The best gun would have been provided, and the ship built suitable for bearing the gun. Then as to storekeepers and store accommodation. At present the naval equipments were kept distinct, and space existed for naval armaments. All the guns and equipments for Reserve ships were subject to the inspection of the local naval officer. As to storekeepers, the naval warrant officers were well fitted, and could easily take over the guns and equipments of the Navy. As to forming a new gun foundry, that was wholly unnecessary. The existing factories for guns, laboratory, and gunpowder would be available for the Army and Navy, being independent of both. They were most efficient, and quite capable of meeting the requirements of the Army and Navy. Their accounting was very good, and they had the great advantage of having an admirable system of capital accounts.

MR. R. W. DUFF

desired to call the attention of the noble Lord to the recommendation of the Trawling Commission, that the cruisers now employed on the Scotch coast should be replaced by steamers. His hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough (Mr. Caine) was a Member of the Commission, and he had taken the opportunity of bringing this matter before the notice of the hon. Gentleman when ho became Civil Lord of the Admiralty, and he had assured him that it was the intention of the late Board to replace the present cruisers by efficient steam vessels. Ho only wished to bring it under the notice of the present First Lord of the Admiralty, and he hoped that he would replace the present cruisers by steamers. He did not wish to embarrass the noble Lord by asking him any questions which he was not able to go into; but if he would inquire at the Admiralty he would find that the matter was under the attention of the late Board of Admiralty, and he trusted the noble Lord would not allow it to be overlooked.

Vote agreed to.

(10.) £654,900, New Works, Buildings, Yard Machinery, and Repairs.

MR. PULESTON

asked a question as to the erection of the Naval Barracks for the accommodation of sailors near Devonport.

THE LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. ASHMEAD-BARTLETT)

replied, that accommodation for 1,000 men and 33 officers would be ready this year. There was a Vote of £32,000 to be devoted to the purpose. With regard to the piece of land of nearly five acres to which the hon. Member had referred, it was still the subject of negotiations. He believed the price asked for it was £4,070.

CAPTAIN PRICE

pointed out the importance of keeping open the waterway between the Sound and Stonehouse Creek. A meeting of the Local Board was held two days ago at Stonehouse, and it was unanimously agreed that the matter should be recommended to the Admiralty. He would like to know if any recommendation had been made to the Admiralty on the matter?

THE LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY

said, he had no information on the subject; but he would make inquiries.

Vote agreed to.

(11.) £61,800, Medicines and Medical Stores, &c.

(12.) £10,000, Martial Law, &c.

(13.) £137,300, Miscellaneous Services.

(14.) Motion made, and Question proposed, That a sum, not exceeding £830,400, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the Expenses of Half-Pay, Reserved, and Retired Pay to Officers of the Navy and Marines, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1886.

SIR GEORGE CAMPBELL

said, he had given Notice of opposition to this Vote in respect to the restoration to the Navy List of the name of Vice Admiral Hobart-Hampden; and he had asked on what ground the charge for his retired allowance had been made, but he had not received any satisfactory reply. The noble Lord had spoken of it as the act of the late Government. He was sorry for it. He was sorry to have to challenge the act of the late Government; but he was one of those who considered it their duty to resist acts of this sort. He asked again what there was in the facts to justify the late Government in reversing the decision of 1877, come to when Hobart Pasha was carrying on warlike operations against a Power which was an Ally of Her Majesty's, and restoring that officer to the Navy? Had anything been placed on record which would justify this officer, who had been not only once but twice dismissed, but was now restored, and given the same retired pay as any other officer would receive if he had served the Government continuously. His restoration was one of those things which no Government which had to answer for it in the House of Commons would dare to do; but it seemed to him to be one of those things which had slipped through on the 24th June, when one Government was stepping out of Office and another entering it. Perhaps his hon. Friend below (Mr. Caine) would be able to tell them what was the reason for the restoration, and would be able to justify what had taken place. There was a very strong feeling in the country against pensions or retired allowances being granted, not for services rendered, but for no service at all, and for reasons which were yet unexplained. For 22 years Hobart Pasha had done no service whatever for the country, and for 14 years his name had been removed from the Navy List; and now he was not only restored to the Navy with the rank of Vice Admiral, but he was put on the pension list as if he had been continuously serving Her Majesty. He hoped they would get some explanation of those matters. Of course, he was quite aware that occasionally some of those things slipped through unknown: but he thought it was his duty to bring the matter before the House of Commons. Not only was this a case in which the retired pay was given without service, but it was one in which the recipient had never attained higher rank than that of Captain, and yet he had been given the rank and retired pay of a Vice Admiral. Not only had he done no service for Her Majesty during the last 22 years, but he had been employed in illegal pursuits—blockade running in America, and violating the Foreign Enlistment Act in Europe. He had been guilty of a gross breach of law and of Naval Regulations. He was not surprised, therefore, that when the matter was originally brought before the notice of Her Majesty's Government, and that it was found that Hobart Pasha's conduct had been illegal, he was removed from the service of Her Majesty; but, notwithstanding this, they found that he was again engaged in operations against a Power with whom Her Majesty was still on friendly terms—the Emperor of Russia. The conduct of Russia in the Afghan affair, which was—

MR. PULESTON

rose to Order, and desired to know whether it was competent for the hon. Gentleman to discuss the conduct of Russia on this Vote?

THE CHAIRMAN

said, that on a Vote for Reserve Pay it was certainly travelling away from the Question to discuss the conduct of Russia.

SIR GEORGE CAMPBELL

said, he was discussing the question from the point of view of simple justice to the British taxpayer, and he thought those principles had been violated on the present occasion. This officer was not only receiving pay from the British taxpayer, but he was also receiving pay from the Turkish Government. Under those circumstances, he certainly had no claim to be reinstated, and reinstated so as to secure a pension, while still receiving pay from the Turkish Government. His position was nominally that of an officer in the Turkish Navy; but it was very well known that he was employed by the Sultan to agitate his cause in this country.

MR. PULESTON

rose to Order, and asked whether the hon. Member was justified in making such a statement? There were some of them who thought that Hobart Pasha's position was and had been of great advantage to this country.

THE CHAIRMAN

said, he did not think the hon. Member was out of Order. He was stating reasons why this grant should not be allowed. There was nothing disorderly in the hon. Member's remarks. He was stating his views with regard to Hobart Pasha; but it did not follow that his views were correct.

SIR GEORGE CAMPBELL

That was the real object of Hobart Pasha's mission, and still, at the same time, be was receiving the retired pay from Her Majesty. He did not know whether it was for personal gain; but he knew that Hobart Pasha had for a whole series of years been engaged in illegal pursuits which conflicted with the interests of this country, and he thought the Committee was entitled to some explanation.

THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (Lord GEORGE HAMILTON)

said, he was sorry that his hon. Friend had introduced this question, and the animus which he had exhibited, and which, he was bound to say, the hon. Member was not justified in using. The hon. Gentleman objected to the political character of Hobart Pasha; but it must be remembered that he was a man of strong character, and he (Lord George Hamilton) was not aware that he had ever done anything of which any man need be ashamed. Admiral Hobart Pasha was a distinguished naval officer, and in that position he had been remarkable for some of the most daring and gallant acts which bad ever been performed at sea. As to the recent reinstatement he could give no explanation, as it had taken place under the late Government; but it appeared in this case that he had been placed on the Navy List in the position in which he would have been if he bad not been struck off in 1877. The matter now came before the Committee upon an Order in Council drawn up by the late Government. It had been considered by the Council and also by the Admiralty—by a body of men acting for the Naval Government of this country, who had to consider whether a distinguished naval officer should or should not be placed on the Retired Pay List. After coming to the conclusion that he should be placed upon the List, it seemed to him that it would be a slur upon that Office, and harsh to the officer in question, if the Committee should refuse to agree with them. After the determination that they had come to, he did hope that the Committee would support the late Government in what they had done.

SIR WILFRID LAWSON

said, it I was quite clear that the late Government had reinstated Hobart Pasha; but they had given no single reason why they had done so. He thought the Committee was entitled to some explanation from the Members of the late Government.

SIR JOHN HAY

wished to supplement what had been said by the noble Lord the First Lord of the Admiralty (Lord George Hamilton). Ever since the year 1840 there had always been an English naval officer at the head of the Turkish Fleet. Several distinguished naval officers of this country had occupied the position with the assent of the English Government. Sir Baldwin Walker was appointed before the Syrian War of 1840. Admiral Slade succeeded Admiral Walker, who in turn was succeeded by Hobart Pasha. It was true that this last appointment was at first made irregularly, and without the sanction of the British Government. It happened that Hobart Pasha was on a visit to his brother in Constantinople when he accepted the appointment; but it was afterwards confirmed by the Admiralty, although, owing to the irregularity, his pay was deferred. In 1873, however, ho was regularly appointed. In 1876 he was removed from the British Navy List, in deference to Russian susceptibilities. But no one could blame Hobart Pasha for refusing to desert his post because his employers were at war with Russia. As a matter of fact, Hobart Pasha was doing his duty to the satisfaction of his own Government as well as to the satisfaction of the Government who were immediately employing him; and it would be unfair, under those circumstances, if he did not receive the same treatment as his two distinguished predecessors, now that Turkey and Russia were at peace.

SIR ROBERT PEEL

said, the speech of the right hon. and gallant Admiral (Sir John Hay) was rather an argument in favour of what had fallen from the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy (Sir George Campbell), because the cases he had cited were distinctly different to that now before the Committee. Admirals Slade and Walker had accepted their appointments with the sanction of their own Government, whereas Hobart Pasha accepted the appointment without the consent of the British Government. No doubt, Hobart Pasha was a very distinguished man. He know him personally; but the Committee ought to have a proper explanation of the reasons which had induced the late Government to make this new departure. They ought to know from the hon. Member for Scarborough (Mr. Caine) what were the reasons why this most unusual pension for life had been given. They were bound to have some explanation, and ho challenged the hon. Gentleman to rise in his place and state what were the reasons why they should give Hobart Pasha £365 a-year.

MR. CAINE

said, it was done on the recommendation of the Foreign Office, and he was quite unable to give any explanation of it.

SIR GEORGE CAMPBELL

said, the statement they had just heard was no answer at all. The Committee were entitled to some explanation as to why the original decision of the Government in regard to Hobart Pasha had not been adhered to. The noble Lord had stated that the matter had been decided by the late Board of Admiralty; but they had a Member of the late Board before them, and he had said he knew nothing about the matter. Therefore, he begged to move to report Progress.

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

LORD CLAUD HAMILTON

suggested to the noble Lord at the head of the Admiralty (Lord George Hamilton) that after what had taken place he should not oppose the Motion, but should allow them an opportunity of getting an explanation from the late Government.

THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY

pointed out that this Vote did not contain any provision for Admiral Hobart Pasha's pay, as the Order in Council was made subsequently to the preparation of the Estimates. He hoped that the Vote would, therefore, be allowed to pass; and he would undertake, if the hon. Gentleman desired to raise the question, that the Report of this Vote should be taken at such a time as he would be able to raise it.

SIR GEORGE CAMPBELL

said: he was willing to accept that arrangement.

SIR ROBERT PEEL

wished to point out that it was a most extraordinary thing—

THE CHAIRMAN

Does the right hon. Baronet desire to address me on a question of Order?

SIR ROBERT PEEL

No.

THE CHAIRMAN

Then he cannot continue the discussion on the question of Hobart Pasha's pay.

SIR ROBERT PEEL

said, it was a most extraordinary thing that the late Civil Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. Caine) knew nothing about the matter, although he was a Member of the late Board.

SIR GEORGE CAMPBELL

asked the Chairman whether he could arrange for the Report of this Vote being taken at a convenient time?

THE CHAIRMAN

said, he had no power in that matter. It was only within his province to bring up the Report of Supply, and he had no power to make arrangements with regard to the matter.

THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY

said, he would undertake to make arrangements with the hon. Member, so that he should have an opportunity of bringing the matter forward on Report.

SIR CHARLES W. DILKE

undertook to bring the matter before the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. Gladstone), who, no doubt, if he knew the circumstances, would give an explanation.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

Original Question put, and agreed to.

(15.) £905,200, Military Pensions and Allowances.

(16.) £330,300, Civil Pensions and Allowances.

(17.) £210,000, Extra Estimate for Services not Naval.—Freight, &c, on Account of the Army Department.

GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOUR

said, he begged to call the attention of the noble Lord to the fact that the Vote contained charges that ho (Sir George Balfour) proposed to transfer to the Army; and, in return, the cost of naval guns and equipments would be transferred to the Navy Estimates.

Vote agreed to.

Resolutions to be reported To-morrow.

Committee to sit again upon Friday.