§ VISCOUNT SIDMOUTHasked Her Majesty's Government, Whether they intend to institute any inquiry respecting the circumstances which have occasioned several of the recently constructed vessels of Her Majesty's Navy to fail in fulfilling the purposes for which they were originally designed? He referred in particular to the Impérieuse and Warspite, declaring that they were incapable of carrying more than enough coal for two days' steaming at full speed, that they had had their masts taken out of them, and that they would not carry the heavy guns it was originally intended to put into them. Those ships were admitted failures; and he desired to know, whe- 180 ther the Government would take the same course with regard to them that they had taken in connection with the bent swords and bayonets, and issue a searching inquiry into the matter. He also wished to know; Whether the alterations considered necessary in the steering arrangements of Her Majesty's ships Ajax and Agamemnon had proved satisfactory? The blame for the system which had produced such mischievous and expensive results to the country, so far as he could make out, was due to a most pernicious act on the part of a former First Lord of the Admiralty, Mr. Childers, who procured an Order in Council, by means of which the decision on the whole question of the construction of ships was taken away from the Board of Admiralty, and vested between the Chief Constructor and the First Lord of the Admiralty.
§ LORD ELPHINSTONE (A LORD in WAITING)said, that the Question was put in a different form from that of which the noble Viscount (Viscount Sidmouth) had given him private Notice. The information asked for was of a very technical character, but he was, on behalf of the Admiralty, anxious to give all that he could in answer to Questions which might be put to him. With reference to the Warspite and the Impérieuse, these ships were designed in 1881, but not launched till 1884. Had the original weights been adhered to the ships would have come out as designed, but during the three years occupied in construction several improvements were effected in naval ordnance and many alterations made in the weights originally intended to be carried. Quick-firing guns and the latest designs in machinery were introduced, and the ships' complements increased, all of which added very considerably to the weights. Then, again, the original weight of coal to be carried was 400 tons. Although she has a coal-carrying capacity for 1,130 tons the present Board had decided that they should carry 900 tons. The consumption of coal when the vessel was going at full speed, would, however, lessen the draught by 4in. each day, and the daily consumption of provisions would still further lighten the draught. Of the Admiral class, the Collingwood was the only ship completed, and if the full weights that she was capable of carrying were on board, she would be 7½ inches deeper than was in- 181 tended, bringing the top of the armour belt within 1 foot 10½ inches of the water line. In this case also, however, there would be a daily decreace of draught of 4in. The noble Viscount wished for an inquiry—an inquiry into what? Into the reason why the ships in question had failed to fulfil the purpose for which they were originally designed. The reason was well known; it was that different weights were put into the ships over and above the legend weights The alteration in procedure and the new regulations contained in the Appendix of the Statement of the noble Lord the First Lord of the Admiralty (Lord George Hamilton) would prevent the repetition of any of the alleged defects or miscalculations to which allusion had been made. The Government did not therefore propose to institute any inquiry. Then the noble Viscount had called attention to Mr. Childers's Order in Council of 1869, and asked how far that Order implicated the First Lord and the Chief Constructor. The Chief Constructor was answerable to the Controller, to whom it referred. The Controller was to be responsible to the First Lord of the Admiralty for so much of the business as referred to the material of the Navy—that was to say, building, repair of ships, guns, and naval stores. With regard to the Impérieuse and the Warspite, as a matter of fact the general principles of these two ships had been discussed and approved by the entire Board of Admiralty of 1881, but how far the Board have been consulted as to the details of additional weight, &c, he was unable to say. He did not know whether the noble Viscount had read the debate on the Naval Estimates in the other House, but if he had he might have noticed that Lord Charles Beresford, one of the Lords of the Admiralty, speaking on the very subject of that Order in Council, said that it was not in force at the present moment. In the Appendix to the Naval Estimates the noble Viscount would find the following words:—
1. Cases having recently been brought to the notice of my Lords in which the immersion of a ship when complete for sea will be seriously and prejudicially affected by reason of introduction during construction of additions and alterations to the hull, machinery, complement, armament, &c, the procedure hereafter defined is to be strictly observed. 2. When a design for a ship is required, the Controller will furnish the 182 Board with a general idea of the class of vessel required. 3. The Controller will, after conferring with the First Naval Lord, and obtaining his written approval as to the speed, armament, complement, and sail power, if any, instruct the Director of Naval Construction to prepare a sketch design for consideration, embodying such features as may have been decided upon by the First Naval Lord and the Controller. 4. The Director of Naval Construction, after conferring with and obtaining the opinion in writing of the Director of Naval Ordnance and the Engineer-in-Chief as to the armament and machinery respectively, is to prepare a sketch which shall be submitted to the Controller, who will bring the same before the Board. 5. If the sketch design is generally approved by the Board, orders will be given by the Controller that the design is to be worked out in detail, or modified with a view to its ultimate adoption. (The sketch design will be prepared in accordance with the following Board Minute of September 21,1886, relating to load draught.)6. The Director of Naval Construction will, in consultation with the Director of Naval Ordnance and Engineer-in-Chief, complete the design and submit it with a full and careful description of the expected qualities and capabilities of the ship for the concurrence of the Controller, by whom it will be sent to the secretary for circulation to the several members of the Board, before being considered at a Board meeting. After a design has been approved by the Board, and has received the Board's stamp, not any alteration or addition either in hull, machinery, armament, complement of men, boats or stores, or other details, shall be permitted without the concurrence of the Board. 7. The Controller shall be responsible that not any deviation from the designs approved by the Board shall take place which would in any way affect the immersion of the ship when completed for service.") — Board Minute, February 15, 1887.)He thought that he had answered all the Questions put to him by the noble Viscount.
§ THE EARL OF NORTHBROOKsaid, that, as the noble Viscount (Viscount Sidmouth) had alluded to the Board of Admiralty which had been in Office while he (the Earl of Northbrook) was First Lord of the Admiralty, he wished to make a few remarks on what had been said. With regard to what he had said about the Impérieuse and the Warspite, he thought the noble Viscount had been very much misinformed when he described them as failures. The noble Lord (Lord Elphinstone) had explained the facts of the case, and he (the Earl of Northbrook) would refer the noble Viscount to a paper which had been read at the Institution of Naval Architects by Sir Nathaniel Barnaby, going into the whole of the circumstances connected with the alteration of the weights of the Impérieuse 183 and Warspite. The subject was of too technical a character to be usefully or profitably discussed in the House; but he challenged the noble Viscount to answer Sir Nathaniel Barnaby's paper. The slight increased immersion of these ships had been caused by alterations made during their progress, and had greatly improved them as fighting ships. These alterations had been in the machinery and in the armament of the ships, the armament being heavier than at first designed, and the machinery having been much improved. He would point out that within the last three or four years great changes had been effected in the construction of marine steam engines; and it was absolutely necessary, if the Admiralty wished to have the most powerful ships that could be put afloat, to utilize all these improvements in machinery. Therefore the Board of Admiralty of that time would not have been fit to hold their posts if, through any technical or pedantic adherence to the original designs, they had failed to take advantage of any improvement that had been made in the last few years. Lord George Hamilton had written in a Report which was upon their Lordships' Table, that, with the exception of being more deeply immersed, the Impérieuse had fully realized the expectations of her designers, and that she was one of the most powerful ironclad cruisers afloat. The statements of the noble Viscount, therefore, were not borne out by those best qualified to speak on the subject. With regard to Sir Nathaniel Barnaby and the Constructing Staff of the Admiralty, it was only due to that distinguished public servant to say publicly, as one under whom Sir Nathaniel Barnaby had served, that he thought that the country was greatly indebted to that gentleman for the ability with which he had designed the more recent types of fighting vessels for Her Majesty's Navy. He believed that those who had paid attention to naval affairs of late years, for the most part, attached as great importance to the element of speed in ironclads as to any other quality which these ships possessed; and if there was one point more than any other on which they might feel satisfaction, it was that all the ships that had recently been designed had on their trials realized a greater speed than was expected. The Impérieuse and Warspite 184 had realized 17 knots instead of 16; the same satisfactory result had been shown in the ships of the Admiral class; and in the Sanspareil and Renown, he believed the speed would be at least a knot greater than that calculated in the original designs. For this the greatest credit was due to Mr. James Wright, the chief engineering adviser of the Admiralty, for the sound and practical advice which he had given with respect to contracts made for the machinery of Her Majesty's ships, by which they had been able to take advantage of the great improvements which had been introduced in marine engines during the last five or six years. The noble Viscount had said something about the constitution of the Board of Admiralty. He (the Earl of Northbrook) did not intend to go into that thorny question at that hour of the evening; but he would say that, during the whole time he had been at the Admiralty, there had been the fullest and freest opportunity given to the Naval Lords of the Admiralty to express their views as to the construction of ships, and that it was not the case that he, as a civilian, had in any way endeavoured to push forward his own private opinions upon that technical subject against those of his professional advisers.