§ MR. LINDSAYcalled the attention of the right hon. Baronet the First Lord of the Admiralty, to the rules laid down by the Admiralty for the guidance of parties having business to transact at the Transport Department, Somerset House. Much inconvenience had resulted from the rule laid down forbidding verbal communications and requiring that all business should be conducted in writing. He knew of no public department in any country in which such a regulation existed, and he could point at this moment to a dozen private establishments where much more business was done than in this department, and where verbal communications took place as a matter of course, and with much advantage to the rapid transaction of business. He trusted that the right hon. Baronet would look into the matter, and would put an end to a rule which acted as a great obstacle in the way of those who had to transact business with the Transport Department.
§ SIR JOHN PAKINGTONregretted extremely that inconvenience should have arisen to any person from the arrangement adverted to. Until he saw the notice of the hon. Gentleman on the paper, he was not aware that any ground of complaint existed with regard to the mode of transacting business at the Admiralty. He had, however, made inquiries on the subject, and he must admit that he thought the existing arrangements were not of that 847 simple and convenient nature which those concerned in the shipping trade of this country had a right to expect. For some years strangers going there had been in the habit of entering indiscriminately the rooms where the clerks were engaged, and the result was a great impediment to public business. To such a magnitude had this evil grown, that when the great pressure consequent upon the war arose, it became necessary to correct it. So far as he had been able to investigate the circumstance, however, it did not appear that the inconvenience had been remedied with the uniformity that it ought to have been. He could not, of course, consent to the indiscriminate admission of gentlemen to the Admiralty; but he admitted that those who went upon business were entitled to personal intercourse with the heads of the departments to which their business related. He also admitted that persons who went on business ought not to be exposed to the inconvenience of having to fill up unnecessary forms. The notice to which the hon. Gentleman had called attention, however, was not the only regulation at the Admiralty on the subject. There was another established by the Adjutant General, in the office over which he presided, which had been in force for several years, and which, while it had remedied the evil that before existed, had not led to any inconvenience. It was his intention that that regulation, or one similar to it, should be adopted uniformly throughout the different departments of the Admiralty.
§ MR. CROSSLEYbore testimony to the inconvenience which resulted from the existing system, and expressed his satisfaction that the right hon. Gentleman had turned his attention to the subject.