COMMITTEE MOVED FOR.

HC Deb 12 June 1860 vol 159 cc334-68

ADMIRAL DUNCOMBE

said, he rose to move for a Select Committee to inquire into the Constitution of the Board of Admiralty, and the various duties devolving thereon. He was not insensible to the responsibility attaching to the course which he was about to take, or the differences of opinion existing as to the constitution and duties of the Board of Admiralty. It was not his intention to make any observations which could be supposed to imply a censure upon the mode in which either the present or the past Boards of Admiralty had discharged their functions. His endeavour would be merely to show that some alteration and modification might be made with a view of strengthening the naval administration of the country. He believed that the Gentlemen composing the various Boards of Admiralty had all endeavoured, as far as circumstances permitted, to do their duty. Their term of office was so short that, as "new brooms swept clean," they would naturally endeavour to discharge their duties faithfully. It was with the system, and not the individuals, that the faults lay to which he desired to call attention. The various articles which had appeared in the newspapers of every shade of politics, adverting to the shortcomings, the miscalculations, and the enormous outlay in the Admiralty department, could not fail to have attracted attention. Formerly, and for the many years that he had the honour of a seat in that House, the Naval Estimates, with the exception of the statements made by the Government officials, and the remarks of those naval officers who might happen to be Members of Parliament, were allowed to pass without comment. But at present the interest taken in the subject was very great. His right hon. Friend the Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Henley), the hon. Member for East Surrey (Mr. Briscoe), the hon. Member for Ripon (Mr. Warre), and other hon. Members, none of them connected with the navy, had manifested great interest in the Naval Administration of the country. In fact, there existed throughout the country a desire that our Naval Administration should be as perfect as it was possible for human wisdom to render it. Whatever might have been the causes of this increased interest in the subject, whether it had been created by the events of the Russian war, by the complaints made of the transport department, by the recent shipment of a force to China, by the large and inevitably expensive repairs of our steam fleet, or by the discovery of the defective state of the gunboats—certain it was that a great desire had been awakened for inquiry into our naval system, and to remodel it in accordance with the requirements of the present day. Committees having been granted in reference to the transport service, and the construction of the gunboats, it would be unpardonable in him to occupy the time of the House on those points; but he might express his surprise that more effective supervision had not been exercised, and that if the time of the dockyard officers had been too fully occupied, the services of officers who, from their experience afloat, were good judges of materials and workmanship, had not been rendered available for this purpose. When, some short time ago, an hon. Gentleman moved for leave to introduce a Bill relating to the construction of piers and harbours, the noble Lord the Secretary to the Admiralty opposed it, on the ground that the Board was already overworked. That, he thought, was not a valid reason for the opposition. The different departments, if properly organized, could never be overworked; for the strength would be increased or diminished, as circumstances required. If the Admiralty were, nautically speaking, "undermanned," it was necessary to adapt the institution to the requirements of the country. In 1832 the right hon. Gentleman, the Member for Carlisle (Sir James Graham) when First Lord of the Admiralty, abolished the Navy Board. Great evils had admittedly arisen from the conflict of authority, and he did not question either the policy or the ability of the right hon. Gentleman. Affairs had gone on smoothly for a number of years, as long as there was no pressure on the department; but during the last six or eight years, when the reconstruction of the navy, and the difficulty of manning the fleet, had forced themselves upon our attention; and when the novelties which modern science had introduced into every department, entailed the necessity of increased supervision and expense, it became evident that the machinery of the Board of Admiralty must undergo extension and adaptation to the altered circumstances. It was with the object of discovering what improvements or modifications were required, and with a view of accommodating the system to the sentiments of the nation in the present day, that he brought forward this Motion. The noble Lord might say he had no right to make objections, without being able to show that what he proposed would be an improvement. If his opinions had any weight in the Committee, he thought the suggestions he should be disposed to make would be improvements of the present system. He would recommend that the First Lord of the Admiralty should be a Minister of Marine, and be placed on the same footing as the Minister of War. Of course he would have a seat in the Cabinet, and would conduct the political and diplomatic part of the business connected with that office. The Board of Admiralty should be entirely a Naval Board; he said this without any disparagement of the present civilians on it; he knew from experience that many points came before them for decision, on which decision was very difficult, without some knowledge of naval matters. He would also make it a sine qua non that the Comptroller of the Navy should have a seat at the Board of Admiralty, and be the immediate means of communication between his own department and the Board. It should be borne in mind that the largest expenditure took place in the Comptroller's department. Ships were ordered to be built, and great outlay might be incurred without the Board, as a Board, knowing any thing about it; and he ventured to say that it frequently happened that the first know-lodge which the Lords of the Admiralty obtained of a certain ship—the Algiers, for instance, being launched, or the Princess Royal laid down on the same slips the next day—was from seeing the announcement in the newspapers a few days afterwards. That was not as it ought to be. It could not occur if the Comptroller had a seat in the Board, and laid the business of his department regularly before it. All matters relating to building ships, and their steam machinery, should be brought immediately under the notice of the Board, and all representations of the Comptroller could be directly considered by it. As the Comptroller was at present overworked, he should have under him a Board of Construction, composed of three individuals, thoroughly competent to superintend the building of ships, who might prevent an enormous expenditure on certain vessels, and their inefficiency after being lengthened and altered. As to the expenditure in that way, it would be curious to know what had been spent on the Princess Royal, which had been commanded by the noble Lord opposite, for repairs and alterations. He should like to know what had been the expenditure on that ship since the noble Lord had hauled down his pennant. The expenses of the screw fleet had been enormous, especially through straining at sea. His opinion was that although steam must of course be used when expedition was required, yet that in such cases as the voyage to Lisbon, which was, in familiar language, merely a man-of-war cruise, the ships might have gone under sail, and not have incurred the strain arising from the forcing such enormous masses through the water by means of the screw. Another cause of complaint, and which required investigation, was the building of the steam rams, which he believed would be of no more use than the old Trusty, which had just had a shot sent through her sides. He believed that the cost of these vessels, nearly £600,000, would be entirely thrown away. Having stated his views, he did not wish to trespass at any length on the time of the House; but he thought the present was a very favourable moment for considering a change of system. The noble Duke at the head of the Admiralty had had experience of the House of Commons, and his calm discrimination was such, he was sure he would consider fairly any suggestion on this subject. The First Naval Lord (Admiral Dundas) was unrivalled in the list of officers in which he stood. There was the noble Lord the Secretary of the Admiralty, who had with so much candour, good nature, and talent conducted its business this Session, and the noble Viscount, himself the head of the Administration, had at all times shown a deep interest in the naval affairs of the country. He proposed the Committee solely with the object of improving naval administration, and not in any way as a party question. If any crisis should unfortunately occur, England would expect much of its navy; he hoped it would find every man ready to do his duty; and that every man in office had already done his duty also. The hon. and gallant Member concluded by moving the appointment of a Select Committee to inquire into the constitution of the Board of Admiralty, and the duties devolving thereon.

Motion made and Question proposed,—"That a Select Committee be appointed to inquire into the constitution of the Board of Admiralty, and the various Duties devolving thereon."

LORD CLARENCE PAGET

Sir, I must give the hon. and gallant Member great credit for the tone of his observations; the spirit in which he had pointed out what he considered defects in the Administration of the Admiralty with a view to their removal was anything but unfriendly. I do not think it can be said of the present Board of Admiralty that it has been at all anxious to avoid inquiry into the various branches of the administration under their care, inasmuch as they have agreed to no less than four Committees and Commissions of Inquiry. I would remind the House that at this moment there is a Committee sitting on a very important branch of the Admiralty business—the Committee on the Piers and Harbours Bill. My hon. and gallant Friend is mistaken if he supposed that the Board is averse to that Bill. The Bill is for giving facilities for the erection of piers and harbours. It is one which has many things to recommend it, for there can be no doubt that if the vast expense of preliminary inquiries into such erections could be saved, a great service would be rendered to the public. I admit that I objected to the Bill; but the objection was not to its principles, but the details. A vast amount of work has already been thrown on the Board by the construction of piers and harbours, and it would add materially to that work, and be very unadvisable to impose upon it the responsibility which now devolves on Select Committees of this House as to the construction of all the har- bours that may be required for the whole of the United Kingdom. I think the public would object to such powers being given to the Admiralty. That was my only objection to the Bill on Piers and Harbours. There is another Committee about to sit, also on an important branch of the Admiralty business—the transport of troops. The Committee was moved for by the hon. Member for Sunderland (Mr. Lindsay). From that inquiry I think much valuable information may result. There is another Committee carrying on an inquiry into the question of the gunboats. To the Motion for that Committee the Admiralty had no objections to offer, on the contrary, it thought the subject a very fair one for inquiry into by this House. All the difference of opinion between the Admiralty and the hon. Member for Sunderland was this—the Admiralty had, at the time the Motion was made, taken steps for commencing legal proceedings in reference to the gunboats, and thought till those proceedings were decided it would be unadvisable to prejudge the question by commencing an inquiry. I, for one, am glad that it has been appointed, for by its means all the parties concerned are likely to be dealt with in the best and fairest way. I have now pointed out three inquiries into business connected with the Admiralty, which are at present being prosecuted, and to the institution of no one of those inquiries has, I may add, the slightest opposition being offered by the Board. There has, moreover, been a Royal Commission appointed to investigate that vast department of the Admiralty relating to shipbuilding, to which my hon. and gallant Friend has alluded. That Commission will have a considerable amount of labour to go through in the discharge of its duties, and I need hardly say that it will receive from the Admiralty all the facilities which it is in its power to afford in their performance. I believe that great improvements may be effected as the result of the investigation, and I need scarcely assure the House that if I should be called upon to give evidence before it I shall do so with the utmost readiness and in the sincere hope that it may be productive of good. Here, then, as I have said, we have four important inquiries being prosecuted into the various branches of the Admiralty business, and that, too, with the full approbation of the Board; a fact which clearly proves that it does not shrink from the examination.

My hon. and gallant Friend, however, is not satisfied with what is taking place, but wishes that an inquiry into the constitution of the Admiralty itself should be instituted. Now, I would beg to remind him that an inquiry into the constitution of the War Office, and military departments is at present in progress, and that so far as I can learn from rumour there are many great authorities on the subject who would appear to be rather favourable to the assimilation of the constitution of the new office to a certain extent to that of the Admiralty. ["No, no!"] I speak merely from general rumour, but be that as it may, it is, I think, advisable to await the Report of this Committee, which has been charged with the duty of making inquiry into the management and control of the army, and from which, no doubt, many valuable hints as to both services may be gathered, before we take any step such as that which my hon. and gallant Friend seems to wish us to adopt. I may further observe that I did not gather from his remarks that he has any particular fault to find with the Admiralty beyond that which relates to the branches to which I have already alluded, so that all his subjects of complaint are already under inquiry. He would appear, indeed, to be of opinion that the navy should be governed exclusively by naval men.

ADMIRAL DUNCOMBE

I said I should like to see a Board composed of naval men and also a Board of Construction. I did not say that the First Lord should be a naval man.

LORD CLARENCE PAGET

—That sounds very well, and I am sure I need not say that I, as a naval man, have the highest respect for my brother officers, who, I think, would be found equal to the performance of their duties in any position in which they might be placed. I would, however, observe that the strictly naval duties of the Admiralty form but a small portion of the general business which it has to discharge. My hon. and gallant Friend seems to have overlooked the circumstance that it has a vast amount of business of a purely civil nature to perform; and, without troubling the House with any very great detail, I will endeavour to point out what are the civil duties which belong to the Admiralty, irrespective altogether of those purely naval duties, such, for instance, as the manning and disciplining the fleet. I would first mention its duties in connection with piers and harbours, and no one who has not been connected with the Admiralty can imagine the vast amount of business arising from the necessity of dealing with all the tidal waters of the United Kingdom. Now, business of this nature nobody, I imagine, can seriously contend to be beyond the capabilities of a civilian to transact. I may add, that until lately the Admiralty had also the entire of the duties connected with packets to perform duties from which it is now, however, very advantageously, as I think, relieved. I shall next proceed to advert to its civil duties in more immediate connection with the navy. First of all we are merchants. We purchase vast masses of raw material in the shape of timber, iron, copper, coals, and a variety of other articles. [An hon. MEMBER: But you do not sell.] Yes, we also sell sometimes, as in the case of old stores, for instance. We are in addition great manufacturers in almost every trade, from the construction of great anchors to the making of the minutest nail; some of the articles which we require being manufactured by contract, and many in our dockyards. We are shipbuilders on a very extensive scale in our dockyards, and we purchase vessels built by private contract, including engines, boilers, and "all the appurtenances thereunto belonging." These are matters, I may add, each of which is under the control of a particular Lord of the Admiralty; so that my hon. and gallant Friend is mistaken in supposing that the shipbuilding is not under special control. The fact is, that it is under the superintendence of the First Sea Lord, who is in daily communication with the Comptroller of the Navy, and is familiar with all those details to which the hon. and gallant Gentleman alluded. I must, however, admit that this suggestion of a Board of Construction has much in my mind to recommend it. Besides the civil functions of the Admiralty which I have enumerated, we are victuallers. We purchase an immense amount of provisions, not only for the navy but also for the army and other public departments. It is our duty to provide all the medical necessaries for the fleet as well as to supply them to all the distant stations. These are duties, as I think the House will admit, of a civil nature. In a scientific point of view we are astronomers, inasmuch as with us rests the preparation of all the scientific works for the guidance of mariners. We are hydrographers, inasmuch as we have to survey every sea all over the globe; and, finally, we are architects. It is our duty to construct vast docks, warehouses, bar racks, hospitals — in short, buildings o every description. Now, these are functions of a civil character, and I cannot concur with my hon. and gallant Friend in the opinion that the existence of a Board composed of exclusively naval men is necessary for their efficient discharge; while from my brief experience at the Admiralty, the working of which I have watched narrowly, and which I have compared with the Ordnance Board, to which I have had the honour to belong, as well as with others, I am disposed to think, that although it is far from perfect it possesses many advantages when the system is properly worked, which they do not enjoy. There are many who, no doubt, will say they object to the system of governing the navy by a Board—to those Gentlemen I would answer that the whole of the duties, to which I have adverted, together with a vast mass of other business to which I have not referred—are so interwoven one with the other, that if the heads of the several departments did not meet daily and discuss the various measures proposed to be carried into effect, you would have one member prosecuting works of which his colleagues would have no knowledge, and thus great inconvenience might be caused.

The Board of Admiralty has two very important principles belonging to it—one is, that it has the power of acting with suddenness and secrecy in all matters where suddenness and secrecy are required; and in all matters where deliberation or ventilation is necessary, the Board of Admiralty has equally the power of deliberating carefully on all matters which appear to call for careful deliberation. Take the military duties of the Board—no doubt I shall hear that if it were necessary to-morrow in time of war or trouble to act with promptitude, we have not the means of insuring such action at the command of the Admiralty. It is perfectly within the constitution of the Admiralty that the First Lord should order the movements of the fleet—he can take any steps he thinks requisite for the movements of the fleet. He also has in his hands a very important privilege, and when my gallant Friend means to touch the constitution of the Admiralty, I would have him to bear in mind that in the navy, from the beginning to the end, from the top to the bottom, with the exception of flag officers, and certain Board promotions for distinguished service—all promotions and ap- pointments to ships of every description are in the hands of the First Lord of the Admiralty. I would ask him would you place that extraordinary power in the hands of a naval man, or would promotions then fall into the hands of the Board? I am arguing in the dark. I do not know what my gallant Friend would wish. I only tell him what is the present constitution of the Board of Admiralty, and how difficult it will be to alter it. I wish him to bear this in mind that, whereas in the army promotion goes by purchase, and in certain branches of it by seniority, in the navy the whole of it is by choice. Now, I maintain that if you were to put that in the hands of a naval man, you would be running a very great risk. I am far from saying or supposing that there are not many naval officers who would conduct that patronage and the business connected with it with the strictest impartiality. But I do maintain that we naval officers who have spent our lives in the service must necessarily have a great number of personal friends and followers, and, if you had for the First Lord a naval man, he would be pressed by many considerations of that nature which he is entirely clear of now. I would add—but this is my private opinion, not as Secretary to the Admiralty—I think it is of very great importance that he should be a Peer, in order to be far away from any pressure as regards Parliamentary influence. I am stating frankly my opinion in regard to these matters. A very strong opinion has been given lately in favour of Board meetings of the officers of the dockyards, by the Committee on Dockyard Economy. It was found that there was not sufficient personal communication between the officers of the dockyards, and it was recommended that they should have morning meetings at the dockyards precisely similar to Board meetings, with the view of arrangements for carrying out in common the duties of the office. If such meetings are necessary in the yards they are equally so at the Admiralty. I have now touched as far as I could on the objections which have been and may be urged to the present constitution of the Board of Admiralty. I hope that my hon. and gallant Friend, having given his observations to the House, will not push this matter to a division. Taking all things into consideration, having several inquiries going on at this moment into various branches of the Admiralty, having got a very important inquiry going on as to the constitution and government of the army, the Report of which may be of use hereafter, especially considering the time of the year at which this Motion is brought on, I am afraid I must, on the part of the Government, oppose the Motion of my gallant Friend.

MR. BERNAL OSBORNE

I think my noble and gallant Friend, the Secretary to the Admiralty, has altogether misunderstood the speech and the purport of the Motion of the hon. and gallant Admiral on the other side. I must say, I never heard a more practical or more sensible statement made by any naval officer in this House than has been made by the hon. and gallant Admiral. The gallant Admiral never raised any question about altering the system of promotion by the Admiralty; he never made any suggestion that the First Lord of the Admiralty must necessarily be a naval man; he expressly, as I understood, guarded himself against any recommendation of that kind. His Motion is a very simple one; it is for a Select Committee to inquire into the constitution of the Board of Admiralty—as simple a Motion as could be brought forward by any man. And what is the answer of the noble Lord? He says that already, so much is the Board of Admiralty suspected by the House and the country that they have been obliged to agree to four Commissions or Committees of inquiry in regard to it. The gallant Admiral steps forward and says your constitution is not satisfactory, give us a Select Committee to inquire into the constitution of the Board, and the noble Secretary enumerates all the trades which the Board performs. That is just what the country says, the Board is "Jack of all trades and master of none." The noble Lord says, "Here are all these Commissions of Inquiry." Yes, you are not trusted; and if you are not trusted, let me ask who is to blame? The noble Lord himself has done more to discredit the Board of Admiralty in the House and the country than any other Member of the profession. Did I not hear the noble Lord in the last Parliament impeach the Admiralty for having wasted £11,000,000 in five years? and having made that statement, and having adhered to it, although he could not prove it, the noble Lord ought, of all people in the world, to have seconded the Motion of the gallant Admiral for a Committee of Inquiry. I shall support the Motion of the gallant Admiral. I think it will do a very great deal of good, and disabuse the public mind of many accusations that have been made. Let us have the Comptroller of the Navy before that Committee; and that is the way to get at the truth of the charges. The charges made against that excellent and upright officer have never been retracted to this day. When the noble Secretary thus attempts to trail a red herring across the path of the gallant Admiral, and speaks of the Board being merchants, chemists, and sail makers, I say that is no answer to the Motion at all; it is one of the very best reasons for the inquiry. He tells us we have got four Commissions; well, I say, go a step further; we want a fifth; give us an inquiry into the fountain head of all this mischief, the Board of Admiralty itself. With regard to the present constitution of the Admiralty the noble Lord is so anxious to remove the suspicions of an unjust tampering with promotion, that he wishes to remove the First Lord altogether from the public view —he wishes to make him a sort of Japanese First Lord—never to be seen. I do not agree with that view. But the gallant Admiral has made an excellent suggestion with regard to the Comptroller; he is in a most anomalous position. He is one of the most eminent officers in the whole service, and yet he has not a seat or a voice at the Board. Then, again, the noble Lord tells us that matters of shipbuilding are discussed at the Board. If that be the case, things are greatly altered since I was at the Admiralty. At that time nothing about shipbuilding ever came before the Board. The noble Lord said the First Lord was in daily communication with the Comptroller, but all the information he derived from him is strictly private and confidential. The whole business is done in the First Lord's room, and I defy the noble Lord to produce a single instance of a Board meeting at which anything was done relating to shipbuilding. The noble Lord asks what are you going to do? He says if you take one stone out of the edifice of the Board of Admiralty, the whole will fall to pieces. I say if it cannot bear examination it ought to fall to pieces. I am surprised the noble Lord should take this line, because, if I remember, on a former occasion he used very strong language as to the necessity of inquiring into the Board of Admiralty.

LORD CLARENCE PAGET

I beg the hon. Gentleman's pardon—I never said anything about that.

MR. BERNAL OSBORNE

Why, did the noble Lord not say that there had been eleven millions sterling wasted? Then he ought to support this Motion. I know there are people at the Admiralty who are very anxious for inquiry; and unless you do reconstitute that Board in a more satisfactory form you will be always liable to have these charges made, but not substantiated, for they never have been substantiated. I am sure that one of the recommendations of the gallant Admiral—namely, giving the Comptroller a seat at the Board, would introduce a most beneficial change. The business of that officer has attained such gigantic proportions that no single person, however able, can be equal to its discharge. It is not fair to Sir Baldwin Walker that he should hold so responsible a position without having a seat at the Board, and without having further assistance. The Navy Estimates are enormous, but the country will not grudge them if they are well administered. With a view to the better working of the system I have no hesitation in supporting this Motion.

COLONEL DICKSON

said, the noble Lord had stated, as a reason for opposing the Motion, that there was a Commission already sitting in "another place," and that he had heard in the street there was some idea of that Commission issuing a Report in favour of assimilating the control over the army to the same kind of Board which now ruled over the navy. On such a decision he for one would look with the greatest dismay. He had seen with deep regret the changes that were attempted to he introduced into the administration of the army. All these so-called improvements went in the wrong direction, and he should be very sorry if the command of the army were entrusted to a body like the Board of Admiralty. He had spent much time on different naval stations, and mixed much with naval men, but he had never gathered from a single naval officer that he approved the system of management pursued under the Admiralty. The noble Lord had himself given a strong reason for granting that inquiry. The number of the duties imposed upon the Board of Admiralty far exceeded what any Board could possibly discharge. An inquiry was, therefore, needed to see whether many of those duties might not be committed to separate departments with advantage to the service and economy to the public. No man could manage the affairs of a department so well as those who were directly interested in them; and if a naval officer was at the head of the Board he would fulfil its duties and distribute its appointments with as much justice and impartiality as any civilian, and even with less regard to family connection and more regard to professional qualifications than had been recently exhibited in some branches of the public service. He must, however, dissent from the statement that the noble Lord had at all contributed to bring discredit on the Admiralty. He should regret if the noble Lord allowed the sweets of office to seal those lips which had formerly uttered such vehement denunciations on the abuses existing in the navy; for he believed there was no man better fitted to confer honour and dignity on the gallant profession to which he belonged than was the noble Lord the Secretary to the Admiralty.

SIR JOHN PAKINGTON

The hon. Member for Liskeard (Mr. B. Osborne) has stated, I must say with a great deal of truth, that the disposition which has existed in this House of late to distrust the conduct of the Board of Admiralty may be attributed in no very inconsiderable measure to the language of my noble Friend opposite (Lord C. Paget) in the last Session of Parliament. Although the noble Lord's motives were very laudable, the part he took and the allegations and imputations he made did a great deal to excite doubts in this House with regard to the mode in which the business of the Admiralty was conducted. I have never hesitated to express my regret at the course which the noble Lord then pursued, and at the allegations which he then brought forward — allegations which he never has substantiated, and which I have always believed are incapable of being substantiated, in the shape, at all events, in which he couched them. At the same time, I think he will admit that I have never refused to do justice to the frank and agreeable tone in which he has always fulfilled his official duties in this House as Secretary to the Admiralty; and I believe he has never deserved more credit for that tone than he does to-night, when speaking under some degree of personal difficulty, from the fact that he is not only the Secretary to the Admiralty, but also a naval officer. He is entitled, therefore, to praise for the calm, urbane, and dispassionate manner in which he has met the present Motion. I refer with considerable diffidence to this subject, because my official experience as First Lord was limited to less than a year and a-half; but I must frankly confess that my noble Friend has gone rather further in his estimate of the efficiency of the Board of Admiralty as an administrative machine than I am disposed to do. My experience impressed on my mind the conviction that theoretically the constitution of that Board might be improved. I think the suggestion of the gallant Admiral that it would be well for the Comptroller of the Navy to have a seat at the Board is an excellent one, and I doubt if it would not further improve the constitution of the Board if the Accountant General was also a member of it. Although I do not think the machinery of that Board is perfect, yet, having regard to the enormous amount of multifarious and complicated business which it has to transact, and the extreme difficulty of deciding in what shape that body ought to be constituted, I should be sorry to see such a question handed over to a Select Committee of this House, the great majority of whose members would probably be wholly inexperienced in the details of this important Department. But after the opinions that have been frequently expressed both in the last and in the present Parliament as to the necessity of some inquiry into the constitution of the Board of Admiralty I venture to suggest to the Government whether it might not be well for them to take upon themselves the consideration of that question. I am inclined to think it could be much better dealt with by the Government than by a Select Committee. But if the investigations of the Government should lead them to think that the matter ought to be further examined into, with a view of making any material changes in so complicated and important a machine, I would again suggest to them that the same course should be adopted with regard to the navy as was adopted with regard to the army, and that the inquiry into the constitution of the Board of Admiralty should be referred to a well selected Commission. I therefore hope the gallant Admiral will not press his Motion, but if he does I shall not be able to vote with him.

Notwithstanding the experience of the gallant Admiral for a few months at the Board of Admiralty I am bound to say that he has fallen into some mistake in matters of fact. The first statement which struck me was, that the First Lord only heard of a launch from reading the newspaper. [Admiral DUNCOMBE: I said the Board, as a Board, had no previous in- formation.] Well, if the gallant Admiral likes, that the Board only heard of the launch of a ship by reading in the newspapers of it having taken place some few days previously. With my experience, I can say that that is an entire error on the part of the gallant Admiral. While I was at the Admiralty no launch ever took place without due and ample notice being given in the most formal manner, sometimes to an extent which occurred to me was beyond the necessity of the case, and without the notice being read at the Board. But I only allude to this statement with regard to a ceremony comparatively unimportant for the purpose of noticing another statement upon a much more important subject. The gallant Admiral certainly implied, if he did not make the statement, and the statement was broadly and distinctly made by the hon. Member for Liskeard, that the question of shipbuilding is never discussed by the Board of Admiralty. [Mr. B. OSBORNE: Hear, hear!] I am sure the right hon. Baronet who was for some time First Lord of the Admiralty, and now holds the office of Secretary of State for India, will bear me out in saying that it is no more consistent with his experience than with mine. [Sir CHARLES Wood: Hear, hear!] I do not know what rule prevailed when the hon. Member for Liskeard was at the Admiralty, or when the gallant Admiral was a member of the Board. But this I know, that while I had the honour of a seat at the Board, the Comptroller of the Navy— the Surveyor of the Navy, as he was then —attended regularly on one clay in every week and went into every matter connected with shipbuilding which he was pleased to bring before us. He came as regularly as the heads of other departments, either at a Board at Somerset House or at the Admiralty, and he communicated upon all points connected with shipbuilding, the importance of which in the transactions of the Admiralty every one must admit. The hon. Gentleman said that the Board had no cognizance of the building of ships. [Mr. B. OSBORNE: Hear, hear!] I again say that no shipbuilding of importance, or of any extent, or of any class of vessels, was carried on without being discussed and decided upon by the Board while I had the honour of presiding over it. I state this in the most distinct manner. It appears to be a question of the difference of practice between one Board and another, rather than a question of the constitution of the Board, and of course I can only speak of the practice during the time I had the honour to hold office. The gallant Admiral fell into a considerable error with regard to the cost of the iron-plated ships. Perhaps the decision to build one of them was one of the most important decisions to which the late Board of Admiralty came, and I am glad to see that it has been followed up by the present Board. The gallant Admiral called them rams. They were never designed or intended as rams, but are, in fact, iron-cased ships, intended to resist shot, and, notwithstanding what he says of experiments made upon them, they must be far more capable of resisting shot than an ordinary wooden-sided ship. I trust and believe that they will be a valuable addition to the navy, but as to their costing £600,000 each, as the gallant Admiral has stated, I believe I am right in saving that that is much nearer the cost of the two, if it does not exceed it. I do not think the gallant Admiral distinctly stated it, but if he implied a doubt whether I had taken upon myself to give the important order for building the ship, or whether it was done by the Board, I can only say that one of the last things I should have thought of doing would have been to give an order of such magnitude and importance without the knowledge and sanction of the Board with whom I had the honour of acting. I do not think that I need detain the House any longer. I have explained some statements which might lead to a misapprehension. I have stated the views which I entertain on the general question, and under the circumstances I am not able to vote in favour of the Motion.

MR. LINDSAY

said, though, when he entered the House that evening, he had not made up his mind what course to take, he thought, from the statements on both sides, that he could have no doubt about voting for inquiry. It was evident there was something wrong in the administration of the navy, otherwise why should the Admiralty resist inquiry? That inquiry was needed was further shown by the able speech of the noble Lord, by which it appeared that the variety of duties to be discharged by the Board was so great, that he could not conceive how any Board, constituted like the Admiralty, could conduct all those vast and various interests with advantage to the public. There was also another important point. They were expending something like £13,000,000 on the navy, and there was a common impression on men's minds that, with different management, £10,000,000 might be made to go as far as the £13,000,000. He believed that the question of building large ships was never brought under the attention of the Board, but was left entirely to the Comptroller of the Navy, and it was in those things that the large expenditure was incurred. The Comptroller ought, he thought, to have a seat at the Board, and all these matters should be brought regularly under their notice. The right hon. Baronet (Sir John Pakington) had said he should not vote for the inquiry; but if the question before the House had been simply for inquiry, he would not have supported it; his difficulty was, whether the inquiry should be gone into by the Government or by a Commission. It came then to the question, should the inquiry be carried out by a Commission. To that he (Mr. Lindsay) said decidedly, no. The House and the House alone could furnish the proper tribunal to inquire into such a subject as the constitution of the Admiralty. Surely among the 654 Members of the House, there could be found fifteen Gentlemen quite as competent to inquire into that question as any outside it. With regard to the charges which had frequently been made in that House against the noble Lord (Lord C. Paget), he thought it right to say that he (Mr. Lindsay) had a certain share in the responsibility of the noble Lord's statement, for he seconded his Motion. He had a distinct recollection of what the noble Lord stated at the time. The noble Lord did not bring any charge against Sir Baldwin Walker, or indeed against any one connected with the Admiralty. He stated that on going over the expenditure for a certain number of years, he observed that there were about five millions of money the mode of expenditure of which he could not see from the accounts laid before the House. His charge really referred to the imperfect form of keeping the accounts. His allegation was that they were so kept that it was impossible to trace how that five millions of money in the course of some eleven years had been expended. He felt bound to say this much in justification of the noble Lord, who had, immediately that he came into office, taken in hand the improvement of the accounts; and he had laid upon the table of the House a Return with which the House had never been favoured before, and by which they would be able in future to trace in what manner the money had been expended. Upon the general question, he (Mr. Lindsay) had nothing more to add, except that he trusted the Admiralty would, upon consideration, not oppose the Motion, considering the temperate spirit in which it had been brought forward.

MR. BENTINCK

said, the question before the House was of vital importance, and ought to be settled at once. Therefore, he thought the House were much indebted to his hon. and gallant Friend for having brought it before them, although he did not agree with him in every detail. He concurred with his hon. and gallant Friend in thinking that there was no reason for attaching blame to any particular Board of Admiralty, or for the introduction of anything like party spirit in discussing a Motion of this kind—nay, further, he would admit that if they were to have a civilian at the head of the department, they could not have a better man than the Duke of Somerset; while as regarded his noble Friend opposite, he should think his retirement from the office he now held a national misfortune. His hon. and gallant Friend complained that the result of the present constitution of the Board was a wasteful expenditure of money. He (Mr. Bentinck) admitted that to a certain extent, but he felt that there was a much greater evil—a want of efficiency in the service; and he had always contended that so long as there were civilians at the head of the Board of Admiralty, the whole system must be imperfect, nor could they depend on that rapidity and certainty of action which was necessary to meet great and sudden emergencies. It was not to be expected that men who undertook a particular branch of business for the first time would understand it thoroughly; and there was this disadvantage attending the system, that the moment the person appointed became competent, he was, in all probability, by some freak of the House of Commons, turned out of office, and a fresh man, as ignorant as he was at first, brought in. Thus it was that one of our most important public departments was left to the management of men who were no doubt adepts in political warfare, but very tyros and schoolboys in the business of governing the navy. The gunboats had been alluded to, and he wished to ask the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for India (Sir Charles Wood) whether the order for hauling them up at Haslar, and leaving them there for a long time dry and unexamined, had not emanated from him? He had heard the naval men of the Board disclaim any responsibility as to that order, which had cost the country £70,000, and its only effect had been to increase the progress of the dry rot in the vessels, which had been germinated by the green state of the wood of which they were built. If it was true that the right hon. Baronet was the author of that absurd scheme, that was in itself a strong argument against having a civilian at the head of the Board. His noble and gallant Friend had said that the duties of the Admiralty were in many respects of a civil character, as merchants, shipbuilders, chemists, &c.; but he (Mr. Bentinck) did not see why naval men could not qualify themselves to deal with such matters as well as the civilians who were appointed under the present system, and who, as far as he had ever heard, were not selected because of their practical knowledge and experience in such pursuits, but from motives of a very different kind. The fact that there were four different Inquiries going on already was no answer to the present Motion. Those Commissions and Committees to which his noble and gallant Friend (Lord Clarence Paget) had called attention, did not go to the root of the evil, which was the constitution of the Board and even if they did, the Board of Admiralty, after all, might not adopt the recommendation of the Commission. The only object in appointing a civilian to the Board of Admiralty was to give the Minister of the day the means of appointing an important Member of the House of Commons to a place. The noble Lord advocated the appointment of a civilian to the head of the Admiralty because he said a naval man would be prejudiced. Now, there were two grounds on which a naval man was better qualified than a civilian to select officers for promotion. In the first place, he would necessarily have better opportunities of being acquainted with the professional merits of those who sought promotion; and in the second, he would be less fettered by those political ties which attached to a civilian, who owed his appointment to distinguished ability in the party conflicts in that House. He quite agreed that if the First Lord was to continue to be a civilian he should be a peer, as that would to some extent get rid of the influence of the House of Commons in the direction of the patronage of the navy, which would always, while it prevailed, be applied more with regard to political than professional objects. He concurred in the praise which had been awarded to the present Secretary for the Admiralty, who, he fully admitted, had done his best since his accession to office to remedy the evils he found existing; and if he had been unable to remedy them effectually, that was only an additional proof that there was something wrong in the constitution of the Board. He considered the suggestion of the right hon. Baronet below him (Sir John Pakington) —that the Inquiry should be conducted by a Commission appointed by the Government instead of by an independent Committee— was much about the same as if the prisoners awaiting their trial at an assize were to propose that they should be tried by a Commission selected by their own body. Those who sat on the front benches on both sides looked upon the patronage of these public departments as the political prizes to which they in turn succeeded, and were not disposed willingly to give them up, and, therefore, this suggestion of the right hon. Baronet had been made; but until the House of Commons took up the matter with a strong hand and determined to act for itself, they could not hope for the application of any efficient remedy.

SIR CHARLES NAPIER

said, he wished to congratulate the gallant Admiral on having brought forward this question, and to express a hope that his efforts would be attended with more success than those which he himself had made on the same subject. He would not follow the noble Lord the Secretary to the Admiralty through what he would call the rubbish which he had spoken about Lords of the Admiralty being architects, shipbuilders, masons, painters, and members of every other trade; but would confine himself to offering a word or two on the military duties of the First Lord. From the time that he entered the service a general complaint—whether right or wrong—had been always made against the Admiralty, and a general distrust of their administration was felt throughout the country. Since 1850 there had been been constant changes at the Board. The right hon. Member for Portsmouth (Sir Francis Baring) was followed by the Duke of Northumberland; the right hon. Baronet the Member for Carlisle (Sir James Graham) his successor, was replaced by the right hon. Baronet the Member for Halifax (Sir Charles Wood); then the right hon. Baronet the Member for Droitwich (Sir John Pakington) succeeded to office, and now they had the Duke of Somerset, How was it possible to maintain the efficiency of a service on which the safety of the country depended, or to carry out any regular system where the First Lord was so often changed, and where the Board of Admiralty changed nearly as often as himself? Then, who were the Lords of the Admiralty chosen from? It was not necessary that they should be men of talent; it was only requisite that they should have a seat in the House, be well-connected, and friendly to the Minister of the day, and they were morally certain of enjoying a place at the Admiralty. A Board thus constituted, and with a civilian at its head, could know nothing either of the discipline of the navy or of the character of officers and seamen; how, then, could it give satisfaction to the country at large? Formerly all the patronage of the navy centred in the First Lord. In order to prevent this power from being abused, Parliament, having the good of the service at heart, limited the rule of promotion to one in three. But these were all grasped by the First Lord. All the appointments of the present Admiralty had been to officers who had held several and successive commands. One officer, to the perfect astonishment of the whole service, had been passed over by different Governments sixteen or seventeen times, ever since the period of the Burmese war, in which he performed his duty to the great satisfaction of the country and of the Board of Admiralty itself. He had just been passed over again for an officer who was his senior, but who had only recently struck his flag from a previous command. He was not the only one who had been passed over. There were a great many others who had not been employed. He did not find any fault with those who had been employed; they were all good officers, but how was it possible for the others, who never stood any chance of hoisting their flag in time of peace, to be efficient in case war were to break out. There was another thing he had to complain of, and that was the manner in which orders were given by the Admiralty, often contradicting each other. As an illustration of this, he might state that when in command of the Channel fleet he was ordered by the Admiralty to remove the guns from the upper deck of the St. Vincent. He did so, and immediately he received another order to put them back again. Again, when the Albion was under trial, he received an order to send her home without delay; it was done, and then came out a letter stating that their Lordships regretted that the Albion had not been thoroughly tried. Legally, all orders ought to be signed by two Lords, but the Secretary of the Admiralty had stated to-night what he never heard before,—that the First Lord himself could issue an order if signed by the Secretary. The six Lords worked in separate rooms, dividing the business of the different departments between them. They met in the board-room at twelve o'clock for general business. This sounded well enough in theory; but it was not good in practice. A Lord of the Admiralty, after doing his business at the Board, went down to Somerset House, where a whole heap of papers was placed before him. It was impossible for him to read them, and he signed them as fast as possible, so that in fact the actual duty was performed by the department. Officers in command were often in a difficulty, in consequence of having three masters. When he was in command of the Baltic fleet, he received orders from two Lords of the Admiralty, and from the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. When he sailed he had orders from the Admiralty to proceed to Wingoe Sound, and wait there for further instructions. When he arrived there he was informed the ice in the Baltic was breaking up; but he had orders not to enter the Baltic. The Earl of Clarendon, however, had had the same information, and sent him out a letter which showed his judgment. It was an order to proceed, as the ice was disappearing, to a position that would prevent the Russian fleet from entering the North Sea. The orders from the Admiralty and the Secretary of State were exactly opposed to each other; but he had no hesitation about them. The Earl of Clarendon's order quite agreed with his own information, and he immediately passed through the Belt and got up to Copenhagen. He believed he did quite right; and he thought the country owed a great deal to the Earl of Clarendon; had he (Sir Charles Napier) followed the orders of the Admiralty, a northern confederacy might have been established by Russia in the Baltic. But by the next packet came despatches from the Admiralty, stating that "My Lords" were astonished at what he had done, as he had acted without the concurrence of the Board. The next packet had brought him out a letter from the First Lord of the Admiralty, which, as it had reference to public affairs and contained no secret, he supposed he might read to the House. However, on reflection, he thought it better not to read it; but it was quite clear that if the Russian fleet had got into the North Sea he could not plead the orders of the Admiralty as an excuse, for the Board would have immediately turned round on him and asked why he had not conformed to the instructions of the Secretary of State, which he had, as it happened, been wise enough to follow. The next complaint which he had to urge against the Admiralty, as at present constituted, was that it had never struck out any efficient plan for manning the navy, which it might have done if it had only set zealously about carrying into effect the recommendation of the Royal Commission, while those, he contended, who read the Report which had recently been published in reference to Greenwich Hospital, must be, as he himself was, perfectly astonished at the manner in which that establishment was managed, and at the want of attention in the case of the widows and orphans of the men by which the action of the Board had for as cries of years been marked. Now, he had often heard it stated in that House by First Lords of the Admiralty that the Board as a body decided on all the matters of importance which came under the control of the department, but the fact nevertheless was, that when the First Lord did not want to take the opinion of the Board on any particular point, he retired with the Senior Naval Lord, or such other member of the Board as he pleased, into his room, and there came to the conclusion which he deemed to be most expedient. In corroboration of that view he might relate a story which was well known at the Admiralty, although it might not be in that House. It was said that when the Government of the day desired to supersede Lord Hood in his command, because he complained that the fleet was badly managed, Lord Spencer had gone down to the Admiralty and placed a minute on the table of the board-room directing that Lord Hood should be superseded. He then turned round to the senior Lord, and asked him to sign the order, but the request was declined. The second member of the Board who was asked also refused, and Lord Spencer thereupon threw the order down to the bottom of the table to the Civil Lord, observing, that if it were not signed at once the Admiralty would exist no longer. The result had been that Lord Hood, one of the best officers of which the country could boast, had been superseded in his command. Now if the Board of Admiralty was to be continued, it was, he contended, most desirable that the Comptroller of the Navy and the Acountant-General should be among its members. He might add that as matters were at present arranged, the mode of inspecting the fleet was extremely unsatisfactory. Two members of the Board might go down perhaps to Portsmouth or elsewhere for that purpose dressed in private clothes, but they carried no weight with them under those circumstances, and produced no impression on the men. Now, in the case of the army —which, if military gentlemen wished it to be placed under the same sort of superintendence as the navy, all he could say was, God forgive them—whenever there was a display of want of discipline, the Commander-in-Chief sent down the Adjutant-General to Plymouth or Aldershot, or any other place in which a mutiny might have occurred, and that officer made his inspection in uniform, turned out the regiment, and instituted the strictest investigation into the whole affair; while, if that were not sufficient, the Commander-in-Chief prosecuted the inquiry in person. Then there were in the army inspectors of infantry, who made frequent visits to the several stations, while there was no Adjutant-General or no inspector in connection with the Board of Admiralty to examine into the causes of a mutiny, if it arose on board a vessel or to ascertain the state of discipline of the men. There was a simple remedy. There were the sinecure offices of Vice-Admiral and Rear-Admiral in the gift of the Prime Minister. If, in future, the Prime Minister would constitute the First Naval Lord of the Admiralty Vice-Admiral of Great Britain, and the second Lord the Rear-Admiral of Great Britain, and attach the Comptroller of the Navy and the Accountant-General to the Board, a great improvement would be effected; but instead of the First Lord, he would have a Minister of Marine, and let each Lord of the Admiralty have his own distinct duties to perform, for which he should be held responsible. The Comptroller of the Navy had nothing to do with timber, and knew no more about the quantity in store than he himself did; nor had he any authority to send for the storekeeper to inquire about it. He believed there was not more than two years' stock of timber in the yards and was that a state of things that ought to exist? The whole of the store department should be under the control of this officer. He would say nothing of the statements made by the noble Lord the Secretary of the Admiralty. It was quite true that he did not accuse or complain of Admiral Sir Baldwin Walker, but it was said there was a loss of £5,000,000 in the course of eleven years—it had not been properly accounted for. Sir Baldwin Walker was called on to state whether this was true or false. He went into the whole concern. He answered every statement article by article, and proved that during those eleven years every accusation was inaccurate. There was only a sum of £4,000 or £5,000 expended for some other purpose than had been intended. Yet, notwithstanding all this, the stain remained on Sir Baldwin Walker and the Accountant-General, who were supposed to know about it. He thought that unjust, and had given the Secretary of the Admiralty the opportunity of stating in the House that, after examining the statement of Sir Baldwin Walker, the whole had been regularly accounted for; but until the matter was investigated by the Commission sitting on the dockyards the stain would remain. With regard to the gunboats, they were a shame and a disgrace to this country. It had been said that the Board of Admiralty were perfectly aware when orders were given to build them that they were to he built of green timber, for no other was to be found in the yards, but the contract was that they should be built of sound timber. An investigation was now going on into the whole matter, and no doubt the truth would come out. Another fault had been committed by the Admiralty, and it was a grievous one. They had a fine fleet after the Russian war. A great part was paid off, but there remained seven, eight, or ten sail of the line, which, however, were paid off, and the men sent adrift. The consequence was they had never been able to recruit the navy since, or get a fresh supply of proper petty officers. There had been no economy whatever in that, for the saving of pay was more than counterbalanced by the expense of putting the ships again into commission. He implored the House to grant this Committee of Inquiry. If the Admiralty were well conducted, a Committee to examine all the departments would produce a, most satisfactory result. If the Admiralty thought themselves guilty, of course they would not submit to inquiry. But he trusted the House would make a thorough and searching investigation.

MR. WARRE

said, he had come to the conclusion, not without the most anxious consideration, that it would not be advisable to press the Motion to a division. Enough, however, had been elicited to lead to this result, that out of the discussion must come—it might be a little sooner or it might be a little later—very valuable results to the public service. The right hon. Baronet the Member for Droitwich (Sir John Pakington) had admitted that the Board might be improved in its construction; and this admission would not be thrown away. The iron-plated vessels were, it was true, untried, and little could therefore be said in their defence. But if other powers were making vast and costly experiments, experiments only though they were, in the construction of vessels of a novel description, but which perhaps would prove to be exceedingly formidable in a state of warfare, was it not our duty to proceed pari passu with them in such experiments? Some small experiments had been made of a similar kind in the Russian war; but the Russian artillery was not considered powerful enough to render the trials conclusive. Since that time artillery had been invented of extreme power, and the trial of their strength in warfare might not be a far distant event. We ought, then, to be prepared. He trusted, however, that the gallant officer would not press his Motion to a division.

SIR JAMES ELPHINSTONE

said, he concurred in the hope that had been expressed by the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down. He thought that the discussion would exercise a very beneficial effect on the Admiralty, and as there were four Committees sitting already it would be practically impossible to go into a full investigation of the question this Session. If the gallant Admiral would content himself for the present with the discussion which had taken place, and re-introduce his Motion at the beginning of the next Session, he (Sir James Elphinstone) would be happy to assist him to the extent of his power in an endeavour to obtain an investigation into the abuses which he was afraid existed in the Board of Admiralty. What he principally objected to in the Admiralty was, its entirely political complexion. The discontent which this cause produced in the navy was deep and well founded. Favoured individuals rose from one rank to another, and were qualified by continual employment for flags, while officers of the highest professional attain- ments remained in the lower grades of the service without any prospect of promotion. The system was quite different in the army, where if a man stuck to his profession, he eventually obtained promotion. The late Sir Henry Havelock was placed in almost a hopeless position in India. He had no means to purchase promotion; but he stuck to his duties, and advancement came at last. Nothing of the kind occurred in the navy. Again, it was a grave question whether the functions of the Admiralty ought not to be curtailed. The jurisdiction which it possessed over the tidal waters of the empire was not always exercised for the public good. The ships, too, which it constructed, were not built with a due regard to the stowage of dead weight; and their designs were not thrown open, as they ought to be, to the examination of those best qualified to judge of naval architecture. Almost the same remarks applied to their steam machinery. Steam machinery had risen to its present position in a few years; but it was introduced by officers not so well skilled in the science as they ought to have been. Then as to the wood department of the navy, he believed that we had only sufficient seasoned timber for two years' consumption; but the Admiralty seemed to look upon this state of things with a great degree of complacency. They had the teak forests of Burmah at their command, as well as a variety of other timber fitted for shipbuilding; but they took no steps to make these sources of supply available. The quantity of seasoned timber in the market at any one time was always very limited, and it was as difficult to procure more the moment they wanted it, unless they had laid in a large store beforehand, as it was to lay their hands upon 10,000 able seamen in any emergency. He thought they ought to have in store a supply which would be sufficient for at least ten years. What would be said of a gentleman who laid in only one year's store of claret in his cellars? The Comptroller of the Navy was the most important man in the Admiralty; and yet he had no seat at the Board, and it was said had no voice whatever in the construction of ships. So, the surveying department was not provided with proper vessels for the work to be done; and the management of the transport department ought to be taken away from the Admiralty. The House knew nothing more of the interior economy of the Admiralty than it did of the inside of the mosque at Mecca. There would be great difficulty in placing a naval man at the head of the Board as long as the political element remained attached to it. With four inquiries relative to the Admiralty, however, going on, he thought the most prudent course would be for his hon. Friend to withdraw his Motion, with the understanding that next Session an inquiry should take place.

SIR CHARLES WOOD

said, it is perfectly true that there is nothing connected with the naval service which does not depend upon the constitution of the Admiralty. Yet I cannot see how a great portion of the observations which have been made to-night can very much tend to enlighten the House upon that subject, and I very much doubt whether a Committee of fifteen Members of the House would be likely to form a sound opinion as to how the Board ought to be constituted. I think that, if inquiry is necessary, a Commission is far better than Committee; but I believe that those who have successively occupied the post of First Lord must know better than any other persons what defects exist, and what measures will most conduce to the efficient working of the system. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Norfolk has repeated a statement which he has made on more than one occasion—that the naval Lords were not consulted by me about the gunboats and about hauling them up at Haslar. With regard to the gunboats themselves, I do not recollect any statement being made to us that the contractors were not in possession of seasoned timber. My noble Friend says that one small builder represented that he had not sufficient, but no general representation to the same effect was made by the large builders. Nevertheless, if that had been the case, I should still have ordered the gunboats to be built of the best timber which the country could afford. It was indispensably necessary that the gunboats should be built within a limited time. I should not have hesitated a moment to authorize their construction of the best timber which could be procured; but I do not believe that any general representation was made by the contractors, with the exception which my noble Friend has mentioned, that they could not furnish timber adequately seasoned. My noble Friend has said truly that what the Admiralty complained of more particularly was the defective bolts, which was clearly a fraud upon the Admiralty, and what is worse, a crime of the gravest character, as it might have perilled the lives of the men who were placed in the gunboats. Let those who find so much fault with the building in the Government yards remember that these gunboats, turned out in such a state as they were, came from the private yards of the first shipbuilders in the kingdom. The hon. Member for Norfolk asked whether I consulted the naval Lords as to hauling up the boats at Haslar. I have stated before, not only that I did so, but that it was perfectly impossible orders could have been given for the purpose without consulting the Board. It involved expense, and it must therefore necessarily be done at a Board and by a Board order. I have not taken notice of assertions rashly made, without cognizance of the facts, but in this case not only I did not, but I could not give the order without the sanction of the Board. I did consult the Board, and they entirely concurred in the expediency of trying the experiment. Then we are told that hauling them up took away all chance of their lasting, and that if they had been left afloat there would have been no dry rot. But the first boats which showed symptoms of dry rot were two in the Mediterranean, which were never taken out of the water, and in which the dry rot appeared long before it appeared in those which were hauled up at Haslar. It is notorious that a vessel left on the stocks will last an indefinite time. There may he a difference if she has once been in the water, but as it was exceedingly desirable to clear Portsmouth Harbour, I was led, in concurrence with the Board, to try the experiment, and to direct sheds to be built, where a certain number of these gunboats might be drawn up. The experiment of hauling up had been tried, and succeeded with some yachts, which were habitually drawn up at Cowes, and there was no reason to anticipate any different result. It was also intended to take out some streaks of timber to let the air through, so that they might be the better preserved. The shipwright officer objected to take out the streaks of wood, and before any decision was arrived at, I was succeeded by the right hon. Baronet opposite. These are the reasons why that course was taken with the entire and full concurrence of the naval Lords of the Admiralty. The hon. Gentleman is mistaken in supposing that the First Lord takes the responsibility which is imputed to him without consultation with the members of the Board. The hon. Gentleman talks of promotions by the First Lord. No doubt, he is personally responsible, but I can say most solemnly, that I never made one promotion or appointment without consultation, and the complete concurrence of the Board. I had to administer the Admiralty in time of war, and it is no doubt a much easier task to make appointments in time of war than in time of peace. I do not, therefore, claim any credit for myself which I am not ready to give to others who have filled the same office; but I declare on my honour as a gentleman that I never made a promotion or appointment in my life from any motive or belief other than that the recipient was as fit a man as could be found for the purpose, and I never made an appointment without the full concurrence of the Board. I say distinctly that there is an advantage, generally speaking, in having a civilian at the head of the Admiralty. I do not say that there are not many naval men perfectly fit and competent to take the post, but I entirely concur with my noble Friend, and I was glad to hear him say it, that naval men have necessarily friends or followers in the navy, and are apt to look with more favour on those whom they have seen and with whom they have served than upon others. It is quite natural and right that they should do so. The advantage of having a civilian at the head of the Admiralty is that he is able to hold the scales equally and upon the whole, as far as the navy at large is concerned, to make appointments more fairly than a naval man, who is liable to have his judgment warped by his feelings. A good deal has been said about matters not being brought before the Board. I am sorry to entirely differ from my hon. Friend who was Secretary to the Admiralty at the time I was First Lord. He may not have been present when questions of ship-building were discussed, and I quite agree that it is not a very convenient or easy mode of doing business to have very long discussions at the Board on matters of detail. The details were generally settled by the Surveyor of the Navy. The naval Lord who superintended that department was very frequently in communication with me, "in my room" if the hon. Member pleases, but no matter of importance could be settled without its being brought before the Board. The lines of every ship were not only brought before the Board but invariably approved and signed by two Lords and the Secretary. It was the same, the right hon. Baronet says, in his time, and I suppose in every First Lord's time, because all orders must issue from the Board. I think a great deal of misapprehension exists as to what fell from my noble Friend as to the necessity of giving an entirely naval charactor to the Board. I think it is of great advantage that there should be many naval Lords at the Board. But my noble Friend stated truly that a large proportion of business required no naval knowledge at all. A man of business and sense is just as qualified to buy beef and butter and to judge of the quality of clothing as if he had been to sea, and I remember at one Board at which I presided I kept an account of the naval matters considered, the result of which was that I found that nineteen out of twenty cases might just as well be decided by a civilian. Of course, cœteris paribus, it is of advantage also to have naval knowledge. Of the five junior Lords four are naval Lords, and looking to the amount of civil business it does not seem desirable to insist that the whole character of the Board should be exclusively naval. I do not think a Committee of the House the most convenient mode of investigating the constitution of the Board of Admiralty, and allow me to add that the multiplication of those Committees and Commissions does very seriously interfere with the business of the department. If members of departments, their officers and clerks, already pass too much time in examinations before these four or five Committees or Commissions on naval subjects, it is, I think, a very good reason against appointing another Committee. The necessity of attending all these Committees is a serious interruption to public business. As to the Controller of the Navy and the Accountant General having seats at the Board, you may depend upon it if these officials had to attend daily at the Board for three or four hours a day, it would be perfectly impossible for them to discharge their special duties. Add another naval Lord or lay Lord to the Board to attend to such business, to the accounts and such things, if you like, though I do not think it is at all necessary; but if you turn your executive officers into deliberative officers you will seriously interfere with the discharge of their duties. The person who is responsible for the discharge of the duties of First Lord is more interested in having an efficient Board than any one else possibly can be, and, with all respect to this House, I do not think that fifteen gentlemen selected out of it, without experience, can be half so fit to conduct an inquiry into the best mode of forming the Board as those who have had long experience of its working. I was five years Secretary of the Admiralty, and three, First Lord—I have been at the Treasury, at the Board of Control, and am now at the India Office, and I can conscientiously say that the transaction of business at the Admiralty is more rapid and satisfactory than at any other Board of which I have had experience.

LORD LOVAINE

said, he hoped the Motion would not be pressed to a division, but if it were he should be compelled to vote against it. If for no other reason he should be compelled to do so because he observed those who were most disposed to comment on the shortcomings of the Admiralty while out of office were often obliged to recant when they got into office. He entirely concurred with the right hon. Gentleman as to the manner in which the business of the Admiralty was conducted, and also as to the inexpediency of requiring the Comptroller General and the Accountant General to attend the sittings of the Board. It might often happen that they would have to decide on matters which were entirely foreign to their departments, and on which they were, perhaps, not so well fitted to judge as those who now disposed of them. No doubt it would be an advantage to the Board if some of its members enjoyed a longer tenure of office, for the continual changes of the naval officers who sat at the Board was a great evil. So far as his experience went, it was by no means the rule to select the junior members of the Board solely with a reference to their political opinions, with the exception, perhaps, of a certain number, whose presence in the House was desirable, and whose absence had occasionally been felt as a great disadvantage. The strongest reason for granting a Committee of this kind would be that it would dispel many misapprehensions which were afloat with regard to the Board, arising entirely from ignorance. He was astonished to hear hon. Gentlemen recommend that the patronage of the Admiralty should be assimilated to that of the Horse Guards. Why, the cry in the House a little while ago was that the patronage of the Horse Guards should be assimilated to that of the Admiralty and exercised on the principle of selection. He trusted that the gallant Admiral would rest satisfied with the expression of opinion he had elicited from the House and withdraw his Motion.

SIR MICHAEL SEYMOUR

said, there was a strong impression in the navy that a political bias had long existed at the Admiralty which was adverse to the efficient administration of the service, and the interests of the most deserving officers. The Admiralty was a ministry of five or six members, without individual responsibility, and liable to continual changes. In Prance the various Admiralty departments constituted a collective body, responsible to the Minister of Marine, who himself was solely responsible to the State for all acts done. Such matters as the organization of the fleet, the Works Department, provisioning of the fleet, and the selection of officers for promotion or employment were all considered by a Committee, on whose Report the Minister as a rule acted, though of course he had the right of overruling it if he thought fit; and the result of this system of administration was very satisfactory to the officers. He was bound to say in candour that he agreed with those who argued that it was preferable to have a distinguished civilian at the head of the Admiralty, but still it was most important that under him a naval opinion should have greater weight and be brought more to bear on matters connected with the navy than was now supposed to be the case. In this direction some inquiry might be very advantageous. He was not altogether disposed to admit that it was necessary that the Naval Lords should be in Parliament, and he could easily conceive that many officers, whose knowledge and experience would be most useful at the Board, would object to going there under the condition of being turned at the same time into political characters. He had great pleasure in bearing testimony, from his own experience, to the able and honest manner in which successive Boards of Admiralty had discharged their important and difficult duties. Where the state of business rendered it advisable, it might be well that the Comptroller of the Navy should attend the meetings of the Board; but otherwise he would be satisfied with its present constitution. He trusted that the discussion which had taken place might have the effect of enlightening the public mind with regard to naval affairs, and perhaps it might ultimately lead to the appointment of some such Committee as was desired. If the unfavourable impression of Admiralty political influence which prevailed in the service could be removed, a great object would have been achieved, and the effect would be to add to the zeal and gallantry of the members of the profession.

ADMIRAL DUNCOMBE

, in reply, said he could truthfully assert that nobody could have been more desirous than the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for India, when holding the post of First Lord of the Admiralty, to consult the interests of the service or to promote deserving officers. As a proof that he was not actuated in his selections by any political bias, he might state that on one occasion he had asked him to recommend a flag officer for a command. The noble Lord the Secretary to the Admiralty admitted that he spoke very much in the dark, and the forms of the House had not permitted him to show him the way to the light; but in introducing this Motion he had never suggested either that the First Lord should not be a civilian, or that promotions should be taken out of his hands and placed in those of the Board for he knew that on most, if not on all occasions, the Board was consulted. It was merely on the supposition that the number of Lords of the Admiralty would not be increased that he had advocated the addition of the Comptroller of the Navy to the Board. He did not deny that points of detail, such as the noble Lord had referred to, might very well be managed by civilians; but it was a singular thing that for thirteen or fourteen years Sir Alexander Milne, now the commander on the West India station, was continued in office under different Administrations from the success with which he had conducted that department. It would ill become him to detain the House by insisting on a division, and as it was impossible that any practical result could follow in the present state of public business from the appointment of a Committee, he should withdraw his Motion, on the distinct understanding that he was to be allowed to renew it at an early period next Session. It only remained for him to disclaim all intention of injuring in any way the naval administration of this country.

Motion by leave withdrawn.