QUESTION. (Hansard, 12 April 1861)

§ SIR JOHN PAKINGTON
wished to address to the Secretary of the Admiralty a question which, although it did not appear in the paper, he had given the noble Lord private notice. In The Times of Monday last this paragraph appeared— A great deal of dissatisfaction is felt and expressed among the crews of Her Majesty's ships Victory, Asia, and other vessels at Portmouth at the delay which has arisen in paying the money due to them. Many of these men have only received 16s. per month for the last nine months. A number of men belonging to vessels in home ports, such as the Victory and the Asia have wives and families, and are compelled to run up bills at the various tradesmen's shops for their support, until, by remitting the pay due to them, their wives can pay off the debts thus necessarily incurred. On board Her Majesty's ship Victory remittance lists were made out in the middle of March, but no orders have yet been received for payment, and hence the discontent of the men. The result of this dilatoriness is that the wives and families of the men are much pressed for payment of the amount they have been trusted with by the different shopkeepers, who cannot themselves afford to give long credit. The household goods in many instances go to the pawnbrokers, and often are never recovered, and, as a natural consequence of such a state of things, the seamen pays a heavy percentage for the Government having the use of his money. The one universal cry of the seamen on board the vessels quoted is, 'Pay as in the same manner that our officers are paid.' He wished to ask, first, Whether this extraordinary statement was true, and whether, if not strictly and literally true, there was any foundation whatever for it; and, in the next place, if the noble Lord was not able to deny it altogether he would ask further, to what extent this practice of withholding seamen's pay had gone, what were the reasons for such a delay, to what number of ships it applied, and whether the practice prevailed at Plymouth or any other ports besides Portsmouth? Assuming that there was any truth in the statement in The Times, it gave some degree of support to a rumour which had reached him before he had heard or read anything of this kind—a rumour which he had altogether disregarded and discredited—namely, that the Government had been endeavouring to withhold the pay of several classes of the servants of the Crown to a considerable extent until after the close of the financial year, and evidently, if so, with a financial object. He could not help connecting that rumour with the most extraordinary, and, if true, most discreditable 526 statement in The Times. If the noble Lord could altogether deny its accuracy he would probably be thankful for the opportunity of contradicting it, or of offering some explanation on the subject.

§ LORD CLARENCE PAGET
said, he would premise his reply to the question of the right hon. Baronet by stating that the Admiralty had not received any complaint as to the withholding of seamen's pay, and by distinctly denying that they had in any case deferred such pay for any financial object. The mode of paying the sailors of the fleet had been somewhat altered of late, with a view to the convenience and comfort of the men themselves. They had now two means of supplying their wives and friends with a portion of their pay. They might either allot it regularly and periodically to their wives or friends, or they might remit a portion of the pay as it became due. When the Admiralty saw this statement in The Times they were extremely anxious to ascertain whether there was really any discontent, or whether the statement had any foundation. They had accordingly referred to Portsmouth, and a Report had come up to day which he had not yet seen. However, when he got his right hon. Friend's note, he sent for the Accountant General and asked him whether there had been any complaints on this head upon other occasions. The facts were these:—The men had monthly allowances paid to them at all times. In the home ports at the end of the financial year the books were made up, and any surplus amount of pay due to them after the payment of their monthly allowances, of their allotments, of their clothing, and other expenses were handed over to them by remittance note—and they were permitted to remit it to their friends. A few days before the books were made up they were asked whether they wished to remit any portion of their pay; and a great many did so. Then they wrote to their friends saying—"I have remitted you £5," or whatever the sum was, and it might be that the friends would expect to receive the money by the next post; but of course in dealing with 80,000 men it was impossible for the Accountant General to be writing letters day by day, and it often happened that men who desired to remit their pay had to wait some time until the remittance books went to the Accountant General and he gave orders for the payment of the remittances. This, no doubt, would be what had happened in 527 the case to which the right hon. Gentleman had referred—the men had given notice, that they wished to remit, and the remittances had not been paid so quickly as they expected. He might add that the system of remittances was now under consideration.

§ LORD FERMOY
, referring to the Donegal evictions, thanked the hon. and learned Member for Cork (Mr. Scully) for bringing this matter before the House. It would be some consolation to the unfortunate persons who had been treated in this inhuman manner to know that sympathy was felt for them in that House. The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for Ireland had alluded to the murder of Mr. Adair's steward on the property where these evictions occurred. But, however, deplorable that murder might be it was no justification for the wholesale and indiscriminate evictions that had been made. There might be one or two or even ten guilty persons among those evicted, but there was no reason why 270 innocent persons should be treated so inhumanly for the sake of arriving at the few guilty. There were on the spot on this occasion a large body of police, a stipendiary magistrate, and the sheriff; but there was one person absent whose presence was quite as indispensable—the relieving officer. Old men, women, and children were left out for the whole of the night on a bare mountain, without the smallest protection, and the relieving officer ought to have been there to provide conveyances to carry them to the shelter of the workhouse. It was time that some remedy was devised to prevent the recurrence of such a state of things. If persons would exercise what they called their rights of property in such an unchristian way, Her Majesty's Government ought to endeavour to devise some means of putting a stop to it.