§ SIR ARTHUR BULLERsaid, he would now beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty, Whether in the Indentures of Apprenticeship entered into by Apprentices in the Dockyard of Devonport there is not a covenant on the part of Her Majesty, that "every Apprentice duly observing, performing, and keeping all the covenants and agreements on his part there in before contained, shall be properly taught and instructed in his said art or occupation so as to qualify him (if he shall duly serve his Apprenticeship) to be regularly entered and employed in one of Her Majesty's yards;" whether the construction uniformly put upon this covenant up to last May has not been that the Apprentice should, on the completion of his Apprenticeship, be considered as placed on the establishment; whether an order was not issued by the Admiralty in May last, "that no Apprentice on the completion of his Apprenticeship shall be placed on the establishment (as had hitherto been the case);" and whether it is just and fair that that order should be made applicable to Apprentices who entered into their Indentures upon the faith of the then accepted interpretation of the above-mentioned covenant?
§ LORD CLARENCE PAGETsaid, in reply, that in the year 1859, when Her Majesty's Government came into office, they found there was an Order in Council 1160 establishing a certain number of artificers in Her Majesty's Dockyards. That Order laid down the number of those artificers at 9,621, but the actual number in the Dockyards at the time was 10,850. One of the first objects of the Board of Admiralty was to reduce the establishment to the number required by the Order in Council; and for the purpose of accomplishing that object they arranged, that whenever a vacancy occurred they should appoint, instead of an established man, a hired man, the latter not being entitled to a superannuation allowance. But they still found that they could not practically effect any reduction in the establishment so long as the practice which had been introduced a few years previously of placing apprentices out of their time at once on the establishment, whether there were vacancies or not, should continue in force; and they therefore decided that apprentices out of their time should be employed as hired men, and that they should only be placed on the establishment when vacancies occurred. His hon. Friend seemed to assume that in adopting that resolution they were breaking faith with the apprentices. But that was not the case; and the practice of placing apprentices on the establishment whether there were vacancies or not was of recent origin. He had further to observe that the apprentices in Her Majesty's Dockyards were placed in a very favourable position. From the day they entered the yard they were paid and taught their business at the public expense, and that was an advantage which apprentices did not enjoy in private yards. He should even say that he doubted whether they were not treated with undue favour, and whether it was quite fair that they should receive the preference given them over hired men.