§ MR. LIDDELLsaid, he rose to call attention to the Report of the Royal Commission upon Greenwich Hospital, presented to Parliament in May 1860, and to put some Questions with respect to it. Those Questions had reference, in the first place, to reforms which the Admiralty required the authority of the House to enable them to carry out; as, for example, the effecting any change in the constitution of the hospital or remodelling the governing body; end, in the second place, to matters in which the Admiralty could, proprio motu, effect a change, such as the improvement of the internal management and economy of the institution. The constitution of Greenwich Hospital rested mainly on the Act of 1829. It was an establishment which possessed large funded property, and the control of its estates, funded property, and financial affairs, was vested in a Board composed of five members, two of whom were Commissioners ex officio—namely, the Paymaster General and the First Commissioner of Works. Of the three remaining Commissioners two were at that time civilians, and one, he believed, a naval officer. The internal management and discipline of the hospital, the superintendence of the infirmary, wards, and schools, was intrusted by law to a body of officers, at the head of whom was the governor and under him the lieutenant-governor, assisted by a staff of officers consisting of fifteen gentlemen, all of whom belonged to the naval profession. The government of the institution was, he might add, a double government, and would, he thought, upon 1190 investigation, be found not to be free from the defects inherent in such a system. Those defects he understood mainly to be the absence of responsibility and occasional conflict of authority, and a general supine-ness of action. A Commission had in 1859 been appointed by the Crown to inquire into the management of the whole affairs of the establishment. That Commission had entered at great length into the inquiry, and had made one of the ablest and most carefully prepared Reports which had ever been presented to the House of Commons. The Report was presented to Parliament in the early part of 1860, and the recommendations which it contained might be summed up under four heads. The Commissioners recommended an entire change in the governing body of the Hospital, a material reduction in the staff of officers, a large reduction in the domestic establishment, with a view to its more economical and more efficient working, and lastly, that some provision should be made for the wives and families of pensioners. So impressed did the Government appear to be with the justice of these recommendations, that they introduced a Bill into each of the two Houses of Parliament in 1861, which embodied those recommendations almost in their entirety. On the back of the Bill which had been introduced into the House of Commons were the names of the noble Lord the Secretary to the Admiralty and his able coadjutor, Mr. Whitbread. The Bill which had been introduced into the House of Lords passed through several stages, and Amendments were made in Committee, but from that time to the present no more had been heard of that measure for amending the constitution of Greenwich Hospital. No one knew why it was withdrawn. The Bill, in the first place, provided that for the future the governing body should consist of two ex officio Commissioners, the Paymaster General and the First Commissioner of Works; the other three to be appointed by the Lords of the Admiralty, and to be called the Civil Commissioner, the Admiral Superintendent, and the Medical Commissioner. These appointments were to be made for five years, to secure that persons filling them should at all times be capable of fulfilling the duties attached to the office. At the end of that time these persons were to be re-eligible. The Bill further provided that the offices might be reduced in number. It effected a very important reduction in the staff of 1191 officers, which it provided should consist in future of one captain, one commander, three lieutenants, and such a number of warrant officers as the Lords of the Admiralty might think necessary. He was the more anxious to address his inquiries to the Government at the present moment on account of some recent appointments which were thought to be antagonistic to the Report of the Commissioners and the Bill of 1861.
It was possible that some misapprehension might exist as to these appointments, and, if so, it was desirable that the Admiralty should have an opportunity of explaining what reform they had effected. The first appointment to which he should refer was that of Sir Richard Bromley, who had been appointed second Civil Commissioner, although the Bill of 1861 provided, in accordance with the recommendation of the Commissioners, that there should be only one such officer. He admitted that Sir R. Bromley was an eminent and valuable public servant; but his services had been rendered not to Greenwich Hospital, but to the country at large, and he ought to have been rewarded out of the public treasury, and not out of the funds of the hospital. If he had retired from the public service on account of ill health, then he ought not to hare been made a Civil Commissioner at Greenwich, an office which required to be filled by a person of good health and perfect efficiency. It might, however, be said that Sir R. Bromley had been sent to Greenwich as a reformer, to introduce necessary reforms and cut down expenses. If such were the grounds of his appointment, he could only say that the Government ought to have accompanied his appointment with such a change in the constitution of the hospital as would have enabled him to carry out those reforms which he was expected to effect. It was absurd to send any one to introduce reforms and leave him trammelled with the cumbrous machinery of the old system. They could not, therefore, look upon the appointment of Sir R. Bromley as that of a reformer, because he was encumbered by the double government spoken of and a machinery which Sir James Graham had said had never worked well since 1820. If that machinery did not work smoothly as at present constituted, was it to be expected that it would work any the better for the introduction into it of a new wheel that would travel at a greater amount of velocity than any wheel in the old machinery 1192 —for that was precisely the position of Sir Richard Bromley?
The next point related to the officers. The Report of the Commissioners recommended, and the Bill of 1861 provided, that the number of officers should be largely reduced; but that reduction had not been carried out, and the officers now occupied no less than one-fourth of the building, and drew largely upon the funds of the hospital. That was a question of great delicacy, and it was one upon which he wished to speak with some reserve, or rather deference for the strong professional feeling which existed on the subject. A relative of his own, indeed, had expressed to him a strong opinion on the matter; but he considered he was performing a public duty, and was not actuated by any private feeling in the course he was taking. He was aware that there was a strong feeling in favour of retaining Greenwich as a place of comfortable retirement for old invalided officers of Her Majesty's navy. He looked upon that institution in a different light. Of course, there ought always to be an efficient staff, but he thought that there was no necessity for so large a staff as one consisting of seventeen officers. At that moment they occupied one-fourth of the building, and drew largely on the resources of the hospital. He wished to do full justice to the claims of the officers, but he felt compelled to examine a little closely the grounds on which they based their claims. He thought, in the first place, that the officers appointed to Greenwich Hospital should be in such a state of health as would enable them to perform their duty. The claim of officers to admission to Greenwich Hospital as a place of retirement rested on this ground, that for a series of years a large payment was made out of the prize money into the chest of Greenwich Hospital. By the Act 46 Geo. III., passed in 1806, and by a subsequent Act of Parliament passed in 1814, those payments were made legal, or rather that portion of the prize money was ascertained by law for the purposes of Greenwich Hospital. It amounted in 1814 to £5 per cent, in 1806 to a less amount; but it might be taken for argument's sake that there was paid to the chest of Greenwich Hospital up to the year 1829 a portion of all prize money amounting to about 5 per cent. Without stopping to inquire whether that prize money could properly be considered the property of the officers, which he was not prepared to admit, he would only point 1193 out, that as these payments ceased in 1829, the numbers of those who had a claim to admission on that ground must be but small and rapidly diminishing. But if the claim of the officers to admission on account of that legal assignment was valid, he was prepared to set up another of which they had never heard a word in that House—namely, a claim on behalf of the merchant seamen The House was, perhaps, not aware that by an Act of Parliament passed in 1695, in the reign of William III., sixpence per month was deducted from the wages of every merchant seaman and paid into the chest of Greenwich Hospital. Those payments had also ceased, but they ceased subsequently to the payment of the percentage on prize money. In 1835 the Consolidated Fund undertook the payment of £20,000, towards the funds of the hospital in lieu of the merchant seamen's sixpences. If therefore the officers' claims were valid on account of the payment of a portion of the prize money, the merchant seamen's claims were equally valid on account of the payment of their sixpences, and equal justice ought to be done to them. There was another very important consideration in reference to officers' claims, which was this. In 1728, exactly a hundred years before the payment of prize money into the hospital chest ceased, by an Order in Council a sum equivalent to the half-pay of all the officers employed in Greenwich Hospital was paid into the chest of the hospital, and applied to its purposes. When the Admiralty appointed officers to Greenwich Hospital, they actually paid it a sum equal to the half-pay of the officers; but since a very recent period, he thought 1840, or a little earlier, the officers, in addition to the salaries they received as officers in Greenwich Hospital, received their half pay from the Crown. Greenwich Hospital did not gain that half-pay, as it did a hundred years back, but was obliged to pay salaries and emoluments to the officers besides losing their half-pay He did not grudge the officers anything which the Crown might choose to bestow upon them, because any reward which our naval and military officers earned by long and distinguished services that House would cheerfully pay; and he would even go be yond that, and say that he thought it was the practice of the Government to reward our distinguished officers somewhat too niggardly; and if a proposition were made to increase those rewards, he believed it would be cheerfully acceded to in that 1194 House; but he objected to the Crown transferring its obligations to its own servants from the public treasury to Greenwich Hospital. That was the sum and substance of his objection to this large staff of officers being maintained out of the resources of Greenwich Hospital.
He would give the House an instance of the encroaching tendencies of public Departments, which were always apt to shuffle off on other shoulders whatever liabilities they could get rid of. In 1859, if he mistook not, while the Commissioners were still sitting, the Admiralty made a proposition to the Commissioners of Greenwich Hospital, to understand which it was necessary to remember that every pensioner on admittance to Greenwich Hospital relinquished all claim to pensions he might previously have enjoyed. The proposition of the Admiralty was, that the Commissioners should pay at once out of their surplus incomes to the in-pensioners half of their surrendered out-pensions, and eventually to the officers of the hospital as well their half pay as their salaries. The Commissioners very properly replied that the proposed scheme would be a misapplication of the property held by them in trust for specific purposes of a great national charity. The proposition therefore dropped. He only quoted it to show how ready the Admiralty were to transfer obligations from the Treasury to Greenwich Hospital. The House had lately heard much of the propriety of taxing charities, but the proposal of the Chancellor of the Exchequer was met by such an outcry that he was induced to abandon it without going to a division. No proposition, however, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had ever made and abandoned for the taxation of charities, approached in magnitude this sweeping proposal on the part of the Admiralty. He then came to another point. The Bill of 1861 adopted the recommendation of the Commissioners in respect to the reduction of the domestic establishment of the hospital; and without going into any long argument on that point, he would state that in the Report of the Commissioners of 1859 there was an instructive comparison of the cost of domestic management of the hospital in the years 1805 and 1859. At the former date the cost of maintaining 2,410 pensioners and 144 nurses, being widows, was £69,206 per annum. The establishment charges, including under that head the salaries of civil and military officers, 1195 clerks, servants, repairs, &c., in 1805 were £21,837 a year. In 1859 the number of pensioners, 1,676, was less by 30 per cent than the number in the former year, and the cost of maintaining them, together with 100 nurses and 71 sick attendants, was £50,910 per annum. That was £18,296 less than in 1805. But what did the House suppose were the establishment charges in 1859? No less than £48,667, or £26,830 more than in 1805. The Return proved that while the expenditure upon the individual pensioners had not increased during fifty-five years, and while the aggregate number of pensions had diminished 30 per cent, the cost of the establishment had considerably more than doubled. At the same time, owing to the admirable arrangements of the manager of the estates of Greenwich Hospital, who was emphatically the right man in the right place, the affairs of the institution had been immensely simplified; the cost, therefore, ought to be properly a great deal less. Under the Act of 1861 the Admiralty were empowered to make reduction without the necessity of further application to Parliament. But he could not discover in recent appointments that spirit of economy which the Act of 1861 seemed to promise. Certain offices had been filled up, the occupants being permitted to retire, although these officers, if not absolutely condemned, had received the negative praise that their salaries were in an inverse ratio to the duties they were called on to perform, and that these duties were generally performed by deputy. The chief civil officers of the Hospital are the Secretary, Steward, Cashier, the Clerk of the Check, and the Inspector of Works; the Steward has under him five clerks, two mates, and the brewer. Lately the cashier retired on a pension of £600 a year. The steward, a paymaster, was made cashier, at a salary of £500 a year and half-pay, with an establishment of five clerks, two men servants, and a brewer. A new steward, an Admiralty Secretary, was appointed at a salary of £500 a year, £219 half-pay, and lodging money at the rate of three guineas a week. He might observe, that if the number of officers were reduced, a large amount of lodging accommodation would be available for those officers to whom lodging money was paid.
With regard to the internal management of the Hospital, about which the Admiralty might proceed propria motu, without requiring the authority of Parliament, 1196 he wished to ask what were the intentions of the Admiralty with respect to the wives and daughters of the pensioners. Whatever tardy reforms the Admiralty might intend to effect, the long continued neglect which had been shown to the female relatives of the pensioners would remain as a blot and reproach upon the administration of Greenwich Hospital. He believed that no one would venture to contradict that assertion. He did not wish to throw blame upon the present Board of Admiralty, because he believed they had already done more for the hospital than any preceding Board, and, if rumours were correct, they were prepared to do still more; but he would say that it was a most scandalous shame that from the foundation of the hospital up to that year, 1863, the condition of the wives and daughters of the seamen should have been wholly ignored. He would not rest upon his own authority, but would quote from the Report of the Commissioners, who said—
The wives of pensioners are wholly ignored, and their circumstances are deplorable. They are consigned to extreme penury and wretchedness, and in some instances become chargeable to the parish. In 1841 the school for girls, a portion of the lower school, was abolished, and it was said no provision was made in its stead, and we have learned with regret that in consequence of that omission the class of unfortunate females who haunt the purlieus of Greenwich are largely recruited from such children.He hoped that that state of things would no longer be allowed to continue, and that the House would that night receive an assurance that the unhappy condition in which the female relatives of the seamen were left would be redressed. He knew, of his own knowledge, that much had been done of late in an indirect way. The pensioners of the first class received 5s., of the second 4s., and of the third 3s., instead of the miserable shilling a week which before was to be applied to the maintenance of their wives and children; but still the margin was not very large, and there was no direct recognition of the women. They were altogether ignored. By the Act of Anne express provision was made, or intended to be made, not only for the widows, but the wives of the pensioners. The House would hear with astonishment that the pensioners were forbidden to marry. He had himself entered into conversation on the last occasion on which he was at the Hospital with one of the most respectable old seamen he ever saw, who was engaged in reading the Bible at the time. Having 1197 asked the old man whether he was married, he replied, "That is a painful subject. I have lost my wife, but I should have too much respect for her, if she were alive, to bring her in here." That spoke volumes in condemnation of the management of Greenwich Hospital. There might be difficulties in the way of making suit able provision for the wives of the seamen in the hospital, but it was the duty of Government to overcome those difficulties Much had been said about the improvidence of sailors; and as long as they were neglected they were improvident, and when they came on shore, with plenty of money in their pockets, became the prey of crimps and rogues. But modern humanity and good sense had provided sailors' homes and savings banks, and the sailor had been found to show that he valued those establishments. If, in like manner, Government would make a proper provision for the wives of the old sailors it would have a great moral effect, and would induce the very best class of men to enter into the navy.With regard to the practical part of the question, three plans were suggested by the Commissioners. One was to make arrangements for the reception of a hundred families within the walls, by the erection of a number of cottages on some vacant ground contiguous to the Hospital. He trusted that recommendation would not be adopted, because it would not be consistent with discipline and good order to introduce the wives and families of the sailors within the walls. The second proposition was to adapt, at a cost of £6,000, some house property in Greenwich which belonged to the Hospital for the accommodation of a certain number of families. And the third recommendation was that lodging-houses should be erected for a hundred families, at an expense of £17,000. A meeting had been held lately in the City for making provision for the better lodging of the working poor of the metropolis, and one gentleman, who had paid most attention to the subject, calculated that a block of building capable of containing twenty families could be erected for £2,300. If that were so, he thought that for about £12,000 a block might he built capable of containing a hundred families. It would be an experiment; and if the experiment succeeded, it might be carried further. A sum of £12,000 would not be too much to expend in carrying out the views of the founders, in raising the standard of the navy, and in doing a simple 1198 act of justice to men who expended their blood in the public service. He desired to ask the Government, Whether it was their intention to introduce any Bill based upon the recommendations of the Commissioners; and, if not, whether they were prepared by regulations to make those important alterations and additions to which he had called attention?
§ MR. STANSFELDsaid, that there could be no doubt in the mind of any hon. Member of that House of the interest and importance of the question which the hon. Member for Northumberland had introduced to their notice; and, for his own part, he could say that he rejoiced that, after many delays, the hon. Member had at length found an opportunity of calling the attention of the Government and the House to the subject. The hon. Member had referred, with a good deal of detail, to the Report of the Commission of 1860, of which his right hon. Friend the Vice President of the Board of Trade was Chairman, and he agreed with the hon. Member in thinking that that Report was a most valuable document. It was a copious, voluminous, and a bold Report; and if he were to define in one word its leading merit and principal characteristic, he should say that it was eminently a suggestive Report. Many of the suggestions which that document contained had guided the Board of Admiralty in the improvements which the hon. Gentleman admitted to have been introduced; but he was not prepared to say that the Admiralty was ready to accept, in all its entirety and detail, every one of the multitudinous suggestions in that valuable and able Report. The hon. Member had referred specially to many of the suggestions, and had spoken first of the proposed remodelling of the governing body of the hospital, which, in the opinion of the hon. Gentleman, and also in the opinion of the Commissioners of Inquiry, would be calculated to improve its efficiency, and lead to economy in the management of the hospital. The hon. Member had alluded to the condition of the wives and families of some of the pensioners, and he had touched on the claims of the widows, not of pensioners, but of seamen who had lost their lives in the service of the country. He was prepared on each and all these topics—and he was glad that the opportunity had arrived of so doing—to give to the hon. Member and the House an explicit answer on the part of the Admiralty, for the purpose of showing how far that 1199 Board agreed in the conclusions of the Report, and to state, with equal candour, where it was that, at least for the present, the Admiralty felt bound to stop.
Before he went into a discussion of the practical grievances, and of the remedies which had been applied, or which still remained to be applied to them, he wished to remark that there were two preliminary questions, which the hon. Member also touched upon, and to which he desired in the first instance to address himself; because the view which persons might take of those preliminary questions would necessarily very much affect their conclusions when they came to the consideration of the recommendations made by the Commissioners of Inquiry. The first of those two questions was—what was the scope and original intention of this great national institution, Greenwich Hospital, and of its founders, and how far had that original intention been departed from? The second question was, how far the encroachments of the military establishment, more especially of late years, had diverted, or, as the phrase was, perverted, the funds of the institution from its original and legitimate object.
Now, in dealing with these questions, the Admiralty had no desire except to have the facts clearly brought out. His impartiality would be shown by his strengthening instead of weakening some parts of the hon. Member's case. The first document with which they had to deal was the charter of William III. in 1694, the preamble of which set forth that the hospital was to be instituted
For the relief and support of seamen serving on board the ships or vessels belonging to the navy royal, or employed in our service at sea, who by reason of age, wounds, or other disabilities, shall be incapable of further service at sea, and be unable to maintain themselves, and for the sustentation of the widows and the maintenance and education of the children of seamen happening to be slain or disabled in such service.Two years afterwards was passed another Act which, while it gave the merchant seamen's sixpences to the chest of the hospital, extended the benefits of the institution as far as possible to every seaman registered for sea service and disabled by age or otherwise, and to "the widows and children of such seamen as were slain, killed, or drowned in the sea service." He admitted, therefore, that the hon. Gentleman was right in saying that merchant seamen had originally a claim to participation in the advantages of the hospital. Then 1200 came the statute of Anne, in 1703, for the increase and better management of navigation, and especially of the coal trade, which did away with the condition that seamen must be registered, and placed it in the absolute discretion of the Lord High Admiral to admit within the walls of the hospital "any disabled seamen, their wives and children, and the widows and children of seamen slain, killed, or drowned in sea service." In that Act, for the first and only time, was mention of the wives of seamen as participators in the charity. These Acts and deeds were previous to the opening of the institution, which did not take place till 1705, and their object was very wide—much wider than could now be contemplated or recognised. They were intended, not only to afford succour to the seamen of the navy, but to promote navigation, and to provide for the service of merchant vessels, and even of the coasting trade. These, however, were objects which had passed away with the change of ideas in modern times. The true construction to be put on the old Acts and deeds was, in his opinion, that the founders of the hospital deemed it desirable to extend the scope of the foundations as widely as possible, leaving it to the discretion of the Lord High Admiral to decide, with reference to the claims upon the institution and its funds, how far within the limits they prescribed the benefits of the institution could be spread, and to regulate the priority of claims.The second question to which he had referred—as to the encroachments of the military establishment—was one of facts and dates. In 1704—the year before the hospital was opened—the office of governor was created, and a lieutenant governor, one captain, and two lieutenants were appointed. In 1705 another lieutenant was added, and there were then 100 pensioners and six officers on the establishment. In 1728 there was an accession of one captain and one lieutenant, giving eight officers to 450 pensioners. In 1748 two more lieutenants were added, making ten officers to 1,000 pensioners. In 1753 another captain was added, when the proportion was eleven officers to 1,300 pensioners. In 1763 two lieutenants were added, and the numbers then were thirteen officers and 1,783 pensioners. In 1767 the number of pensioners was the same, but there was one more captain, making fourteen officers in all. From that date down to 1840 no change was made in the establishment. In the latter year a Commission sat upon the naval and military 1201 hospitals of the country of which the late Duke of Wellington was a member. That Commission reported that commanders had some special grounds of complaint that no provision was made for them in the hospital, and accordingly four commander ships and two masterships were added to the military establishment, and in 1840 the establishment had been increased to its maximum of twenty officers. In the present year two lieutenants and one com-mandership had not been filled up by the Board, and the number of officers was therefore reduced to seventeen. There was undoubtedly in the old Charters and Acts something approaching to a recognition of the claims of the officers. The Charter of George III., in 1775, provided that all officers employed in the hospital should be seafaring men. In the Act of 1829, under which the institution was governed, it was directed that all officers, save the Commissioners and the Clerk of the Works, should be selected as far as possible from persons who had served in His Majesty's navy. The strongest evidence of something like a statutory recognition of those claims was in the Acts passed in the reign of George III. In the 3rd year of George III. an Act was passed, authorizing the governors to pay out-pensions to seamen whom they could not or did not receive as inmates; and in 1806 another Act was passed to enable them to extend the same system of out-pensions to officers as well as men. Considering the fact that the hospital possessed some thing like a military establishment even before its doors were opened, that that establishment grew with the growth of the institution which it had to manage, and that it had received Parliamentary recognition, he thought the claims of such a class of men were not to be lightly dealt with or set aside. He further maintained that these officers had a solid around for consideration in their contributions to the capital fund of the hospital. The officers of the navy had, from the first, contributed the monthly sixpences as well as the men. They had contributed indirectly in the shape of 5 per cent upon prizes, and they had contributed that fourth of certain freightages which was given to the hospital in 1819, and which would otherwise have fallen to their share. He did not wish, however, to be understood as carrying this argument too far. He was aware that these considerations left intact the question whether the appointment of disabled officers, 1202 perhaps infirm from age or wounds, was the best system of government for the institution. That was a question to be treated on its own merits, but meanwhile it was right the House should know, before they came to discuss the constitution of the governing body of the hospital, that there were claims of meritorious and deserving officers which would have to be taken into account.
He desired, in the next place, having disposed of the two preliminary questions, to make some statements with respect, to the improvements which had already been carried into effect, and his wish to do so was the greater because the introduction of those improvements was due to the almost too great and self-sacrificing labours of his hon. Friend the Member for Bedford, who, in consequence of those labours, unfortunately was, he trusted only for a short time, compelled to retire from the service of the country. Since the advent of the present Board to office, and the publication of the Report of the Commissioners, the following offices had been reduced:—One inspector of works, one dispenser, two matrons, with vacancies kept up for one commander and two lieutenants. The saving thus effected amounted to £1,844 a year; besides the cost of the apartments which would otherwise be occupied. With respect to all future appointments, the old allowances in lieu of coals, candles, faggots, and soon, were to cease, by order of the Board—a regulation to which the recent appointment of Sir Richard Bromley was made subject.
He would next state what had been done to increase the benefits enjoyed by the inmates of the hospital. As his hon. Friend had mentioned, the weekly allowance to the pensioners had been increased front 1s. to 3s., 4s., and 5s., according to a system of classification. That additional gratuity to the men, which had been given to them in the hope that it might reach their wives, had been bestowed at an annual cost of £10,000. Complaints had sometimes been made about taking the allowances from the pensioners while on leave of absence. Under a recent regulation any pensioner could take four days' leave of absence at any time, and once a year he was entitled to a leave of six weeks, during which he had the value of his weekly provision money to use while absent from the institution. The widows of seamen employed in the hospital were, he might remind the House, as much pensioners 1203 as the men themselves, and the maximum of their superannuation allowance had been raised from £10 to £25. An immense improvement had been made in the school. A new wing was in course of construction, with lavatories, baths, and all conveniences. The class-room accommodation had been increased, and measures had been taken to afford sufficient breathing space in the dormitories. Beyond all this, the Board had absolutely relinquished the whole of the patronage which they formerly posssesed in the appointment of boys to the school; and the boys, whether the sons of officers or seamen, upon one and the same footing, were selected for admission by a committee on the spot, under resolutions which represented fairly the spirit and intention of the old Charters and Acts. The same remark applied to the regulations for the admission of seamen and marines.
He was not there to say that the expenditure upon the establishment of the hospital might not be reduced. It was his opinion, as soon as he began to look into the question, and that opinion had not been shaken by further inquiry, that the expenditure upon the establishment might be, could be, and ought to be reduced. But it was hardly fair to institute a comparison of cost between 1805 and 1859, in the method which the Commissoners had adopted. A truer comparison would he between the salaries and allowances in 1805 and the salaries and allowances in 1859. In the former year they were £14,000; in the latter, £23,000. The difference between those two sums—£9,000—was the real measure of the encroachment of the establishment upon the revenue of the hospital. But something was got for that increase of charge. The increase was not upon the military part of the establishment, where the addition was limited in extent, but on the civil branch, for secretaries, clerks, and so forth. At least, therefore, something was gained in the purchase of provisions and comforts for the inmates, for the irregularities which obtained before the passing of the Act in 1829 were no longer possible. In the comparison of establishment charges which had been made—those in 1805 having been £21,000, and in 1859 £49,000—he would omit £9,000 out of the difference of £28,000. But the relative expenditure upon works and repairs in the two years must be taken into account. It was not fair to take two years, and if in one the 1204 cost of repairs was £3,000 and in the other £10,000, to assume that establishment expenditure had increased to the amount of £7,000. Then there was an increase in the rates of Greenwich Hospital to the amount of £1,000, and the remainder of the increase—some £10,000 or £11,000—was to be attributed to the increase of wages. In admitting so much, some hon. Members might imagine that he admitted the weak point in the management of the institution. Certainly, when he first called for Returns from the hospital, nothing surprised him more than to find, that with a complement of some 1,600 pensioners, the number of persons receiving wages was upwards of 500. But the explanation was very simple. These wages were really pensions in another form, and the persons who received them were either the pensioners themselves—292 were pensioners—or the wives, but mainly the widows, of seamen, who, it was felt, were intended to share, in some degree, in the benefits of the institution. Such was the explanation of the difference in the expenditure of the two years.
Then his hon. Friend had referred to the Bill brought in two years ago, changing and modifying the constitution of the governing body of the hospital, and had asked what were the intentions of the Admiralty upon that subject, and whether it was proposed to re-introduce that or some similar measure. Now, he was not there on behalf of the noble Duke at the head of the Board to withdraw the opinions which he expressed on introducing that measure; but in the House of Lords and in that House the measure did not meet with a very favourable reception. [Mr. LIDDELL: It was not discussed in this House.] That was perfectly correct, but the probable reception of a measure was to be tested by what was heard there before it came on for formal discussion; and the Bill in question was not received in such a way as made it advisable to press it. The Board of Admiralty, therefore, came to the conclusion, that having considerable power of reform already vested in themselves, it would be well to proceed by degrees, and endeavour to ascertain practically, in the first instance, to what extent they might themselves accomplish reforms and improvements before they came to Parliament for new powers.
Then his hon. Friend said that the appointment of Sir Richard Bromley was in 1205 the teeth of the Report of the Commission. Now, in the opinion of the Board, the appointment was in the very spirit of the recommendations of the Commissioners, and it was made with the object of carrying those recommendations practically into effect. In their proposed construction of the governing body of the Hospital, the Commissioners recommended the appointment of a Finance Commissioner; and who more fit to be placed in that position than a gentleman who had been for many years Accountant General of the Navy, and whose energy and abilities and financial experience were so well known to that House and to the public? He had before him the Board's letter to the Hospital Commissioners, notifying to them the appointment of Sir Richard Bromley, and he would invite attention to the terms of that letter—
The Queen having been pleased to appoint Sir Richard Maddox Bromley one of the Commissioners of Greenwich Hospital, I am to draw your attention to paragraph 7 in the recommendations of the Report of the Commissioners on Greenwich Hospital, 1860, and I am to express a hope that from the experience and abilities of Sir Richard Bromley the finance department of the Hospital may derive all the advantage looked for by the Royal Commission.Sir Richard Bromley had accepted the office upon these terms, and was pledged as far as might be to fulfil the expectations implied in the very terms of his appointment. His energy and abilities were known, the reputation which he enjoyed was known, and they might entertain a confident expectation that he would be wishful to maintain and increase that reputation.As to the condition of the wives and families of pensioners, he agreed with his hon. Friend, that even if the Admiralty were not strictly responsible for the circumstances and conditions of life of these families, these things did constitute a slur upon that great national institution. Suggestions had been sent down for the consideration of the Commissioners and of the military establishment. These had been returned with the annotations of the Commissioners. The matter would shortly be determined in all its details—and he could assure his hon. Friend that in the shape of some increased weekly allowance to the married men, and also by some provisions and regulations to secure, as far as could be secured, the proper application of that increased allowance, they hoped to be able to accomplish some good in this direction. 1206 Then there was the case of the widows. The Board were of opinion, that, next to the wounded seamen, there could be no class of persons, whether the terms of the original Charters and Acts or the intrinsic merits of their claims were taken into account, who had more urgent claims for some benefit from the hospital than the widows of men who might hove lost their lives in the service of their country. Objections referred to by his hon. Friend existed to the admission within the walls of the institution of wives and widows as well as the men. The Admiralty had therefore thought it preferable to try to make some provision for them outside. To enable the Board to do that, they would have to come to Parliament for powers, and it would be his duty, in the course of the next week, to ask leave to introduce a Bill in order to carry these proposals into execution. He trusted that his answers had not been entirely unsatisfactory to the House. He was quite aware that more ambitious and larger schemes had been proposed and discussed; but he could not accede to the policy of the course suggested. In his opinion, it was infinitely better that the man who, whether by his own labour or that of his wife, or by the assistance of his friends, was enabled, in addition to whatever out-pension he might possess, to gain sufficient for a comfortable, although it might be a humble, maintenance in the locality of his birth, or some place with which the associations of his life were connected—it was infinitely better that such a man, for many reasons which would suggest themselves to the House, should be so situated, than that he should be pensioned within the walls of the institution. Greenwich Hospital was an hospital which should be devoted to the accommodation of the infirm, of the really disabled, and of those who required those special comforts and attentions which they could not be expected to command in their own more modest homes. He could not therefore accept those more ambitious schemes to which he referred. He objected to them, too, because he found them to be financially unsound. They were based on the notion of a very large increase of expenditure, as well as of a very considerable augmentation of income. But how, let him ask, was it proposed to increase the expenditure and the income of the hospital. It was suggested that the out-pensions saved to the country should be paid over to the funds of the institution, 1207 while the scheme was, in the next place, baaed on a problematical saving of £20,000 a year; and lastly, on an elimination of the annual surplus which at present accrued. Now, there was a surplus, the amount of which was somewhat exaggerated. It was applied, in the first place, to an insurance fund, while there was, in the second place, a mining fund; but any hon. Gentleman who was at all acquainted with the matter must be aware that mining profits did not endure for ever. It was therefore simply a question of prudence to make provision for the day when those mines should be exhausted. Besides, there was annually a certain surplus which he trusted would be available for the purposes to which he referred. Now, bearing in mind what, after all, was the main object of the institution—to provide for a state of war—he maintained that in time of peace the resources of the hospital should not be taxed to their utmost or frittered away; so that, when war did unhappily arise, the building might be ready and funds at hand to accommodate those men who might have Buffered in defence of the honour and safety of their country. He acknowledged the justice of the claims which his hon. Friend had brought under the notice of the House, and the Government would not fail to endeavour cautiously, but perseveringly, and without delay, to give them some practical effect.
§ SIR JOHN PAKINGTONsaid, he thought the time of the House was well occupied in discussing the interests of the noble charity under discussion. He had listened, he might add, with great pleasure to the speech of the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down, who had shown that during the short time he had occupied his office, he had made himself master of one important question connected with the duties of his department. He was particularly gratified at learning from the hon. Gentleman that it was not likely the Bill of two years ago would be re-introduced. The description of the feeling which then prevailed with regard to that Bill was well described in the speech of the hon. Gentleman, as the measure was received with distrust, and it appeared to him (Sir John Pakington), that the course which the hon. Gentleman had announced on behalf of the Admiralty was a more prudent one than if they made another attempt at wholesale legislation. For his own part, he was not at all disposed to deny that reforms in Greenwich hospital were necessary. 1208 It was, no doubt, very desirable that a reduction should be effected in the establishment, and that the management should be as far as possible be rendered more economical; but he, at the same time, saw no reason why, under the powers conferred by the Act of 1829, it was not perfectly feasible to carry out those reforms, without having recourse to additional legislation. He wished to speak with respect of the abilities and industry of the Royal Commissioners. He felt that it was with some hesitation that he differed from the recommendations of one of them—his hon. and gallant Friend who sat near him (Sir John Hay). But he confessed he should be sorry to see all of them carried out. There was one part of their Report, however, on which the hon. Gentleman had not touched—namely, that pointing out the difference which had prevailed at Greenwich between the civil and military authorities. Those differences he regarded as a great misfortune; indeed, they were more—they were a scandal. The evil was one, nevertheless, which might be easily removed. He was disposed to think, that if the Governor of the Hospital were made a really useful member of the establishment, and were appointed one of the Commissioners, all the inconveniences which arose on that score might be obviated. Holding that opinion, he disapproved of the proposed arrangement, which seemed to him most absurd, to turn the office of Governor into a mere useless sinecure. It was a far wiser and more simple plan to make the Governor a Commissioner, and to appoint to the office a naval officer of high rank. The appointment of Sir Richard Bromley was a great improvement on the previous state of affairs. It was impossible for the Government to have filled up the office of Commissioner better than they had done by that appointment. He (Sir John Pakington) had seen with deep regret the remarks in the public prints reflecting on that appointment. It had been lost sight of, that this able roan lost his health from the arduous work which he had in the service. He was, therefore, glad to hear the generous terms in which the hon. Gentleman had spoken of the past services of that gallant officer. He was able, from personal knowledge, to bear testimony to the fact that Sir Richard Bromley's health had completely failed some years ago, from his long-continued exertions in the discharge of his public duties. It was in 1858 that his health broke down, and at that time it was his 1209 (Sir John Pakington's) duty, to grant him a lengthened absence from duty; and when he did so, he feared that he would not return to active life He was sorry that the arrangement made by the Government was not a more liberal one. Considering his length of service, it would have been more generous if he had been allowed full pay in addition to his salary as Commissioner. The point to which be was most anxious to refer, was a recommendation of the Commissioners with which he could not agree, and which, he was sorry to say, had been distinctly embodied in a Bill introduced by the Government two years since. He referred to the recommendation "that no commissioned officer of the navy be admitted into the Hospital except in an administrative capacity." He thought that to act upon such a recommendation would be most ungracious. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Halifax, in his able speech, had traced with clearness and accuracy the history of the Hospital, and had shown that from the commencement officers had been admissable to the benefits of the institution. In the year of the foundation of the Hospital, 1704, one of very nearly the first admissions was that of a disabled lieutenant in the navy; again by the Charter of 1775, again in 1809, and again in the recommendation of the Committee of 1840, over which the Duke of Wellington presided, the same principle prevailed, that naval officers should share the benefits of the charity. After the observations of the hon. Gentleman, he could not but hope that the noble Duke and the Board of Admiralty had reconsidered that part of the subject, and were not disposed to act upon the recommendation. He had been sorry to hear that the vacancies among the officers had occurred, and were not yet filled up, and he would wish to know whether it was intended not to fill them up. It must always be borne in mind, that the officers of the navy had largely contributed to the funds of the Hospital by freight money and prize money, and therefore be hoped that the benefits of the institution would not be confined absolutely to seamen. He admitted that reforms were necessary, and that increased economy was also necessary. A Return moved for by the late Mr. Pugh, some years ago, showed that at that time, the expense of the inmates did not exceed £40 a man, whilst now that expense was increased to £59 a man. That certainly called for inquiry and correction; but he believed that the Admiralty had full powers 1210 to cure these evils without having recourse to legislation, and be hoped that they would exercise those powers.
§ SIR JOHN HAYsaid, that, as one of the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the government and condition of Greenwich Hospital, he was desirous of stating the grounds upon which they made and still adhered to certain recommendations they had embodied in their Report, and which were objected to. And first, he would allude to the necessity for legislation. The evil which met them at the outset, in connection with Greenwich Hospital, was the continual and incessant squabbling between the civil Commissioners and the military Commissioners who formed the double Government of the institution. All the evils existing in that institution—and they were not a few—were clearly traceable to that double government; and be was informed that an Act of the Legislature would be necessary to get rid of that double government. For that purpose, the Commission thought that there should be legislation; but the remainder of the Commissioners' recommendations could, he believed, be carried out by the Board of Admiralty without the interference of Parliament. A change in the mode of government of the Hospital was absolutely necessary, and in that opinion the Commissioners were fortified by high authority, including that of the late Sir James Graham, who disapproved of a Board of civil officers, but considered that a re-construction of the governing body was necessary, and thought a civil Commissioner, acting with the Governor, and perhaps the medical officers, would form a suitable governing body. He (Sir John Hay) concurred in all that had been said of the great merits of Sir Richard Bromley, and thought that he would be an excellent civil Commissioner. One disadvantage arising from the present double government was, the great expense entailed upon the Hospital by it. Excluding the charges of building, he found the present charge for managing the establishment of the Hospital, not including the allowances to pensioners, was £47,704 upon an income of £158,000. The proposal of the Commissioners was, he thought, reasonable, as, after deducting £5,000 for building and other similar purposes, they proposed to allow £26,973 for expenses of management. This reduction of expenditure, to the extent of nearly £25,000 a year, could be easily arranged, merely by not filling up vacancies when they occurred. 1211 There was an excess of Commissioners and of military government; and although certain appointments had not been filled up, there had not been that reduction in the expense which the Commission had recommended, and actually showed how it could be made. He would not go at length into the items of wasteful expenditure in the matter of the establishment, but this he would say—there were certain officers to which the hon. Member for Northumberland (Mr. Liddell) had alluded—the Steward, the Clerk of the Check, Cashier, and Secretary—four civil officers who were supposed to have something to do—but when the Commission were at the Hospital, they found that the three first named had nothing to do, for they did their duty by deputy. He would read to the House an extract from the evidence of one of these officers, in which he stated that the clerks were perfectly competent to perform all the duties, and that he did not see why the officers themselves should be retained. [The hon. and gallant Member, having read the evidence proceeded:] The Commissioners did not wish to be hard on those officers, who had, no doubt, done good service in their time; but they thought Greenwich Hospital was not the place where Navy Paymasters ought to receive their pensions. One of these officers had since retired on full pay, and his place had been filled up; another had died, and his place also had been filled up. He had nothing to say against the selection that had been made; one was secretary to the late Lord Lyons, and another secretary to Sir Houston Stewart, who had performed most valuable services in the Black Sea and elsewhere. He did not object that these gentlemen should be duly rewarded for their services; but what he thought and what the Commissioners thought was, that they should be rewarded from the funds of the country and not from the funds of Greenwich Hospital. The surgeons of the navy were surely as deserving of pensions as the civil officers, yet they were only appointed to Greenwich Hospital for five years, no doubt under an impression, that if they became unable themselves to do duty, their clerks and apothecaries could not so well supply their places; but in other departments, because the duty could be got done without any great particularity as to the way in which it was performed, officers were allowed to remain until they were quite incapacitated for the proper discharge of their functions. Hon. Members 1212 would find in the Appendix to the Report many facts stated which strongly corroborated the conclusions at which the Commission had arrived. It bad, for instance, been ascertained that there were in the workhouses of this country 1,100 seamen who had served some thirty and forty years in the navy, who were entitled to admission into Greenwich Hospital, but who could not be admitted, owing to the overgrown nature of the Hospital establishment. He would never believe that it was the intention of the Royal Founder of the Hospital that 1,100 seamen should be maintained in the workhouses while one third of its funds were expended in its management. As a naval officer, though with some feelings of regret, he was obliged both to suggest and concur in the scheme of the Commission. What they did object to was, that under the pretext of performing military duties, officers were appointed who from their state of health could not perform them, yet received comforts and maintenance at the public charge. A good deal had been said about freight, but he did not see how captains and commanders in the navy could be said to contribute from their funds a proportion to give them a claim to be maintained at the expense of the Hospital. He would not further detain the House. The subject had received most ample discussion. He trusted, if a Bill were necessary to alter the government of Greenwich Hospital, Her Majesty's Ministers would propose a Bill with that view; and if the other reforms indicated could be carried out by the Board of Admiralty, no time would be lost in making them. With regard to the sinecure office which his Colleagues and himself had been accused of having established, they found that from the commencement of the Hospital there had been at its head the officer who was held to be of the greatest eminence in the profession. His colleagues and himself felt that it would be to the honour and dignity of the Hospital and the profession that that should continue, especially considering the distinguished character of Sir James Gordon, now holding that office; and that was the sole reason why the recommendation had been made.
§ MR. BRISCOEsaid, he concurred in thinking that great reductions could be made in the expenditure of Greenwich Hospital, and he was glad to hear that they were likely to take place. The House was indebted to the hon. and gallant Gentleman who had just sat down for much valuable assistance he had given on the 1213 subject to the country. In visiting Greenwich Hospital he was surprised to find that the cabins of the seamen had only four instead of eight beds, and this was the more painful when they remembered the fact that 1,100 sailors were found in the workhouses of the country He was also glad to hear that an increased allowance was to be made to the wives of the pensioners. He did not, however, find any reference made to the establishment of a girls' school for the children of the seamen. That he much regretted, because he believed it was to the absense of such a school much of the immorality of the streets of Greenwich could be traced. If the noble Lord should not propose the establishment of such a school, he (Mr. Briscoe) should feel it his duty at some future time to take the sense of the House upon it. He should like to be informed whether the £120,000, advanced on mortgage to the Commissioners of the Exhibition of 1851 in the year 1860 was still unpaid?
§ MR. ANGERSTEINsaid, he thought that much of the dissension which had occurred between the Commissioners and the governing body of the hospital was to be traced to the appointment, during the administration of the late Sir Robert Peel, of a naval Commissioner. The increase of the expense, which had risen from £40 per man in 1849, to £60 per man in 1859, was the result of the Admiralty Order of 1852, by which it was directed that no man should be admitted to the hospital but men who had served in the Royal Navy for ten years. There was not, of course, an indefinite number of such men, and the number of pensioners fell from 2,710 to 1,600.
§ MR. INGHAMsaid, that the words of the early Acts of Parliament clearly showed that it was intended that the benefits of the hospitals should be enjoyed by seamen and by seamen alone. He should like to know whether the further provision which was contemplated by the Government for the wives of seamen would include the erection of homes, and he hoped that some arrangement would be made by which seamen who resided in the country, and were candidates for admission to the hospital, might be spared the expense of coming to London to be examined.
§ LORD CLARENCE PAGETsaid, that the question had already been so ably discussed, especially by the hon. Gentleman who introduced the subject, and by his hon. Friend the Civil Lord of the Admiralty, that he should confine himself to 1214 giving explanations upon a few points connected with the management of the hospital which had been referred to. He was not prepared to say, nor did he think that any one who had studied the old Acts and charters would say, that it was originally intended that officers of the navy should participate in the benefits of the institution as pensioners; but from the very foundation of the Hospital it had been the practice that they should do so, and it would be extremely unjust to deprive them of advantages which they had so long enjoyed. Indirectly, officers of the navy had paid towards the institution as much money or more than represented the capital of the cost of the military establishment at Greenwich. The cost of that military establishment was only eight thousand odd hundred pounds a year; and his hon. Friend wanted to reduce that really small sum by cutting off from the establishment a certain number of old and crippled naval officers, who, in spite of their infirmities, were still able to attend to the discipline and see to the cleanliness and comfort of the men. The House must remember the case of Captain Aldham, who was nearly murdered between the const and the town of Mexico. Was it to officers like him they would grudge a position in Greenwich Hospital? No doubt the civil establishment was large and costly, but his hon. Friend the Member for Halifax had entered into minute detail, and shown that in many respects the cost of that establishment was exaggerated out of doors. It must be remembered that a great many of those employed in the civil branch were officers in the navy who had served the country long and faithfully; some were pensioners who were doing the duty of nurses and servants in the hospital, and widows of seamen were likewise reckoned. If Greenwich Hospital were treated solely on economic principles, and not regarded as one of the ancient institutions of the country, it might as well be done away with. It was like the Temple of Janus, and might almost be closed in time of peace. It should be remembered, however, that it was called into existence immediately after the great naval battle of La Hogue, with the object of finding a home for the vast number of poor crippled sailors who then returned to the country; and if a European war ever occurred, it would probably be speedily filled with crippled men. The pensioners now in the hospital were generally the men who had served in the navy from the end of the long war to the year 1215 1830. Those were days of economy, when the navy only consisted of about 27,000 men, and consequently the applications for admission in the present day were very few. But let it be remembered that the navy now amounts to 76,000 men, and we have in addition 16,000 Royal Naval Reserve men, who are entitled to the benefits of Greenwich Hospital, and therefore in all probability the demands on the Hospital will greatly increase. It was said that 1,100 seamen were in the different workhouses, who ought to be enjoying the benefits of Greenwich Hospital; but he maintained that every sailor who had served faithfully in the navy knew perfectly well that he had only to present himself and be Admitted. In reply to the question put by his right hon. Friend he would say that the noble Duke at the head of the Department did not think it necessary, as a matter of constant practice, to keep all the vacancies for naval officers filled; but if a case like that of Captain Aldham arose, of any one injured in the service to whom it was an object of importance to gain admission to Greenwich Hospital, the claim would certainly be considered. It was not, however, the intention of the Admiralty at that moment to fill up those vacancies. As regarded Sir Richard Bromley, he thought any reward which could be given to that most excellent, most able, and industrious old servant of the Crown would be well deserved. Her Majesty's Government, giving due consideration to his services, in placing him now in the same position in all respects which he had hitherto held as regards his pecuniary allowances, did only what they believed to be just and right. He trusted the appointment of that distinguished officer to Greenwich Hospital would tend to the reduction of expenditure in that institution, which hitherto he could not contend for a moment had been managed with a due regard to economy. The Government had chosen a most able and fitting instrument for the purpose, and he rejoiced in the appointment of Sir Richard Bromley to that office, although personally he regretted the loss of his services at the Admiralty, where he had brought the naval, the dockyard, and shipbuilding accounts into a correct and satisfactory state. His hon. Friend, who referred to the daughters of seamen at Greenwich, was probably not aware that a school for fifty girls already existed. It was no doubt capable of improvement, but the boys' school was everything that could 1216 be desired. He trusted that the Bill, which his hon. Friend had intimated his intention to bring in next week, would meet with the approval of the House of Commons.
§ MR. ALDERMAN SALOMONSsaid, that claims for admission to Greenwich Hospital were one thing, rules of admission another. He knew a case of a seaman nearly eighty years of age, who had served twelve years in the war, been in several actions, and always borne an excellent character, who had actually paid for twelve or fourteen years, but not long enough to entitle him to a pension, and who, by the rigid rules of the establishment, could not procure admission to Greenwich Hospital.
MR. LINDSAYsaid, the hon. Member for Halifax had paid a deservedly high compliment to the Report of the Royal Commission; but his speech, nevertheless, was an argument throughout against the recommendations of that Report. The Admiralty had done nothing towards carrying out the views of the Commissioners. They actually stood up for the unnecessarily large and inefficient establishment, which the Commissioners condemned as having been created out of revenues never meant to be applied to such purposes. It was said that those who were excluded from the benefits of the hospital would be admitted if they could show their title; but it was impossible they could be so, because a great part of the funds were misappropriated. It was acknowledged that it was contrary to the charter of the hospital and the intentions of the founders that officers should be admitted as was now done, and yet the practice was continued. Instead of considering that any reform in the institution was necessary, the Members of the Government who had spoken seemed to think that there ought to be no such reform, but all the abuses in existence should be continued. Sir Richard Bromley had been withdrawn from the service of the Admiralty on account of sickness, and yet they said they had appointed him for a purpose in accordance with the recommendation of the Commissioners—namely, the reform of Greenwich Hospital. But how could a sick man fulfil such a task as that? That was only part and parcel of the whole system of the Board of Admiralty. That Board was opposed to every real reform, and it set its face against all progress. There had been many proofs given of that fact before, and one more had been added to them that night.