§ SIR JOHN HAYI rise to ask a Question of which I have given private notice to the noble Lord the Secretary of the Admiralty. It will be in the recollection of the House that on a recent occasion I stated that the "Lord Warden target" had been completely penetrated by shot more than once at the trial of that construction. The noble Lord denied that the target had been penetrated at all, though he said it had been roughly used. I ask him, therefore, whether, in stating that the 300-pounder Armstrong gun had failed to penetrate the Lord Warden target, he alluded to 300lb. rifled shot, or to the 168lb. steel spherical (smooth-bore) shot; and whether the Lord Warden target was not completely penetrated by three shots, one of them being the 300lb. rifle shot fired from the 300-pounder 10½-inch gun, with 45lb. of powder, as I stated to the House?
§ LORD CLARENCE PAGETI regret that I did not sufficiently explain my meaning upon the occasion referred to, and I also regret that the hon. and gallant Gentleman had not then amplified his statement, as in either case this misunderstanding could not have arisen. It was the 300lb. smooth-bore gun to which I referred when I said it had failed to penetrate the Lord Warden target. [Sir JOHN HAY: What size of shot?] With 168lb. shot. That is the only gun of the size in use in the navy—the same as is on board the Royal Sovereign. But it is true that one of the 300lb. rifled guns carrying a 300lb. shot did pierce the target after it had been fired at for a long time and was much shaken. I must remark, however, that the gun then used was one concerning which there were grave doubts whether it was strong enough to bear the concussion of such heavy shot, and consequently whether it was a gun fit to be introduced into the navy.