§ SIR LAWRENCE PALKsaid, he rose to move that this House will, upon Tuesday next, resolve itself into a Committee to consider of an humble Address to be presented to Her Majesty, praying that She will be graciously pleased to give directions for putting the Staff Captains, Commanders, and Masters of the Royal Navy upon an equality in pay, rank, and eligibility for receiving marks of distinction, with any other class of Officers in that Service. The duties of a Master in Her Majesty's Navy were only second to those of the captain or the commander of the vessel in which he acted, and he should be glad, if time permitted, to show the House how those officers entered the service, and how they were treated in comparison with other officers who entered at the same time. The Masters entered as second class cadets, and they served six years as Masters' assistants before they become eligible for the position of Master. Entering the service at the age of fifteen they would be twenty-one before being eligible for second Masters, while the cadet at nineteen was eligible for a lieutenant. True, at the commencement they received as Masters' assistants more pay than the first class naval cadets; but as the latter gained more rapid promotion, their pay quickly exceeded that of the Master, though the expenses and the mess were the same. The Master began with a sense of inferiority which stuck to him through life, and marred his hopes of fame and rank. The Master, having served twenty-five years, would obtain the nominal rank of staff commander, and be in receipt of £1 per diem. The lieutenant who had served from seven to nine years would have gained his promotion as commander, and in nine years' service, according to the new scheme—from which the Masters were to derive no benefit whatever—the lieutenant would be in receipt of £1 per diem. Five years more would make the lieutenant a post-captain, when he would receive from £400 to £800 a year, besides command money. The staff commander, having served a greater length of time, would receive only £365 per annum. He 1210 next came to a comparison of the pay in the dockyards. The Master attendant received £480, the Master shipwright £650, the assistant Master attendant £380, the chief engineer £650, and the storekeeper £600. In the victualling yards at Deptford the Master attendant of the two establishments received £480, and the storekeeper of the dockyard and victualling yard £1,200. The noble Lord (Lord C. Paget) had said that the Masters had never made any demand for increased pay, and that their demand was entirely limited to rank, which had been granted them. Neither of those statements could be maintained. A memorial was presented in December, 1860, from the Masters, in the last paragraph of which they said—
It would be satisfactory to the class of Masters generally if they were placed, with regard to relative rank, pay, pensions, and social position, on the same footing as that now held by medical officers, of whom they have always had the precedence since the Order in Council of the 28th of March, 1808.It was admitted by all naval men that the Masters formed a most intelligent, most trustworthy, and most valuable class of officers. For years they had been complaining of the treatment to which they were subjected in respect to pay, promotion, and rewards for distinguished services. In 1862, in consequence of representations made to the Admiralty, a Committee was appointed to consider their grievances. That Committee consisted of Rear Admiral Elliot, Captain Goldsmith, Captain Washington, and one Master. The report of those gentlemen, for some reason or other, though moved for, had never been presented to the House. It bore strong testimony to the efficiency of the Masters, recommending that they should be retained as navigators and pilots, but that their position should be improved. Among other things the Committee proposed that the grievances of the Masters should be removed with respect to widows' pensions, compassionate allowances, and prize money; that their designations should be altered, and that they should be rewarded like other officers for distinguished services. Some of those recommendations had been adopted, but the greater part had never been carried out; and with regard to distinguished rewards, especially, the Masters at the present moment were in no better position than formerly. At that moment a staff commander of thirty-four years' service and of twenty-two 1211 years' standing, with a separate command, was junior to a junior lieutenant, and if a boy of nineteen who had the rank of lieutenant came in contact with the Master of Her Majesty's yacht, Osborne, who was one of the most distinguished officers in the service, that Master must wait upon him as his superior officer. The Masters had not been raised in point of rank, nor had they up to that time been permitted to share in rewards granted for distinguished services, though some of their number had been highly praised for their conduct in the Crimea and at Kagosima. After the attack on Sebastopol, on October 17, 1854, all the post-captains present were made C. B.'s, the commanders were posted, and a lieutenant commanding a ship was made a commander; but there were no such rewards for the Masters. Admiral Kuper acknowledged how much he was indebted to the Master of his flag-ship, Mr. W. H. Parker, for a survey which he made of the bay before the action at Kagosima; but there, again, there was no reward. As he understood the noble Lord the other night, he said that the Masters enjoyed the full social rank to which they were entitled. That might be so nominally, but in reality the Masters ranked socially below the lowest officer of the ship. He should like to see the Masters placed in the same position as the engineers of the army, that was to say, placed in a superior and not in an inferior position. He thought they were entitled to such position by the importance of the duties they had to discharge.
§
Amendment proposed,
To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "this House will, upon Tuesday next, resolve itself into a Committee to consider of an humble Address to be presented to Her Majesty, praying that She will be graciously pleased to give directions for putting the Staff Captains, Commanders, and Masters of the Royal Navy upon an equality in pay, rank, and eligibility for receiving marks of distinction, with any other class of Officers in that Service,"— (Sir Lawrence Palk,)
—instead thereof.
§ Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
§ SIR JOHN PAKINGTONsaid, that before the noble Lord rose to address them he wished to say a few words, although he did not mean to enter into the Question raised by his hon. Friend behind him. He 1212 would say only that the Masters were officers of great merit, and ought to be adequately requited for their services. The subject, however, suggested a question of a wider and more comprehensive character. It was well known that for many years the officers of the Royal Navy had had reason to complain of insufficient pay. He had himself repeatedly adverted to the fact that captains were sometimes obliged to decline commands from inability to make their income meet the expenses involved. The Admiralty had, with the best intentions, introduced a supplementary estimate to increase the pay of certain classes of officers; but he believed that their proposals were not satisfactory even to the officers concerned, while there were several classes which were not touched at all. His noble Friend the Secretary to the Admiralty had adopted generally rather an apologetic tone in speaking of that estimate, and had pleaded the limited fund at his disposal as a reason for not doing more. He could not, of course, blame the Chancellor of the Exchequer for reasonable vigilance as to the finances of the country; but, considering the growing wealth and prosperity of the nation, which the right hon. Gentleman had himself so eloquently described, he thought there was no excuse for committing any injustice on the ground of necessary economy. He submitted that the time had come when the matter should be dealt with in a broader and more liberal manner than had been done in the supplementary estimate; and he would therefore beg to ask the noble Lord whether the Admiralty would, as a preliminary step, consent to a Royal Commission on the pay of the Navy?
§ COLONEL EDWARDSthought he was only doing his duty in advocating the claims of a body of men who deserved the best consideration of the House of Commons. As to the captains on the reserved list, when he referred to them the other night, the noble Lord the Secretary to the Admiralty seemed to ignore their existence. One hundred of those captains, as the noble Lord was well aware, were originally placed on the reserved list upon the distinct understanding that they should enjoy the same advantages prospectively as those who were placed on the active list. He had that day received a statement from a post-captain in the Royal Navy who had been placed on the reserved list, in which he stated that the class he represented were at a loss to know what Lord 1213 C. Paget meant by saying that a "boon" had been granted to those officers, to which body he unfortunately belonged. The noble Lord must have alluded to a different class. The captains on the reserved list had received no "boon;" on the contrary, their claims had always been pooh-poohed by the Admiralty, and they were told by the Duke of Somerset that they had "obtained advantages they could not possibly have expected when they entered the service!" They expected justice, and were distinctly assured by the Order in Council under which they were promoted, that their claims should be "equitably met." They now complain of a breach of faith, as their claims are by no means "equitably met," (that is equally with other officers, fairly and impartially). Many reserved captains had served twenty, thirty, and thirty-five years in active service, on the most unhealthy stations, and in all parts of the world—in general actions and numerous engagements, wounded, health impaired by sickness, and arduous service for their country. These men were kept on a miserable pittance, whilst there were admirals on 25s. per diem who had only served twelve or thirteen years on active service, and that of no particularly severe nature, but principally in the Mediterranean and other healthy stations. He (Colonel Edwards) maintained that this was an instance in which men belonging to Her Majesty's Navy—a most gallant and meritorious class of officers—had been treated very unfairly, and he could not conceive why the noble Lord, who professed to be such an ardent friend and supporter of the just claims of the officers of his own profession, could ignore the fact of their very existence in face of the House of Commons, being well aware that he (Colonel Edwards) had, four years in succession, in debates which had arisen in the House, advocated their claims, and, on more than one occasion, close divisions had been taken. He trusted the hon. Baronet would, on some future and early occasion, include the captains on the reserved list in his category, and that the just claims of this class of officers would be fairly and equitably considered.
§ MR. C. P. BERKELEYobserved, that the Committee which sat last year examined no Master nor Commander, and no evidence was taken about their position except incidentally. As to the retired captains, he thought their case had been pretty fully inquired into by the Committee 1214 of last year, and the result of the inquiry had not disturbed the opinion which he had expressed two years ago—that they had not a leg to stand upon. No boon had been granted to them since that, except the boon of a good grievance, which had been granted to them a few nights ago. The only boon granted to them previously was that conferred by the Order of 1861, which enabled them to get additional pay according to service. One officer who had been examined said that boon only amounted to about 3d. a day, and he never knew why that had been given to him, and he thought it must be a mistake. The Committee could not allude to the grievances of the Masters and Commanders. There were fifty or fifty-five classes of officers on the active list, and as to scales of pay he believed there were not less than one hundred of them. He therefore considered that the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman was worthy of attention.
§ SIR WILLIAM MILESjoined his hearty wish to that expressed by his hon. Friend near him, that the Secretary of the Admiralty would consider the case of the Staff Masters. He had had the honour of sitting upon the Committee, and he conceived that there was no class of officers in the Royal Navy whose case deserved greater consideration than that of the Staff Masters. He believed that if England were polled as to this question, there would be a unanimous opinion expressed that their position ought to be improved. He thought that the claims of all the other officers of the navy should be likewise considered.
§ MR. AYRTONsaid, he trusted that the Government would not readily accede to the request which had been made, and by handing over its functions to a Commission, entail upon the public a great increase in the expenditure. As a Member of the Committee, he had hoped that their well-considered Report would have put an end to much of what they had heard that night. If the inducements at present held out were not sufficient to induce officers to enter the navy—which he did not believe to be the case—he hoped his noble Friend the Secretary of the Admiralty would state so.
§ MR. ALDERMAN ROSEsaid, he hoped that the House would always listen to any class which came before them with a well-founded grievance. It had been clearly shown that the only memebrs of a very difficult and dangerous service, who had not been recognized or received any 1215 increase of pay or decoration were the Masters in the navy. As he had a great many of that class amongst his constituents he felt that he was justified in raising his voice in their favour. The right hon. Baronet had proved a strong case for the whole subject being taken into consideration, and he thought the House would not be doing its duty if they did not entertain it.
§ MR. THOMSON HANKEYsaid, he would admit that the House was a court of last appeal for grievances; but he must protest against taking out of the hands of the executive Government the exercise of their proper functions. If the House undertook to remedy all the grievances which ought to be remedied by the responsible Officers of the Crown, it would get itself into considerable difficulties. The case before them was very like that of the Custom House Officers seeking for additional pay. He had received many applications on the subject, but he had invariably said that he did not think it his duty to interfere with the Officers of the Crown on such matters. The duty of the House of Commons was to check the expenditure, not to increase it.
§ MR. FERRANDsaid, he wished to know what the officers of the army and navy were to do, if, having brought a grievance before the Executive and obtained no remedy, they were to be precluded from appealing to the House of Commons. "Would the hon. Member have them strike, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer had recommended working men to do the other night?
§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERI beg the hon. Gentleman's pardon. If he makes such an assertion as that, will he have the goodness to prove it?
§ MR. FERRANDsaid, he certainly understood the right hon. Gentleman to justify strikes.
§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER"Recommend strikes" was the expression I called on the hon. Gentleman to prove.
§ MR. FERRANDsaid, he would withdraw the word "recommend," but he certainly understood the right hon. Gentleman to justify strikes. In all such cases as that before them the ultimate court of appeal must be that House.
§ LORD CLARENCE PAGETsaid, he was not in a position to answer the Question of the right hon. Member for Droitwich, whether the Government were pre- 1216 pared to recommend a Royal Commission on the subject; but he had no hesitation in saying that it was a most unfortunate thing for the navy that Motions devoted to the cases of individual classes of officers should be brought forward in the manner they had been of late years. The Masters did complain of their position, in the shape of a memorial to the Admiralty, and he certainly quite admitted that they had reason to do so. Considering the responsible duties they had to perform, their position had not been commensurate with their merits. When the complaint was made, the Admiralty appointed a Committee to consider their case, and the Masters came before it to state their grievance. A few of them complained of their pay; but the grievance of the great majority of them was in reference to their position as regards rank in the navy. They complained that in the colonies and in garrison towns they were not always entitled to be considered gentlemen by their rank. The Committee took into consideration the propriety of abolishing the rank of Master altogether, and that was a question on which distinguished officers who gave evidence differed; and the Committee reported that it was not advisable to abolish the class, but recommended, after a certain length of service, to grant them additional rank. Another grievance was, that their widows' pensions were not sufficient, and they were increased. There were other additional claims which they made; for instance, they asked for some out-pensions at Greenwich Hospital. The Committee recommended that it should be granted, and the Admiralty were glad to do it. He knew it was a sore point with the Masters that on the quarter-deck they ranked below the junior lieutenants, but he submitted that there were important reasons connected with discipline which rendered that necessary, and that it was not the sort of question which could be decided in the House of Commons. It was a matter that should be left to the Crown. With regard to the question of their pay, as compared with that of paymasters, he might observe that the paymasters, having no opportunity of rising to the higher branches of the service, expected that some difference should be made in their favour. Besides, they laboured under the disadvantage that they had had their pay reduced. The paymaster in former days received very large perquisites, and when those perquisites were taken away they had a fixed 1217 pay granted to them much higher than that of the Masters. Then, taking the case of surgeons, it must be borne in mind that they were young men who had to go through a very expensive education at their own cost, the fact being too that, while there was great difficulty in getting surgeons for the navy, no difficulty was experienced in getting Masters. Again, turning to the executive branch of the navy, it would be found that the pay of the junior Masters was the same as that of the junior lieutenants. The Masters rose by gradations to a pay of £273 15s. a year, not in command. The highest pay which a lieutenant would receive under the new scheme was £269 a year, when in command; while a Master in command got 2s. a day additional, so that he was better paid than the lieutenant. Staff commanders ranked with commanders, and their lowest rate of full pay was £273 15s., and the lowest pay of commanders was £365; staff commanders not in command rose to £365; and commanders in command rose to £433; a staff commander when in command of a ship got £36 10s. extra, which brought him up nearly to the pay of commanders. He contended there was no cause of grievance between the two ranks in regard to pay. The Masters had also an allowance, when in charge of stores, of from £38 to £73 per year. There was no such pay as £1,200 per annum for the Master attendants of the dockyards; all they got was £600 per annum. [Sir LAWRENCE PALK: Some of them hold double appointments.] That was a mistake. And what had been done for the Masters at various times in the way of half-pay? In 1855, the rate of half-pay, which up to that time was only 7s., was raised to 13s., and in 1860 to 15s. 6d. That being so, he confidently appealed to the House to say whether those officers were badly treated. There was, he admitted, no more useful branch of the service than the Masters, but he regretted for their sakes that they should have brought such a grievance as that of which they complained under the notice of the House. The Admiralty was, of course, always ready to listen to any respectful complaints from them or any other officers, and if compliance with their requests was refused, it was only because it was due to the public to resist the constant appeals for increase of pay which were made.
§ SIR JAMES ELPHINSTONEsaid, that as the prices of provisions and almost 1218 every necessary of life had risen 35 per cent, it was not to be expected that officers would be content to remain contented on the present wretched and miserable pittance they received. He could assure the noble Lord that the matter would be persisted in until justice was done to the service. It would not do for the Chancellor of the Exchequer to come to that House and explain to the working men how to strike when they wanted more wages, and then to tell those officers, who were justly disgusted at their present position, that they were not to come in a constitutional manner and lay their grievances before that House. He, therefore, called upon the Government to grant the Royal Commission, and he assured them that until it was granted the Motion would be persevered in. The supplementary estimate for the increase of pay to the navy which the noble Lord the Secretary for the Admiralty laid upon the table a few nights ago was, he added, a most fallacious document, inasmuch as it fixed a rate of pay for certain officers as belonging to a class which had in reality no individual existence. The pay of the officers of the different classes was entirely insufficient; they were, in fact, in a worse position pecuniarily than they were fifty years ago. The pensions to their widows were too small, and warrant officers were not allowed to marry after fifty—that was, their widows did not receive pensions if they married after that age—while other officers were allowed to marry until they were sixty. They had also grievances as to wounds and retirement, the regulations as to the latter being most unsatisfactory. Warrant officers were not entitled to become officers of the Coastguard, and they could only get into Greenwich Hospital by laying aside their pensions and entering as petty officers or seamen. The seniors obtained no promotion for war service, and the boatswains felt it a degradation to be obliged to inflict corporal punishment, which he quite agreed with them ought to be administered by the police of the ship. He hoped that after these statements the noble Lord would not again say that there was no case for the appointment of a Royal Commission. If the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Droitwich did not move for such a Commission to investigate the subject of the pay of the navy, he would himself do so.
§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid that he could conceive nothing 1219 more tending to confuse the order of debate than the course which had been, taken by the hon. Baronet, who, upon a motion referring to the special case of certain officers of the navy, without notice, and without his noble Friend being able to make any reply, had made a speech upon what he called the general grievances of the officers of the navy. He believed that the character of the British navy was such that it would withstand almost any unfavourable influence, but that character was severely tried by speeches such as that to which the House had just listened. After the hon. Baronet's animadversions upon the speeches of his hon. Friends the hon. Members for Peterborough and the Tower Hamlets, he felt bound on the part of the Government to thank those hon. Members for the constitutional doctrines which they had laid down as to the impropriety of referring to commissions subjects which were connected with the elementary duties of the Executive Government, and with its relations with Parliament. The hon. Baronet had threatened the Government that by tenacity and incessant recurrence to the Question he would force a compliance with his demands. In answer he had to say that while he trusted that the Government would, upon every occasion, give their careful attention to every question connected either with the army or the navy, or any other department of the State, they would not be driven by this menaced and pertinacious agitation, if he might call it so, to move one single step in advance of what they believed to be their duty alike to the Crown, to the country, and to the navy itself. The hon. Baronet had said that provisions had risen 25 per cent. He was astounded to hear that statement. [Sir JAMES ELPHINSTONE: Meat.] The hon. Baronet fell back upon the single article of meat; but if meat had risen in price, locomotion, clothes, books, and almost all commodities purchased by gentlemen of moderate fortunes, were much cheaper than they were thirty years ago. It was not for him to prescribe the limits within which hon. Members should exercise their functions. It was of course in their power to do that which they would do whether he liked it or not, to make continual endeavours to augment the demands upon the public purse. There was no doubt that the primary duty of Members of the House of Commons was to check the Government in its propositions for the public expenditure, but he believed that 1220 he was making a moderate estimate when he said that, during the whole of the present Parliament, which was now approaching the term of its natural expiration, for every hour which had been spent in an attempt to check or restrain any proposal of the Government for increasing the public expenditure, ten hours, twenty hours, or perhaps more than that, had been consumed by Members, and he must say nine-tenths of them by Members opposite, in endeavouring to force the Government to increase the public expenditure. With respect to the general question, the hon. Member (Mr. Ayrton) had remarked that while all these grievances were pleaded, he was not aware that there had been any difficulty in providing the navy with a supply of efficient officers. That, indeed, was rather a material point in the case. He had no wish to disparage the services rendered by naval officers; on the contrary, he bore cheerful testimony to their general efficiency and to the honourable and zealous services which they rendered. But they were bound to treat the members of that service on principles of justice, and principles of justice required that they should receive a fair and reasonable remuneration, the test of which in the public service generally was the willingness of competent persons to accept this remuneration in respect of the duties they performed. Ten or twelve years ago, when Sir James Graham was First Lord of the Admiralty and he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, an increase took place in the pay of the men of the navy. But the First Lord founded that proposed increase upon a sound and legitimate basis—namely, that a difficulty was found in procuring a sufficient number of well qualified seamen for the public service. But what was the case with regard to officers? An hon. Member might go to the Duke of Somerset and ask to have his son put down on the list for a cadetship; and he might add, "As the pay given is so miserable, and the prospects are so inadequate, your Grace will have no difficulty in giving my son this nomination." But the Duke of Somerset might reply, "Sir, you appear to me like a man who has lived among the stars or in some foreign country. So far from finding a difficulty in procuring cadets, I have the greatest difficulty in meeting the demands for cadetships. I have lists of applicants that I cannot exhaust, and numbers of persons to whom I am compelled to refuse a place upon my list." 1221 There was, in fact, a pressure and a rush for these appointments which the hon. Gentleman seemed to think were the subject of such great and general grievance; and the same might be said of every branch of the service with one exception—the surgeons. The question, which the hon. Gentleman seemed to think had only one side, had really two sides. Other people had their grievances besides naval officers. It was not a Eutopian world, a paradise in which it was possible to deal out benefits and blessings all round ad libitum. It was a hard-working world, in which the mass of human beings found it difficult to live. He had to remember the taxpayers; and how was he to look in the face of the poor Irish peasant, and say to him, "Let us augment the pay of all classes of public servants?" For other public servants were in just the same case. The Post Office, the Customs, the Inland Revenue Department, the Colonial Governors raised one continued cry for increased emoluments along with naval officers. On the other hand, he received every day applications from persons who prayed for exemption from taxes, and told piteous stories of poverty; but it was his duty to say in all these cases, "The law must take its course." Such was the taxpaying side of the question. If there had been a contract between the public and the naval officers the public had faithfully fulfilled its contract, and, indeed, had more than fulfilled it. And while the House was enjoining, on the one hand, thrift and economy in the public service, it would be a mockery, on the other hand, to pass Resolutions such as that before them, the result of which would be to bring about a very large addition to the expenditure.
MR. CORRYsaid, he hoped that if a Royal Commission was not appointed, the question would at least receive the reconsideration of the Admiralty. He contended that the captains of the Warrior and of armour-plated ships of that kind ought to receive as large an allowance as the captains of a line-of-battle ship. The lieutenants, too, ought to receive pay in a fairer proportion to their length of service.
§ SIR JOHN HAYsaid, he was sorry that the opinion of the Chancellor of the Exchequer should be supposed to represent that of Her Majesty's Government on the subject. The House had been told that officers ought to strike, but the only way in which they could strike was by declin- 1222 ing to serve, as many of them had done. The right hon. Gentleman had taunted that side of the House with being always ready to urge a high expenditure, but the taunt came with a very ill grace from a Government which had been for several years spending £70,000,000 a year of the public money in all sorts of wasteful and ill-considered projects.
§ MR. HENNESSYsaid, he must remind the House that the present Government had been described by the hon. Member for Rochdale as the most wasteful and profligate Government in regard to expenditure that ever sat on the Treasury Bench. The Chancellor of the Exchequer was willing to expend half a million in the purchase of the Exhibition Building, and was a Member of the Government that had flung away thousands of pounds into the sea at Alderney. The fact was, that while the Government underpaid the men in the Royal Navy they were wasting the public money in useless fortifications at home and docks at Malta. And yet the Chancellor of the Exchequer ventured to read that side of the House a lecture on their extravagance.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ Main Question put, and agreed to.