§ SIR JAMES ELPHINSTONEsaid, he rose to ask, Whether the practice with respect to the patronage of the Dockyards, as laid down by Sir Charles Wood, Sir Francis Baring, and Sir John Pakington, 1915 has been subsequently departed from; and whether that patronage is now distributed by the First Lord of the Admiralty and the Controller of the Navy, instead of by the Superintendents of the Dockyards. The "man in the street" told them that they were going to have an election, and it was necessary that they should know the ground on which they were to stand. As far as he was personally concerned, he had no complaint whatever to make; but he understood that at the boroughs of Devon-port and Chatham there were circumstances which might give rise to very great confusion at the next election. They had it in evidence that a gallant officer, for whose ability and character he had the greatest respect—the present Controller of the Navy (Rear Admiral Robinson)—was an elector of Devonport; that at the last election for that borough, while in command of the steam reserve—an important body, many of the persons serving in which had votes, and the man in charge of which, therefore, had considerable power over electors—this gallant officer exercised his electoral privilege at eight in the morning, and duly proceeded to the place where the poll was declared at four o'clock, and there in his uniform heard the result of the voting declared, with what demonstrations of feeling it was not material to inquire. The same officer was now the Controller of the Navy, and, without attributing to him any motive except that which a man of the highest honour might possess, still, if he and the First Lord of the Admiralty, as he was informed, had the entire dispensation of the patronage in the borough, it was absurd to suppose the public would not take it for granted that considerable political influence would thus be brought to bear upon the election. With regard to Chatham, at the last election a very near connection of the noble Lord the Secretary to the Admiralty was one of the candidates; and he was given to understand that the noble Lord, having settled his business with his constituents at Sandwich, appeared at the dockyard and to the best of his ability assisted his relative in his proceedings at Chatham. Now, the circumstances had not changed in either of those places. At Devonport, indeed, they were rather worse, inasmuch as the officer who before was head of the steam reserve was now Controller of the Navy. At Chatham, the gentleman to whom he had alluded was again ready to ask the suffrages of the constituency. Therefore he 1916 wished, before the contingency of another election occurred, to know on what ground they were to stand, and whether they were to have a repetition of the proceedings and recriminations which had marked previous contests of that kind?