§ MR. H. BAILLIEsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for War, Whether any of the 12-ton guns rifled upon the Woolwich pattern, and now being served out to Her Majesty's Ships, have been submitted to the test of continuous firing, such as would occur during a bombardment; whether the range and accuracy of such guns have been fully ascertained by either separate or competitive proof; and whether it has been represented to the War Office that the steel tubes rifled on the Woolwich system of those guns will not be able to stand, without injury or destruction, such a test?
THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTONreplied, that the 12-ton rifle guns were fired 135 rounds before they were proved, and as continuously as the state of the tide at Shoeburyness would admit. The same gun was afterwards fired 315 rounds, and the accuracy of the guns had been fully maintained. A Select Committee had reported 17 that, looking to the practice of the gun as a whole, it was the best ever made by a rifle gun. He was not able to give a definite answer to the third question.