COLONEL SYKESrose to call the attention of the House to the Grants of Money, authorized by the Act 23 & 24 Vict. c. 109, for constructing Fortifications to the number of seventy-one, and to move an Address for a Return of the past and prospective outlay in detail upon the seventy-one Works [in a form stated.] He said, it was not his desire to invite discussion at present, but to ask the House to consider the subject by the help of the facts which this Return would supply, before they granted further supplies for these fortifications. The House had engaged to lay out £11,500,000 upon the seventy-one works, not including the central arsenal at Weedon. Since 1860, when this money was granted, the opinions of engineers must have undergone great change; and he should, at a future time, raise the question whether in the interest of the taxpayers of this country it was desirable to carry out the project, which was the result of panic-arising from the alleged foolish boasting of some French colonels. The money already raised was £5,200,000, the first grant having been £2,000,000, the second £1,000,000, and £650,000 in succeeding years until I866. His object in now asking for these particulars was to elicit facts upon which the House might form their own judgment.
GENERAL PEELSo far from having any objection to furnish the Return moved for, my hon. and gallant Friend has only anticipated me in doing nearly what I proposed to have done myself. During the recess I called for a Report for the express purpose of laying it upon the table of the House. That Report was upon the progress made in constructing the fortifications. It gives an account of all the steps that have been taken, the different Acts of Parliament passed upon the subject, and the sums raised under those Acts of Parliament. It then goes on to give a 289 short statement with reference to the object and the nature of each work included in the schedule of the Fortification Act of 1865, the progress made in its construction, the expenditure and liability incurred thereon, and the probable sum for which it will be completed. This Return would now have been in the hands of Members if I had not delayed it in order to carry the expenditure down to the 1st of January; but it will be in the hands of Members in the course of a very few days. I think that my hon. and gallant Friend is quite right in deprecating any discussion until the Returns are presented. But no person can be more anxious than I am that the House should be placed in possession of the fullest information upon this point. Up to the present moment the Government have incurred no responsibility whatever with regard to these fortifications. The works have been going on during the time we have been in Office, but those works are under contracts made before we came into Office. I certainly proposed last year to move for £50,000, in order to carry out works necessary for the defence of the Thames, which, at the present moment, is not defended at all. But the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Lancashire (Mr. Gladstone) objected to that outlay, because the work was not one of those included in the schedule of the Act, and therefore it should not be paid for by money raised by a Vote of this House. On looking into the Act, I found that the right hon. Gentleman was right in that objection. I hold the late Government responsible for the completion of the works included in the schedule laid before Parliament in the Act of 1865. According to that schedule the estimated expenditure upon these works was not, as my hon. and gallant Friend says, £11,000,000—that was the amount contemplated by the first schedule—but £6,995,000, or, in round numbers, £7,000,000. But I hold the late Government responsible for more than that. The Estimate that I shall lay on the table for the completion of these works will show an excess of £152,000, which, considering that labour has risen 15 per cent since the Estimates were first made and the works first planned, is no very great excess. But there is a further Estimate which will be necessary to complete the works as they certainly ought to be completed. A great many of these batteries will be perfectly useless unless sheathed 290 with iron, and it is also necessary to place in turrets and on turn-tables the heavy guns with which those batteries must be armed. The additional expense required for this iron sheathing and these turntables will be very nearly £1,000,000. I hope, however, that this expenditure may be met by deducting the outlay contemplated upon works which were included in the schedule but have not yet been commenced. Thus there is a contemplated charge of £500,000 for defences at Chatham, and another sum of £150,000 for the purchase of a site for a central arsenal; and I hope that those sums may be struck out of the schedule. When these Returns are laid on the table I shall be able to show conclusively that up to this moment the present Government have incurred no responsibility whatever with regard to these fortifications, and that it will be for the House to consider whether they shall be completed and supplied with iron shields, turrets, and turn-tables. I have to add that there is one portion of the expense of these fortifications which it was always intended to throw upon the annual Estimates—that is to say, the armaments. Now, although that conclusion was come to in 1860, it was only in the present year that any guns have been prepared. An extraordinary estimate was made by the hon. Baronet (Sir Morton Peto), who frightened the House by declaring, if I remember rightly, that £17,000,000 would be necessary to complete the armaments and the ammunition of these fortifications. My noble Friend the late Secretary for War estimated the amount which would be requisite at £3,000,000; and owing to the great reduction in the expense of making guns, and also of shot, I do not believe that the armaments of these fortifications will amount to much more than half the £3,000,000 stated by my noble Friend. Every information will be given to the House in this Return, which will be in the possession of the House in a day or two.
§ Motion agreed to.