§ SIR EDWARD DERINGsaid, he rose to call attention to the position of the Naval Engineers. Last year he took occasion to make some suggestions on their behalf, and since that time the Admiralty had allowed pensions to be given to the 312 widows of naval engineers, and a certain increase of pay was granted to the inspectors of machinery afloat. At the same time, no provision was made for giving the inspectors half pay on retirement. There was a considerable difference in rank between inspectors of machinery and chief engineers, the former ranking as post captains, and the chief engineers as lieutenants in the navy. The case of the chief engineers was deserving of attention. No engineer was allowed to enter Her Majesty's naval service until he was declared competent to enter on the discharge of his duties. He then had to serve for a period which averaged between thirteen or fourteen years before he became a chief engineer; and before he could attain the highest rank and the highest rate of pay he must show twenty-five years of service. He did not complain of this; but what he did complain of on the part of engineers was this, that having served for fourteen years in the lower rank, instead of being allowed to count that period, by the regulations of the Admiralty they were only allowed to count four years. Consequently, instead of having eleven more years to serve, they had twenty-one years more to serve after promotion before attaining the highest rate of pay. Thus, an engineer entering the navy at twenty-one or twenty-two, would be thirty-five by the time he was made chief engineer. When he got to the top of the tree as chief engineer, he would have arrived at the ripe age of fifty-six, and, as according to the rules of the service, officers must retire at sixty, ha would have only the intervening period between fifty-six and sixty for the full enjoyment of the rewards and rank he had a right to expect in return for his long and meritorious ser-vice of thirty-five years. It was very difficult to see on what principle these regulations were based. Considering the very strict examination he had to undergo before entering the service, the engineer was placed in a very inferior position to the assistant-surgeon and other officers holding corresponding rank. The assistant-surgeon was made a surgeon after ten years, and was allowed to count every year of that period of service instead of being, cut down to four years, as was the case with naval engineers. Last year, when he brought forward this matter, he was told that the case of the assistant-surgeons was exceptional owing to their long and expensive examination which must be passed by engineer students before 313 entering the navy, which, in addition to perfect competency and skill in engineering, and a knowledge of the properties of steam, embraced plane trigonometry, hydrostatics, mechanics, dynamics, and elementary chemistry, was quite equal to what was required of assistant-surgeons. He was encouraged to think that the Board of Admiralty were of opinion that the principle he advocated was a sound one; because by the Admiralty regulations, commanders and captains were allowed to count their time as sub-lieutenants, in order to qualify them to receive Greenwich Hospital pensions. He asked the same principle to be applied to the engineers which was applied to captains and commanders. There was another point on which concession would not increase the Estimates, while it would do away with a great deal of individual hardship. An increase of pay now took place at intervals of five years. What he ventured to suggest was that the increase, instead of taking place every five years, should be spread proportionably over that period. At present, if a man were compelled to retire shortly before he had completed twenty years of service, he would have a retiring allowance upon only fifteen years service, and the difference between retirement at twenty years' service and fifteen years was no less than £45 per annum There was therefore in this matter a case of considerable hardship. The increase of pay to assistant-surgeons, which had formerly been every five years, now took place every four years; while to paymasters the period was also reduced. All he asked was that in these matters engineers should be placed in the same position with naval officers of corresponding rank. Tie would ask also why the names of naval engineers were not inserted in the Navy List? Even the engineers coming from the Mercantile Navy, and entering the Royal Naval Reserve, had their names inserted in the Navy List; but naval engineers were the only officers in the service whose names were not to be found in the Navy List. This was a very invidious distinction, which had given rise to a great deal of heartburning and unpleasantness. Naval engineers messed in the ward-room with officers, and they were fully entitled to have what he asked for them. He trusted the courteous disposition of the noble Lord (Lord Henry Lennox) would take their case into favourable consideration.
LORD LENNOXsaid, that in 314 considering the questions of the hon. Baronet, he must in the first place state that, having received from him no notice as to what were the peculiar grievances he was about to bring forward, lie feared he should not be able to reply in full to all his questions, the more so as no memorial from this class of officers is before the Admiralty. But by reference to the debate of last year he had been enabled to gather what he presumed was the purport of the complaints. He would take the questions seriatim, as they had been put to him. First of all, the hon. Baronet wished that inspectors of machinery should be allowed to have increased half-pay. That question had been under the consideration of the Board, and no decision had been come to yet on the point. Secondly, the hon. Baronet asked that these gentlemen should be allowed to count the whole of their time. He could not well compare engineers with assistant-surgeons, chaplains, and naval instructors, who did enjoy that privilege, because assistant-surgeons paid for their own education, which was an expensive one, and the same remark applied to chaplains and naval instructors. The hon. Baronet might probably say that some of these engineers were taken from private yards, and thus had paid for their own education; but all connection with the private trade had now ceased, and all engineers in the Royal Navy were called upon to pass through the factories and dockyards, and paid nothing for their education. This being so, he thought that no aid could be granted them upon this point. As to the third matter, the hon. Baronet asked that the engineers should have an increase in their pay every three, instead of every five years. He could hold out no hopes of such an alteration in the rate of pay being made. It was not granted to any other class of officers. Then the hon. Baronet said that the engineers felt most keenly the implied slight offered to them by their names not appearing in the Navy List, and he requested to be informed of the reason for their being omitted. The hon. Baronet not having given notice of his intention to put a question upon this subject he could give him no distinct answer as to why the names of the lower grade of engineers did not appear there, The hon. Baronet, however, must be aware that the names of those in the upper grades of the engineers did appear in the Navy List. Having answered all the questions of the hop, Baronet, he must be permitted to point out to him that last year the pay of five in- 315 spectors of engineers was raised by £100 a year; and that the pay of others in the same branch of the service had been raised by £50. The present Board of Admiralty had also given to the engineers that which they had been so long anxious for—namely, the rank of commanders after fifteen years' service. If the hon. Baronet required further explanations upon the subject, he would be happy to communicate with him by letter or otherwise, and to afford him every information in his power.