GOVERNMENT REDUCTIONS AND EMIGRATION.—OBSERVATIONS. (Hansard, 16 April 1869)

§ SIR JAMES ELPHINSTONE

said, he wished to call the attention of the Secretary for War to a Question which he should have brought forward subsequently on the Army Estimates, but that the circumstances were somewhat pressing. The House was no doubt aware that there was at Portsmouth an establishment called the Gun Wharf. The Ordnance Department found guns for the navy, and repaired them when they were out of order. Lord Herbert improved this department, and placed in the Gun Wharf at Portsmouth some of the best machinery. In consequence of the reductions in the Government departments, a large number of the persons employed in the Gun Wharf were discharged, and they were willing to accept the offer of emigration made to them, if they were persuaded that their services would not be again required. They were skilled labourers, and it would be a thousand pities for this country to lose them. There were 113 men discharged, who had belonging to them seventy-six women and 175 child- 992 ren, making altogether 364 individuals who had been reduced to poverty by these reductions. One thing that made them very doubtful whether the Government would not recur to the system that had been given up was the enormous expense incurred under the new system. The guns used to be sent to the Gun Wharf, where there was every facility for repairing them; but now, instead of being repaired by the skilled labourers at Portsmouth, workmen were sent from Woolwich to Portsmouth. The difference in the cost of repairing the pointers to the turret-guns of the Scorpion was that at Portsmouth it would have been £8 12s. 8d, while the expense incurred by sending men from Woolwich was £19 19s. 6d. Under these circumstances it was difficult to persuade these men that the Government were serious in giving up the Gun Wharf; and he wished to ask the right hon. Gentleman, Whether there was any chance of their being again employed either at Portsmouth or in any other branch where their skill would be available?

§ MR. CARDWELL

said, that in pursuing the reductions, which a sense of public duty had compelled the Government to carry into effect, it had been necessary to restore the ancient state of things which had existed before the existence of the Portsmouth Gun Wharf in 1862. It appeared that works, such as were carried on there, were found to be better conducted by a single establishment. The hon. and gallant Gentleman was mistaken in supposing that it was more expensive to send workmen from Woolwich to do work of this description. The truth was that the repair of the turret-pointers of the Scorpion was exceptional work, and was quite irrespective of the question as between Portsmouth and Woolwich. The Superintendent of the Gun Factory sent these men from Woolwich in consequence of the peculiarity of the work to be done on board the Scorpion. The Government desired to alleviate the distress which the reduction of their establishments might cause; and the Admiralty, with the consent of the Treasury, offered these men a passage to Canada. A portion of them accepted the offer; and, certainly, it was not in his power to say anything to induce them to change their minds, or to withdraw from the acceptance of the offer.