SUPPLY—NAVY ESTIMATES.

HC Deb 28 February 1870 vol 199 cc896-991

SUPPLY considered in Committee.

(In the Committee.)

(1.) 61,000 Men and Boys for Sea and Coast Guard Service, including 14,000 Royal Marines.

MR. CHILDERS

Sir, I rise to move that 61,000 Men and Boys be employed in the Sea and Coastguard Service for the year ending the 31st of March, 1871, including 14,000 Royal Marines. In moving these Estimates, I think I may be allowed to say that they are in one respect remarkable; because, as I shall shew, while providing for what I believe to be a thoroughly efficient Navy, they exhibit the lowest charge under this head since the year 1858–9. In that year, under the control of my right hon. Friend opposite the Member for Droitwitch, the actual expenditure, exclusive of the charge for the packet service, was £8,360,000. Since then the charge for the Navy has risen and fallen. It has risen to two maximum amounts; the first in 1860–1, when it reached £11,576,000, exclusive of the cost of the China War; the second, in 1867–8, when it amounted to £11,343,000, exclusive of the cost of the Abyssinian Expedition. It will be my duty to show that the sum which we now ask for—£9,250,530—is sufficient to provide the country with a thoroughly efficient naval force, unless some disturbing causes, such as a great war or the reconstruction of our ships, should intervene.

Sir, it is the custom when introducing the Estimates to compare them, in the first place, with those of the years immediately preceding; and, following that course, and going back to the year 1867–8, I find that, as prepared by my right hon. Friend opposite (Sir John Pakington) the Naval Estimates amounted at that time to £10,976,253, and in the following year to £11,157,290; whilst last year they were £9,996,641, and this year, as I have already stated, £9,250,530. But, in these figures it is necessary to be careful that we compare like with like, so as not to include in one year charges omitted in another. For instance, the Estimates for the year 1868–9, but neither those for the year which preceded, nor for the year which followed it, included sums amounting in nil to above £203,000, which, in consequence of a Treasury decision, were set down as a mere matter of account both on the receipt and expenditure side. I shall deduct items of this kind, and I shall endeavour throughout these comparisons to be perfectly honest and fair to those who have gone before me. Taking these valuations into consideration, I may state to the Committee that the present Estimates are just £1,700,000 less than those of 1867–8 and 1868–9; and £750,000 less than those of last year. It may, however, be well to compare not only the estimated but the actual expenditure of 1867–8 and 1868–9, exclusive of the cost of the Abyssinian Expedition. In 1867–8 the actual expenditure exceeded the Estimates, and amounted to £11,342,000; in 1868–9 the expenditure was rather less than the Estimates, amounting to £11,061,000. The present Estimates therefore provide just £2,100,000 less than the expenditure of 1867–8, and £1,600,000 less than the corrected expenditure of 1868–9. There is, however, a third point of view from which it is customary to look out these matters—which I will venture to call the Chancellor of the Exchequer's point of view—in which comparison is made not only between the gross estimated and actual expenditure, but also between the net results after deducting extra receipts. In 1867–8, then, after deducting all the receipts connected with the Navy, I find that the net expenditure, exclusive of the Abyssinian Charge, was £10,968,000; and in 1868–9, on a similar principle, £10,835,000. For the year 1869–70, now about to conclude, we estimate the net expenditure at £9,580,000, and the present Estimates provide for a net expenditure of £8,740,000. From this point of view therefore the economy effected in these Estimates is from two millions to two millions and a quarter, as compared with the average expenditure of the two years 1867–8 and 1868–9, and about three-quarters of a million as compared with that of last year.

Sir, having laid before the Committee these general figures, I shall, in the next place, proceed to point out the decreases or increases of charge in connection with each particular Vote. Vote 1—that for Men—shows an expenditure of about £100,000 less than last year, after allowing for transfers to other Votes. I will explain later why it is that we ask in this Vote for 2,000 men less than last year. In connection with this Vote we have followed exactly the course which we promised last year to adopt with respect to establishments on shore. We have carefully eliminated from Vote 1 all those charges for officers and men borne on ships' books, but really permanently employed on shore. Last year, having only recently come into Office, time did not permit us to look very carefully into the amount of the charges, although we shewed in foot- notes the numbers of officers and men; but this year we have done so and we find that they amount to £24,000. We have given a Schedule in the Appendix, and it will be seen that each charge is connected with the proper Vote. Passing from Vote 1 to 2, I may explain to the Committee that the latter, nominally £203,000 less than the provision asked for last year, and really only £178,000 less, is reduced in consequence of the circumstance that we happen to have on hand a large and redundant stock of clothing, and that it is entirely unnecessary to keep that stock up to its former amount. Perhaps it may be a question to what this redundancy is due; but I shall not enter into details on the point now, as I probably shall have an opportunity here-after of saying more on this subject. There are moderate reductions in all the Establishment Votes, commencing with Vote 3. They are not, however, of such interest as to justify me in entering into any lengthened details with regard to them now, and I shall therefore pass them by for the present. The reduction in Vote 6 amounts apparently to £207,000, but really to £217,000. It is due to the diminution in the establishment of officers and men at our dockyards. On the next Vote, Vote 7, that for the Victualling Yards, there is a reduction of £10,000; and Vote 10, Part 1—the Vote for Naval Stores—shows a diminution to the extent of £47,000, although there is a great increase in the item for iron for the purposes of shipbuilding. In Part 2 of Vote 10 which has reference to ships and engines building by contract, there is a reduction of £300,000, inasmuch as the large contracts entered into last year are gradually running out. The next Vote, Vote 11, for New Works, exhibits a reduction from one point of view of £5,000, and from another of £11,000 compared with last year. The most material part of the Vote is that which provides for the great extension works at Chatham, Portsmouth, and Haulbowline, and I think it would be very unwise to reduce the sums requisite for carrying on those large works as rapidly as possible. We propose, therefore, to expend £508,000 this year on these great extensions—being an increase of £18,000 over the amount asked for last year. In the following Vote, Vote 12, there is a small increase of £4,000, which is due to the carrying out of the Contagious Diseases Act of last Session. On Votes 15 and 16—the Non-Effective Votes—for retiring pay, half-pay, and pensions, there is altogether an increase of £189,000, £89,000 of which is due to the new plan of retirement, the net cost however of which, allowing for savings on other Votes, is only £54,000; and £34,000 to additional pensions to petty officers and seamen, partly arising out of the closing of Greenwich Hospital, which has thrown a very largely increased charge on the public. £54,000 is also added to the charge for pensions to civil officers, civilians of the Coastguard, and artificers, consequent upon the large reductions in our establishments. The last Vote, Vote 17, for Transport—which in reality is not a naval service—is nominally £79,000, but in reality only £27,000 less than last year, the large apparent decrease being due to a decision of the Audit Department, which prevents us from charging to this Vote the wages of officers and seamen in transport ships.

I have now stated the principal variations in the figures from last year's Estimates; but I cannot part from this dry part of the subject without calling attention to the very careful analysis of these Estimates, which the Committee will find in a now Appendix—an Appendix which has been framed in consequence of the recommendation of the Committee which was presided over by my hon. Friend the Member for Lincoln (Mr. Seely) in 1868. This Appendix and the retabulation of the Estimates follow in all important respects the recommendations of that Committee; and I may add that we owe very much of the accurate form of that Paper to the labours of one of the witnesses who was summoned before it, Mr. Fellowes, a gentleman who has studied this subject during many years of his life, and who has brought much skill and ability to bear upon these very uninviting questions of account and statistics. And let me express the hope that, with the assistance of the able members of the Department, we shall be able to put into a handy and less voluminous shape the annual accounts of the cost of shipbuilding and repairing and the manufacturing departments in our dockyards and victualling establishments—accounts now of the most ponderous character. These Papers are very much in arrear, those which I pro- duced at the end of last Session, and which have been recently printed relating to a period as far back as 1866–7. I will not say to what extent abridgment can be carried, but I can promise that in future they will not be quite so voluminous in this as in past years. I may say that I have promoted Mr. Fellowes from Deputy Inspector to Inspector of Dockyard Accounts, and in this as in other respects I expect to receive great assistance from his care and acquaintance with figures. One word more on a question of account. For many years past, as the members of the Public Accounts Committee are aware, the practice as to extra receipts has been in a very unsatisfactory state. The Treasury have recently again had this question before them in consultation with the Departments chiefly concerned; and I have reason to believe that such a solution will be offered to Parliament as, while maintaining sound principles in matters of account, will render the Estimates in this respect much more simple than they have hitherto been, and bring the proposed operations of each department more clearly before the House.

I have hitherto troubled the House with dry questions of figures, but I will now proceed to the principal matters of importance connected with our proposed naval policy, as shown in these Estimates. Perhaps the House will allow me first to refer to the principles of administration which were shadowed out last year, and the manner in which they have been carried into execution. In the second place, I shall refer to our policy in connection with shipbuilding and repairing. I shall then state our intentions as to the employment of our fleets, the number of our sailors, and the management of our reserves, and, in the last place, I shall explain in some detail the new plan of promotion and retirement upon which the Board of Admiralty have been employed during the last year. If it be my misfortune to detain the Committee longer than is usual in introducing the Estimates I fear I can only excuse myself by pleading the inevitable result of flu great changes which we are endeavouring to carry out.

As to our administrative arrangements I explained last year in general term what we proposed to do both in London at the Board of Admiralty, and in the subordinate departments; and also in our naval and victualling establishments. I stated that as to the heads of departments we proposed to follow out pretty nearly the recommendations made by the Commission of 1860, with reference to the position of the Controller of the Navy, by making him a member of the Board of Admiralty, and immediately responsible to the First Lord for the administration of the dockyards; and in this way I hoped to secure the unity of action to which the Commission attached so much value. I stated that in this and in other respects our administrative action would be rather departmental than in accordance with the usual machinery of a Board. I explained, too, that what was effected by the appointment of a Financial Secretary, who would have charge under the First Lord, of the whole finance of the Department, especially the arrangements connected with purchases and sales. I said also that we proposed to bring together into one place the departments which at that time were some at Whitehall and some at Somerset House; that at the dockyards we proposed to concentrate the administration more in the hands of the master ship-wright, as what I think I called our civil manager; and seeing that the change would necessitate very serious alterations in practice. I pointed out how that would influence the position of the superintendents of dockyards and some of the other officers. I stated generally that we should exercise all our powers in reducing what we conceived to be a redundancy of establishment both in London and at our dockyards, not, however, by cutting down salaries, but by reducing numbers, and by bringing officers into more direct responsibility to ourselves than they were under the former system of management. We have done our best to carry out these principles, and I think I may say without hesitation that, on the whole, the result has been most satisfactory. In these matters I am no optimist, and I do not think that any changes of system, however good they may seem to be at the time you commence them, will work well long, unless they are carefully watched, and always regarded as tentative and subject to improvement. Accordingly, in what we have done I by no means think that we have concluded all the reforms that are required, and I will go so far as to doubt whether in all details we have hit on the right method. But I am prepared to say that on the whole all the changes made during the year have been distinctly in the direction of efficiency, and no one can doubt that they have been attended by considerable economy.

Before going further into the details of our establishments, I desire to say with perfect sincerity how very much both I and my Colleagues regret that it has been our duty to discharge from the service a very considerable number of officers and men. We have done so for no reason whatever but because it was our duty; and I can assure the House—and hon. Members can test what I say by the references they are able to make—that nothing I have done in this respect is inconsistent with the distinct declarations I had made, both in and out of Office, as to the absolute necessity of reducing our naval establishments. Whether sitting on these Benches, or on the other side of the House, it has been my lot to call attention to economies which could be carried out in naval administration; and my line of action in Office is precisely what I advocated in Opposition. I may say that, with very few exceptions, in the case of established officers, all the retirements which we have had to effect have been voluntary—that is to say—in the arrangements which have been put into force by the help of the Treasury, officers have been rarely forced out of the service against their will. With respect, also, to the retirement of men on the establishments, this has been carried out as gradually as possible, having regard to the state or the labour market and the fair claim of the men themselves to consideration; and although there are cases like one mentioned the other day in which a mistake occurred which we at once rectified; and, although the men naturally regret that they are no longer in public employment, I may say with perfect truth that we have done our very utmost to show consideration for the feelings of those who have been in our service. In dealing with these men, I repeat what I stated a short time since with respect to those on the establishment, that the rule which we have laid down, and which we believe to have been fairly carried out, has been only to discharge men approaching sixty years of age (when it is understood that all men are liable to be discharged), or those who, if younger, are not thoroughly up to their work. With respect to hired men, our rule has been as far as possible to discharge those who have been the shortest time in our employment, and this rule, though probably with occasional exceptions, has, I believe, been generally carried out by the superintendents. I will only say, further, that there is no task more utterly distasteful to us than to carry out these necessary reductions. Those who think that economy, in these respects, is an agreeable duty can have little knowledge of the responsibilities of Office, or, indeed, of human nature; but it is a task we were bound to undertake, and I firmly believe we have carried it out fairly, reasonably, and in accordance with our promise to Parliament.

Let me now point out to the House what we have actually done in respect to establishments. The establishments in London, as will be seen from the Estimates, have, except in one or two instances, been entirely revised. There are, I think, one or two sub-departments in which the revision is not yet complete—one rather large one being connected with the staff of messengers, which it has been impossible to deal with finally up to the present time, because the transfer of the business to Whitehall has not been completed so rapidly as we intended. The amalgamation also of the different staffs of clerks into one classification is not yet disposed of. But as far as we have gone the result is a great improvement in the general conduct of business. And here I am anxious to thank in the most public manner those officers of the different departments, not, indeed, the gentlemen to whom my hon. Friend alluded some minutes ago, who have, however much some of these changes may have been against the grain to them, worked most cordially and warmly with us in effecting administrative reforms. One of the greatest changes in our establishments in London was with respect to the concentration of the matters connected with account and audit under the Accountant General. The former arrangements of the Somerset House offices made each an imperium in imperio in this respect, and one of the very first inquiries we made was to what extent all the account business could be brought together. We have only been able to complete these changes within the last two or three months; but I hare caused most careful inquiries to be made from the gentlemen at the head of the amalgamated office, and I have received reports which are unanimous that the result is very satisfactory—that the work is very much better done, and done with considerably fewer clerks. Again, in the matter of freight and transport we have made considerable changes. The reform we shall be able to carry out will be of much, value; though its results do not appear on the present Estimates. In our administration of the Coastguard—a point on which my right hon. Friend opposite (Mr. Corry) was least disposed to agree with me last year—I shall be able to point out the very great increase of efficiency which has resulted from our abolishing the civilians of the Coastguard and bringing its administration under the Admiralty. The inspection of the force by the Commanders-in-Chief instead of by the head of the department the Controller General, is a marked improvement. As to the arrangements for the purchase and sale of stores, which have been the subject of a preliminary discussion, I shall leave to my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Admiralty the task of explaining the great improvements which have been made in the purchase department, with which the House cannot but be fully acquainted. The greatest credit is due to my hon. Friend for the reforms he has made. In connection with this subject, I may allude to one or two questions of interest. One is our coal purchases. We were by no means satisfied either with the general system of buying coal, or with the contracts for delivery at distant stations, and we have effected great improvement in these respects. Thus this year our coal purchases for the home service show an increase of 17,000 tons in quantity; resulting in a much larger stock of coal in our dockyards at the end of the year—yet the charge to the country is £14,000 under our estimate of last year. Again, so small a matter as the substitution of colza for sperm oil has resulted in a great saving, and has given general satisfaction. We called for reports as to this change from the different captains, and they all but unanimously pronounce the new oil better than the oil they had before. Again, I will give the House instances of the necessity for revision of the terms of our contracts. Many of those have been in force for very long periods, and within the last week I had before me some for articles which have greatly changed in value, but which had been left untouched, some for seven years and some for fourteen years. I may mention one contract for the delivery of a special article, the name of which I will not mention. There were many small items for extras to the article, and one of them (No. 198) was the price for any additional quantity of the same metal not included in any other item. The whole payments of the year were £14,160; but of this the payments under that item were £10,930, and the price of that item was about £150 per cent above the market value. These are just the matters as to which special attention in the contract department enables us to effect a great improvement. I do not mean to say that no mistakes will occur in the multifarious work which this new department has had to undertake while matters were in a state of transition, owing to there being turned over to it the duties of two or three other departments. My intention was to state to the House, in illustration of this, the facts as to anchors to which my hon. and gallant Friend referred before I commenced my statement. I might, perhaps, observe that when my hon. and gallant Friend said he saw no harm in anticipating my statement by asking a Question, because I could answer it while we were in Committee, he had probably quite forgotten that not many years ago a Question was precisely in this way put to Lord Clarence Paget, who postponed his answer till the House was in Committee, and when he was about to give it an hon. Gentleman sitting opposite refused to allow him to do so by objecting on the point of order. My hon. and gallant Friend would, I think, have done better if he had postponed his Question, and had given me the opportunity of making my statement; he could afterwards have criticized it in any way he chose. With these multifarious arrangements in the new department do not doubt that mistakes have been made in addition to that to which my hon. and gallant Friend has referred. I can speak to one mistake in a coal contract, where coal was shipped for Table Bay instead of Simon's Bay, and some extra expense has been incurred; and there may perhaps be others. But no one is more ready than the Secretary to the Admiralty to bring to my notice these matters, in order that we may learn from them what improvements are requisite. I may here allude also to the important sale of timber which we have now in hand. We found a large surplus stock, and we have taken great pains to have it most carefully lotted and valued, and the greatest possible publicity has been given, both in this country and other countries, to the sales which are about to be held. I anticipate very satisfactory results, both from a naval and also from the Chancellor of the Exchequer's point of view. I will conclude this part of my subject by stating that we have sold the greater part of the dockyard at Deptford at a satisfactory price, in accordance with the intimation I gave last year.

Let me now give the House the financial result of our new administrative arrangements. I will premise it by stating that in arranging the classification of the clerical departments we have tried our best to establish as few classes as possible. The plan in this respect which we have found most efficient is to divide the whole administration into three parts—first, the senior clerks in charge of branches; secondly, the clerks placed under them; and thirdly, the writers for all the subordinate work, not merely copying, but also such work as could be done by persons of lower social position than gentlemen hoping to rise to the head of establishments. The latter class are employed from day to day, and can be discharged without having any claim to superannuation. We have also laid down more clearly the rules for promotion from one class to another. The great object is to ensure the promotion of the fittest men to the higher classes, rather than either by seniority or by strict promotion in the same room or department; and at the same time to give to seniority sufficient consideration by annual increments up to a certain amount. This, however, is a subject to which I only allude in passing, but let me now give the figures as to these clerical estab- lishments. When we took office we found that the clerical force in London consisted of 354 clerks and 102 writers, costing altogether £125,242 per annum. At the present time we employ 230 clerks and 142 writers, who cost £93,127. There are, therefore, employed 124 established officers fewer than last year, and a saving has been effected of £32,115. With respect to all the civil departments under the Admiralty, not only in London, but throughout the service, these are the figures. When we took office we found 24 officers receiving £1,000 a year each and upwards, and costing the country altogether £34,110 a year; 87 officers receiving each between £1,000 and £600 a year, and costing the country £61,677 a year; and 1,122 with salaries under £600 a year each, costing the country £258,559; or a total of 1,233 officers, whose salaries amounted to a sum of £354,346 for the year. At present we have 20 officers with salaries each of £1,000 a year and upwards, costing the country £29,950; 56 officers with salaries between £1,000 and £600 a year each, costing £39,275; and 917 officers with salaries under £600 a year, costing £210,276; or a total of 993 officers, whose salaries amount to £279,901. There is, therefore, a reduction on this head of 240 officers, and a saving on salaries of £74,445. We also provide for the absorption as vacancies occur of 85 more—making altogether a reduction of 325 salaried officers, receiving about £100,000 a year. Besides these there are 13 naval officers less, with appointments valued at £8,797 a year. We contemplate still further reductions in the establishments, which are shown on the face of the Estimates, as being under revision, the total of which will make the number of salaried officers loss by between 350 and 400, and the saving effected about £120,000 a year. This has been called a cheeseparing policy. If so, I will confess I do not know at what point real economy begins. The figures I have given practically give the economies effected in our establishments at home. Our naval establishments abroad have not as yet come thoroughly under revision. I trust that during the coming year we shall be able to attend more closely to this part of the subject. This will be greatly facilitated by the transfer we have made from Vote 1 of charges which really have related to shore establishments. Hitherto the First Sea Lord, though responsible for that Vote, has really no personal knowledge of the establishments on shore, and so they escape him; neither has the Controller of the Navy, who only really controls the expenditure under Vote 6; and so between the two these anomalous charges escaped notice. Now, we propose to concentrate still further in the hands of the officer whom in my speech last year I called our "Civil Manager," the responsibility of the administration of the dockyards. There is a very interesting question pending at the present time, and which I have no doubt my hon. Friends opposite will allude to, and possibly challenge our decision—I mean as to the proper administration of the storekeeping department at the dockyards. That is a question of great difficulty, about which no doubt there will be many different opinions, and it is one to which the attention of that zealous and able officer Sir Spencer Robinson, the Controller of the Navy, has been specially attracted this year. From all we have been able to ascertain, we have arrived at the conclusion that to place the store department more under our civil manager, and not to keep a separate and salaried officer under the name of storekeeper, is likely to be a most beneficial change. But as this is a very important question, we have determined to proceed gradually, and instead of applying the new system at once to all the dockyards, we have introduced the change as yet only in Chatham and Portsmouth. This is an experiment, but I believe that it will be a success, and I look forward ultimately to its general adoption. I now come to a more difficult question—the grades of officers engaged in shipbuilding. There were at one time no fewer than six grades in this department below the master shipwright—namely, the assistant master shipwrights, the foremen, the inspectors, the measurers, the leading men, and the shipwrights. In 1865 we abolished one of those grades—that of "measurer"—in the present year we have determined to abolish another—that of "inspector"—leaving still throe grades between the master shipwright and the workmen. We consider that an ample number of grades for economical administration. On this subject, I have consulted gentle- men of much experience in private shipbuilding, and I feel satisfied that the reform will be satisfactory. I wish under this head to anticipate an inquiry that I know will be addressed to me—namely, whether I have altered in any way the views which, on other occasions, I have expressed respecting the naval superintendence of the dockyards. I believe that those views were generally sound; and I still consider that, while naval officers will frequently be found the most efficient superintendents, yet that these officers should be held irrespective of naval rank, and solely with a view to the best management being secured. I now come to the question of the superintendence of our hospitals; and upon this point I am bound to say that the views of those who have looked into the matter are very much divided, and even among my own confidential advisers, there has been very great difference of opinion. The view which I have adopted, however, is that the system which prevails at Chatham is better, in this respect, than the system at Portsmouth and Plymouth. I am prepared, as recommended by the Commission last year, to place our hospitals under the direction of a superior medical officer rather than a post captain, retaining the general superintendence of the Commander-in-Chief. A similar question has arisen with regard to the victualling yards, and this year we have not filled up the office of master attendant, designing that in the future a superintendent storekeeper shall be appointed, without a captain superintendent; but for purposes of discipline also under the admiral of the port. Before I leave this subject, let me say that, as to all our establishments, we have endeavoured to act on the following simple rules:—The first, not to manufacture if we can buy as well in the open market—having regard primarily to goodness of the article. The second, to concentrate our establishments where practicable, rather than to keep up a large number of small establishments; and the third, to keep the establishments themselves as "cadres," capable of great expansion if necessary, but not larger for the present than is absolutely required. These principles we have tried to carry out with respect to all our establishments, whether dock-yards or victualling yards.

And now a few words as to the ad- ministration of what was a great establishment; I mean Greenwich Hospital. In 1865, when I was on this subject the organ of the Duke of Somerset's Board in this House, and also last year, under the charge of my hon. Friend (Mr. Trevelyan), Bills were passed by which an entire revision—I might almost say in one sense the abolition—of the great establishment of Greenwich was effected. The Hospital has been cleared, to use the words of my hon. Friend, by the suffrages of the men themselves, who have one and all—even those left in—declared that they would much rather have pensions than remain in the establishment. The result has been that we have been able to give additional pensions to every old sailor on the pension list—5d. a day when he arrives at the age of fifty-five, and 9d. a day when he reaches the age of seventy. We have also been able to give pensions to old sailors, not on the pension list, unable to support themselves, and already under the last Act we have had applications from more than 650 men from all parts of the country. The two clearances left at Greenwich only sixty-two men, thirty-one of whom were transferred to naval hospitals, and twenty still remain in the small infirmary. Therefore, instead of 1,400 men requiring a local establishment costing the country about £110,000 a year, besides £21,000 for the school, we are now able to give £59,000 in pensions to men under the Act of 1865, new pensions and naval hospital maintenance equivalent to £28,000, pensions to merchant seamen amounting to £4,000, pensions to officers £5,000, to widows £1,000, for administration £2,000, building £3,000, superannuation £4,000, and the school £23,000, making in all a total of £129,000. Within the last few days we have completed arrangements for transferring the infirmary to the Dreadnought authorities as I promised last year. And as to the way in which the men regard admissions as compared with out-pensions, I may say that of the 650 applications under the new Act, only twenty asked admission to hospitals. I am happy to add that this change has prolonged their lives, for the death rate among them now is only 7 per cent, while in Greenwich it was 12.3 per cent.

Sir, I now come to the policy of the present Government in connection with shipbuilding. Last year I stated in general terms the strength of our Navy as compared with that of the other principal naval Powers, France and the United States. I will not repeat the details of the statement I made last year; but, pursuing the same system of classification, I will give the general results when the ships we are now building shall have been completed. We shall then have two broadsides of the first or Hercules class, six of the second or Audacious class, nine of the third or Bellerophon, eight of the fourth or Achilles and Royal Oak, four of the fifth or Warrior, and two of the sixth or Pallas classes:—in all, thirty-one ships of those classes. We shall have, in addition, two first-class turret-ships, the Devastation and the Thunderer; five of the second class, the Monarch, Captain, Glatton, Rupert, and Hotspur; and two of the third or Royal Sovereign class:—giving a total of nine. We shall, therefore, have in all forty vessels of the two descriptions, besides five smaller broadside and two smaller turret-ships. The French will have thirty-three sea-going broadside ships and two powerful turret-ships, besides eleven floating batteries and five rams of the Belier type. Our forty vessels will carry 576 guns; the thirty-five of the French 318. The French floating batteries have each four guns, four of the rams two guns each, and the fifth ram carries one gun. I ought to say that the weight of the French guns is greater than ours; and, on the other hand, their two first-class ships are not nearly in so forward a state of construction as ours are. With reference to the United States, I have little to add to the statement I made last year. They have no formidable sea-going armoured, navy, though they possess an armoured navy which is very powerful for the purpose of coast defence. For our unarmoured navy we shall have one frigate of the Inconstant class, two large corvettes, the Active and the Volage, fourteen corvette sloops of the Blanche and Druid class, twelve gun-vessels of the Lapwing type, and seventeen new type composite gunboats, besides rather over 100 vessels of old types, including some very powerful frigates and corvettes, and a few paddle steamers. As to the most powerful foreign unarmoured navy, I stated last year that the United States had a considerable fleet of cruisers, though I was doubtful as to their exact value. The information that we have since received has not enabled me to add much to that statement; but the proper general description would be that they have a considerable floor, in being or in prospect, of swift frigates and corvettes, and if temporarily they are not satisfied with all of them, no doubt their ingenuity will soon effect the necessary improvements. Of the other great maritime Powers Russia has a considerable number of formidable monitors, but they are not sea-going ships; Turkey has some formidable broadside iron-clads; and North Germany is making satisfactory progress in the same direction. Such being the present state of our fleet, and of that of the principal maritime Powers, the question is, what ought to be the policy of the Government in regard to shipbuilding? In answering this, let me lay down three principles. The first is, that our policy should not relate exclusively to the year under our notice, but that we should, as far as possible, provide for the normal establishment and annual progress of shipbuilding applicable to ordinary times of peace as long as no disturbing cause arises. The second is, in doing this, we should do our utmost to avoid sudden increases and reductions; and the third, that we should endeavour rigidly to control and discourage expensive repairs, local manufactures, and the system of "finding employment," thus doing in our dockyards the work only that is necessary. But before stating the policy which we propose to adopt, I will review for a moment what has been the policy of the Government during the past few years; and I will endeavour to limit myself as far as possible to a recital of facts, without more controversial remarks than I can help. In the year 1866–7 it was originally decided to build four new unarmoured ships in our dockyards, and to proceed with nine armoured vessels, of 8,263 tons, and fifteen unarmoured, of 8,203 tons, or in all 16,406 tons. This work would afford employment to 18,618 men—6,682 in building, and 11,936 in repairing. No money was to be spent in contract work, with the exception of the sum—£70,000 or £80,000—required to complete the Northumberland and the Waterwitch. When the change of Government took place, and the right hon. Baronet opposite the Member for Droitwich (Sir John Pakington) became First Lord of the Admiralty, his only immediate act was to commence the Captain; but in the course of the winter he drew up a programme which embodied a great change of policy and large addition to shipbuilding. In the programme for 1867–8 it was proposed to commence seventeen new ships, to proceed with twenty-four, and to complete six; in all to build 6,820 tons of armoured and 16,724 tons of unarmoured vessels, employing 10,025 men in building, and 8,296 in repairs—a total of 18,321 men. By contract it was proposed to proceed with the Captain, and to order two iron-clads, one frigate, and ten gunboats, expending in this direction £427,000 for that year. Meanwhile my right hon. Friend (Mr. Corry) had come into Office, and he made the following changes:—He determined to contract for three iron-dads instead of two, a corvette instead of a frigate, and eight instead of ten gunboats, spending about the same sum of money. But in October of that year—only a few months later—a serious change of policy was made by my right hon. Friend. He proposed not only to carry still further the expenditure on contract ships, but also to increase the dockyard establishments and to push on the work upon the iron-clads in hand.

MR. CORRY

I beg to say that I increased the establishment, and entered the extra men, for the sole purpose of bringing forward the reserves which are now under commission in the Coastguard.

MR. CHILDERS

Exactly what I said. My right hon. Friend decided to employ an increased number of men on armoured ships, and accordingly entered an additional number of men. In November the additional men so employed numbered 1,630; in December, 1,860; in January, 1,992; in February the number reached 2,369. In passing, I may say, that this increase of establishments contributed to the excess of £300,000 on the Estimates in the expenditure of the year. But I call attention to it for another reason. It preceded an unaccountable change of policy, which occurred in February, 1868, in the very month when the men employed in the dockyards reached the highest number. Under this new policy the numbers voted by Parliament were to be reduced by 3,000 men—a reduction exclusive of the number entered beyond those voted the previous year. And the effect was this, that whereas 20,690 men were actually employed in our dockyards in that month, the Estimates then published provided for only 15,272; so that to bring down the men to the number which appeared in the Estimates of 1867–8 involved the discharge of 5,418. And this reduction was nearly effected by my right hon. Friend between the months of March and July, the actual number of discharges, including deaths, being 4,983; averaging a discharge of above 1,200 a month. That was the second change of policy made by my right hon. Friend opposite in 1867–8. In his programme for 1868–9 he proposed to commence three new armoured ships and six unarmoured ships, proceeding with three armoured and twenty-three unarmoured. He proposed to build 7,538 armoured and 6,931 unarmoured tons, employing 5,459 men in building, and 9,833 in repairing; a total of 15,272 men. He also proposed to commence by contract three ironclads, and to proceed with fifteen other vessels, expending about £680,000. That was the policy adopted by the Admiralty of the late Government in February, 1868. But in the autumn my right hon. Friend again determined upon a change of policy; and shortly before the change of Government, he decided that no new ship should be built either by contract or in our dockyards; and he also determined to close Deptford Dockyard. No details were worked out, but these arrangements he estimated would result in a saving of about £300,000. The state of things, then, that I had to encounter on taking Office was this. I had to deal with the difficulties which had arisen from these three different changes in policy; first, the increase of dockyard expenditure, in 1867, mainly for unarmoured ships; secondly, the decrease of 5,000 men in the dockyards at the beginning of 1868, and giving large contracts outside for armoured ships; and, thirdly, the entire stoppage at the end of 1868 of all new building. Having these three phases of policy before us, it became our duty to consider what course we should propose to Parliament. The first point we determined upon was that we would reverse the policy of building no new ships; and this House supported us in the proposal to build three additional turret-ships, which are now being rapidly advanced. We were satisfied that in this way we should increase very considerably the number of men to be employed in building, and could reduce at the same time the men employed in refitting and minor operations in the dockyards. This policy not only was consistent with, but almost necessarily resulted from, the recommendations of the Committee of 1865 as to closing the minor dockyards; and we therefore recommended Parliament to close Woolwich Dockyard. Our programme for 1869–70 was to commence three iron-clads, and to proceed with twenty-three other vessels, including eight iron-clads. We propose to build 8,866 tons of armoured shipping, and 4,617 tons of unarmoured, making a total of 13,483 tons; to employ in building 5,899 men, as against 5,459 in the previous year, but to reduce the number engaged upon repairs to 8,243; making a total of 14,142. As to contract ships, we proposed no change, merely completing what were in hand. That policy has been carefully carried out. We closed Woolwich Dockyard in October, having given notice of our intention in January; and I desire here to say that, to the utmost of our power, we have acted in accordance with the undertaking which was given to the House—that consistently with what we conceived to be our duty, we would show every consideration to the men who were to be discharged. Of the 2,000 men of whom the establishment at Woolwich consisted, 830 established men and 170 hired men were transferred to other yards; to about 200 pensions were given, 200 others were discharged with gratuities; and of the remainder some 300 were assisted to emigrate. These figures are as nearly accurate as it is possible to obtain them, though in all cases it was not possible to follow the men up; but I think it is a fair average result to say that, in some shape or other—whether by transfer to other yards, by re-employment, by pensions, gratuities, or assistance to emigrate—aid was given to 1,700 out of the 2,000 men of whom the establishment at Woolwich consisted. At all the dock-yards we have done what we promised the House we would do—we have discouraged as much as possible repairs and unnecessary alterations, especially to ships of old type; and we have kept our ships as much as possible away from the dockyards To those who know what becomes of a ship when she gets into the hands of the dockyard, it will be clear that this is not a popular policy, but we shall adhere to it.

Having adopted the policy which I have stated, and carried it out, we are now in a position distinctly to recommend to Parliament what we think ought to be the normal work to be carried on in the dockyards from year to year. We have come to the conclusion, having regard to the present state of the Navy, and to the point at which it ought to be kept up, that we should annually build between 19,000 and 20,000 tons of shipping; of these, about 12,000 tons being armoured and 7,500 unarmoured. Of these 19,000 to 20,000 tons, about 4,000 will be built by contract, and the remainder or about 15,500 tons in our dockyards. This is a larger amount of dockyard building than in the years 1866–7, 1868–9, or 1869–70, and is only exceeded by the year 1867–8. I may be asked, what do 19,000 or 20,000 tons of shipping mean? In round numbers, and having regard to the class of ships we shall now build, this will give us nearly three new iron-clads, one frigate, one corvette, and six small vessels annually. Taking the life of an-iron-clad at about twenty years, this rate of building would produce and keep up a force of from fifty to sixty iron-clads, which would be ample for our requirements. The next question is, what establishment of men do we require in the dockyards to do this work? After careful consideration, we have arrived at the conclusion that 6,000 men will suffice for all the shipbuilding, calculated upon the average which I have stated, that being a larger number than has been employed for the last two years; and as to repairing and refitting, we are of opinion that 5,000 men will suffice for that purpose. And, therefore, the establishment for the dockyards may be taken as about 11,000 men.

The Committee will now be anxious to know the expenditure which will be the result of this establishment. If our policy in this respect be carried out, we shall spend annually on shipbuilding and repairing, at home and abroad, allowing for superintendence and pensions from £2,445,000 to £2,470,000. Of this sun, wages will take £685,000; salaries of all kinds, control and contingencies, about £220,000; stores, including coal for the fleet, £800,000; steam machinery, £250,000 to £275,000; contract building, £200,000; machinery, docks, and other works, exclusive of the great extensions now being made, £130,000; and in pensions, £160,000. Adding up these figures, the total charge for dockyard expenditure will be from £2,445,000 to £2,470,000. But we still consider that it will be possible to make further economies, under the heads especially of control and abroad. The average of these charges, therefore, may be taken for the future at £2,400,000, for which a building power of from 19,000 to 20,000 tons is obtained. Reckoned in the same way the expenditure in 1866–7 was, I think, over £3,000,000, and there were built 15,000 tons. In 1867 the expenditure was £3,440,000, and the tonnage built 33,400; in 1868–9 the expenditure reached £3,620,000, while the tonnage built was 27,400; and in 1869–70 the expenditure was again £3,000,000, and the tonnage 22,300. These calculations have been carefully verified by the gentleman whom I have already mentioned as having rendered so much assistance with reference to dockyard accounts.

I will now state what we propose as to the work in the dockyards for the present year. In the year 1869–70 the Estimates provided for 14,000 men; according to the Estimates for 1870–71 the number will be about 11,200. This reduction will be spread over a period of eight months—from January to August in the present year; we commenced it in January, and until August the average reduction will be something like 400 men a month. And, as shewing how these reductions are effected elsewhere, perhaps the House will be interested in knowing that only to-day I have received a letter stating that in the early part of this month a great reduction took place in the naval yards of the United States, no less than 6,000 or 7,000 men being discharged without any notice whatever. Ours is a very gradual process of reduction in comparison. We have also decided to adopt this year the same course which was taken last year in assisting a considerable number of these; men to emigrate to Canada. Two or three troop-ships will again proceed to Canada this year, having room for a considerable number of emigrants; and we propose that the opportunity of emigrating shall first be afforded to those men who are discharged from the dockyards or from the arsenal; and if there should be any space left it is proposed, through the; medium of the Emigration Commissioners, to fill this up with artizans from the dockyard towns in which the reductions have been made—especially Deptford and Woolwich, where the dockyards have been closed. The effect of the plan we propose will be pretty nearly to equalize the reductions in the different dockyard towns. But I think some misapprehensions exist as to the extent of these reductions. It should be borne in mind that the closing of Woolwich Dockyard was not followed by the immediate discharge of all the men who had been employed there, many being transferred to other dockyards, temporarily increasing the establishments. The proper comparison is therefore not with the numbers so augmented, but with the strength before Woolwich was closed. On this basis it will be seen that at Portsmouth, in 1868–9, the number of men employed was 3,461, and in 1870–71 the number employed will be 3,045, showing a difference of only 416 men. At Devonport, in 1868–9, the men employed numbered was 3,083, and in 1870–71 the number will be 2,821; the reduction being only 262. But there is a still further consideration to be taken into account. The hon. Member for Liverpool (Mr. Graves) last year, in doing me the honour of supporting the views I explained, stated that he hoped a provision would be included in the Estimates this year for closing Sheerness Dockyard. Now, although I have not this year made any change as to Sheerness, I agree with him as to the propriety of before long closing it as a building yard, although not until the extension at Chatham Dockyard is far more advanced than it is at present. But looking forward to the time when building operations at Sheerness are closed, and when the yard is used only as a fitting and repairing yard, the effect will be to transfer from Sheerness a number of shipwrights now employed, and to increase the strength of the other yards; and thus, in all probability, Portsmouth, Devonport, and Chatham will in the end have as many men employed as last year before Woolwich and Deptford were closed.

Now, Sir, having thus explained what we propose as to the number of men to be employed, I ought to explain what number of ships we propose to build. I will say at once that all the experience and information of the Department point, without doubt, to this—that the class of ships we ought now to push forward is the most powerful class of turret-ships on the one hand, and, on the other, the most powerful and fast-sailing frigates of the Inconstant and smaller classes. I sit on the stool of repentance as to the Inconstant. In 18671 said it would be better not to build "Inconstants," but that all our wooden ships should be of smaller dimensions. My right hon. Friend (Mr. Corry) concurred with me, and altered the Estimates of 1867–8, building ships of the Volage class instead. But I think I was wrong, and I am not prepared to give up entirely the Inconstant class. We propose, then, to build the following ships:—First, an additional ship of the type of which the House approved last year—of that most formidable class of turret-ship, able to go to distant stations, and carrying in their turrets guns of the very largest calibre—a ship of a somewhat improved form of what is known as the Thunderer or Devastation class. [Mr. CORRY: Will she have masts?] No. She will be unmasted; she will be rather larger than the Devastation, and considerably more powerful. We propose to build her at Pembroke. I may give the principal dimensions of this ship, to be called the Fury. She will be of 5,000 tons, as compared with the Devastation of 4,400 tons. The former will be 1,000-horse power, while the latter is 800-horse power; the Fury to go 13½ knots, while the Devastation goes 12½ knots; both will carry four 35-ton guns; the Fury will have 300 men, while the Devastation has 250. The draught of both is the same—26 feet 6 inches. The Fury will carry 1,700 tons of coal, while the Devastation of last year carries 1,600 tons. The weight of armour will be the same. We propose, in addition, to build a second Inconstant, and a frigate of an intermediate class, between the Inconstant and the Volage. at Portsmouth and Chatham respectively. The Inconstant is of 4,000 tons and 600 men, and the Volage of 2,300 tons, with a complement of about 350 men. We pro- pose an intermediate class, something over 3,000 tons with a complement of 450 or 500 men. In addition to these, we propose to build two small special vessels for service in the Persian Gulf, four additional vessels of the Staunch class, two despatch vessels, one sloop of the Druid class, and one mooring lighter. The whole number of new ships, besides the lighter, will be twelve. I will now explain what the state of our building will be at the end of the year. We shall have completed at the end of 1870–1 the whole of the ships we had put in hand, except about 4,400 tons of the Fury, 5,686 tons of the unarmoured ships to be commenced next year, and 5,500 tons of the three turret-ships commenced this year, in all above 15,500tons. But of this 15,500 tons part will not be completed in the following year 1871–2, to the extent of about 3,800 tons; so that to keep up our shipbuilding at between 15,000 and 16,000 tons a year, between 3,000 and 4,000 tons of new ships must be the subject of the Estimates for next year. Coming now to repairs, maintenance, and refit, our intention is to employ a considerably reduced number of men in the repairs of ships. We shall keep the whole of the iron-clads ready for sea—the whole of our troop-ships, and altogether about 161 unarmoured ships either in reserve or in commission. The reserve ready will include six frigates, twelve corvettes and sloops, and fourteen smaller vessels, with four additional frigates and four corvettes if required, besides an additional sea-going training ship for naval cadets. In fact, I believe that at no time in the history of the Navy will our reserves have been in a more thoroughly satisfactory state, or the subject of so much forethought.

Before passing altogether from the question of shipbuilding, I am bound to call the attention of the House to an item in. I think, the Miscellaneous Vote—I mean the grant of £5,000 to Mr. Reed, the Constructor of the Navy. When the Vote comes on it may be necessary to explain in detail why this Vote is proposed; but I may now state, in general terms, that Mr. Reed has considerable claims on the Government in respect to work done both before and since he took Office. Those claims I consider to be well founded. When we took Office we found a Minute of my right hon. Friend opposite (Mr. Corry), stating most clearly the views of his Board as to Mr. Reed's claims, and urging this grant to him. I do not, of course, shelter myself behind the opinions of my light hon. Friend; but on my own responsibility I endorse his recommendation, and I believe that the country is greatly indebted to Mr. Reed both for his remarkable improvements in shipbuilding and the great economies which he has effected. I shall be in a position to show that from his skill the country has been saved at least £1,000,000 in the construction of armourplated ships. At present I will say no more. The Papers will be produced, and it will be seen whether we and our predecessors are right in this proposal.

Before going entirely from the subject of construction, I am bound to state in a few words the policy of the Admiralty not only with respect to ships, but guns. My hon. and gallant Friend opposite (Sir John Hay) the other evening tried to extract some information from me which perhaps I appeared too reluctant to give; but I was unwilling to anticipate the present declaration of our policy. It is as follows:—We are satisfied with the present service rifled guns up to, and including, the 9-inch 12-ton gun. We consider more trial is required as regards the 10-inch 18-ton gun before expressing entire satisfaction. The trials of the 12-inch 25-ton gun having been entirely satisfactory, we accept it for the Monarch, Captain, and Glutton. But it is not considered sufficiently powerful for the new turret-ships Devastation and Thunderer. We desire to obtain for them the most powerful armour-piercing gun that can be fought in their turrets, and we consider Sir Joseph Whitworth's metal peculiarly adapted for that purpose. It may be that guns of the service pattern may be constructed of sufficient force; but it is our opinion that both should be tried in competition. That is the view we have expressed to the War Office. I hope I have been sufficiently clear and precise on that subject. On the subject of projectiles, we are not satisfied with the chilled shot. During the last three months no less than four shell have broken up in the gun, doing serious damage; and last month nine shot in a 6½-ton gun on board the Warrior, broke up in one day's practice. To these opinions I may add that we have no intention whatever to discard or change the service guns already supplied, or institute any general competitive trial of guns. That is the policy we have arrived at after very careful consideration.

I will now proceed to refer to our policy with regard to fleets and men. Last year I described that policy in general terms, stating that it was to reduce our fleets at foreign stations, and especially ships in harbour, to the minimum, and to keep our sailors as much at sea as possible. Now, what have we done in the way of carrying out that policy? My Estimate last year for the force on distant stations—China, the Pacific, the East Indies, the Cape, Australia, and the Southeast coast of America—was 8,500 officers and men. The actual number on January 1st was 8,743, the excess being on the India station, and of a temporary character. As to keeping our fleets at sea, we followed this winter the same course as last, sending the Channel Squadron into the Atlantic, with Lisbon as its head-quarters, to return as summer approaches; and I hope that this rule will be permanently observed. The Flying Squadron we dispatched last year has been a perfect success, and scarcely a mail comes in without a letter from Admiral Hornby, describing the great advantages of that experiment, and the improvement effected both with regard to officers and men, and begging that another flying squadron may be sent out this year. There is another point of view in which the Flying Squadron may be regarded as a success. I am one of those who value highly our colonial connection; and I have reason to believe that the presence of the Flying Squadron in our colonial ports has done great good in showing the power of the Empire, and in increasing the fooling of attachment on the part of the colonists towards tin mother country. We propose that another flying squadron should be sent to sea later in this year. Pursuing our policy of giving our men as much sea service as possible, we propose to cal the Coastguard ships, which are now al efficient iron-clads, First Reserve ships and to send them to sea every summer with half the Coastguard, and so form a sort of second Channel Fleet. Perhaps I may here say a word of congratulation to those who advocated turret-ships on both sides of the House, on the remarkably successful voyage of the Monarch across the Atlantic in mid-winter. She has shown herself in this voyage, as well as in former cruises, one of the most efficient ships ever built. Let me refer, also, to another naval feat—the greatest that has been performed in modern times—the towing of the "Bermuda Dock" across the Atlantic. The dock was eighty feet out of the water and was open at both ends, but she was towed across the Atlantic with perfect success by two iron-clads. My right hon. Friend opposite (Sir John Pakington), who justly took credit for his construction of the Warrior, may now congratulate himself upon a new feature she has developed, for she has proved herself one of the most efficient towing ships in the Navy.

I shall now pass to the subject of the men, and the Committee will see that the number in the Estimates is 2,000 less than last year. The reduction has been practically reached already, except as to servants. "With trifling variations as to stokers and others, it consists of 500 officers in connection with the retirement scheme, which I shall shortly explain, 500 blue-jackets, 700 servants and artificers, and 300 boys—making a total of 2,000. It may be necessary to give some figures in order to justify these reductions. In the first place, what is the present state of our reserves in home ports, including supernumeraries, and abroad? We have at the present time at, sea, including transports, men in ships ordered out or on their way, and on their way home, and in the Channel Squadron, 32,850 officers and men, leaving at home something like 28,200 men. This number is to be accounted for in the following way:—We have in ships in our home ports, Sheerness, Portsmouth, and Plymouth, 4,850 men, including those who are called "unappropriated;" and in our Coast-guard (or First Preserve) and drill ships 3,650 men. The number of supernumeraries at home, men and boys, is 6,300; of flag officers, their retinues, and the yacht, 300; of Marines on shore, 6,200; of boys in training, 2,700; and of the Coastguard on shore, 4,200; being a total of 28,200 men in round numbers. Of these the immediately available reserve in our ports is 14,800 men—namely, officers, 2,500; blue- jackets, 6,100; stokers, artificers, and servants, 3,000; Marines afloat, 2,000; and boys, 1,200: and this does not include Marines on shore, Coastguard on shore, or boys in training". The reduction, therefore, of 500 blue-jackets is perfectly safe. Perhaps, in passing, I ought to say that of the 14,800 men in our ports, 3,000 by yesterday's victualling accounts were on leave, a fact satisfactory to those who may think we keep too many in harbour. To ascertain the requisite number of hoys is merely an arithmetical question. You should train a sufficient number to fill up the vacancies caused by the discharge of blue-jackets from casualties. Here are the figures:—In 1864–5 the number of discharges of blue-jackets from casualties was 2,124, and the number rated from boys was 1,899. In 1865–6, the blue-jackets discharged from casualties were 2,007, and the number rated from boys was 1,470. In 1866–7, the blue-jackets discharged from casualties were 1,936, and the number rated from boys was 2,399. In 1867–8, the discharges of blue-jackets from casualties were 1,672, and the number rated from boys was 2,078. In 1868–9 the blue-jackets discharged from casualties were 1,528, and the number rated from boys was 1,775. So that in the years 1864 to 1866 the average rated from boys was 400 less than the casualties; while, from 1867 to 1869 it was 300 more than the casualties—a fact entirely justifying this small reduction we propose. With respect both to officers and men, we have taken certain measures which I will now describe to the House. In the first place, we have "roused out," if I may so call it, from every corner the men who have contrived for years to evade sea service, and we have established a regular roster, by which all the men will be sent to seagoing ships after one year's service at home, with limited exceptions in certain cases of petty officers. As an example of the state of things, that prevailed, I may mention that when we took the Channel Fleet to Gibraltar there were in our flagship the Agincourt in all five chief petty officers, one of whom had never been to sea at all, having been eighteen years in harbour, and another had been fifteen years in harbour. As another instance, only last week, we had before us an application from four A.B.'s in home ships asking permission to purchase their discharge from service because they were ordered to sea. One of them had been nineteen years in the service, out of which he had been fourteen years consecutively in harbour. Another had been sixteen years in the service, without having been at sea at all. A third had been twelve years in the service, and had never been at sea; and the fourth had been seven years and a half in the service, and had never been to sea at all. These were all continuous service men. I think the Committee will agree with me that it is time to put an end to this state of things. Another thing done during the present year has been the discharging of pensioners at home ports, and substituting continuous service men. This has not been an economy, but very beneficial to the service. We have also taken in these Estimates a small sum for prizes to encourage good shooting among our seamen. The Army and the Marines have always had prizes for good shooting; but there has never yet been any reward for good shooting in the Navy. We have thought that the expense to be incurred under this head will be the roughly remunerative. We have also carried out at Devonport the arrangements as to depôt and harbour ships adopted by my right hon. Friend opposite (Mr. Corry) at Portsmouth and Sheerness. The system of savings has also formed the subject of a careful inquiry by a Committee, and although it has not reported unanimously, some of the recommendations will be decidedly for the benefit of the service. When we have decided on our action I will lay the Paper on the table. I now come to speak of officers, and this year we have carried still further the plan of requiring officers of every grade to serve abroad before they receive home appointments. We are looking into the messtraps' question, with a view if possible to abolish the present system. It has been tinkered and patched up more than once, but I fear it can never be made thoroughly satisfactory; and that it will be better to substitute a system of personal allowance. We have also made arrangements of very considerable importance in connection with the education of our officers. As the Committee is aware, from time immemorial there has been controversy as to the education both of cadets and of higher officers. The whole system of entering cadets has been a subject of controversy about which hardly two authorities are agreed. When we took Office I found that my right hon. Friend (Mr. Corry) had incurred considerable expense—I think £30,000—in preparing a new Britannia for cadets, and that she was nearly ready to go to Dartmouth. Considering this, we did not think ourselves justified in reopening the question of a college on shore, as compared with the Britannia, and we have continued the system of sending cadets in the first instance to that vessel. But we have made considerable changes in the plan of entry and examination. Cadets used to be under training for a year and a quarter after entry, without competition, but by an examination for which they were highly crammed. The changes we have made are to alter the subjects of examinations so as to minimize the power of cramming, to reduce the age, to keep cadets for three years in training, and to admit by limited competitive examination. As to the course of study, we have thought it desirable not to leave it entirely to our own advisers, but we have called to our aid Dr. Barry, of King's College, and Dr. Butler, of Harrow, who have given us most valuable assistance, and have laid down a course of training for the three years which I cannot but think will be thoroughly satisfactory, and give us a much more highly-trained class of young officers than we have hitherto had. We have since appointed a committee, in which Dr. Barry is also assisting us, to deal with the question of the higher education of naval officers. There is a college at Portsmouth, but its operations are dearly susceptible of great improvement, both as to the residence of officers, and as to the results of study there. The Committee are authorized to report on this question, not only with reference to this college, but whether elsewhere any systematic course of study can be laid down for officers; and I anticipate great benefit from their inquiries. But this inquiry has raised again a question of old date—I mean whether there should be kept up a separate line of navigating as distinct from other executive officers. I stand in a peculiar position with regard to this question. I was a member of the Duke of Somerset's Board, which came to the conclusion to stop altogether entering navigating ca- dets, then called second-class, with the view of putting an end to the masters' line. That decision was come to after much debate in this House. But when my right hon. Friend came into Office he suddenly reversed that decision, and went even further than the former distinctions between the two classes. Formerly the navigating and naval cadets were subject to the same training; but my right hon. Friend removed the navigating cadets to a different ship, and subjected them to a different training from the other cadets. In consequence of the views I entertained when formerly at the Admiralty, I confess that when I came back to Whitehall I found it difficult to know what course to take. What we have done is this—we have transferred these navigating cadets back to the Britannia, where there is abundance of room for them. We have applied to them the same rules as to entry, age, and training, which apply to naval cadets, and we propose that the Admiralty shall have the power to transfer annually three navigating officers to the corresponding executive ranks of lieutenant, commander, and captain, as an experiment. If it succeeds it will enable us to retain the higher rates of pay allowed to navigating officers. If it does not, we shall have no alternative but to fall back on the Duke of Somerset's original proposal.

I now come to the state of our Reserves, exclusive of ships in commission. Our principal Reserve, the Coastguard on shore, will consist of 4,300 officers and men, all ready for sea, all of them at an ago at which sailors are deemed efficient. In this we have made considerable changes since we came into Office. In the first place, we eliminated the civilian element, as to which I recently gave an explanation to the House. Secondly, we found no fewer than 600 old men in the force unfit for service at sea, and, at some expense, we pensioned them. We also found a considerable number of naval officers who had held appointments for too long periods. These we reduced to the ordinary periods of sea service; and we also required twelve instead of eight years' previous service afloat for the men, who will all leave at earlier ages. The result is that the Coastguard is now a thoroughly efficient naval reserve, consisting of men who will go periodically to sea, and are as fit for service as blue-jackets in ships in commission. The next arm of the service I would mention is the Naval Reserve, as to which we have had a joint inquiry with the Board of Trade, and the Papers relating to which shall be laid on the table to-night. We have introduced here a number of minor improvements. One is, that we shall be able to train all the men of the Naval Reserve at the great gun, which we have not been able to do as yet. Another will be a longer continuous training. We also propose to establish a second-class Reserve, which younger ordinary seamen will be able to enter, to be trained for the full time in first-class reserve ships. These are improvements in the right direction; and I am not sure they may not be carried further without entailing any additional charge on the country. The next Reserve is composed of the Marines on shore. We do not propose to reduce the number of Marines this year; but there are questions as to this force in connection with gunnery training which I hope will form the subject of careful inquiry. In addition to these I wish to introduce to the Committee an entirely new available Reserve. The Committee will observe that we provide in the Estimates a nominal sum for preliminary expenses in forming a Seamen Pensioners' Reserve. It is remarkable that the value of our Pensioners has been so long unrecognized. In none of the reports and debates on the subject of Reserves can I find any suggestion that, after a continuous service man's service is over he ought to be available as an efficient member of a Reserve. Amry and Marine Pensioners are called out; but Navy Pensioners have been lost sight of altogether. You are discharging on very liberal pensions men after nineteen or twenty years' service, in many cases at the age of thirty-eight. Last year about 300 blue-jackets were discharged under forty-five years old; and 300 more between forty-five and fifty. There are probably now between 2,000 and 3,000 efficient blue-jacket Pensioners under fifty years old, and in the course of ten years the number will probably reach 5,000. We think that something may be done to make these men useful, and we propose to allow all under the age of forty-five to volunteer into a Naval Pensioners' Reserve, the conditions being that they shall be called out every alternate year for a month's training at sea. When they have been called out at least three times and are fifty years of age, they would be discharged from the Reserve, and be entitled also to the Greenwich pension of 5d., instead of at the age of fifty-five. We feel confident that in this way we shall ultimately secure an efficient Reserve of 5,000 men. Let me now recapitulate the strength of our Reserves according to these proposals. We shall have in the home ports 8,000 blue-jackets and Marines; on shore, 6,000 Marines; Coastguard, 4,000 blue-jackets; Naval Coast Volunteers, 2,000; say as available one-half of the Naval Reserve, 8,000; 5,000, the Seamen Pensioners' Reserve; and add 4,000 Marine Pensioners when they are required. This would give us a total force in reserve of blue-jackets and Marines only to the extent of 37,000. Now I need not say that 37,000 blue-jackets and Marines would be more than sufficient to man all the ships that this country could by any possibility send to sea in any appreciable time, including all the iron-clads built and building, and all ships available in reserve. And if we are sure of so large a force as that, I think we need not anticipate the recurrence of the panic of 1860, which was, perhaps, not altogether without foundation. With this Reserve of 37,000 men, and with 160,000 British seamen behind them, I venture to say that the personnel for naval defence will be ample.

I pass now to the last question on which I shall have to detain the Committee for any length of time, and that is the fulfilment of the promise which I gave the House last year, that we would propose a plan of promotion and retirement which would, so far as we could judge, get rid of that terrible blot upon our Navy, the redundancy and unsatisfactory employment of our officers. The House will, perhaps, see the general effect of the plan by a reference to three of the Estimates, in which there are unusual items. In Vote 15 there are additions amounting to £45,418 in connection with our plan of retirement; in Vote 16 the additional charge is £39,968; and in Vote 16, again, there is an addition of £36,550; making altogether upon the three Votes an addition of £121,936. But, per contra, on Vote 1 there is a deduction of £67,825 due to the same cause; thus leaving the net increase due to the new scheme as £54,111. Before, however, I explain what the scheme is, let me briefly repeat what I said last year as to the evils which it is intended to remedy. The first of those evils is the large number of unemployed officers. I stated that the system of keeping up an excessive number of unemployed officers is open to three objections. In the first place, it is very uneconomical; in the nest place, it is very mischievous, by creating discontent among the officers who are constantly on half-pay, and by causing continual agitation for increased pay; and, thirdly, it produces great inefficiency, because in these days if an officer is on shore for a long time he gets behindhand with the improvements that are always going on. Now, what are the facts in relation to the employment of officers? I comprise under the head of employments everything that can be so called, even including the civil appointments under the Admiralty; and really some of those appointments would not exist but for the purpose of giving employment. I omit altogether officers on the retired lists, taking only the active list. Well, we have 17 flag officers now employed in all ways, and 78 unemployed and on half-pay. Of captains, we have 92 employed and 199 unemployed; of commanders, 162 employed and 239 unemployed; of lieutenants, 513 employed and 265 unemployed; of navigating officers, 252 employed and 123 unemployed; of chief engineers, &c, 163 employed and 71 unemployed; of chaplains and naval instructors, 118 employed and 33 unemployed; of medical officers, 390 employed and 135 unemployed; and of paymasters, 157 employed and 149 unemployed. The total number of officers in these classes is 3,156, of whom 1,864 are employed and 1,292 are unemployed. Let me take a few special cases in further illustration of the present state of things. On the 1st of January last we had 109 captains who had been promoted within five years—that is to say, since January, 1865—and out of that number only 10 are employed, or only 1 in 11. Let the House consider what this really means, considering the age at which a captain is commonly promoted. So it is also with the commanders. On the 1st of January last we had 123 commanders who had been promoted within the last three years or less, and only 23 of their number are employed, or 1 in 6. Then, again, in regard to lieutenants, 61 have been promoted in 1869, and only 10 of them have got employment, or 1 in 6. No young lieutenant ought to be on half-pay. These are some grievous cases, which I have mentioned merely to illustrate the working of the present system. Another evil is the want of uniformity in the rules as to pay, half-pay, and retirement. I do not think any two classes of officers in the Navy are put on half-pay or on retired pay upon the same principle or upon the same scale. The whole thing is a combination of happy accidents with the individual fancies of particular Boards of Admiralty. We have tried, as far as possible, to reduce the varied rates of pay and the haphazard mode of classification into something like a uniform system. We also found the system of compulsory age or non-service retirement very partially applied, and we have sought to lay down a uniform rule. We likewise found a most extraordinary excess of numbers in the lower ranks of the sendee—for example, among the sub-lieutenants, navigating lieutenants, assistant paymasters, engineers, and warrant officers, with whom it is exceedingly difficult to deal. This is also the case in respect to the warrant officers, whose pay, too, is very badly arranged and inadequate. These appointments are what every seaman looks forward to as the ultimate reward of his services; but the rates of pay are found so insufficient that it is often, in fact, with very great hesitation that petty officers accept the position of warrant officer. During the past year we have very fully considered all these important points:—and here I must say that we have derived very valuable assistance from my noble Friend Lord Camperdown, who represents the Department in "another place." It was considered very important that the multifarious details of this great plan should all pass under the notice of one person besides myself and my advisers, who could devote his entire time to the subject; and this my noble Friend has done with great success. I must also acknowledge the secresy which has been preserved as to a plan known for some time to twenty or thirty persons. We usually live in a glass case at the Admiralty, but it was important that the details, while under consideration, should be kept secret; and I believe that, to this moment, our plan is quite unknown outside. Let me state its principles. In the first place, we propose that there should be universal compulsory retirement for all ranks, with in most instances the option of an earlier retirement. We propose that all admirals of the Fleet shall retire at the age of seventy, all admirals and vice admirals at sixty-five, all rear admirals at sixty, all captains at fifty-five, all commanders at fifty, and all lieutenants at forty-five; and we establish similar ages for the retirement of navigating and civilian officers. We propose, also, that all officers who have not served for a certain time shall be compelled to retire—a flag officer after ten years' non-service, a captain after seven years' non-service, and a commander or lieutenant after five years' non-service. We likewise establish a proposed scale of retired pay based on one with which my name was connected as Chairman of the Committee which, sat in 1867, and to which my Colleagues as well as myself have given great consideration. The retirement we propose will depend less on good fortune and more on age and service than the present system does. I will not now state the details beyond this, that from the rank of lieutenant to that of captain in future officers will be able to retire on a scale beginning at £200, and ending at not much less than £600; the scale for flag officers being from £600 to a maximum of £950. We also propose to simplify the extraordinarily complicated and confused rules as to sea service, which at present very few persons can understand. We also propose that there should be for all officers other than those I have named a uniform scale of retirement, from £200 to £450, based on service and age; and I would just say, in passing, that in calculating service it is part of that modification in respect to good fortune to which I have alluded that half-pay shall count as one-third of sea service. We have drawn up an uniform rate of half-pay for all officers except those whom I have named, and medical officers, whose rate of half-pay is for special reasons much in excess of that of other ranks in the Navy. This rate of half-pay will commence at 6s. and go up to 16s. We also propose a uniform rate of pay for navigating officers, engineers, chaplains, and naval instructors at from 12s. to 22s. per day. Then there will be a very greatly improved scale of retired pay for engineers—I do not mean chief engineers, but the inferior ranks of engineers. The scale for warrant officers will, as I have said, be greatly improved, a part of our proposition being the abolition of what is known as "harbour pay," and having only two classes instead, of three, the present number. The increase of charge under this head would have been £11,000, but for the reduction of numbers. We propose that there shall be uniform rates of counting junior time, that as regards retired officers no officer shall rise more than one step in rank after retirement, and that, except by way of pension, his retired pay shall never increase. The present state of things in this respect is outrageous, inasmuch as officers rise to the rank of full admiral who, perhaps, have not served since the time they were commanders. There will be a different arrangement in respect to the flag officers' Greenwich Hospital pension, which can only be given to officers on the active list; and also with regard to good service pensions. It is proposed that retired officers shall, under certain circumstances, be able to retain their good service pensions and the total number will be increased. There is one point, however, on which we have felt it impossible to make the concession which some persons desired. I allude to the proposition that officers who are already retired should have their retirements increased. It would be impossible to do this without raising claims from all superannuated and retired public servants, including those of military officers and civil servants, and therefore we have felt obliged to reject that proposal. But we have extended the facilities for granting pensions to retired officers; and in one case we have put an end to a controversy as to the meaning of certain conditions of retirement which has been more than once before Parliament. I mean our old friends the F.G. captains. This disputed question has caused more heart-burnings than perhaps any other in the service. My right hon. Friend (Mr. Corry) thought he had settled the question by dividing the list into two classes, and by giving one half what they asked for, but refusing it to the other. I am sorry to say that this has proved an entirely untenable solution, and the principle of the claim having been conceded, we have had no option but to grant it to all. There are two other small matters which I may mention. In the arrangements for pensions to the widows of warrant officers there is a gap. The pensions to the widows of warrant officers were discontinued in 1830; they were granted again in 1860; so that there is an interval of a few years within which widows did not become entitled to pensions. We propose the privilege shall apply to all. At present, also, if the widow of an officer marry again, she loses her pension, and it is not restored to her if she again becomes a widow, even though she may be left in a state of destitution by the death of her second husband. This is a hardship, and we have arranged that her pension shall be restored to her if she should be again left a widow. As to the scheme generally, we have respected vested interests. Present officers will be allowed the option of accepting either the new plan or the old one as to pay, and also as to half-pay and retirement; or they may accept the new plan of half-pay and retirement, retaining the old one as regards pay. The compulsory retirement will, however, extend to all. As to the numbers, the following are the proposed figures:—We shall ultimately have nag officers, 50; captains, 150; commanders, 200; lieutenants, 600; navigating officers, including staff captains, 265; chief engineers, including inspectors of machinery, 180; chaplains, 100; naval instructors, 75; medical officers, 476; paymasters, 240; making a total of 2,336 instead of 3,156, and thus showing a reduction of 820. This will leave still, compared with the numbers now employed, these numbers on half-pay—Flag officers, 33; captains, 58; commanders, 38; lieutenants, 87; navigating officers, 27; chief engineers, 17; medical officers, 86; paymasters, 83; or a total of nearly 500, including chaplains. I fear that even these numbers on half-pay will increase as the conversion of our fleet proceeds. With respect to the subordinate rank the present number of warrant officers is—On sea service, 968; in harbour, 185; giving a total of 1,153. We put down the number for the future at 886. Of engineers the present numbers are—On sea service, 727; in harbour, 229—total, 956. The number in the future we estimate at 800. We propose no reduction in the number of Marine officers; but we propose for them a plan of retirement nearly similar to that suggested by the Committee of 1867. Our plan is, that the ages for compulsory retirement shall be—for generals 70; reserved colonels, 65; colonels, 60; lieutenant-colonels, 54; and captains, 48. In the last three grades, the optional retirement will be six years earlier. Passing from that, I will say a few words as to the necessity for the reduction of the number of entries, for it would be useless to reduce the list at the top unless you reduced it at the bottom also. I find this extraordinary state of things, for example, in the lower ranks. There are at present 352 sub-lieutenants, besides navigating sub-lieutenants, 647 midshipmen, and 490 assistant paymasters and clerks; whereas, only 200 sub-lieutenants, 400 midshipmen, and 260 assistant paymasters and clerks are required. But this is not the worst. Our difficulty will be much greater for the next three or four years. In this year, 1870, the young gentlemen nominated in 1864 will come forward to be examined for sub-lieutenant. The nominations of 1864 were 214. In 1865, the whole number nominated was 193; they will come forward in 1871. In 1866, the number was 160; they will come forward in 1872. In 1867, the number was 175; they will come forward in 1873. I remember that my right hon. Friend opposite took credit for a reduction in the number of nominations in 1867; but he forgot that, in consequence of the introduction of second cadets, the nominations actually arose from 160 in 1866 to 175 in 1867. After making allowance for contingencies, we may calculate that within the next four years above 600 young men will have passed for sub-lieutenant, or navigating sub-lieutenant, in which rank they will remain two or three years; whereas the total number so passing ought not to be more than 350. In 1868, the number of nominations was reduced to 150; in 1869, it was brought down to 126, and we propose that in future it shall be 105—made up of eighty-one naval and twenty-four navigating cadets. This, according to calculations made on the system adopted by actuaries, will give us about the number of officers that we shall really require. Perhaps I may be allowed to institute some comparison between the numbers of our own officers and those of the French Navy. It will be found that, including on our side; Marine officers below field officers, navigating officers, and subordinate officers down to midshipmen, and on the French side the enseignes de vaisseau, and the aspirants de premiere classe we shall have a total of 2,350 officers, against 2,050 in the French Navy. So that we shall still be in excess of a navy which, in these respects, is generally considered over rather than under officered. The House may wish to know what will be the future financial effect of these changes. In the first year there will be an addition of £54,111. In the second year, the amount of increase will be reduced to £42,499. It may be assumed that all the compulsory retirements will be in the first year and two-thirds of the optional retirements; in the second year, there will be half of the remaining third of the optional retirements and half of further reduction to bring down the number to those proposed. In the third year, the numbers being fully reduced, the increase of charge will be diminished to £30,886. In the fourth year, instead of an increase of expense, there will be a saving of £7,552. In the fifth year, there will be a saving of £45,990. A steady saving will then go on for twenty or twenty-five years, until all the lists will be in what may be called their normal condition, and when the saving in the pay, half-pay, and retired pay, of officers is estimated to amount to from £300,000 to £350,000. The present number of officers and subordinate officers of all ranks is 6,081 on full pay, and 1,194 on half-pay, and the effect of these changes will be to reduce the ultimate number to about 5,500.

SIR JOHN HAY

asked whether the Admiralty intended to adopt the proposal of the Committee relative to the commutation of the annuity?

MR. CHILDERS

I am obliged to my hon. and gallant Friend for reminding me. I should have mentioned that last year we passed an Act under which the half-pay and retired pay of naval and military officers may, with the consent of the Admiralty and War Office, be commuted.

SIR JOHN HAY

inquired whether the Admiralty retained the power of refusing their permission to the commutation?

MR. CHILDERS

Yes, but practically this power will be rarely exercised, and under the regulations published tomorrow, officers will be allowed to commute their pensions for a fixed sum, so calculated that no loss will accrue to the Government.

I have now gone through all the important questions contained in the Estimates which we have laid before the House. When we first took in hand the very heavy task which devolved on us in the administration of the Navy, I and my Colleagues laid down throe objects which we determined to keep steadily in view. One was to do all in our power for the efficiency of the naval service. That is and must be the first object of every First Lord of the Admiralty; and, considering what we have done in increasing the efficiency of the men, in keeping our ships at sea, and improving the work of the dockyards, and in grappling with every kind of abuse, we confidently appeal to tills House and to the public for the confirmation of our assertion that the efficiency of the Navy has not suffered at our hands. Next, to the efficiency of the service, we determined to keep economy in view. I do not say that what others might not have done; but I have shown that we have effected a net annual economy in the naval receipt and expenditure of £2,000,000, as compared with the two years previous to our administration. Our third object was to render the service contented. So long as we had a large number of officers unemployed, and while some of the questions I have mentioned were unsettled, no one can wonder at a certain uneasiness and want of contentment in parts of the service. We believe, however, that the proposal I have made to-night ought to remove these feelings; and, if that prove so, we shall have succeeded in our third object. Efficiency, economy, and contentment are, then, the main basis of our naval policy. I have explained to the House—not, I trust, at too great length—how we propose to attain these great objects, and my only hope is that the House will endorse our policy. I move, Sir, that 61,000 Men and Boys be employed in the Sea and Coast Guard Service for the year ending the 31st of March, 1871, including 14,000 Royal Marines.

MR. CORRY

Sir, I have listened with great interest to the very clear statement which has been made by my right hon. Friend the First Lord of the Admiralty, and I can assure the Committee that if I object to the extent of the reduction he proposes, it is not because I do not recognize economical management as a primary obligation on every Minister, over whatever Department he may preside. I think I have given some proof of my sense of that obligation, because, although the Estimates prepared by the late Government—by my right hon. Friend the Member for Droitwich (Sir John Pakington) for 1867–8, and by myself for 1868–9, were large Estimates, there were special reasons why they should be so. Looking at the state of the Navy as we found it, we should have been false to our duty had we not proposed increased expenditure on both unarmoured and armoured ships. But oven in the Estimates for 1868–9, although I made largely increased provision for the building of armour-clad vessels, I also effected considerable reductions in other branches of the service, though in consequence of circumstances over which I had no control I failed to derive the financial advantage from those reductions which I otherwise should have obtained. I was obliged to provide for increased rates of pay and allowances to certain classes of seamen and to Marines, and I had also to propose a considerable increase in the Vote for Victuals, in consequence of the rise in prices consequent on the badness of the harvest of the previous year; whereas, in the present year, my right hon. Friend has had the advantage of a fall in the prices of wheat, meat, and other principal articles of consumption. But I was more fortunate in preparing the Estimates for the current financial year, which were far advanced before I left Office; and if I had been spared to propose them. I could have shown that I had reduced the Naval Votes to as nearly as possible the same amount as those for 1866–7—the last Estimates of the preceding Liberal Government—but that I had made such reductions in the non-productive Votes, that I was able to apply between £500,000 and £600,000 more to increasing the material strength of the Navy, in the purchase of engines, the building of armoured ships by contract, and the great extensions now in progress at Portsmouth and Chatham. It is true that in his speech at Perth the hon. Member the Secretary to the Admiralty (Mr. Baxter) attributed the whole of the reduction of the Estimates for 1869–70 to the introduction of the commercial element—that is, of himself—into the Admiralty; but this was hardly consist- ent with the regard to the rights of property, which might have been expected in a Gentleman of his position. I must remind him that more than half of the reduction to which he referred on that occasion was due to me. The First Lord of the Admiralty fell into a similar error when he said that he had effected a reduction of £2,000,000 in the Navy Estimates. He should, have recollected that at least £500,000 or £600,000 of the saving in 1869 was owing to reductions I had effected before leaving Office. But there is a broad distinction between economy within the limits of what is due to efficiency and economy carried out in fulfilment of a pledge given on the hustings for party purposes, and I cannot doubt that it is under this influence that these Estimates have been prepared. If that be so, it will not be for the first time that the Navy will have to deplore retrenchment having been made an election cry by the party opposite. I am, unfortunately, old enough to recollect, as a Member of this House, the times of the first Reform Bill. The Liberal cry then was "Peace, Economy, and Reform," and, as regards the Navy the results were inadequate Estimates—dockyards stripped of stores, and shipbuilding and the manning of the Navy. neglected. Some of us must remember the alarm at the state of the Navy, which, after the lapse of a few years, filled the public mind, and the agitation which ensued in and out of Parliament on the subject. When the Liberal party came into Office, in 1830, England's was the only Navy worthy of the name in the world; but during the long period of Liberal rule from 1830 to 1841—for Sir Robert Peel's first Government, in 1835, was of too short duration to have any influence in the matter—while other Powers were applying themselves energetically to the re-organization of their navies, the English Navy was allowed to remain nearly at a standstill. In order to avoid the suspicion of misrepresentation, I will let a Liberal Secretary to the Admiralty, describe the result. Mr. More O'Ferrall, who was the Secretary in 1839, in moving the Estimates, said— Up to 1830 scarcely any progress was made by foreign Powers in increasing their naval force. But since that time great attention has been paid to the subject not only by France, but by every other naval State, and if we wish to maintain our maritime supremacy, it behoves us to provide an additional number of large class ships. It was not till after nine years of supineness that this necessity dawned upon the Liberal Government of the day. And what were the consequences from which we narrowly escaped? In the following year a difference which threatened war, arose between England and France on the Eastern question. We went to war with Egypt. The French fleet in the Mediterranean was stronger than ours. It was numerically stronger; but still more so in the individual strength of the ships of modern construction which composed it, and which were far larger and more heavily armed—mounting from eighty-six to 100 guns each—than ours. With the exception of an old three-decker—the Princess Charlotte—our fleet consisted chiefly of the almost obsolete ships of seventy-two guns built during the Great War; and so convinced was Admiral Lalande of his superiority that he implored the French Government to permit him to attack Sir Robert Stopford, and told them they might never have such another chance again. If another Minister had happened to be in power in France at the time, nothing could have averted a war between the two countries, which would have been traceable exclusively to Liberal economy in the administration of the Navy during the ten preceding years. In 1841 a Conservative Government—as I think, fortunately for the Navy—came into Office, and lasted until 1846, during the whole of which time I had the honour of serving either as a Civil Lord or as Secretary of the Admiralty. It was a critical moment for the Navy, as the screw propeller was then first introduced. We found the Rattler—the first screw vessol-of-war—on the stocks, and as soon as she was built, we put her through, various experiments, and tried her against other vessels of her class; and the result was that in 1844, after considering the question well, we determined upon substituting the screw propeller altogether for the paddle-wheel in ships of war. Between the 1st of January, 1845, and the summer of 1846, when we were turned out of Office, we ordered no fewer than thirty-four screw vessels-of-war, four of which were ! line-of-battle ships, and eleven frigates, to be either built or converted for the screw. But in 1846—unfortunately for the Navy—a Liberal Government returned to power. They immediately suspended the conversion of the four line- of-battle ships, and had it not been for the influence of my late gallant and lamented Friend Sir William Bowles with Lord Palmerston, with whom he was nearly connected, it is probable the process of conversion would never have been resumed under that Administration. They moreover countermanded several of the screw vessels we had ordered, and—strange as it may appear in these days—ordered a number of the worst paddle-wheel frigates that ever belonged to the Navy to be built instead. In 1852 a Conservative Government again came into Office, and found that the screw navy had been so neglected—and in those days the screw" meant what "armour" means now-a-days, that is to say, that a man-of-war could not be considered effective as a fighting ship without it—that it felt itself under the necessity, although at great financial inconvenience, as, I believe, for I was not a member of that Government, to propose a supplemental Vote in the autumn Session for engines to increase the screw navy. At the end of 1852 Lord Derby was turned out, and the Liberal Government came in, and remained in power till 1858. Again our naval preparations were inadequate to the maintenance of our naval supremacy, and again the obligation of restoring it was imposed on the Conservative Government which succeeded to Office in the latter year. During all this time France, profiting by the experiments we had made down to 1846, built a series of magnificent ships—the Napoleon and other screw ships, and converted many of her old line-of-battle ships and frigates into screw vessels. The state of the Navy was well known on the Continent, and a remarkable publication in German—known by the name of "The Leipsic Article"—appeared about this time." It was written by no unfriendly hand, but concludes in these words— In summing up we must pronounce that the French Navy surpasses the English in capacity, &c. France need feel no hesitation, in the present posture of affairs, in placing herself in comparison with England. Here we have the idea prevailing on the Continent in 1858 that the French Navy was at least equal to our own. And was the prevalence of such an opinion as this unattended with danger to the preservation of peace? We all remember that in 1858, as in 1840, we were in imminent danger of war with France, upon the de- feat of Lord Palmerston's Government on the Conspiracy Bill. We all remember the addresses of the French colonels, published in the Moniteur, and it is not difficult to connect those addresses with the belief that the Navy of France could have borne its part successfully in the warlike policy which they urged. Thus you have had two narrow escapes from war through starving your Navy, and by this time you should have learnt the folly of such; a practice. It was not a Tory idea when we came into Office in 1858, that the; Navy should be strengthened. The absolute necessity for restoring our naval preponderance was urged upon my right hon. Friend the Member for Droitwich (Sir John Pakington) by Sir Baldwin Walker, the Surveyor to the Navy, as the Controller was then called, who was, I believe, a Liberal in politics, but too honest a man to be influenced in the discharge of his duties by political considerations. The result was increased Estimates, including a Vote for the first armour-plated ship—a class in the building of which France had led the way. In 1859 the Conservatives were again turned out, and when we returned to Office in 1866 we found ourselves placed once more under the old obligation, and your own Controller pressed upon my right hon. Friend (Sir John Pakington), in the strongest manner, the necessity for making increased provision for building unarmoured no less than armoured ships. You, the Liberals, have profited by our expenditure and obtained the credit of being economical managers; but it is to the advents of Conservative Governments, few and far between, that the country is indebted for the preservation of its naval power. But the First Lord of the Admiralty assures us, of course, that his economy, is regulated by a due regard for efficiency. I have never known a low Estimate that did not make ample provision for efficiency, nor a high one over which the genius of economy did not preside. My right hon. Friend says the Navy is now more powerful than ever; that is certainly true in one sense; as long as we go on creating an armoured Navy, it of course becomes stronger and stronger from year to year, as far as ships are concerned; but it is hardly fair for the right hon. Gentleman, when his three ships ordered last year are as yet hardly visible to the naked eye, to point to our squadrons of armoured and unarmoured ships, and say—"This is all my thunder!" I have lately been at Chatham and Portsmouth, where two of his ships are to be built, and the keel of one is not yet laid down, and the other has made very little progress. The right hon. Gentleman shook his head at what I said just now; but I must so interpret his speech last year (when I was absent abroad on account of ill-health), of which a summary appeared in The Times, stating "that his administration had given England a stronger fleet than she had possessed since the French War."

MR. CHILDERS

I do not remember that speech at all.

MR. CORRY

I certainly read it as I have stated.

MR. CHILDERS

I never made any speech at all.

MR. CORRY

It was upon an occasion in last July on which the Secretary to the Admiralty preceded my right hon. Friend, and boasted of what he had done in buying coals and other articles, and then the right hon. Gentleman is represented to have wound up his speech as I have just quoted. My right hon. Friend would do well to remember the dictum of a French author of great authority on naval subjects, which ought to be engraved on the mind of every naval administrator—"On n'improvise rien en marine." I am afraid my countrymen have not very excellent characters for modesty; but I think my right hon. Friend might take a leaf out of my book in that respect, for a short time after I was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty, I remember saying, in returning thanks for the Navy before a distinguished audience, that I could speak of its efficiency with the less reserve because I had been so short a time in Office that it was impossible any of the credit of it could be due to me. But my right hon. Friend attributed the whole credit for the state of the Navy to his own Administration, after having been only a few months in Office, and rested his claims on the Channel Squadron, the Flying Squadron, and the state of the Reserves. Now, I have been labouring under the delusion that for the condition of the Reserves he was, in a great measure, indebted to me. I have some idea that the Channel Squadron has been in existence for many years—I certainly embarked in it myself nearly three years ago; but I willingly concede to my right hon. Friend whatever credit may be due to him for the Flying Squadron—except that most of the ships of which it consists were brought forward by me—but so far from being an clement of strength, it is, in my opinion, an clement of weakness, because it wears out in time of peace the best of the few ships we possess adapted to the protection of our commerce in the event of war, and places them all over the world beyond the reach of the Admiralty, and very possibly at the antipodes to the place where their services might be urgently required on an emergency. The men and officers could be trained quite as well if the Flying Squadron were kept nearer home. I have been much amused of late at one testimony in favour of the efficiency of the present naval Administration, which has been strangely put forward by some leading organs of the Liberal press—whose favour it is not surprising it should conciliate, because its policy is essentially a leading article policy—I mean the recent Report of the Secretary of the American Navy. But from beginning to end there is hardly a single paragraph of the Report applicable in the way of approval to the present naval Administration. In bearing testimony to the general efficiency of our Navy, the Report testifies to the administrative capacity of the successive Boards—and thus does them the justice which has been denied them by their own countrymen—which have organized our fleets of broadside sea-going armour-clads and provided the resources in the dockyards for the repair and equipment of the fleet, the reserves of seamen, the continuous service system, training ships, badges, gratuities, &c. But I have yet to learn how we are indebted for any of these things to the present Board. One of its passages is anything but in approbation of the First Lord's policy. It dwells on the necessity of providing steamships with adequate sail power. But the First Lord is building them without any sail power at all. I think this is the only remark applicable to the present naval Administration in the whole Report. There is one part of it which I look upon as a triumph to myself. Two years ago the late Board was held up to ridicule by certain writers whose style is familiar to me, for its ignorance of the fact that America possessed a fleet of sea-going monitors which could cross over to England and blow our Channel Squadron out of the water. But what does the American; Secretary say on this subject?— It is true that our best monitors would, if brought into action, be powerful against anything that floats, but they are steam batteries, not sea-going cruisers. Some of them have illustrated their capacity for a sea voyage under favourable circumstances, but they could not be used with advantage as cruisers. They would require several vessels to accompany them, and, being entirely without sail power, must be towed as soon as their coal is exhausted, and with broken or disordered machinery they would be helpless in mid ocean. These are the ships which we were told two years ago were to sink the Channel Squadron, and frighten the good people of Aberdeen. But the American Secretary speaks highly of the broadside iron-dads of England and France, which our critics pronounce to be absolutely useless, and declares them to be effective for every warlike purpose, and able to keep at sea under all circumstances, and he gives practical proof of the sincerity of his opinion by recommending that the Americans should build no fewer than eight or ten of these vessels for their own navy. So much for our worthless and obsolete broadside armour-clads, and so much for the approval of the American Secretary of the naval policy of the present Administration. If the present Board can give us a goodly account of the state of the Navy in respect of ships, it is of necessity entirely to the Boards which preceded it that this is due. During the course of the present year the whole of ten armour-clads ordered by the late Government—which are among the best armed ships in the Navy—two of them turret-ships, and one a powerful ram, ought to be available" for service. They will be an enormous addition to the strength of the Navy; but I think that we are entitled to some credit for this, and that when the First Lord has these powerful ships at his disposal, he will hardly have a right to say—"See what my Administration has done for the Navy! But, whatever may be the strength of our Navy in ships, I deny that it can be in proper efficiency in the present state of affairs—whether as regards stores, or the crippled condition to which the civil departments at Whitehall and at the ports have been reduced. We may have men, and we may have ships given us by former Boards, but have we the means of making them immediately available on an emergency? Without this the Navy is insufficient for the main object of maintaining it. As respects stores—both as to quality and quantity—the state in which I have found the dockyards on some recent visits to them appeared to me, as an old-fashioned administrator, to be most unsatisfactory. As to quantity, they are, as I am informed, positively denuded of the means of providing for even a small addition to our naval force in the event of an emergency; and, if stores were living things, and could reason, they would live, like the unfortunate clerks, in daily dread of being abolished. The Committee would like, perhaps, to have some illustrations of this. Some time ago the Minotaur sprung or carried away her three lower yards, and I found that Portsmouth—our greatest naval arsenal—was so stripped of stores that it would be a strain on the establishment to provide this single ship with now ones. Does the right hon. Gentleman think he can buy lower yards for line-of-battle ships in the market? Then, I have been told that an officer was sent down from the Admiralty to report as to how many anchors might be sold with advantage at Portsmouth, and he decided that 187 might be disposed of, although in that event only live large anchors would have been left in the dockyard, four being the complement for a single ship. It is quite right that obsolete stores should be sold—and while we were in Office we were selling them at reasonable prices—but to-night it has been admitted that serviceable anchors have been sold at most ruinous prices. The system of supplying stores to the dockyards has been entirely changed, and, in my opinion, for the worse. Under the old system the quantities of imperishable stores demanded and supplied were equal to the estimated expenditure of the quarter, and the surplus on hand remained for an emergency. But now, when the quarterly demands are sent up the supply is cut down to what, along with the quantities in hand, will meet the expenditure, and the necessary consequence is that the dockyards are nearly denuded at the end of the quarter of those descriptions of stores which are included in the quarterly demands. In short, the expression I heard everywhere was—"We are now living from hand to mouth, and have no stock for an emergency." This system may be in accordance with commercial; principles; but I maintain that it is absolutely incompatible with the proper administration of a great navy. As respects the quality of stores now supplied under the new purchase system, the state of things is still more alarming. Formerly every precaution was taken to supply the Navy with the very best articles which could be procured, and to this may be attributed, under Providence, the marvellous exemption from the casualties of the seas so long enjoyed by our men-of-war. Let us consider the case of anchors. The Admiralty has often been abused for paying more than the market price for anchors—although, by the way, there is no market price for the large anchors used in the Navy. But no price could be too high so long as it gave an additional guarantee for the safety of our ships and the lives of our seamen. Look at the hurricane off Balaklava. While the merchant ships supplied with anchors and cables at what are called market prices were going ashore and being wrecked in scores, not a single man-of-war parted from her anchors; but I suppose our ships are now to take their chance, and be lost on strictly commercial principles. And not only is it the case that inferior articles are now supplied, but the Admiralty is doing its best to induce the officers of the yards to receive, or rather to intimidate them into receiving, stores unfit for Her Majesty's service. I was informed of more than one instance in which the officers, having rejected a delivery of stores as unfit, were informed by the Admiralty that they must have been influenced by some improper motive, and were ordered to receive them. How can it be possible to carry on the service if officers are treated in that way? And on what sort of authority has the opinion of the practical officers who, I have no doubt, exercised their judgment with the utmost honesty, been overruled? I will give an amusing illustration of this. Some time ago some very bad sheathing paper—the paper placed between a ship's bottom and the copper—was rejected at one of the yards, and what did the Admiralty do? Why, they actually sent it to the Stationery Office, thinking, no doubt, that the officials there could form the best opinion as to its fitness for naval purposes. The Stationery Office reported in its favour, and the officers were ordered to receive it, and a great part of it was so weak that when dipped in tar it tore with its own weight and was useless. Formerly any article not equal to pattern, or specification was at once rejected by the officers. Now the vendor has a right to appeal, and the result sometimes is, that articles admitted to be unequal to the specification are ordered to be received at reduced prices. The necessary tendency of this is to encourage contractors to supply inferior articles. I have been told that some leather which was sent down to be made into hose was refused by the dockyard officers at Portsmouth on the ground that it was manufactured from the skins of diseased animals, and full of holes, and consequently unfit for use. The House will, of course, understand that I am not stating this as a matter of fact, but am merely repeating what I was told. ["Hear, hear!"] At all events, my information is derive from a very trustworthy source, and I am told that this leather was submitted to the examination of a maker of hose in London, who reported it to be quite fitted for the purpose for which it was intended. It was accordingly returned to Portsmouth, and one of the officers there said—"We can, it is true, make hose with it, but in consequence of the inferiority of the stuff the cost of manufacture will be double what it would have been if the leather had been of good quality." This leather, I believe, was purchased from Mr. Empson, of Dundee. It was, I believe, ultimately taken by the Government at a reduced price; but the result of such a course must in the end prove most disadvantageous to the service. At Chatham I met an intelligent person who was connected with the ropery, and I said to him—"What sort of hemp are you getting now?" "Well, Sir," he replied, "awful bad hemp has been supplied under the now system." I found that a large proportion of the Italian hemp, lately sent in, was reported to be bad. The Admiralty sent back to ask if it was not suitable to be received at lower prices, and the answer was that it was not fit for average service. I do not know whether this hemp was ordered to be received; but, if so, when a vessel finds herself on a lee shore in a heavy gale the officers and crew will give small thanks to the Admiralty for having supplied them with cheap hemp. There is no article to which these remarks are more applicable than to coals, in respect of which the Secretary of the Admiralty claimed so much credit for himself and the Board last year. The hand-to-mouth system has been applied to coals, as to other articles, and no sufficient stock is kept on hand to meet any un-foreseen demand. I was informed that at one time, at Portsmouth, the stock of Welsh coal was reduced to 1,000 tons, or less than would be required by one of the Indian troop-ships. I can myself testify to the badness of the quality of the coal supplied for the service of the dockyards, as what I saw burned to ash in the most wasteful manner. My right hon. Friend has told us that there has been a great saving effected in the price of coal. This may be so; but I asked a person connected with one of the smitheries—"What sort of coal do you get now?" and I may mention that I only put down the most graphic replies I received—those which struck me as being very forcible and coining from the men's hearts. This man answered—"Coals now are tremendously bad. They are cheaper than they used to be, but we don't know into whose pocket the difference goes. They come in at all sorts of prices." The hemp was "awfully bad," and the coals "tremendously bad." Another informant said to me—"The smithery coals are an extraordinary looking article, and so small that they cannot be used by themselves. We cannot keep them piled up over a large forging, they shake down from the smallest concussion of the steam hammer, and it is necessary to employ men constantly to shovel them up." This is a curious sort of economy. An engineer officer, of great experience, to whom I put the question, told me that the loss from waste was greater than the saving in price; that some very inferior coals were now sent in, and that he was convinced the public lost by the present system. With respect to coal, all guarantee against fraud, as far as concerns the supervision of the dockyard officers, is abolished, because, be a delivery ever so bad, they are not allowed, not only to reject, but even to object to it, and there is now no test whatever. It is treason to question the judgment of the broker, and good or bad it must be received. Before this rule was laid down, the officers in one of the yards refused to receive a cargo—"it was so bad." The Admiralty telegraphed back that there was no alternative—"You must use them, and report on them afterwards." That coal, I believe, was for dockyard purposes; but even for ships the officers are obliged to receive coals which have not been subjected to any test whatever, and the captains are to report on them after use. The First Lord of the Admiralty is reported to have said last year that he thought it scarcely right that the rule laid down throe years ago, that none but smokeless coal should be supplied to the Navy, should be observed, merely because it had been recommended in a Report from the West Coast of Africa. I do not know whether the nautical experience he has since acquired in command of a combined squadron has opened his eyes in this respect; but as it may not have done so, perhaps he will allow me to read a short extract from a letter I received not long ago from an officer of experience and ability, now commanding one of Her Majesty's ships, as it places the question in the clearest light. He says— The change from Welsh coal to North Country coal is inexcusable. We are all trying the best method to adapt our furnaces to consume it, but no one who is conversant with the subject can think we shall make it smokeless. There is no reason whatever in favour of North Country coal except the supposed one of economy, and that is very doubtful. It certainly costs less per ton, but after you have steamed for twenty-four hours your flues get so foul with soot that you waste your coal, lose the heat up the funnel, and fall off in speed. With smoky coal you lose speed, damage your sails and rigging, damage your men's clothes, disgust your ship's company with constant dirt and cleaning, and all this in peace time. In war smoky coal would at once be pitched overboard, and Welsh coal purchased at any price, for a cruiser with smoky coal would be a beacon to an enemy to enable him to attack if of superior, or to run away, if of inferior force. Ask American officers of the Civil War, and they will ridicule a fleet with smoky coals. The supply of smoky coals is one of the numerous blessings for which the Navy is indebted to the present Admiralty. There are various other objections to the use of North Country coal which have been brought to my notice by eminent engineer officers. One great defect in our ships, which is urged by many, is the smallness of the quantity of coal they can stow. Well, Sir, I learn from officers, who speak from practical experience, that as North Country coal burns quicker, from 13 to 15 percent of stowage is lost. Welsh Country coal would carry a ship a proportionately greater distance. "Of two equal ships—one supplied with Welsh and the other with North Country coals—the one with Welsh would steam one-sixth longer. North Country coal fouls the flues and tubes, prevents draft, reduces speed, and causes waste of fuel. Admitting air behind the furnaces diminishes but does not remove the black pendant. The waste from ash and clinker is greater than the saving in price. Great labour is entailed by the bars getting hot, and the necessity of drawing the fires to clean them." You have therefore with North Country coal more dirt, more labour, less stowage, and less speed. Now, in the name of common sense I should like to know what is the use of providing your ships with engines of enormous prices, and boilers to develop the utmost steam power, so as to obtain the greatest possible speed, when you put coal on board them which neutralizes what you do for that purpose? I was talking the other day to an engineer officer of experience who told me that with indifferent coal and indifferent stoking the speed of a ship might be diminished two knots a hour—that is to say, that a fifteen knot ship might be reduced to thirteen knots—and that," he added, "is about the difference resulting from working the engines with full boiler or only half boiler power." This may give the Committee some idea of the impolicy of supplying the Navy with any but the best coals. But if our dockyards are crippled in respect of stores, they are no less so in respect of what is of equal importance—I mean the establishment of officers for the supervision of work and the custody and proper appropriation of the valuable property they contain. I think that the reform of the establishments has been carried too far, and in many instances in the wrong direction, although I readily admit that the old establishments required readjustment and reduction, and this was one of the measures I was anxious to carry out be- fore I left Office. I did effect, as the First Lord knows, very great economies in the service of the ports. Among others, I reduced, by means of an entirely new system, the number of men in charge of the ships in ordinary by 1,000, and the estimated annual cost of taking care of the larger ships from £1,000 to £200 each, and it was my wish to introduce analogous economies in the management of the dockyards also. But I was unfortunately prevented from entering into the consideration of this question by the lengthened absence of the Controller, on leave in Italy, until after the Elections—that is to say, until just before my resignation. On going through the Dockyard Estimates with the Chief Constructor he was unwilling to suggest what offices might be dispensed with in the absence of his chief. But the reforms I contemplated were very different from those which have been carried out by the First Lord, and which, wherever I go, who's-ever opinion I ask, whether naval or civilian, whether Liberal or Conservative, I find universally condemned with a singular unanimity. I have frequently been asked who upon earth can have advised these changes; but it is easy to see in them the master hand of the Controller of the Navy, who, as I predicted last year, has made himself absolute both at Whitehall and in the dockyards, in all that relates to his department. Last year he persuaded the First Lord to remove from the Admiralty the whole some check over the purchase so and expenditure of stores which the wisdom of Sir James Graham had provided—I mean the Storekeeper General of the Navy; and the same principle has now been carried out in the dockyards. The office of storekeeper has been abolished, and the duties of the office merged in those of the master shipwright, who is invested with exclusive control. This, I believe, is at variance with the universal practice in private yards, where the constructor makes demands on, and gives receipts to an independent storekeeper; and it is obviously improper that the person who expends the stores should have charge of them also. The whole system of dockyard reform which has been adopted by the Government is based on this principle—the abolition of all independent offices, and the appointment to the charge of all the departments of subordinates, under the complete control of the master shipwright, and consequently of the Controller of the Navy. I am informed that the person doing the duty of storekeeper at one of our great naval establishments is a foreman of shipwrights, with a salary of £250 a year, who has provided no sureties or bondsmen, and has no responsibility for stores except to his master—the master shipwright. Now, a person in that position cannot exercise any independent authority, and this opens the door to very great abuses in the department of the master shipwright. I have conversed a good deal on the subject with persons who are well acquainted with such matters, some of whom have held the offices of captain and admiral superintendent, and they all concur in condemning the change which has been made. One instance of abuse which may ensue will; serve as well as a hundred. Under the old system, when there was an independent storekeeper, demands was made on him by the master shipwright for all the articles which he required. It generally happens that larger quantities of all sorts of stores are issued than are actually used in the building or repair of the ship for which they are demanded. A margin must be left for breakages, misfits, and other contingencies. A quantity of surplus stores consequently remains on hand after the work is done, and formerly when the the surplus came to be returned into store, there was frequently a difference between the storekeeper and the master shipwright as to how it should be charged. Of course, it was the interest of the master shipwright that the storekeeper should debit himself with the full value of the articles so returned; but this the latter refused to do, if, in consequence, for instance, of having been made for a particular ship—such as plates of a particular shape or size—they might not be applicable to another ship, except at a loss. The storekeeper, therefore, debited himself in such cases only with the reduced value, and the difference was charged to the ship. But now that the master shipwright is his own store-keeper he can relieve the ship altogether of the charge on account of such articles, and will naturally return them into store at the full value; and the result often will be that after en- cumbering the storehouse for years, they will be ultimately condemned, and the loss charged to deterioration instead of to the ship. This is only a single illustration of inaccuracy of accounts and other evils which may result from the abolition of the office of an independent storekeeper. I do not see, indeed, how the smallest reliance is to be placed on the accuracy of the dockyard accounts without the independent chock of a storekeeper. Let me take another ease. It is a rule in the dockyards that the oldest stores, so long as they are serviceable, should be used first. But is it to be supposed that, under the new system, a master shipwright, engaged in building a pet ship, will observe this rule? It is only in conformity with human nature that he will put the very best articles into her, and great ultimate loss will be the consequence. One of the objections I have often heard urged against the new system of accounts in the dockyards was that so much of the master shipwright's time was engaged in clerical duties that very little was left to him for the supervision of work at the dockside. But now, in addition to being a master shipwright, you have made him storekeeper also; and not only that, but with an infatuation which appears to me to be unaccountable, you have made him chief engineer as well. The responsible, and, as I think, indispensable offices of storekeeper and chief engineer have been abolished, and the duties thrown on one officer, who, before they were added to his own special duties, had quite as much on his hands in a great dockyard as any one man, however able, could efficiently perform. The master shipwright is now storekeeper and chief engineer as well, and, like another Robinson Crusoe, is monarch of all he surveys. And what, as a general rule, does a master shipwright know about steam engines? Probably his knowledge of them will be merely superficial; and, moreover, his time will be too much occupied to admit of his attending personally to the factories, the consequence will be that the superintendence of those great establishments and of the repair of those magnificent engines which have cost the country tens of millions, which has hitherto been intrusted to gentlemen of first-rate ability, such as Mr. Andrew Murray and other chief engineers, will devolve on subordinates utterly unequal to so great a charge. It is physically impossible for one man in a large dockyard to perform the duties of master shipwright, storekeeper, and engineer, and the work must be done by inferior officers, to the great detriment of the public service. Again, by cutting down the establishments to starvation point no margin has been left for casualties, which are sure to occur, or for unusual pressure of work from political or other causes. It is the almost universal opinion in the yards that the whole system must break down and collapse on an emergency. If a man gets a sore throat, there is nobody to supply his place. Hon. Members may laugh, but at Chatham some time ago, the chief engineer caught a severe cold, and I was informed that during a period of five or six weeks there was no competent person to superintend the steam factory of that establishment. Even at Whitehall, what would happen if an epidemic should occur in London? The result might be that the work would come to a stand-still. And, I am sorry to say that I found a very bad feeling prevailing in the yards for reasons altogether apart from the reductions. The tone of the letters which are written from the Admiralty to the ports and dockyards is no longer characterized by that official decorum by which they used to be marked, and which ought to be observed by a great Department. There is a general complaint, too, that letters to the Admiralty are allowed to remain unanswered; but, that, I said was not surprising, as there were no clerks left to answer them. A general feeling of mistrust and apprehension pervades the whole service. No one knows when his own turn for dismissal may come, or when, no matter how high his rank, he may be insulted by a letter from Whitehall, reproving him for having faithfully performed his duty. It is impossible to carry on the service with any advantage under such a system; but it is the natural result of the Admiralty having delegated its powers to a subordinate, or what ought to be a subordinate, department. Another branch of dockyard policy I regard from every point of view with extreme regret—and on this subject I expect the support of some Gentlemen opposite—I mean the further reduction, to the extent of nearly 3,000, of shipwrights and other workmen. Last year the First Lord of the Admiralty implied that I had somewhat inconsiderately reduced the number of men, and stated that he would be guided by a more considerate policy so long as he had anything to do with the Admiralty. Now, the number of men reduced by my Estimate of 1868–9 was only 2,046. The number discharged during 1868 was, it is true, upwards of 4,000, but that was because I had entered, with the consent of the Treasury, a number of men in the autumn of 1867, to bring forward the Reserves, who, of course, were not provided for in the Estimates, and who knew their employment was to cease at the end of the financial year. But the first thing my right hon. Friend did on coming into Office was to cap me by discharging some 1,500 men in addition to my discharges, which I thought a strange mode of showing his consideration—and if I had continued in Office the greater number of these men would have been retained in the service, as I had no intention of any reduction beyond the small one which the disestablishment of Deptford Yard would have necessitated. Sly discharges, moreover, were almost entirely confined to men hired for temporary service, as in 1868 I reduced the number of men entitled to pensions by only 215. But the reductions by the present Board affect chiefly established men. The comparison stands thus—I reduced 2,046, of whom 215 were established; the present Board has reduced 3,996, of whom 2,269 were established. So I think the First Lord has hardly a right to taunt me with want of consideration. As I have already said, I did not contemplate further reductions beyond those which, for special reasons, I carried out in 1868, and I think the further extent to which they have been carried is alarming. The First Lord has stated that in 1866, which was the last year of the last Liberal Government, there were 18,618 men at work in the dockyards. The number has now been reduced to 11,276 men. There has therefore been a reduction of 7,342 men in the four years. The worst of it is that we have not yet come to the end. The spirit of retrenchment is not yet satisfied, but still goes on crying "more, more!" I think those reductions have already been carried to an extent which is most injudicious. Moreover, I think them most ill-timed. Among those who are ignorant of naval affairs the building and maintaining a force of un-armoured ships is treated as an absurdity; but to neglect our unarmoured squadrons would be fatal to the best interests of the country and fatal to the Navy. I warn the First Lord that this question will before long force itself upon him. Our unarmoured Navy is not in a satisfactory state. Exclusive of line-of-battle ships which are considered obsolete, the number of serviceable un-armoured ships out of commission is small, and nearly the whole are in a very defective state. My right hon. Friend has given us what he appears to think a very satisfactory account of the state of the Navy and of the number of our ships; but he did not tell us what was their condition. When I was at the Admiralty the Controller's estimate for fitting and repairing the ten frigates in the best condition was nearly £400,000, or an average of £40,000 each. We had only six corvettes in ordinary, and the estimate for their repair was £120,000. There were ton sloops in ordinary, and their repair was estimated at £125,000. The total estimate for repairing the serviceable unarmoured ships, exclusive of line-of-battle ships, was £1,000,000. That only applies to ships in ordinary; but to repair the ships in commission on their being paid off would require a far larger sum. In my opinion it would have been much wiser if my right hon. Friend had retained the men who are to be discharged, for the purpose of providing for the greater efficiency of the unarmoured fleet. He is quite right in not repairing obsolete ships unfit for service; but he ought to have a good reserve of effective ships for an emergency. There is one class of ships in which we are very deficient—namely, unarmoured cruisers of great speed. We have a commerce extending all over the world. In the most remote seas we have a commerce gigantic in extent, and of almost inestimable value. It is of vital importance to this country that we should have the means of defending it. We know what injury a very few fast cruisers can inflict on commerce by what they did in the American Civil War—they can absolutely annihilate the whole commerce of a country unless it is provided with a sufficient number of vessels suitable for its protection. I do not think the provision made in these Estimates for that purpose is adequate. Moreover, we have now the means of building armour-clads in three of the dockyards, and I think the First Lord would have adopted not only a more considerate, but also a wiser and more statesmanlike policy if he had retained the services of the 2,800 workmen whose discharge is necessitated by these Estimates. In connection with this subject I must here disclaim, as I have already done in writing, all participation in the disestablishment of Woolwich Dockyard last year—a measure which we should have reason to deplore if the necessity should arise for employing a fleet in the Baltic or North Sea before the Chatham extension had become available for its repair. No one on the Dockyard Committee—certainly none of my Friends on this side of the House—had any idea of disestablishing Woolwich Dockyard until then. If Woolwich Yard had been kept open till the completion of the works at Chatham, the whole of the establishment might have been transferred there, and much of the distress among the workmen in the East of London would have been averted.

I now approach what is to me a very painful subject—I mean the wholesale suppression of offices and departments at Whitehall and Somerset House, as well as the discharge of meritorious public servants, which has been carried out with a disregard to private interests to which it would be difficult to find a parallel in the history of the Civil Service of this country. If it had been carried out by a statesman of matured experience, and after consultation with authorities capable of advising on such a subject, I should still have deplored the mistake; but my right hon. Friend—of whose abilities I would speak with unfeigned respect, but whose Admiralty experience had been limited to a few months' service in the lowest political appointment in the office—took upon himself, in the very first week of his appointment as First Lord, to pull down the edifice which had been built up by Sir James Graham, a statesman holding the highest place in public estimation as an administrator. But although he pulled down with the rapidity of magic so crude were his notions that to this day he has not known how to build up again and the consequence is that the departments are still, as I am informed, after fourteen months, in a provisional state, and in a state of apparently inextricable confusion. I remember reading in a Liberal journal, some time ago, that the economies effected in the office by the present First Lord were a reproach to me for not having initiated them. I would not have them on my conscience for any consideration; but if they are a reproach to me, or to any Conservative First Lord, what must they be to those Liberal First Lords who have been ruling the Navy for more than thirty out of the last forty years? It was by Liberal statesmen that these departments were constituted; first, by Sir James Graham, and afterwards, as respects the Coastguard Department which was the first victim, by Sir Charles Wood. Sir James Graham was, like the present First Lord, a great destroyer, but he was also a great artist, and he did not destroy the Navy Board and the Victualling Board until he knew what to substitute in their place. It was not until after fifteen months of consideration that he came down to the House with his scheme of reform; and in making his statement he said it was a task of peculiar delicacy to deal with the then existing establishments. But the present First Lord, with an impetuosity arguing more daring than prudence, at once commenced his reforms (I think the Coastguard Office was suppressed after he had been only a few days at the Admiralty), and he has established a system having no elasticity or power of expansion. It is at present, I am told, at full tension, and if any emergency arises, if there is any extra-ordinary pressure, the whole machine will be out of gear. My right hon. Friend's principle is altogether opposed to that of Sir James Graham's, which was to keep the shipbuilding department completely subordinate to the Admiralty; whereas what my right hon. Friend has done is practically to make the shipbuilding department master of the Admiralty in all questions affecting shipbuilding. I defy the First Lord to have, under the present system, anything like effective control over it. My right hon. Friend, indeed, assures us that the departments so mutilated by him are working admirably. He is quite right to do so; but I believe he is the only person at the Admiralty who thinks so, unless it be his hon. and gallant Colleague sitting near him. If you ask how the machine is working, the word "chaos" is on every man's lips, and the hope is expressed that, as the First Lord is a very clever man, he sees his way out of it, but it is usually added that no one else does. In effecting the reforms which have led to this result cruel injustice has been done. Gentlemen of great intelligence, some of whom have been in the service and whom I have known for thirty years, who hare conducted the business of their branches to the entire satisfaction of every Lord and Secretary until now, have been placed, in order that the required economies may be carried out, in charge of two departments without adequate assistance; and then, if they have proved in any respect unequal to the burden, they have been either compelled to retire, or else they have had such pressure put upon them that, apparently, voluntary retirement has become unavoidable. The right hon. Gentleman is a very Pharaoh to his unfortunate bondmen; he requires them to make bricks without straw, and the only difference between them is that he makes them go. True, those gentlemen receive some advantage in respect of pension on reduction of office—the only ground on which extra pension can be given—but in the case of two who are now being forcibly retired there is no reduction of office, because, as I understand, two other gentlemen, certainly not more competent, are to be appointed to succeed them. The greater part of the reforms in the civil departments in London are obviously designed, like those in the dockyards, to make the Controller supreme in everything relating to the matériel of the Navy and the personnel of the dockyards; for the supremacy of the First Lord must, under the existing arrangement, as I said last year, be purely nominal. There was a branch at Whitehall called the Establishment Branch, to which all propositions respecting the general expenditure and management of the yards used to be referred, and it was a great check on hasty and inconsiderate proposals. That branch has been abolished. The wisdom of Sir James Graham constituted the office of Storekeeper General as a check on the Surveyor, as the Controller was then tailed, in the purchase and expenditure of stores. That office has been abolished, and contrary to all principle the custody of stores and their expenditure is now vested in the same hands. There has been another reduction to which I must advert, and I fear in terms of some severity, for I think it one of the most unjustifiable acts ever perpetrated by any public Department. I refer to the forcible retirement of Mr. Murray, the Consulting Engineer of the Navy. I hare known this gentleman since his first entry into the service nearly thirty years ago; he is an engineer of first-rate ability and of the highest standing in his profession, and has rendered services of the most valuable description. For many years Mr. Murray was at the head of the factory at Portsmouth. Last year he was moved up to Whitehall to succeed Mr. Lloyd on the retirement of that gentleman—not in his office, because that was suppressed, but in the performances of his duties, with an inferior title and at a reduced salary. I remember pointing out that last year as a most objectionable proceeding, because if you want first-rate ability you must pay a proportionate price for it. I thought the reduction of salary in that instance a pitiful economy and a great mistake. Perhaps hon. Gentlemen may not know what were the functions of consulting engineer, or Engineer in Chief as he used to be called. When engines are required for a new ship, the most eminent engineering firms throughout the country are invited to send in tenders and designs which are referred to the department of the Controller. Formerly it was the practice for the Controller to refer them to a professional officer in his department—namely, the Chief Engineer, who ranked with the Chief Constructor, and had the great responsibility—one which required not only eminent engineering knowledge, and ability, but thorough trustworthiness of character—of advising the Controller as to the tenders and designs he should recommend to the Board for acceptance. Such functions as these should obviously be placed in the ablest hands you can find. But now Mr. Murray is to be retired, and his duties, if discharged at all, will, I suppose, be assigned to the Chief Constructor, whose ability as a shipbuilder we all know, but who is not an engineer, and is, therefore, not competent to advise on engineering questions. The result is, that the responsibility for an expenditure of some £300,000 a year for the purchase of engines will fall into incompetent or certainly less competent hands. I am one of those who are very glad to see from these Estimates that Mr. Reed has been rewarded for his valuable services; that his salary has been increased by £300, and that he has received a gratuity of £5,000. But when this has been done for Mr. Reed, and Mr. Murray has been dismissed, I cannot help thinking that Mr. Murray is just as much entitled to the favour of the Admiralty as Mr. Reed. You have rewarded Mr. Reed, and very properly so; but the way you reward your engineer, who stands quite as high in his own branch of the profession, is to dismiss him. I cannot conceive anything more unfortunate in the interests of the public service than this act; and I am amazed that the First Lord should have assented to so improper a proceeding. A few words now as to some of the Votes in these Estimates. As explained by my right hon. Friend, the first Vote shows a reduction of men, and I do not think there is anything very material there. I approve of the substitution of Marines for servants on board Her Majesty's ships. It was one of the schemes I had in view when in Office, and I should have carried it into effect had it not been for the strong opinion against it expressed by the First Naval Lord, and also by Sir Sydney Dacres, to whose objections I deferred on a point which was strictly professional. I was at first disposed to object to the reduction in the number of boys; but I am satisfied with the assurance of my right hon. Friend that the number to be voted is adequate to supply the waste of seamen. But I am sorry to see that there is a large reduction in the number of seamen not shown on the face of the Estimates. Last November the number borne was no fewer than 1,674 men below the number voted, and at that time the Coastguard was 559 men—total 2,233 men—under the Vote. In January last the deficiency of seamen was reduced to 902, but that of Coastguardmen rose to 710. I must say that I very much regret this progressive decrease in the Coastguard. When I left Office the force was only ten short of its proper complement; in September it was 179; in October, 424; in November, 559; in December, 570; and last month it was 710 short. If the Coastguard goes on decreasing at this rate, and at the same time, as my right hon. Friend assures us, increasing in efficiency, it will soon be "great because it is so small." This falling off is, I presume, attributable to a certain extent to the discharges of the older men; but there is another reason which I fear will lead to a permanent decrease in the force—namely, that under the new regulations the best men, as I am informed, are unwilling to enter the service. The reason is obvious. If a man be worth his salt, he is a petty officer after the eight years' service which qualifies him for the Coastguard. But on entering the Coastguard as boatman he loses the rating of petty officer, and does not recover it until promoted to be chief boatman after many years of service. If discharged soon after obtaining the rank of chief boatman—as he generally will be under the new regulations—he loses the advantage of a petty officer's rating for pension, and I learn from good authority that the men are in consequence very unwilling to enter the Coastguard, and that many already in the force express great regret at ever having left the regular Navy. There is also in the Coastguard the same feeling of mistrust and insecurity which under the reforming mania pervades almost every other branch of the service. I doubt whether much is gained by eliminating the older men, because there must always be a certain number of men left on shore for revenue purposes, and the older and more experienced men would probably perform this duty more efficiently than younger hands. There is another alteration which I much regret—namely, the confusion of the Coastguard afloat with the seamen of the fleet. The Coastguard afloat should be looked upon as our first reserve, and should be held as a sacred force, not to be touched during peace under any circumstance. But, now, if hereafter a reduction of seamen should be decided on, it will be subject to the same fluctuations as the other branches of the service, and the Admiralty may diminish the number of men in the Coastguard ships, and employ any portion of them in manning the Channel Squadron, or ships on foreign stations, and nobody will be a bit the wiser. I remember that Lord Halifax used to attach much importance to the maintenance of the Coastguard afloat as a distinct force, and I wish that the First Lord had consulted his noble Relative before departing from the old practice. The next Vote—that for the purchase of victuals—my right hon. Friend proposed very shortly. He said there was a large reduction because the old-fashioned and bad system of keeping a large stock of stores had been abandoned, and they would now use up the stores they had in stock. But there are other reasons for the reduced Vote for this year. In the first place, the decrease due to the reduction of 2,000 men at 1s. a day would be £36.000; and there are other causes sufficient to account for the remainder. In the first place, there has been a saving of £25,000 or £30,000 in consequence of the fall in the price of provisions. The disestablishment of the Woolwich Division of Marines has released a quantity of barrack furniture and utensils available for distribution among the other divisions, and has necessarily diminished the demand for the purchase of such articles during the year. A very considerable saving must thus have been effected. A considerable quantity of seamen's clothing must also be on hand, in consequence of the number of seamen borne having been so much less than the number voted during the greater part of the year. Again, the hand-to-mouth system has been adopted with clothing as with stores, and I think very injudiciously. A sufficient stock should always be on hand in case of an emergency or the defalcation of a contractor. But of course the items of saving to which I have referred afford only a temporary relief to the Vote, and it will be necessary to provide for the issues for the year in future Estimates. I must here remark that I strongly object to the suppression of the office of Controller of Victualling, and the substitution—as usual anything to save a few pounds—of a subordinate officer in his place. Such a department as the victualling of the fleet—one on which the health, comfort, and contentment of the men so much depends—ought to be under an officer of position taking a pride in supplying the best articles to the fleet, acting under a sense of special responsibility, and with his credit at stake; and not to be transferred to the Purchase Branch, which has no special knowledge of, and very little interest in, the subject. I should certainly object in the strongest manner to be fed by the Purchase Department unless it showed greater discrimination in the purchase of food than in that of stores. I heard some sinister rumours of the intention of the First Lord to tamper with the victualling of the Navy, and with the seamen's savings, but I am glad to find that the scheme has not been carried out. In that department any attempt at undue economy might lead to something worse than discontent in the Navy. I have already stated my disapproval of the reductions in the Admiralty Office under Vote 3. With regard to Vote 4, there is a saving, which is due principally to the suppression of the civil branch of the Coastguard on shore. There was, I believe, an intention of making some reforms, as I think in a wrong direction, in the Royal Naval Reserve. But I hear they are objected to by the Board of Trade, and, if so, we are under great obligations to that Department. As to the proposed Pensioner Reserve, it promises to be a valuable force, but I doubt whether it will be a very numerous one. Still, it is a move in the right direction. I have already expressed how strongly I object to the large reduction of workmen under Vote 6, where there is a decrease of £207,000, as well as to the rearrangement of the establishments; so I need not again advert to that subject. With respect to Vote 10, for Naval Stores, £22,000 being a transfer from Vote 2, the real saving is £47,000, and I confess my impression is that sufficient provision has not been made for the service of the year. In reference to item E, which includes paint materials, I should like to ask the First Lord whether it is true that, although the paint manufactured at Chatham proved on chemical analysis to be much purer than could be obtained from the private trade, and though its cost was considerably less, the paint mills at Chatham have been closed, and that the paint for the fleet has been obtained through the Purchase Department; and, if so, why so strange a decision was arrived at? As this is a Vote for the purchase of shipbuilding materials it may be the proper place to make one or two remarks on the programme for the year, which comprises the whole of the work to be done on new ships, since nothing is this year to be given to contractors. I hope that circumstance may reconcile the dockyard artificers to a reduction of a fifth of their number. First, as regards the new turret-ship, the Thunderer, of the mastless type, I consider the building of this ship objectionable. It is more objectionable than the proposal of last year, because it is building a third vessel of an utterly untried class, and it is open to the same objection which I urged last year—namely, that so little progress is to be made with her that it is little more than a matter of form to put her into the programme. It is proposed to spend only £17,000 on her during the year. She is therefore little more than a ship on paper, as the total expenditure on her is to be little less than £300,000. Now, in my opinion, naval invention in the present day is so great and so rapid that we ought never to commit ourselves to a design, and lay down a ship until we are prepared to begin the work in earnest, and finish her off-hand. To call these sea-going vessels is an insult to common sense, and I should very much have preferred that a real sea-going turret-ship, with sail power, should have been built instead. I also object to building another Inconstant. I have had letters from officers of the Channel Squadron informing me that she is crank, that she rolls and lurches in excess, and does not command the speed which was expected. In that respect I learn she has proved but little superior to the old Warrior. On the whole, the accounts I have received of her performance would make me doubt the expediency of building another vessel on exactly the same lines. In 1867 the First Lord approved of my policy in having substituted a smaller vessel—the Volage—for a second Inconstant; and I remember the objection he urged—namely, that in a ship like the Inconstant too many eggs were put into one basket. I was therefore surprised when I saw that another Inconstant formed part of, his programme. With respect to the sister to the Druid, as the Druid is one of my ships I cannot object to her; but after the great speed shown by another of by ships, the Volage, which is a vessel of much greater power, I should have preferred another vessel of that class. The Staunch is also one of my vessels, and I am glad that four more are to be built, as they are well adapted to harbour and coast defence, and are cheap vessels. I am also glad to see that Her Majesty's yacht the Osborne is about to be launched and completed for sea before the summer, because it is only becoming that Her Majesty should have more than one sea-going yacht at her disposal, more especially when the number of the Royal family to be accommodated is considered. But my objections to the programme are, at least, as much on account of what it does not do, as of what it does. Considering that it provides for only one new armoured ship, I hold that the opportunity should have been taken to build a greater number of fast and heavily armed vessels—a class in which the Navy is very deficient—for the protection of our commerce. Considering its extent, and the numerous seas which it covers, we should be badly off in this respect in the event of war, and as our dockyards are teeming with seasoned timber, which can be sold only at a great loss, and consequently the ships could have been built at comparatively little expense to the public, the men who are to be dismissed ought to have been retained for this service. In Vote 11, I am glad to see that adequate provision is made for the extensions at Portsmouth and Chatham Yards, and I trust the great dock at Malta will shortly be available for the repair of the largest of Her Majesty's ships. Under Vote 16 there is a considerable increase, chiefly owing to increased pensions being provided for engineers and chief warrant officers. I rejoice that consideration has thus been shown for these meritorious classes of officers. As to the scheme of retirement, my impression is, on the whole, a favourable one. In some of its details, it appears to me to be objectionable, but I reserve, for the present, the expression of any positive opinion respecting it. I think a comprehensive scheme very desirable, and, as I stated last year, I was anxious to propose one. I communicated on the subject with the late Chancellor of the Exchequer, but it was unfortunately in the autumn of 1868, when the state of the revenue was so unfavourable that he could not sanction any expenditure for the purpose, and I was obliged to abandon the idea. And now I must add a few words on the subject of the famous Admiralty cruise. It is one I would willingly avoid; but I think it due to the Nary that I should express my decided opinion that the assumption of the command of a fleet at sea by the Board is most objectionable, and the precedent a dangerous one. My right hon. Friend has given two reasons for hoisting the Admiralty flag on that occasion. One of them was a bad reason, and the other a mischievous one. The reason that he wished to have some personal observation of the performance of the ironclads is a bad reason, because he could have had it by embarking in the fleet without hoisting his flag—and the reason that he wished to "obviate the difficulty with reference to the question of precedence between the two vice admirals" is mischievous, because it is the recognition by a First Lord of the Admiralty of a principle utterly at variance with the regulations and with immemorial practice of the service, and which, if acted on, could lead to nothing but disaster. If two officers meet on service, even although both were promoted to their rank on the very same day, the officer whose name stands the lowest on the list is as much bound to render a ready obedience to his senior as if he were a midshipman, and a departure from this rule could, as I have said, only result in disaster. Sir Alexander Milne and Sir Thomas Symonds were both vice admirals; but is my right hon. Friend aware that at Trafalgar Nelson and Collingwood were both vice admirals also, and what would Nelson have said if the latter had raised the question of precedence? There was a great flourish of trumpets in the newspapers when the First Lord embarked, and it was said that it was the first time that a First Lord had ever taken the command of a fleet. That is true, and I hope it will be the last time. But it is not true that it was the first time a First Lord had embarked for the purpose of witnessing the performance of a fleet. I remember myself being at Portsmouth when the Duke of Somerset came in with the Channel Fleet; the Duke had, I believe, been several weeks on board, and yet the Admiralty flag had not been hoisted. I myself, while I held the office of First Lord, embarked in the Minotaur—the flag-ship of the Channel squadron—and I had the good fortune to witness the performance of the armour-clads off the South-west coast of Ireland in what I was told was the heaviest sea they had ever been tried in. The Admiralty flag was flying on board the Enchantress at Devonport; but the moment I put my foot over her side it was hauled down, and I embarked as the guest of my gallant and lamented Friend Admiral Warden. It would have been much more reasonable for me and my colleague (Sir Alexander Milne) to have hoisted our flag on that occasion than for my right hon. Friend, for it happened that Sir Alexander Milne, who accompanied me, was not only senior to, but higher in rank than, Admiral Warden. Therefore, there would have been less impropriety in our hoisting the Admiralty flag than on the occasion of the cruise of my right hon. Friend, when Sir Sydney Dacres was junior to Sir Alexander Milne the Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean Squadron. But my impression is that it is hardly constitutional for the First Lord of the Admiralty to hoist his flag and give orders on such occasions, and for this reason, that the Board of Admiralty is the representative of the Lord High Admiral, and therefore indivisible. It is true that the Admiralty flag is hoisted on the visitation to the dockyards; but the very first act of the Board, on arriving at the ports, is to request the admiral, or other senior officer to carry on the duties as usual, and all Minutes are sent up to be executed at Whitehall, from which the orders emanate. But on this occasion there were two Boards sitting, one at Whitehall and another at Lisbon or Gibraltar, and both giving orders simultaneously. Moreover, I think there is great danger to discipline in the super-session by the Admiralty of the officer properly in command of a fleet. The admiral commanding may differ from the Board on some material point, and if you supersede his authority, and compel him to do what he objects to, you lower him in the estimation of his officers and men. There was the greater danger to discipline in this case, because there was on board the First Lord's ship a gentleman who, writing under the shadow of the Admiralty flag, dealt praise and blame all round, which afterwards appeared in the columns of a leading journal—finding fault, on one occasion, with the admiral, who was perfectly right, while the correspondent was perfectly wrong. Again, supposing some accident had occurred, and that one or more of the vessels had been lost, who would have been responsible? Clearly neither of the admirals; for the command had been taken out of their hands, and, as some one must be tried under the Articles of War, it must clearly have been the Lord High Admiral, as represented by the Board. But Sir Sydney Dacres would naturally have said to the First Lord—"I will have nothing to say to it. Under your Order in Council of last year I am no longer your equal, even in theory. I am only your assistant, and am to receive my instructions from you." And the painful consequence might have been that the First Lord would have been tried by court martial, and, perhaps, sentenced, to be dismissed Her Majesty's service, or, if the Court was in a lenient humour, to be placed at the bottom of the list, in which case he would have had to begin over again as Civil Lord. Seriously, I trust we shall have no more of the First Lord's hoisting his flag at sea, and if my right hon. Friend thinks of again going to sea to witness the performance of the ships of the new types, I hope it will be in one of his turret-ships, in which, as they are to have no masts, he will be unable either to make a signal or hoist his flag. I have heard this Admiralty cruise treated as if it were the first time our squadrons had been practised in steam evolutions, and it was stated that great good had resulted from it. Why, of late there has not been a year in which they have not been practised, as a matter of course, in steam evolutions; and I think the consequence of the cruise was to waste the greater part of the summer, for steam evolutions were only performed three days during the five weeks that elapsed from the time the First Lord left Devonport till he returned to Queenstown. And in connection with this subject there is one tiling which has caused me extreme disappointment, and in respect of which I think the Admiralty is open to much reprehension. I regret that more has not been done this year to test the turret principle. I have been most unjustly represented as an enemy of the turret principle as applied to sea-going ships. Now, so far from that, before I was appointed First Lord I urged the trial of the principle on every occasion, and when I was at the Admiralty I endeavoured to expedite it in every way by pressing the contractors to hasten the completion of the Captain by every means at my disposal; but considering that the Captain, and the Monarch were so nearly completed, I thought it more prudent to defer building another sea-going turret-ship until after they had been tried, and in this opinion I was supported, as I showed last year, by a great majority of the first officers in the Navy. These trials, I never doubted, would take place during the autumn; but hero we are in the year 1870, and absolutely know no more of the fitness of the turret principle as applicable to seagoing ships than we did when the question was debated five years ago. Nobody ever doubted that the Monarch would be a safe and comfortable ship at sea. She is a vessel of high freeboard, as it is called, and the advocates of the real turret principle, the essence of which is low freeboard, have stated that they consider her a burlesque of a turret-ship. But even in the ease of the Monarch there were important questions to be solved—most important in relation to the construction of turret-ships which are now being built; but on these questions no light has been thrown by the meagre experiments to which she has been subjected. She ought to have been subjected to every possible trial in the worst weather, and under the eye of the admiral commanding the Channel Fleet, instead of only on a summer cruise with the Admiralty, and, therefore, she is the very last ship that ought to have been set apart to convey the remains of the great American philanthropist across the Atlantic, when the selection of another vessel would have implied quite as much respect to his memory and nation. One most important experiment to be tried in her is whether her guns could be fired at the extreme ranges with safety to the upper deck fittings. The rigging is so fitted that it can be let go and allowed to fall inboard so as to be out of the line of extreme fire forward and aft; but this has never been done. All that has been done is to fire to the angle of the rigging, which is a long way from the extreme range, and, even then, various defects showed themselves, such as the jumping up of the gratings, which fell on the lower deck among the cook's coppers. But nothing has been done to test whether the upper deck fittings, such as the casings to the funnels, and the supports to the hurricane deck, are strong enough to stand the effect of explosion at the extreme angle of firing, and if these were blown away there might be danger to the ship herself in a heavy sea. In consequence of these experiments not having been tried, I found them at Chatham, a short time ago, guessing in the dark what ought to be the strength of such fittings in the Glatton, now being built there, and my object for pausing to build more turret-ships has been so far frustrated to my deep regret. But if I regret the insufficiency of the experiments in the case of the Monarch, much more do I regret the absence of all experiment with the Captain. She is the type of the low freeboard turret-ship, and therefore the vessel which is really to test the applicability of that principle to cruising men-of-war. Nothing short of impossibility ought to have prevented the Admiralty from testing her sea-going qualities last year; and if I had been at the Admiralty nothing would have prevented me from so testing them. I know that a difficulty arose, and delay occurred in respect of her gun-carriages, and therefore that her power of fighting her guns in a seaway could not have been practically ascertained. But it might have been ascertained whether she could keep her turret-ports open in bad weather, and all her other qualities could have been perfectly tested with the Channel Fleet if she had been sent to sea with her turrets properly weighted; and I understand that this could have been done without difficulty, but that the Admiralty would not agree to it, although it was strongly urged by Captain Coles. I think this was, to say the least of it, a grievous error in judgment, and the consequence has beer that another year has gone by and nothing has been done to show that we can safely and boldly embark in the building of sea-going turret-ships. Before I sit down I must beg the Committee not to imagine that I have criticized the policy of these Estimates either in the spirit of party or of personal hostility to my right hon. Friend the First Lord of the Admiralty. So far from the latter, I wish to acknowledge, in the most public manner, that I have every reason to be grateful to him, for, although he was under no such obligation from the practice of the Department, be generously accepted many of my engagements when I left Office; and, in one instance in which my feelings were much interested, he made an exception in my favour which it would be impossible for me to forget. Neither is it in any party spirit that I criticize the policy of the present Board of Admiralty. It is, indeed, no party question, for the policy of my right hon. Friend, as he himself must know, is as generally condemned by naval officers, and by civilians conversant with naval affairs, of Liberal politics as by those of my own way of thinking. Many of these are distinguished men, and some of them have been members of Liberal Boards of Admiralty, who do not conceal their disapproval of many of the changes which have been brought about. It would have been far more agreeable to me if I could have approved, or expressed less disapproval of those changes; but as I know the service looks to me, in some sort, as an advocate of its interests in this House, I feel I should have been false to it if I had refrained from expressing my convictions in the most frank and unreserved manner.

MR. SAMUDA

said, he had no intention of entering into any details connected with the statement of his right hon. Friend the First Lord of the Admiralty, but he desired to refer, in a general manner, to one or two particulars. The first was that of the saving, which amounted in this year's Estimates to nearly £800,000. He did not think that that saving was deserving of unmixed commendation; £300,000 would be saved on Votes 1 and 2, £200,000 on the Government yards, and £300,000 on steam machinery and building ships by contract. The saving under the first two heads arose manifestly, as had been explained by his right hon. Friend, from the reduction of men employed; but the third, to which he desired especially to draw the attention of the Committee, was derived solely from the cessation of shipbuilding by private contract. He had thought that his right hon. Friend would have given the Committee some explanation of the reason why, in the face of his proposed economy, the number of men employed in builing vessels in our dockyards had increased, while the expenditure in which the public—the taxpayers—participated had not only decreased, but was absolutely put an end to. The right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Corry) showed the importance which he attached to external aid by giving contracts liberally; but his right hon. Friend the present First Lord since he came into Office had not given one sixpence in private contracts either this year or last year. He did not claim it as a favour, but as a right, that private builders, who had made a vast outlay of capital upon their establishments, and whose aid in time of war would be indispensable to the maintenance of the power of this country, should receive in time of peace, and, above all, in a time of commercial depression, a fair share of the work that was paid for by the country. He himself (Mr. Samuda) had no personal interest in the matter. It had been proved to demonstration that vessels could be built in private yards fully equal in quality, and at from 30 to 40 per cent less cost than in the Government yards. But his right hon. Friend, in the teeth of this fact, increased the building power of the Admiralty, adding 500 men to that branch of the establishment. And, notwithstanding all that had been said about the economies of the Admiralty, he was actually taking £726,000 for building 15,000 tons of ships in the dockyards this year, against £660,000 devoted last year to the building of 13,000 tons. In common justice to the ratepayers that was not a state of things with which independent Members ought to be content. His right hon. Friend had certainly accomplished this result—he had completely extinguished and struck out of existence the contracts which formerly went to the private builders; but he (Mr. Samuda) denied that this could be called a successful economy. At the same moment of commercial distress, which was chosen for tins proceeding, his right hon. Friend also dismantled two dockyards within a short distance of the metropolis. Of the policy of this latter proceeding, he entertained grave doubts; and he believed that anyone taking a large and statesmanlike view of the question would have shrunk, at a time like the present, from the consequences attendant upon a saving so effected. He considered the closing of Woolwich as a great political error. Woolwich formed the natural defence to the metropolis, and it could have always been used in that respect without adding a single soldier to its garrison. Furthermore, it was well known that Woolwich formed one of the most valuable dockyards that could be imagined for fitting out fleets during any great emergency, such as that of the Crimean War; and, for this reason, it ought to have been retained. He objected also to the great increase of money allotted to the erection of steam machinery in the Royal yards. In 1862, the introduction of steam machinery for building armour-plated ships was first sanctioned as an experiment at Chatham. The plea advanced then was that it was necessary to have the means of checking private establishments. In 1865, it was promised that there would be no increase in the expenditure for dockyard machinery. And yet this item had been growing year by year, especially at Chatham, and now the object evidently was to get the whole of this department under Government control. In the present Estimates, there was not a single one of the dockyards which did not exhibit an item of increase under this head. In the aggregate, no less than £25,200 was to be spent. For what? Why, to take work out of the hands of private manufacturers. The Government, no doubt, were sincere in their professions of economy, but if they had consulted men practically acquainted with the subject, or had even weighed the evidence given before the different Committees, they never could so thoroughly have subordinated the interests of the country to the Admiralty views. His right hon. Friend promised them some improvement for the future int his respect; he said he intended to build from 19,000 to 20,000 tons of shipping annually; and of this he proposed to give 4,000 tons to contractors, keeping 16,000 tons in his own hands. That surely was not dealing equitably with the private firms. He did not wish, to urge on the Admiralty the building of a single ship which they did not consider indispensable. He had always insisted that they should accept the turret system, and not increase the broadsides; and he deeply regretted that he had not received that support upon this subject from the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Corry) which he had expected. Nevertheless, he was glad to find that last year, in reference to this matter, a change had come over the spirit of the Admiralty dream, and considerable advance was made in turret vessels. He did not wish to discourage his right hon. Friend from proceeding in that course, but there was a great deal in the observation of the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Corry), that as two vessels were at this moment in a very incomplete state, it was hardly wise to propose that a third should be commenced, when the intention was to spend no more than £17,000 before the House was called on to vote the Estimates of next year. His right hon. Friend would have his perfect concurrence if he proposed to complete the third turret ship; but when he proposed to do little more than lay down the keel and to do some other insignificant work, he could not help thinking they would be much better employed in completing, with all energy, those already commenced, so that their progress might supply useful lessons in the construction of the Fury. He thanked his right hon. Friend for the great economy he had carried out in his Department, and only hoped that the Estimates would be amended, so as to give the country the benefit, and to remedy the manifest injustice of not giving more encouragement to the contract system.

MR. CANDLISH

said, he could not see the consistency of his hon. Friend (Mr. Samuda) in hoping that the Admiralty would continue their course of economical administration while, at the same time, he reproved them for not building more ships. He (Mr. Candlish) would suggest whether, now that the staple of shipbuilding was iron, that it would be possible to reduce the proposed average construction below 20,000 tons a year, seeing that an iron ship would suffer very little deterioration in fifty or sixty years. He thanked his right hon. Friend for the material reductions he had effected in the administration of his great Department. During the time he had been in office he had reduced the expenditure of the Department by no less a sum than £2,000,000. The right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Corry) would take away the credit of that reduction by the reduction of the prices of articles purchased for the use of the dockyards as the chief cause, but he did not tell them what prices had been reduced. The right hon. Gentleman had been to Portsmouth, where he had met a few of the discontented spirits, who, seeing that he was in lack of materials for a speech, took care to supply him with some of the statements he had made to-night. The right hon. Gentleman had referred to what he had been pleased to call the unwise coal purchases of the Government, and should have been aware of the highly satisfactory results obtained by the mixture of North Country with Welsh coal. One thing was clear, that his right hon. Friend understood his business, and the country was Tinder great obligations to him for the extreme pains and the incessant labour he must have given to the preparation of these Estimates. He thought that, in the changes proposed, we had an illustration of the advantage of introducing business men into the various departments, and that it was not necessary to have a naval man to administer naval affairs, was proved by the able administration of First Lord of the Admirality. What was wanted was business men at the head both of the Army and Navy. But there were one or two matters in his right hon. Friend's statement on which he felt some doubt; and first, with regard to the funds of Greenwich Hospital being available to increase the pensions given to commissioned officers. Now, he contended that Greenwich Hospital was founded for a very different purpose. They ought not to divert the funds of the Hospital to such a purpose, to the exclusion of men who had themselves contributed to their creation. He thanked his right hon. Friend for reducing the number of active officers, but wished he had given more prompt effect to his own proposal by delaying for a year or two the appointment of any cadets at all. The right hon. Gentleman opposite complained of the wearing out of ships by sending them to sea; but the fact was that the way to preserve ships was to send them to sea, and not to let them lie and rot in harbour. He approved the conduct of the first Lord of the Admiralty in not keeping large quantities of stores, for every one in business knew that a large reserve of stores was an expensive mode of carrying on trade. On the whole, he thought the country was deeply indebted to the present Board of Admiralty for their admirable departmental administration of he past two years, which, while it reduced the expenditure by £2,000,000, preserved intact the efficiency of the naval force of this country.

COLONEL GILPIN

said, that he had; listened with attention to the speech of the First Lord of the Admiralty, but there was in it an omission he greatly regretted—namely, the omission of all allusion to that period when he commanded the British Fleet. The right hon. Gentleman said, the other evening, he found himself in that position to obviate some difficulty in reference to command. He (Colonel Gilpin) had given him credit for an anxiety to obtain practical information in regard to the profession over which he presided. Of late years enormous sums had been spent on the Navy in its transition state, and it would have been satisfactory if the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord had pointed out some of the merits or demerits of certain vessels from his own knowledge and experience. But he Colonel Gilpin) had risen to draw attention to another point. Some time ago the hon. Member for Montrose (Mr. Baxter) brought a general charge of corruption against the clerks and employés at the Admiralty and Somerset House, observing that great irregularities, not say corruption had prevailed, that a system of "tipping" went on at Somerset House and the Dockyards, and that money had been given to obtain contracts. He trusted that the hon. Gentleman, having made this strong statement and reflected on persons as honourable as any one in that House, would state whether he had since made any discoveries of the description referred to; and, if not, that he would admit that the information on which he based his statement was to a considerable degree exaggerated. With regard to the present plan of managing contracts, he had heard a rumour that the hon. Member for Montrose undertook to make contracts on his own responsibility and without assistance. He was not inclined to attach much credit to the rumour, for he could not suppose that any Gentleman would have such a notion of his own infallibility in matters of that kind, but be should be glad to hear from the hon. Gentleman a denial of the statement.

MR. BAXTER

said, that, with the permission of the House, he would reply to the direct appeals that had been made to him by the hon. and gallant Gentleman opposite (Colonel Gilpin), and also by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Tyrone (Mr. Corry). He could give to the rumour to which the hon. and gallant Gentleman had alluded the most unqualified contradiction, for he had in the Department the assistance of the chief superintendent of contracts and the principal clerks. There was a large Purchase Department, which made contracts in the light of day; but, no doubt, there had existed previously, in certain quarters, combinations that prevented the Government from buying their goods at the cheapest price; and in those cases brokers had been employed, greatly to the public advantage. With respect to the statement he made last year, he had not one word to alter or retract; and he was sorry to say that an inspection of the books of the offenders now in gaol bore out his statement. But there was more recent evidence. Not more than three weeks ago, he went to Deptford, and there one of the store inspectors confessed to him, in the most open manner, that he had been to London a short time before, for the purpose of asking for a douceur, as he called it, from a contractor, and expressed great surprise at not having received it. A week ago he paid a visit to the victualling yard at Gosport, and the master-butcher admitted that for a series of years he had been taking bribes for passing meat which was bad in quality or insufficient in quantity. This system of what was called "tipping" existed, as was well-known, not only at the Admiralty, but also in great companies and railway departments, and even in the houses of hon. Members; but it was a system which the present Board of Admiralty were determined to put an end to, by visiting the offenders, whenever they met with an instance, with condign punishment. It had been imputed to him by the right hon. Member for Tyrone, that, on one occasion last year, he had attributed the saving of £950,000 in the Navy Estimates, to the importation of the commercial element into the Admiralty. Now, he had never said anything of the sort. The simple fact was that, being called upon to return thanks for the Navy, he had observed that the reason why he, an obscure Scotch merchant, found himself in that position was that his right hon. Friend the First Lord of the Admiralty had believed that some benefit to the public service might accrue from the services of a man of commercial experience. That was very different from the representation of the right hon. Gentleman. He (Mr. Baxter) did not stand there to defend the Acts of Liberal Governments that had existed in times past, but he was quite prepared to defend his right hon. Friend at the head of the Admiralty for the great and beneficial changes he had introduced. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Tyrone, together with some of his Friends, finding that they could got no information in London on the policy of the Government, had been going through the dockyards, and they said that they found a very bad feeling existing there. He quite admitted it. The other day, when he went down to one of the dockyards, he was received with bare civility. The simple reason was, the Government was pursuing a policy of economy, was reducing establishments, and was getting rid of a class of gentlemen who did little or nothing. The Board were unpopular, and he gloried in the unpopularity. The right hon. Gentleman, who appeared to have questioned everyone, from an admiral to a labourer, referred to the spars of the Minotaur. The Chief Constructor informed him (Mr. Baxter) that her spars were prepared in the very yard referred to. To the statement that a different system was adopted with regard to stores, and that at the end of the quarter they were uniformly exhausted, he must give an unqualified contradiction. The stores were as large as they had ever been, and in many respects they were far too large. He denied that officers had been reprimanded for doing their duty, but admitted that they had been reprimanded for exceeding their duty. One of the first changes he introduced was to take away from Government officers the sole power of rejecting goods of any kind, and to give to contractors the power of appealing to the Secretary of the Admiralty, who, if he thought fit, might appoint an arbitrator. This system had worked admirably; in many instances officers had been found to be right, in others they had been found to be wrong; and he was sorry to say that in certain instances to which allusion had been made, the officers were very far wrong indeed. With respect to paper, would the Committee believe the Purchase Department had never made a contract for paper at all? The last contract for paper was made in May, 1868, by the particular friend of the right hon. Gentleman opposite, the late Storekeeper General, The other yards having received the paper without complaint, Portsmouth, always complaining, complained in August, 1869, that the paper was not equal to pattern in point of weight; but when Portsmouth was asked how the paper had been tested, the reply was that one sheet had been weighed by troy weight, and the weight multiplied by the number of sheets. In order to test the paper he ordered some packages to be sent to the Stationery Office, and the report was that it was considerably above sample-weight. It was next complained that the paper would not bear the weight of pitch, and this was found to be true; but then it was bought tinder the contract with Mr. Dundas. However, it had been found defective, and therefore the contract had been set aside; and the new supply was ordered from the Stationery Office, though not a single ream had as yet been delivered. So, if the right hon. Gentleman was still dissatisfied, he must apply to his friend the late Storekeeper General. The right hon. Gentleman had based charges on the very things which the Government considered the greatest improvements. As to leather, he (Mr. Baxter) had not been a month at the Admiralty before he thought that leather was to be the plague of his life. He received many anonymous letters about it. When he went down to the yards, he found that every man he met there said to him—"Whatever you do, for goodness sake don't meddle with the leather; it is excellent." It struck him that the glowing descriptions he got of the leather were considerably exaggerated, and a gentleman who assisted him recommended that recourse should be had to a merchant in one of the midland counties, a capital judge of leather, and free from political partizanship. It was thought that the best plan would be to get this merchant to go to the yards quietly and report upon the leather; but he found great difficulty in gaining admission, although he was provided with a letter from the Secretary to the Admiralty. When he did gain admission he reported that the leather was exceedingly bad. The contract was at once terminated, and leather was obtained in London from one of the first houses in the trade, until tenders could be received. The price, he admitted, was rather high; but they had to get the leather under difficulties. That leather was complained of at Portsmouth; but when it was subsequently examined in London, it was found that it stood four times the dockyard pressure test. The right hon. Gentleman spoke of some leather made by a firm at Dundee. His statement upon that subject only showed how shockingly he was misinformed. The right hon. Gentleman had got matters all muddled, for this hose was made by one of the first houses in London. The revised contract no doubt was subsequently taken by a Dundee house, the second largest in the country, its tender being the lowest; and all the dockyards reported that the leather was as good as they ever received. Hemp had been obtained from a firm which had supplied it many times before. It was invariably purchased of excellent quality and on the best terms, and no change had been made. With regard to the officer who rejected smithery coal being obliged to receive the cargo, the reason given for rejecting it was that it was too small; but as coal could not be too small for smithery purposes his (Mr. Baxter's) suspicions were aroused, and he discovered that it had been the practice in the dockyards for some time past for the officers to obtain their supplies of house coal from the smithery store. He put the question point blank to an officer one day, and the officer acknowledged the practice, saying it was not a proper one, and ought to be put an end to; and, with the sanction of his right hon. Friend, he (Mr. Baxter) had put an end to a practice which was really most discreditable; although it was proper the officers should be allowed to purchase their coals at a cheap rate. The right hon. Gentleman had made a strong attack on them for using a mixture of Welsh and North Country coal. Now, as that was a matter involving a large sum of public money, his right hon. Friend the First Lord had set himself to master the question with unexampled diligence. He (Mr. Baxter) had assisted him to the best of his ability in respect to it, and they were assured, without one dissentient voice, except from interested parties, that it was the best and most economical plan to use a mixture of these two kinds of coal. Gentlemen from South Wales, though they would naturally take the side of their constituents in the matter, told him privately that in doing that the Admiralty were adopting the right course, and advised them to perse- vere. An admiral of the Navy, living in South Wales, not only assured him that the Admiralty were right, but stated that when he was on the coast of Africa the loss from the use of Welsh coal without mixture was no less than 50 per cent. The right hon. Gentleman said the admixture was complained of because it created a great deal of smoke; but that very day he (Mr. Baxter) had read the reports on the subject from all Her Majesty's ships that used this mixture; and although in six or eight instances the expressions occurred "a little light smoke," "not quite so smokeless as the purely Welsh coal," they all, without a single exception, bore testimony in favour of the admixture. His right hon. Friend had told the Committee that they had saved rather more than £18,000 by a more alteration in the mode of buying coal, and, for himself, he believed that if they thoroughly adopted the mixture at all stations, and took care that there was no extravagance in purchasing for distant stations, £50,000, if not £70,000, a year might be saved. They had two coal depôts in China and two in Japan, and as this was the proper time of the year for shipping coals to China, he had taken the liberty of anticipating the vote of the House by spending a portion of the sum now asked for in the purchase of this mixture. The result was a saving of £3,600 on their purchases of last year, but a saving of £7,800 on the expenditure of their predecessors. The right hon. Gentleman opposite had entered at great length into the changes in the management of the dockyards. He (Mr. Baxter) could only say that he had been over all the yards, inspected all the stores, and, as his right hon. Friend said, had routed out a great many things that not seen the light of day for years before. One thing that had struck him particularly was, how amazingly the dockyards were over-manned, having a crowd of accountants, cashiers, storekeepers, master shipwrights, and admiral superintendents. As a man of business, it was impossible for him not to see that all that might be much simplified with benefit to the public. As to responsibility, the consequence of having so many of those officers was that nobody was responsible at all. However, under the system now introduced they would have great economy and increased efficiency in the dockyards. The right hon. Gentleman opposite had referred to a reduction in Vote 2—in the provisions and clothing for the Navy. He would tell him how that occurred. Just a week before the Estimates were published they discovered enormous stores in Deptford that nobody seemed to have known about. His right hon. Friend had already made a reduction of that Vote to the extent of £70,000, in consequence of the largeness of their stocks; and on Saturday afternoon, when the Estimates were about to be put in print, he had taken upon himself to recommend his right hon. Friend still further to reduce the Vote by £47,000. At Deptford he found that there was a stock of essence of beef to last for seven years and a half, which had been bought at 1s. a pound, though they could now buy it at 3d. or 4d.; also four years' stock of pickles in quarts; then they had six years and a half supply of white wines; and how many years' supply of saloon candles for the transports did the Committee suppose they had? Why, ten years' supply! The right hon. Gentleman opposite, who had been so many years at the Admiralty, and knew so much about the Navy, would probably be able to enlighten them about some of those things. There was an item called "foot-pieces for stockings"—some covering, he supposed, for the men's feet in cold weather. That must have been a nice little job in past times; for he had found no less than fifty years' supply of those articles in stock. There were four years' supply of prepared soup. Yet the right hon. Gentleman talked of starving the Navy, and said they had no cloth, no clothing for the Marines. Good gracious! Why, in their depôt of blue cloth, No. 2, he found seven years' supply; of jackets, twelve years' supply; supplies of comforters for three years and. a half, of striped shirting for five years, and of towelling for seven years. In his simplicity—and he was ashamed to confess it—seeing the high price they were paying for to welling, he broke up the monopoly of that article last year, and got it at a cheaper rate, little thinking they had then probably move than six years' supply in hand. Then, with regard to the anchors, they had 2,000 in hand. It was proposed to sell at various prices—some not being worth more than old iron—about 1,100 of them, and there would still remain 900 anchors for Her Majesty's ships. The right hon. Gentleman opposite had asked a question about paint—if it was not true that the paint manufactured at Chatham had been reported by chemists in London to be of first-rate quality. The hon. Member for Finsbury (Mr. Alderman Lusk) had laid it down as an axiom that they ought never to manufacture articles when they could buy them as cheaply in the market. Acting on that principle, the Admiralty had an investigation into the manufactory of paints at Chatham, and they found they could buy in the open market much cheaper than they could manufacture. Consequently, at Chatham they were only using up the materials in hand, and had not the least intention to continue the manufacture of paint. With respect to timber, they had a careful survey made into their vast stocks which had been lying for years in the various dockyards, some of it till it was rotten. The right hon. Gentleman opposite had alluded to a question having arisen between the Constructor and the Storekeeper in reference to timber. In consequence of the difference of opinion between the two officials, he (Mr. Baxter) considered it better to bring in an independent party to fix the price. That gentleman visited all the dockyards with the Constructor, who gave every assistance in the matter, and having seen all the timber, gave his opinion as to what ought to be sold and what ought to be kept to the purposes of the Navy. The House would recollect that in the Premiership of Lord Palmerston the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Henley) called attention to the stock of timber in the dockyards, which he represented as very insufficient in quantity. Considerable sensation was created on the subject, and yielding, unwisely as he ventured to think, to the feeling which the right hon. Gentleman had avowed, the Government ordered a very large quantity, principally oak. The consequence was that there was Sardinian oak and other kinds of oak now in the dockyards, for which he should be glad to see buyers coming forward. There was about £120,000 worth of timber now in the dockyards which ought to be sold. He believed that eventually purchasers would be found for it, and in respect of timber and any other articles in the dockyards, he would be guided by the consideration of what was best for the efficiency of the Navy and the good of the country. In conclusion, he could only say that he would use his best endeavours in the future, as he had done in the past, to discharge his duty in such a manner as to promote economy to the greatest possible extent.

SIR JOHN HAY

said, that the department of the Navy with which the hon. Member for Montrose (Mr. Baxter) was connected was a new one, and it had not yet obtained the confidence of the country. Whether it was successful or not had yet to be proved. Of course they all knew that there were some things which might be purchased more advantageously in the open market than by contract, and that contracts might be entered into injudiciously, and might not be fulfilled. But what was the complaint against the contract system? Formerly, no one at the head of a department could be suspected, because, when tenders were called for, so many persons were on the watch that there could scarcely be a suspicion. The person who made the contract was a different person from the person who examined with the power of rejection, and in this way the public had a guarantee against improper practices. The new system might be a good one—he did not think it was—he accepted the statement about the paper which had been rejected.

MR. BAXTER

said, he wished to explain that the paper had not been rejected on the ground of weight, but because it was too thin. When this fault was discovered, the purchase was at once put an end to, and other paper was ordered from the Stationery Office.

SIR JOHN HAY

said, that under the old system, the paper would have been rejected by the officers of the dockyard. He was not contradicting the statement of the hon. Gentleman. His argument was that where great sums of money were passing through the hands of a public man he should be protected front all suspicion, and that this protection could not be secured if the same person who made the purchase was charged with the rejection of stores. With regard to coal the question was as to quality. When the late Board of Admiralty took Office it was considered extremely desirable for the public service that smokeless coal should be laid in. This sort of coal had the great advantage of not betraying the position of our ships in time of war. When a ship was to be tried on the measured mile, or when engines had to be tested, none but the highest quality of Welsh coal was used, and it cost 2s. a ton more than the ordinary Welsh coal. The first cost of a superior article was higher than that of an inferior one, but for many purposes was not the former article the cheaper one in the end? As to dockyards in the Channel their great use was that when our ships came in disabled after an action, the necessary repairs might at once be effected. By this means we could do with a smaller number of ships, for that nation which could soonest refit its disabled ships would, of course, have a great advantage. With regard to the stock of timber, it must be remembered that when his right hon. Friend the Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Henley) called attention to the subject, the wooden line-of-battle ships were just being converted into screws, and iron shipbuilding was hardly recognized as a necessity for a war fleet. At that time the annual consumption of timber in our dockyards was about 20,000 loads, and in order that there might be a stock of seasoned timber on hand, it was always thought right to keep a stock of 60,000 loads, or a three years' supply. The Government of Lord Palmerston thought it right to enter into further contracts and increase the stocks to 120,000 loads. That timber was being delivered from 1862 to 1865, but by the latter date the change from wooden ships to iron ships had been almost effected, and, except for unfinished contracts, no oak was used. The Board of Admiralty, of which he was a member, took measures to reduce the stock, and ordered no new timber, except teak, for iron ships. He concurred in the policy of selling timber which was not wanted; but he was for selling it to advantage, and not having it squandered and thrown away like the anchors of which they had heard that evening. There was plenty of room in the dockyards for all the limber in hand, and it would be better to store it than to sell it at one-fourth of its value. If it were disposed of at such a loss, he could not but think that a day of retribution would come, and the country would not be pleased with those who had so sold it. The subordinate clerk and some other officers who had been referred to had not tried to cheat the Government, but to cheat contractors. They tried to persuade contractors that they had an influence which they did not possess, and which it was practically impossible they could have possessed under the old system. He quite approved the course taken by the hon. Member for Montrose in the matter, but the detection of those persons proved nothing against the contract system. They had been detected by means of the cheeks which existed when the late Government left office. The hon. Member for Montrose had stated that he did not make any charge against his right hon. Friend (Mr. Corry), and did not take credit in any speech for the reductions which were the work of that right hon. Gentleman. But in the speech which the hon. Gentleman delivered at Perth, after referring to those reductions in the Navy, the hon. Gentleman did say, "My right hon. Friend the First Lord is on the mountain waves now and at Gibraltar, there will assemble a fleet by far the most powerful that the world has ever seen. He and I are responsible for its condition."

MR. BAXTER

I never said or hinted that it was my saving, but only that it was the saving of the Board of Admiralty, in which my share, as every one knows, was very small.

SIR JOHN HAY

said, the hon. Gentleman's words on the occasion to which he referred did bear the interpretation that he and the First Lord of the Admiralty took credit for a reduction of £1,000,000 in the Estimates of last year, while the fact was that £540,000 of that sum was due to the management of the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Corry).

MR. J. D. LEWIS

said, that at that late hour of the night he should postpone the remarks he wished to make on the dockyards until the Vote on the subject came on for discussion.

MR. HUSSEY VIVIAN

said, he could not agree in the statement of the hon. Member for Sunderland (Mr. Candlish), that a mixture of Welsh and North Country coal produced less smoke than either of those coals alone. He believed that Welsh coal was as superior to North Country coal as it was possible to conceive. Those great steamship compapanies, which, under their contracts with the Government were bound to extreme regularity, and which never failed to be regular in their voyages, were supplied entirely with Welsh coal.

MR. PEASE

said, the steam-raising powers of North of England coal were proved to be quite equal, if not very much superior, to those of Welsh coal.

MR. DALGLISH

said, that the House used to hear the necessity of increasing the Navy vouched for on one side and gallantly supported by the other. Now the two sides only wrangled for the credit of reductions. He congratulated the House on this great improvement.

MR. CHILDERS,

in reply, said, that when he denied having made the speech attributed to him by his right hon. Friend (Mr. Corry), who said that it was delivered in the autumn, he supposed he was referring to some speech of his made during the Recess. As, however, he had made no speech during the Recess, he imagined that his right hon. Friend had fallen into some mistake. He had since ascertained that his right hon. Friend referred to a speech of his delivered late in the last Session, at a time when his right hon. Friend was on the Continent. He must, however, demur to the description which had been given of that speech. His right hon. Friend was entirely mistaken in supposing that he (Mr. Childers) said that the strength of the Navy was due to what had been done since he took Office. He had had time to refer to the report in Hansard, and no such language had been used by him. His right hon. Friend had also misunderstood what he had said the other day as the reason for flying the Admiralty flag on the recent cruise of the combined fleets. What he said was that it was a matter of delicacy when there were two officers of nearly the same rank to place one over the other, and that the difficulty was easily got over by the Admiralty flag. He had never for a moment doubted that seniority, if only of a day, placed one officer in command of the other. With reference to precedent, he had followed as to the Admiralty, precisely the course adopted by the Duke of Somerset when he went to Malta. With respect to the Captain, he had only to say that if he had sent the Captain to sea with all her crew and without her guns, no one would have been more forward to complain than his right hon. Friend. With regard to the complaint of the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets (Mr. Samuda), he had stated that it was the intention of the Admiralty to build 4,000 tons of shipping annually in private yards. He would not discuss the matter now, but the Estimates only provided for new machinery at three dockyards. He hoped the Committee would now pass the first Vote.

MR. CORRY

said, that if the Duke of Somerset had given orders at Malta under the authority of the Admiralty flag, as the right hon. Gentleman said he had done, all he could say was that two Liberal Lords of the Admiralty had done unconstitutional things. He thought his authority for having said that no such orders had been given—which was that of a Colleague of the noble Duke—was as worthy of credit as the right hon. Gentleman's statement.

MR. CHILDERS

said, that, having been prepared for the remarks of his right hon. Friend, he had examined the orders given by the Duke of Somerset's Board at Malta, which corresponded entirely with his statement.

Vote agreed to.

(2.) £2,692,731, Wages to Seamen and Marines.

House resumed.

Resolutions to be reported To-morrow; Committee to sit again upon Wednesday.