MOTION FOR A SELECT COMMITTEE.

HC Deb 10 June 1873 vol 216 cc751-95

SIR JOHN HAY,

in rising to move— That a Select Committee be appointed to consider the present system of Promotion and Retirement in the Royal Navy, and to report their opinion thereon to this House, said: Mr. Speaker—Sir, the formal Motion which I am about to introduce to the notice of the House is framed in the same words as the Motion which was made in this House ten years ago by Lord Palmerston. On that occasion I had brought before the House the then position of the Navy with regard to promotion and retirement. It appeared to me, at that time, Sir, that the service was suffering from stagnation of promotion and from the want of arrangement which then existed. It is now 10 years since that subject was inquired into. It was in the year 1863 that I had the honour of submitting this subject to the House, and Lord Palmerston made the proposal that a Select Committee should be appointed by the House to consider the system of promotion and retirement in the Royal Navy, and report thereon to this House. That proposal was adopted. My right hon. Friend the Member for the University of Cambridge (Mr. Spencer Walpole) was the Chairman of the Committee, and presided over its deliberations with great advantage. The hon. Member for the Montgomery Burghs (Mr. Hanbury-Tracy) has also a Motion of a similar kind before the House, and had intended to take an opportunity of calling the attention of this House to the subject, and of moving for a Select Committee to inquire into the condition of the Navy, with regard to promotion and retirement, and with a view of settling an equitable plan of retirement in the Navy. The Committee of 1863 produced a Report which no doubt many Members of this House have read, and which made various suggestions for the improvement of the position of the officers of the Navy. That Report was in some degree acted upon by the Duke of Somerset in the year 1866, and the advantages of the arrangement which was then made were manifest and were bearing good fruits during the six or seven years which succeeded the Report of the Committee. In 1863, as I have said, I had an opportunity of introducing this subject to the House, and was assisted in the view which I put forward by the opinions of naval officers who had considered the subject, and of the Rev. Mr. Harvey, whose name will long be remembered in connection with this subject. They had taken a great deal of evidence upon the subject, and that formed the basis of the recommendations which were laid upon the Table of this House, and also the basis of the inquiry which then followed. At present, however, the Navy is—I will not say suffering from—but is under the influence of a different scheme of retirement. In the year 1870, with very considerable liberality, a large grant of money was given by this House to the Admiralty for the advantage of retired officers of the Navy. The object of that grant was to induce officers to retire from the Navy, and in so doing to diminish the number of officers who were on the active list. There is a great deal to be said in favour of the proposal. The arrangement was one which was intended to reduce the active list so as to give more constant employment to those who remained upon it. And it was intended to reduce the active list of officers to 1,000 in the superior grades; that is to say, there were to be 50 flag officers, 150 captains, 200 commanders, and 600 lieutenants. But at that time there were on the active list 80 flag officers, 288 captains, 402 commanders, and 769 lieutenants, thus leaving a surplus of 30 flag officers, 138 captains, 202 commanders, and 169 lieutenants, at the time that proposal of retirement was introduced by Order in Council of the Navy. After the Order in Council had been three years in operation—in March, 1873—there were on the active list 59 flag officers, 226 captains, 306 commanders, and 703 lieutenants; still leaving a surplus of 9 flag officers, 76 captains, 106 commanders, and 103 lieutenants; the net result being a reduction of 21 flag officers, 62 captains, 96 commanders, and 63 lieutenants in that period. Now, it may be asked, why I should select a period of three years as the time at which to call the attention of this House to this subject. I wish to do so because at the time that this measure was introduced to the notice of this House, we were promised by the Minister who then had the honour of submitting it and carrying it, that at the end of three years from that time all the good results which were to be expected from it would have followed from this measure. I will quote the words of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. Childers), who was at that time First Lord of the Admiralty. He said— 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 the further reduction to bring down the number to those proposed. In the thud 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 20 or 25 years, until all the lists will be in what may be called their normal condition."—[3 Hansard, cxcix. 937.] Upon that I am bound to call attention to a Return (321, 1872), before this House, which shows that the diminution has been hardly anything. The charges, which were £1,755,336 in April, 1868, are now shown by a Return to be £1,754,041, which is little less. And since that, owing to certain changes, although there has been no further Return, I believe the Secretary to the Admiralty will acknowledge that the charge has rather increased than diminished. However, at any rate, it is apparent that there has not been the diminution which was anticipated, and the increased charge continues, as it, was supposed it would, by those who opposed the measure. The half pay, the reserve pay, and retired pay in 1868–9 was £700,166, and it is now £847,462. In 1870 it stood at the increased charge of £902,100, and therefore it has been reduced slightly from that great increase; but that sum included the special grant of £120,000. It was £723,000 in 1869–70; £782,000 in 1870–71, excepting £120,000 which was specially voted; and then the charge went on to £829,000 in 1871–2; £818,000 in 1872–3; and for 1873–4, £847,462. Therefore, so far as this House is concerned, the promise of a diminution of the public charge has proved to be fallacious. There was another object with which this proposal was introduced to the notice of the House. I quote from the pages of Hansard, February 28th, 1870. The then First Lord of the Admiralty said— 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 proposals 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 bases of our naval policy."—[Ibid. 938.] I am quite sure the House and the country and the Government desire efficiency, economy, and contentment in the Navy, and all I venture to ask the House to grant a Committee for is, because I do not believe that either efficiency, or economy, or contentment have been obtained by that scheme of retirement and promotion introduced in the year 1870, or that it is likely to lead to those most valuable qualities in those who have had the honour to serve the Queen. I understood that under that retirement scheme the measure of efficiency was principally to be the age of the officers who were employed. My right hon. Friend the Member for Droitwich (Sir John Pakington) 15 years ago proposed that officers at the age of 70, of whatever rank, should be retired. That appeared to him to be an age at which no more services could be required from gentlemen serving in the Navy, and that it would be fair to create a flow of promotion by removing them from the list and promoting other persons into their places. That is a very different plan, so far as the Navy is concerned, from the plan by which persons are forced off the list at a certain age and other persons are not promoted to take their places. I myself had proposed in 1852 a plan of retirement. To quote the words I used at that time, I proposed that "the services of men of energy, of great practical experience, inured to war, should be retained whatever their ago might be." That is another plan of retirement; and it was not until the Committee sat, over which my right hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge University so well presided, that I became aware how difficult it was—that is now many years ago, and I had not then so much experience as I have at the present time—for men in high office to make a selection of those whom they might think had the energy and ability which, according to my view, would have retained their services in the Navy. I am therefore willing, so far as I am myself concerned, to acknowledge that I was mistaken in that proposal.

Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members being found present—

SIR JOHN HAY

proceeded: I was remarking, Sir, that the various plans of retirement which had hitherto been offered for the acceptance of this House had contained various elements which might have been more palatable to those who were affected by them. But before the Committee which I have alluded to, presided over by the right hon. Member for Cambridge University, we had a very singular piece of evidence of the extreme distaste of these proposals of retirement to the officers of the Navy. One of the most distinguished Admirals of the Navy—I allude to the late Lord Dundonald—was one of those who were about to be affected by one of these schemes of retirement. It was given in evidence by Sir George Seymour that Lord Dundonald's expression of distaste for the proposal was couched in these words—"I have no wish to be driven into the knacker's yard." Now, although that is not by any means a satisfactory place into which to drive officers, yet it is the place to which large numbers have been driven by the arrangement of 1870. I do not propose to-night, in asking for this Committee, to go into any question as to all the officers of the Navy. I merely desire to place before the House the condition of the combatant officers, for the rest will follow and will be naturally inquired into by any Committee which it might be the desire of this House to appoint. Now, with regard to the combatant officers of the Navy, the crucial test, as I understand it to exist at present, is the test of age accompanied by service at sea. The object of the proposal was a very valuable and excellent one if it had been attained. The object of the proposal of 1870 was to quicken promotion in the Navy and give us younger officers. If, however, it had succeeded in giving us younger officers, I, for one, should have been perfectly satisfied with the scheme as proposed; but I wish to call the attention of the House to some figures bearing on this proposal. Of the various classes of officers on the flag list in the year 1870 the aggregate ages of the 3 Admirals of the Fleet were 246 years; in 1873, or rather at the present time, they are 252 years. In the year 1870 the aggregate ages of the 13 Admirals—the youngest 13 Admirals on the list of full Admirals—was 844, and it is now 860, or 16 years older. In 1870 the 15 youngest Vice Admirals were 880, and now they are 895, or 15 years older. The 25 youngest Rear Admirals were at that time 1,291, but they are now 1,365 years; so that in every one of the cases in which flag officers of the Navy are concerned, the age of the active officers has been increased.

Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members being found present,

SIR JOHN HAY,

resuming, said: I am extremely sorry for my hon. Friend the Secretary to the Admiralty if he is unable to catch the thread of the argument I have endeavoured to adduce, but it has been so frequently broken that I must ask the House to excuse me if I, perhaps, go over a little of the ground I have already trodden. I was endeavouring to point out to the House that the ages of the officers in the upper ranks of the Navy had considerably increased under the recent arrangement. I will not recapitulate the ages which I have already given, and which I daresay the hon. Gentleman knows as well as I do; but I will proceed to say that in 1870 there were 5 officers on the flag list under 50 years of age, and there are now a smaller number—namely, 4—under 50. Comparing the ages of individual officers with the aggregate ages I have adduced to the House, it will be shown that they also have considerably increased. There are now 31 under 50 and 60; 17 between 60 and 70; 4 over 80 years of age, still upon the flag list. It therefore seems that the object of the retirement scheme for which the House paid so hand- somely has not been achieved; and I must say that although the liberality of the House at that time to the Navy, so far as regards retired officers, was considerable, the House must not be under the impression that the Navy generally benefited by that liberality. I would like here to point out that it was, of course, desired by this House and supposed that those who were the most inefficient were those who were rejected from the list, and those retained were supposed to be the most efficient and the most fit for service. Those on the half pay list and the active list have received no important increase of pay whatever; and, indeed, on the half pay, none whatever. There were certain distributions of pensions which might give a slight increase to certain officers and deprive others of them; but the half pay has not been increased, as a matter of fact, nor has the active pay of the Navy been increased. This large sum of money was given to the retired list of officers, who are officers who have been rejected from the Navy, and are no longer competent to serve the Crown in any naval capacity. It is difficult to express it exactly; but they are paid largely by the country for not allowing themselves to be employed, which is about the worst object to which public money could well be applied. In addition to the increase of the aggregate age of the officers which I have already alluded to, the slowness of promotion now has become a very great disadvantage to the profession. Of all things that you ought to keep before the eyes of those who are serving you in the profession of arms, is the prospect they have, if they distinguish themselves, of rapid promotion—that for b distinguished services they are sure to be promoted. Now, the fact is at this moment that the Navy is labouring under the impression that it has become almost a seniority service, that there are no young officers comparatively being advanced to the ranks above them; and you are arriving at this stage—that you will retain officers on the list of captains until they are 54 years of age, and yet under the new retirement scheme as Rear Admirals they will be obliged to retire at 55. The result is that they are retired before they have an opportunity of serving in that capacity, and the country has a heavy charge to pay them on their retire- ment as flag officers, for which they never do the country any service whatever. It will be the year 1880, or seven years hence, before the Admirals' list is reduced to the established number. Now, I make that assertion upon what I hope the House will consider sufficiently good evidence. The hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Admiralty will know very well the name of Mr. William Hickman. He is an officer whom the Admiralty has constantly employed for statistical Returns, and he has been so kind, without taking any particular view of the matter, as to make all these calculations for me, he having been in possession, of the ages of every officer on the list, and having made these calculations on a fair basis of life assurance calculations. Now, I will take the list of Admirals. There are 3 Admirals of the Fleet at this moment, and 13 Admirals on the active list on the 20th of March, 1873. To 4 of these officers the retirement scheme does not apply, and of the remaining 12, 8 elected to remain on the system in force in 1866, which enables them to continue on the active list until they attain the age of 70. They are Sir Henry Codrington, who will retire in 1879; Sir George Mundy, who will retire in 1875; Sir Henry Koppel, in 1880; Sir James Hope, in 1878; Sir Alexander Milne, in 1877; Admiral Richard Warren, in 1880; Sir Sidney Dacres, in 1874; and Sir Augustus Kuper, in 1879. These are the officers who are not subject to the retirement scheme of 1870. The 4 Admirals subject to the Order in Council of 1870, will retire in the following order on attaining the age of 65—namely, Lord Clarence Paget, in 1877; Admiral George Elliot, in 1879; Sir Thomas Symonds, in 1877; and the Hon. Charles Elliot, in 1884. I will not go over all the list, but I wish to show the House and the Secretary to the Admiralty, that I have gone carefully into these matters, and to place before them the fact that these calculations are based upon accurate statistics. So far, then, as retirements are concerned, there will be from the Admirals list, 1 in 1874, 1 in 1875, 3 in. 1877, 1 in 1878, 3 in 1879, 2 in 1880, and 1 in 1884. There are certain contingencies provided for in regard to death vacancies; but with regard to voluntary retirement, from the foregoing statement it is evident that it will be 1880 before the Admirals list is reduced to 7. I will not go through all the lists, but I will now come to the captains' list, which depends upon the condition of the flag list. There will be in the year 1876, for promotion, 4; in 1875, 3; in 1873, 2; in 1877, 3; in 1878, 4; and in 1879, 4 promotions. I have here the officers who are likely to retire. The ages have been fairly calculated, and this will show that the captains' list will not be reduced to the number it was intended to be reduced to until the year 1892, which is a time we need hardly look forward to in any calculation of this kind. Now there are 226 captains, and they are to be reduced to 150. Until they are so reduced, only one promotion for every two retirements is to be made. Therefore it is that I complain that the flow of promotion will be stopped for many years to come. I think, so far as this calculation can be accurate, it will be 1896, if the present arrangements continue, before the promotion of one in each vacancy will be allowed to take place. To further confirm what I have said, I may state that the Order in Council of 1870 puts the establishment of superior executive officers of the Navy at 1,000–50 flag officers, 150 captains, 200 commanders, and 600 lieutenants. The Order in Council has been three years in operation, and, remember, I have quoted the words of the First Lord of the Admiralty at that time, who said that at the end of three years—that is, in March this year—it would be in full operation, and would have done whatever it was expected to do. There are still in March, 1873, 59 flag officers, 226 captains, 306 commanders, and 703 lieutenants; leaving a surplus of 9 flag officers, 76 captains, 106 commanders, and 103 lieutenants; the net result in this time being a reduction of 21 flag officers, 62 captains, 96 commanders, and 63 lieutenants. It may be naturally said—"If you have reduced so many in the course of this time, why not go on a year or two longer, giving the scheme a fair trial?" I should be quite willing to do so if I did not see that it was impossible such a trial could lead to a good result. These are the figures of that accurate and careful statistician, Mr. Hickman, who has authorized me to use his name. "But still," it may be said, "if, in the course of three years, you have reduced your surplus officers from 539 to 294, why not wait and see whether the natural action of this arrangement will not complete that which was intended to be completed?" But in 1870 you shelved a number of officers, who either could not or would not serve. By compulsory removal, the propriety of which was questioned at the time, you shelved them. Let us follow the course of events as they have happened in the years which have elapsed since 1870. In the year 1870, there were 70 captains retired, 75 commanders, and 912 lieutenants; in 1871, 24 captains, 28 commanders, and 39 lieutenants; in 1872, 16 captains, 13 commanders, and 42 lieutenants; and this year, so far as it has gone, only 2 captains have retired, 5 commanders, and 9 lieutenants. Now, that shows that the operation of the retirement scheme was exhausted at first; that its influence, however good, was the result of the very liberal vote of £120,000 which attracted a certain number of officers off the lists; and that having exhausted that particular attraction, it could no longer induce officers to give up a profession to which they had devoted their lives. Up to the year 1883, or 10 years hence, the promotion, as calculated on the captains' list, of Rear Admirals will be 43, and at that time the fifty-seventh captain on the list of captains will have been reached by the promotion. That officer will be 54 years of age. I have the figures here and the name, but I need not mention it. Within a year after that he will be obliged to retire as a Rear Admiral. He will, therefore, be only one year upon the Rear Admirals' list, having previously served with considerable distinction; but he will be then shelved and become of no further use. It is probable that there will be only three officers, if they all serve—Captains Lambert, Hewitt, and Sir Malcolm Macgregor—who will reach the flag list under 50 years of age. Captain Hewitt will probably have served his time, but Sir Malcolm Macgregor is not serving, and may not be one of those who obtain promotion. Captain Hewitt will be 49 years of age, and he and Captain Lambert will in all probability be the only officers within the next 10 years who will obtain the rank of Rear Admiral under 50 years of age. There will not be more than 12 commanders promoted in each year up to 1883. Now, I think that is a serious matter. A number of senior officers of ships now exist, and it is a very awkward matter if the Government contemplate that only 12 commanders, who hold such responsible positions, will be promoted out of a considerable number. They must know that in consequence of the check of promotion only one person will be promoted out of two vacancies—and rather less from certain changes which have been made; and these officers will have to go on serving without prospect of promotion during the next 10 years if the present system continues. And at that time—1883—the captains' list will be only reduced to 194, and will be still 44 above the number to which we were promised it would be reduced by this time. The right hon. Gentleman suggested 150 as the aggregate number which was to have been reached at this date. But the First Lord of the Admiralty has broken through that rule—as I think with great judgment—and I give him great credit for it. He has promoted a considerable number of officers very rightly and justly, but he has entirely broken through the arrangement which was to reduce the list, which has been increased by nearly 20. By the retirement scheme of 1870 the captains' list was reduced from 288 to 239; but since that time it has only been reduced by 13. But the captains' list has to be reduced to 150; so that for the next 10 years the Navy must look forward to an absence of anything like that right, and just, and reasonable promotion which men ever hope for in the public service. With regard to the commanders' list, there are now 306 commanders, and that number is to be reduced to 200. It was reduced by the proposal of 1870 from 402 to 339; but since that time the action of the retirement scheme has only been to reduce it by 33, which is a very slight way on the journey towards the reduction to 200 proposed. The lieutenants' list in March, 1870, numbered 769. It was reduced by retirement to 688; the intention originally being to reduce it to 600. But the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Admiralty very wisely intervened, and I thank him on behalf of the service for what he did in breaking through the rule. Still, the effect has been to increase the list to 729, or nearly up to the numbers at which it was at the time the House voted so liberally for the reduction of the list. It is evident that the numbers not having been reduced, there can be no diminution of charge such as was held out as a boon to the country in 1870. There has, in fact, been a slight increase of the public charge instead of the anticipated reduction. Now, there are certain points which may not seem to be of any great importance to the House, but which are of very great importance to the Navy, to which I desire to call the attention of the right hon. Gentleman and his Colleagues. A new plan with regard to retirement of Admirals of the Fleet was introduced in 1870, which I conceive to have been a most improvident and improper arrangement. The rank of Admiral of the Fleet has no doubt since the time of Lord Howe been an honorary rank, but is equal to the rank of Field Marshal, and is much coveted by those who have risen to the rank of Admiral in the Navy. And I believe the proposal of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster was extremely unjust to those officers in that particular. Let us see how unfairly it is working. It is quite true that at this moment there are three very distinguished officers who hold that high post, and I am sure that whoever may hereafter attain to it will be officers of distinction and deserving of that honour. But many of the officers who commanded-in-chief your Fleets by the action of this scheme are prevented from ever becoming Admirals of the Fleet. Although they may have looked forward to it from boyhood, and have risen to command your Fleet, they are deprived of that position by the red tape rule which says that at the age of 68 or 65, according as they accept the new or old scheme, they are to go off the list of Admirals. The result is that such men as Sir William Martin, Lord Lauderdale, Sir Alexander Milne, and Sir Frederick Grey have been, or probably will be, deprived of this rank, not because there are better men—although, perhaps, equally good men may reach it before them—but because they may be pushed off the list of Admirals before their turn comes, and another man who is a day under the age may have arrived at the top of the list. The result will be that three officers—excellent officers, but who do not happen to have commanded the Fleet at sea—will attain to this rank, while three officers who have been First Sea Lords, and five who have commanded Fleets at sea, will be placed on the retired list, and simply because of what I really must call this absurd rule, which will turn these men adrift into the "knacker's yard" when they happen to be 65 or 68 years of age. If there was any advantage to be gained by bringing a young officer of 35 or 40 to command the Fleet at sea; if there was some object in it, and this was not simply an honour, one could understand the arrangement. However, it seems that this seniority system is to continue when you come to the highest rank of all. I appeal to my hon. and gallant Friends in the Army as to what they would think of such a rule by which an officer who had arrived at a position where he could be selected to be a Field Marshal, should be forbidden to obtain it because he was 65 years of age. I believe if we looked at the list of Field Marshals we should find that—except the illustrious Duke, who has rendered great services in the field no doubt, which entitled him to that position, but whose high rank probably assisted him to obtain it—no general officer, with the exception again of the Duke of Wellington—[Sir PERCY HERBERT: And Lord Raglan.] — has attained that rank under the age of 70 years. An hon. and gallant Friend near me says that at this moment one of our most distinguished Field Marshals is 90. Yet distinguished officers in the Navy, like Sir William Martin, Lord Lauderdale and Sir Frederick Grey, are deprived of an analogous position because, forsooth, some arrangement has been come to by which at 65 or 68 years of age they must make way for another officer, who, having perhaps attained within a day of the age, gets this coveted distinction, while others are put aside without a chance of receiving it. There are some other points which I think should not be neglected, as I am alluding to this matter. The hard-and-fast line which was intended to be drawn may have been a fair one, but it was very disadvantageous to the country; and the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Admiralty has, I am glad to say, not adhered to it. I will allude to one or two cases in which he has thought it right to abstain from enforcing the rule which had been laid down. The right hon. Gentleman has a most excellent Board of Naval advisers, and I believe he could not select better men than Sir Alexander Milne, Sir Walter Tarleton, and Admiral Seymour, to give him advice. In saying this, I have no wish to derogate from his ability, but in naval matters he must necessarily require advice, and these are excellent naval advisers. There is no officer more distinguished or more deserving of his confidence than Sir Walter Tarleton. He is one of the Lords of the Admiralty, and if I examine the list of Naval officers, I shall find that he is the only officer of Rear Admiral's rank who is 62. He ought, by the regulations, to have retired either at 60 or 55; but when the right hon. Gentleman did him the honour to request him to become one of his Naval advisers, he said—"I am quite willing; but at a given date I shall attain the age when I must be retired, and when that age arrives I must leave you. I do not think it right or proper that I, as an adviser of you who are to command our Fleets, should be here to advise you if I am incompetent to command a Fleet myself." The right hon. Gentleman accepted Sir Walter Tarleton's services on these conditions, and when Sir Walter Tarleton arrived at the age at which he must have retired he was retained upon the list. He was made five years younger by an Order in Council. [Mr. GOSCHEN: No, no!] At any rate some arrangement was made by which, at the age of 62, he was retained as a Rear Admiral. He remains—very fortunately for the service—to advise the right hon. Gentleman; but he obstructs the promotion of other officers on the captains' list, who in consequence of his remaining there, are not, and never will be, promoted to be Rear Admirals. I think the House will not be of opinion that Captain Vansittart, almost the senior captain, who will be within a month or two 55 years old, who has had more command of iron-clads and greater experience in iron ships than any man afloat, should be retired because Sir Walter Tarleton remains at the Admiralty. Had Sir Walter Tarleton retired, Captain Vansittart would have been Rear Admiral, and would have had five years to go on. I think the right hon. Gentleman very properly retained the services of Sir Walter Tarleton; but, by so doing, he deprives the country of Captain Vansittart's services. I have happened to mention the officer who is close to the head of the list, but there are hundreds of other cases which I could fairly put forward. I will give another instance. I have not seen The Gazette yet; but I may refer to Rear Admiral Sherard Osborn as an officer well known in the country. He is Captain Sherard Osborn officially at this moment, but I understand that a vacancy has occurred by which he will become Rear Admiral. It is fortunate that his services have been retained for the country. But in reality Admiral Sherard Osborn, or, as he then was, Captain Sherard Osborn, was giving his very valuable services to a society of great importance. I believe him to be a gentleman most competent to give his services in that direction, and, in so doing, during peace to be of benefit to the country generally; and I do not think that in time of peace he could be better employed. But he would, have been retired by the plan of 1870, which required that an officer who had not been at sea for seven years must be retired and placed on the shelf. I should be very glad if the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Admiralty would ask his Colleague, Sir Alexander Milne, to show him a letter which I had the honour of writing to Sir Alexander Milne in the summer of 1871, in the September just before Captain Osborn obtained his appointment. [Mr. GOSCHEN: Was it a private letter?] It was not of course a public letter; but it was not private so far as I am concerned in any sense, and I told Sir Alexander Milne that if he had no objection I should quote it on this occasion. But no doubt he will show the letter to the right hon. Gentleman if he should have preserved it. It does not bear upon this question except in the respect which I will now mention. I happened to be in Scotland when I was informed by an hon. Member of this House—who no doubt if he were here could corroborate what I have to say—that Captain Sherard Osborn had made arrangements which would save the country from being deprived of his services. He was to proceed to sea during the interval of autumn relaxation which he had from his employment, and hoist his pendant in an iron-clad for a short time, and by so doing save himself from being retired, and save his services for the country. I agreed that they were extremely valuable, and I wrote to Sir Alexander Milne on the subject. I mention his name, because, being in office, he will no doubt be able to inform the right hon. Gentleman on this point. This was in September, some weeks before the appointment of Captain Sherard Osborn to the Hercules. I have no doubt the right hon. Gentleman appointed him bonâ fide, with the full intention that he should continue to command the ship; but, singularly enough, certain circumstances made it necessary for him to resign at the end of six weeks or two months; and he again, like Sir Walter Tarleton, blocks the way to Captain Vansittart. [Mr. GOSCHEN: The hon. Baronet has not stated the substance of his letter.] I merely called attention to the letter—I have no copy of it—and I simply referred to the fact that I called Sir Alexander Milne's attention to Captain Osborn's probable employment a month before it occurred, and to the circumstances which did occur thereafter. That is to say, it was understood that Captain Sherard Osborn, during the relaxation he was about to have from certain public employment, was to take command—as we should go to the moors or fishing—for six weeks, and by employment at sea save himself, or rather save the country, front being deprived of his services. [Mr. GOSCHEN: That is, he was to have a colourable office?] I make no charge whatever. I quite understand the right hon. Gentleman to say that he appointed him bonâ fide. I only know that what has happened has been that Captain Sherard Osborn did take command, and at the end of six weeks or two months resigned, is now Rear Admiral, and so prevents the promotion of the next man. His presence there blocks the way to Captain Vansittart, who would have been the next man, and the country will lose the services of those other men by reason of this hard-and-fast and absurd rule, which ought to be broken through as soon as possible. I am not finding fault with Captain Sherard Osborn, who desired to remain in the service, or with the right hon. Gentleman for having done this.

MR. GOSCHEN

For having done what?

SIR JOHN HAY

For having appointed him to the Hercules; for having allowed him to resign; and for the fact that his service was over in six weeks.

MR. GOSCHEN

It was not over in that time.

SIR JOHN HAY

Oh, was it not? Well, then, it was seven weeks or two months. I thought it was six weeks. I will not be sure; but at any rate he commanded the Hercules for a short time, and came back to his duties in the City of London.

Mr. GOSCHEN

was about to make another observation, but was met by cries of "Order!"

MR. SPEAKER

The hon. Baronet is in possession of the House, and unless the right hon. Gentleman desires to make an explanation he is not in Order.

SIR JOHN HAY

I understood—I do not know—but I believe Captain Osborn held an appointment of considerable importance in the City of London, and that he went away for six weeks or more, and came back to the same employment. I may have been inaccurately informed, but if I am wrong I am quite ready to be corrected. But, as I have said, Sir Walter Tarleton and Rear Admiral Sherard Osborn have prevented the promotion of the two next captains on the list. I will now mention the case of Captain Ashmore Powell, who was appointed to make certain experiments with regard to ships in which the public were much interested, and whose qualities had been very much challenged. He was sent to sea with two ships, and then somebody at the Admiralty discovered before he made his report that he was 55 years of age; so he was shelved, and we did not get his report. He had been selected as the fittest man for the duty, and yet before he could put pen to paper he was sent away, and could make no report whatever. Take another case. I was looking through the list of Rear Admirals the other day. A knowledge of the Transport Service is of great value to this country in our amphibious wars, and there is hardly any person who has the same experience as Sir Leopold Heath, who was thanked by the House which preceded this—by your predecessor, Sir, for the services which he rendered in Abyssinia. He was Commander of the Fleet there, and had probably had more experience there in the Transport Service connected with a considerable Army than any man going. He was young—although, perhaps, the House does not consider 55 young—and very active. I happened to look to see where he was, and I found he was retired. [Mr. GOSCHEN: Voluntarily.] So much the worse that the country allows him to retire voluntarily; the country should compel him to remain. Of what advantage is it to the country to give an option to a man like that to retire from the service? I do not want to weary the House with these cases, but I must mention one more. I am sorry to see that my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Stirlingshire (Admiral Erskine) is not in his place. He had hoped to be here. The youngest captain on the list who is just about to be retired is the nephew of, and of the same name as the hon. Member for Stirling. He served under my command, and I know him to be a most excellent officer; but, unfortunately, the seniority system takes older men to be employed, and he is within a month or two of the time at which he will be retired. He is very little over 30 years of age, yet he will be put upon the shelf and have £300 a-year for life, unless my calling the attention of the right hon. Gentleman to the case may enable him to obtain a command. He is a young man with a tolerable fortune, no wife, and all other advantages to enable him to serve his country with credit and distinction; but unless he gets a ship within a month or two, the country will be charged with £300 for his life-time, and he may go where he likes. Surely that is not for the advantage of the country? There are other cases of the same character, but I do not wish to tax the indulgence of the House, and I have taken him because he is the youngest, and a relative of the hon. Member for Stirling, who I was in hopes would have been here to confirm my statement, and who entirely concurs in the objects of my Motion. Now, I am not going to attempt to suggest to the right hon. Gentleman what he should do. One thing is quite evident. If he looks over the Report of the Committee of 1863, over which the right hon. Member for Cambridge University presided with so much ability, he will find that all the suggestions made there were more practical and more valuable than the plan of retirement under which the Navy at present suffers. But there is this to be said—that it cannot go on. One of the great evils has been the entry of a large number of young officers. I have always thought so and said so. You must limit your entries, for although they are very valuable officers, yet if you are to have 600 lieutenants you must not enter any one for three years, and after that you must limit your entries to 45 or 47 a-year. It will be said, and very properly said—"How is the work of the junior officers of the Navy to be performed if you limit the entries so largely?" I know many of my naval friends differ from me in that which I have advocated before, which is that you must do this—You must promote your youngest and best-conducted seamen to a class of warrant officers, and employ them for certain duties connected with the boats, tops, decks, and quarters, which anyone who has been at sea will understand, and which they are capable of performing. Before that Committee, of which I have already spoken, one of the most distinguished officers of the Navy—the late Sir George Seymour—was examined, and it will be seen that his evidence bears me out in this statement as to the employment of warrant officers. You cannot hope to improve the list of officers if you swamp them by numbers. With 45 entries, and by retirement from the lieutenants' list of 25 or 30 lieutenants a-year, you would require no retirement from the other lists of the Navy. What you ought to have is a much larger number of warrant officers, which would give a great inducement for good conduct among the seamen of the Fleet; and you ought also to retire officers from the list of lieutenants before they attain the age at which they would become commanders—those who are superfluous, and who are not to be promoted to the higher ranks of commander or Admiral. It may be asked—"What are you to do with these lieutenants?" Well, the question certainly is a difficult one. I may, perhaps, anticipate to some little extent what will fall from the hon. Member for Hastings (Mr. Brassey), who I see is about to move an Amendment to my own Motion for a Committee. I believe I may presume to say that it is not a hostile Amendment. I would venture to suggest that the lieutenants so retired should be employed as lieutenants in the Naval Reserve, and that con- siderable inducement would be held out to the mail contract companies, and all the other shipowners of this country, to employ them to command their ships. They would be the fittest men for that purpose; and, assuming that the commanders of those vessels receive, say, £800, they having £150 or £200 from the Crown as a retaining fee or retired pay, would be able to give their services for a smaller sum to the great shipowners, who would be, as I believe, ready to employ them. The advantage of that would be that we should have competent and skilful officers to train our Naval Reserve, and they would be available, in the event of war, to command those very ships which it would be necessary to man or commission for the purpose of destroying an enemy's commerce. The arrangements with the contract steamers formerly—I do not know whether they do so now—contemplated the employment of those vessels in war, and they were obliged to have certain means to enable them to mount guns in case of necessity. What could be more advantageous for the country than that on the outbreak of war those admirable vessels should be filled with men of the Naval Reserve—which I have always supported the right hon. Gentleman in obtaining money to pay—and commanded by lieutenants in the Navy, with the rank of commander if you like, who being so employed in war would, by gaining distinction in their special branch of the profession, I hope have an opportunity of rising to a higher rank? Various interruptions have, unfortunately, marred my attempt to introduce this proposal to the House; but I trust that the right hon. Gentleman may have gathered what it is that I desire to offer to his consideration. I believe it is very desirable that a Committee should be appointed to inquire into these matters. I am quite sure that neither efficiency, economy, nor contentment are at present the rule with regard to promotion and retirement in the Navy, and I am also sure that the large sum given by this House in 1870 has not had its desired effect. I think the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. Childers), who was not here at the beginning when I quoted the statistics supplied by Mr. Hickman, will see that the system—in- stead of being as he hoped it would be at the end of three years—is in a state of considerable confusion; and that there is no prospect under the continuance of the present system, without larger infractions of the Order in Council than have been so judiciously made by the present First Lord, of any restoration of that efficiency, contentment, and economy for which he looked. The hon. and gallant Baronet concluded by moving for the Select Committee.

MR. HANBURY-TRACY

Sir, I rise to second the Motion of my hon. and gallant Friend, but I do so for reasons which differ very essentially from those he has expressed. He has moved for the appointment of the Committee because he believes the retirement scheme of 1870 was founded in error, and could not possibly be made to work well. He (Sir John Hay) never was a friend to that plan and I fear he never will be. I, on the contrary—believing that the retirement scheme of 1870 only requires expansion and to be carried out in its entirety to be a great success—wish that a Committee may be granted in order that it may receive that development which is essential to its well working. That retirement was carried by my right hon. Friend the Member for Pontefract, when he was First Lord of the Admiralty, in the face of great opposition, but it had been designed with the greatest care, and it had been elaborated by the right hon. Gentleman with a full knowledge of the complicated state of the lists. I know it was honestly intended to put an end to a chronic state of grumbling, to stop that continued, almost annual meddling with the retirement lists, which had brought about such a mass of different schemes that the Navy List had at last obtained a retirement for any letter in the Alphabet, which required a lifetime to understand. In my humble capacity, I have always, inside this House and out of it, supported that plan, and I have always thought that my right hon. Friend was the only First Lord who ever had the courage to deal with it as a whole, and in a comprehensive spirit, for the good of the entire service. His main principle was to decide what the numbers on the active list ought to be, not only in reference to the peace establishment, but also for the requirements of war, and once having settled that, then to reduce the number to that point, keeping the officers—although, perhaps, somewhat smaller in point of numbers—yet thoroughly efficient. He saw that the great fault of our system had always been having quantity, not quality; the maintenance of an enormous number of officers, which you were totally unable to give employment to, and the large body of whom were therefore rendered inefficient and discontented. In carrying out the details my right hon. Friend endeavoured to avoid, as far as possible, giving cause of complaint, and, by large and liberal retirements, he hoped to clear the lists, and reduce the number of active officers to the point he had determined on. Unfortunately, Sir, my right hon. Friend became ill and was obliged to quit office at the critical moment when he of all men was absolutely necessary at the head of that Department in order to see the scheme carried out in its entirety, to expand and adapt the details as circumstances might arise. Nothing could have been more untimely, nothing could have been so prejudicial to the good working of such a delicate piece of administrative machinery than the loss at that moment of the fountain-head and author of the scheme to guide-and direct. Although my right hon. Friend offered considerable inducements in order to clear the lists, it was, I think, thoroughly understood by the House, that if they wore not sufficient to bring about that desired end, he was determined after the experiment had been fairly tried to take such further steps as might be necessary. Of this I am quite certain that the fundamental key-stone of his plan rested on the lists being brought down, and all the vast improvements which he fondly predicted to flow from his scheme were based on having a small but thoroughly efficient body of officers, in the place of an enormous unworkable number and inefficient so-called active lists. It is melancholy after the great and confident expectations raised in 1870, of reduced lists, of constant employment, bringing with them an even flow of promotion, and officers in a high state of efficiency, to look at the present Navy List, and to compare it with that of 1870. Three years have passed away, and yet what do we find. A block in all the lists; great want of employment; many of the very best officers remaining on half-pay for years and years in a state of perpetual despair, obliged to live on a miserable pittance which hardly keeps them from starving, and with little prospect of obtaining employment until years of idleness have passed by, until by the natural course of events they must be far less efficient, far less zealous, and far less able to take command of our vessels. My belief is that had my right hon. Friend the Member for Pontefract remained at the head of the Admiralty means would have been found long ago to have reduced the lists, and that this state of things would not have occurred. In saying this, I have no wish for one moment to say a single word which could be thought disrespectful or uncourteous to my right hon. Friend now at the head of the Admiralty. He has had in a very brief time to master all the difficult technicalities of the service, not only of the matériel, but also of the personnel, and it is not surprising that he should not at once have seen the urgent necessity of bringing the lists down to the point determined on in 1870. The remedy is very simple. There is only one way of effecting it, and that is by going boldly into the field and giving such ample and liberal retirement or such other appointments as will, in the shape of a pecuniary bribe or employment, induce the requisite number to leave the active lists. I know of no intermediate course which can be adopted with justice to the officers. What is now the present state of the lists as compared with what you said was essential in 1870? You laid down that with due regard to the necessities of war the number required of active officers should be—flag officers 50, captains 150, commanders 200, lieutenants 600. The First Lord of the Admiralty in introducing his scheme stated that he had arrived at these figures after the most careful investigation. Now, Sir, I am aware that there are some officers who think that these numbers are too small, but I think it is unnecessary to argue that point. I start on the general assumption that these numbers have been accepted as sufficient, and that these officers, especially the captains and commanders, if kept thoroughly efficient, would be ample for every emergency. I desire to argue on the premise on which the retirement scheme was based. In 1871, after the scheme had been in operation one, year you had 10 flag officers over the complement—82 captains and 125 commanders. In May, 1873, you have certainly got the flag list to within 6, but you have 76 captains over the list, and 106 commanders. Practically speaking, it may, I think, be fairly stated that, although some lists are brought down in these important branches, no progress whatever has been made. As a necessary consequence of this you are obliged to retain enormous numbers unemployed. At the present moment I find you have 138 captains and 147 commanders on half-pay, all anxious and desirous for service, rusting ashore, and in very few cases doing anything to retain their efficiency. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Pontefract (Mr. Childers), in 1870, in describing the small number of officers employed, stated— 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 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 next 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."—[3 Hansard, cxcix. 930–31.] Well, Sir, in 1873, three years after this statement was made, I find that whereas in 1870 you had 109 captains promoted within five years, and only 10 officers serving, in 1873 you have had 91 promoted during five years, and only five employed; and whereas in 1870 you had then 123 commanders who had been promoted during three years, and only 23 serving, you had, in 1873, 88 commanders who had been promoted during three years, and only 29 serving. Notwithstanding you succeeded in 1870, during the first year, in reducing the list of your captains and commanders, it was far more nominal than real. What you did was this—You at once cleared off the dead weight; you swept off those who, having long given up all intention of serving afloat, were delighted to go into retirement—amongst them many men who had not been afloat for years, and had not sought employment, and to this extent a great benefit was effected. But the main difficulty in reducing the active list was not in dealing with this description of officer, because it was well known that, to all intents, they had long and practically given up the service as their profession. The main point was to know what to do with the next stratum, having weeded out all the dead weight, how to get rid, for the benefit of the service, of a certain portion of the young and active, and here the Navy has deeply felt the loss of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Pontefract. Let us take the list of captains and commanders as being the two which are the most important. To the most uninitiated it was self-evident, in 1871, that some further step must be taken as a temporary measure. You had arrived at the point where you found you had to deal with a list full of officers, anxious to serve—men who had served their country in distant climes with zeal and intelligence, who had a vested interest in employment and promotion. If for the good of the service it was found, from the altered state of the profession, absolutely necessary to reduce the list still further, it was essential that it should be done with the greatest care, with the most scrupulous justice, that the feelings of those officers, who were to be asked to give up their profession, should have been consulted, and that no steps should be taken which were not dictated with the utmost liberality. In April, 1871, you found yourself with 233 captains and with 312 commanders, most of them being in the prime of life, and the élite of your service; of these you were bound to get rid of 83 captains and 112 commanders in order to carry out the policy of 1870, and to enable the retirement scheme to have a fair chance of getting into working order. Well, Sir, there were two courses open by which this could be effected—one, I may be allowed to term a policy of justice and the other a policy of injustice. A policy of justice would have brought with it contentment and an instantaneous remedy. You could have gone to a certain number of those officers, and said—"We are sorry to blight your prospects of advancement in the profession, but it is impossible to find employment for so many, and it is imperative to reduce the list, therefore we are prepared to make ample compensation. We will give a bonus of so many years sea service, and a step in rank, or so much money down to buy you out, provided a given number will elect to take it." The cost of this would have been a mere flea bite compared with the benefits which the country would at once have secured from the extra state of efficiency the remaining officers would soon have attained to. Then, again, it would have been quite possible to have reduced the cost by giving appointments in connection with your Naval Reserves, or employment under the Board of Trade. Surely, Sir, 100 or 150 naval captains and commanders in the prime of life would have been the very best material to have made available for these purposes. It would, I undertake to say, have required a very small amount of administrative ability to have found positions for which these officers were so eminently fitted to fill. Instead of this, up to this moment the very opposite policy has been adopted, which I, with all deference, cannot help calling a policy of injustice—one which is as unjust as it is niggardly and hurtful to the service. I must say that I think the Admiralty have been very much to blame after the strong assertions made from the Treasury bench in 1870, to have allowed three years to elapse without taking some more active steps in a fair, generous, and liberal spirit to reduce the number. I do not attribute the blame to the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Admiralty individually, because until he had been at the head of affairs a considerable time it was impossible for him to be aware of the great importance of the subject; but I think there is no excuse for the Admiralty as a public administrative body. For the last two years they have endeavoured to starve a certain number of officers into submission by keeping them continually unemployed. I must recall to the remembrance of the House the fact that liberal as the scheme of 1870 undoubtedly was, it was based upon service, and that according to age and number of years employed the amount of retirement pension depended. After that Order in Council it became, therefore, of the most vital importance to obtain employment. My right hon. Friend the Member for Pontefract also introduced a clause into that scheme that non-employment for five years as commander or seven years as captain would necessitate retirement. I remember very well that the sole inten- tion of this was to prevent officers blocking the lists who did not care to serve, and I am confident that nothing so unfair ever entered into the mind of my right hon. Friend as to use this clause as a lever to clear the lists. Now, however, it is perfectly clear that before long it must operate to compulsorily retire large numbers of officers who are anxious to serve, and whose non-employment is in no way due to them. The effect of this is that the double hardship is perpetrated—you offer liberal retirements based on service, and then you force men into retirement without putting it into their power to obtain that service on which it is based. [Mr. GOSCHEN: We have not retired any one compulsorily, and do not intend to do so.] I am very glad my right hon. Friend has made that statement, and though I could point out two cases in which it has taken effect, I will not dispute the point further. One thing, however, is self-evident—namely, that as there are a large number of officers who have nearly run to the end of their five and seven years, some immediate steps must soon be taken to give employment, unless inducements are given to retire. The other day my right hon. Friend at the head of the Admiralty said that he feared no pecuniary inducement would even now effect a reduction of the list; but I can assure him that he is mistaken. During the last six weeks I have, in concert with several officers acting as a Naval Committee, been in communication with some 250 captains and commanders, and I therefore can speak with some authority on the matter. I am confident that it only requires a fair proposal to be offered by the Admiralty to induce the requisite number to quit the active list. Does the House realize what being condemned for a long term of years to half-pay means in the present day? It is a very different thing from what it used to be. Formerly, it was looked upon as a moderate but sufficient maintenance. No change has been made for 50 years, and what was plenty then is now almost starvation. Sir, the great evil in the constitution of our Naval Service—the great bane of the English Navy—is the system of condemning our officers for years and years to a miserable half-pay, with enforced idleness. My right hon. Friend stated this so clearly—especially as regards efficiency—that I cannot do bettor than quote his words— I wish to point out a still more injurious result arising from our having too large a number of officers, and I make this statement with a full sense of its importance, and on my responsibility I feel no hesitation in saying that it is injurious to the efficiency of the Navy. Communications which I have received within the last two months from Admirals and officers in command in all parts of the world convince me that though our Naval officers are as gallant men as are to be found in the world, and as willing to do their duty, yet there is want of efficiency among them, arising from want of employment. You cannot expect adequate experience from captains and commanders who are for two-thirds of their time on shore. These are the evils which it was intended to remove, and which I trust the House will insist shall not be allowed to remain. I find that it is still no uncommon thing—indeed, it is the usual custom—for captains to be appointed to vessels, who, if you reckon their time of service from the date they were promoted to commanders, have been 12, and sometimes 14 years, during which they have only been actually at sea three, four, or five years. Think of this, Sir, at a time when you have vessels worth £250,000. Would it be allowed in any private firm? Would it be tolerated by any foreign country? Can it be to the advantage of this great country to allow such a state of things to exist? In France and in America, if I understand their system rightly, no officer is obliged to be ashore more than two years, and even during that period he is attached to some port and to some committee, where he has the means and the opportunity of keeping up and improving his professional knowledge. We alone, who pride ourselves on being economical, condemn the system in 1870 as costly, extravagant, and inefficient, and yet allow the same state of things to flourish in 1873. I can imagine nothing more pitiable or more unenviable than the position at the present moment of many of our senior commanders. Most of these officers have, from long service, justly earned their promotion, and yet, year after year, they find themselves passed over by many of their juniors. They ask for employment, and cannot obtain it, and are forced to exist on a miserable amount of 8s. 6d. or 10s. a-day until, at last, worn out in mind, and disgusted with the profession it was their pride to belong to, they find themselves starved into submission, and they retire. I know it was part of the policy of my right hon. Friend the Member for Pontefract to keep half-pay low, with the view of making officers anxious for employment, but it was his fundamental object that there should be employment for all who desired it. Picture to yourself, Sir, the condition of many and many a deserving officer led to marry by a fair prospect of promotion, and by the usual tradition of the service that he would in his turn obtain employment, and some day become an Admiral. Fancy this poor officer striving to support a family on 8s. 6d. a-day, and condemned to see employment given away, and juniors promoted over his head without any recognized system, and with the knowledge that it all depends on the caprice and the ideas of the private Secretary and the First Sea Lord. I have received piles and piles of letters of the most distressing character, which show only too clearly what misery is being experienced. To add to the continued penalty of poverty, you have devised that most inhuman torture—endless suspense. Month after month your commanders and captains visit the Admiralty, asking for employment, but you have not the courage to tell them the truth that they are never to be employed again. Would it not be the commonest kindness to put some of those officers out of their misery, and to tell them their fate, and let them seek from other employers that due reward of their service which you refuse to give. There never was a time when promotions were so cavilled at owing to their small number. Nothing could be worse than the present system of promotion. I know that my right hon. Friend would not for a moment permit any officer to be promoted from political or interested motives, and I am sure that no one can accuse him of any of those gross promotion scandals which used to be of so frequent occurrence. It would be impossible to select a more favourable moment for criticizing the mode of promotion. Of the two officers who advise, Admiral Sir Alexander Milne is allowed on all hands to be one of the best officers of the Navy, and Captain Tryon is deservedly popular, and above all suspicion of jobbery. But, Sir, I maintain with every intention to act fairly, and to promote the right man under the existing system, it is almost impossible to do it. The First Lord consults his two professional advisers, and thereupon makes his selection. It is impossible, with this limited knowledge, to make just promotions. I give every credit to the motives which actuate the private Secretary and the First Naval Lord, but how is it possible that they can know every officer? They naturally look amongst the officers they have served with, and those must practically receive the preference. It is impossible to pick up any professional paper without becoming aware of the fact that there has been great irritation lately against many of the promotions which have been made during the last few years. Seniority tempered by selection—which is the mode under which our lieutenants and commanders are supposed to be promoted—must be carried out not only with the utmost fairness, but it must be by a plan of selection, which inspires confidence in the service, or public opinion will force you into a pure seniority system, which I for one should greatly deplore. I apprehend the only feasible and sensible plan is to adopt the French system of a conseil d'avancement. There you have a body of seven or eight officers outside the Admiralty whose duty it is to examine into all the Reports, and to make minute investigation and to submit names for promotion after the most careful and elaborate inquiry that it is possible to make. With such a council it is absolutely certain that every officer's claim must be known by one of the council and cannot be neglected. After the list is formed it still rests with the First Lord or Minister of Marine to make his selection, but he cannot go beyond this. In this way I am informed by officers of great authority, that little if any complaint is made respecting the promotion, and it is found to work very well. If this were carried out, I apprehend you would hear far less of constant criticizing which every promotion now gives rise to, and you would then be enabled to carry out an improvement which must come before long—the selection of your captains for the rank of Admiral. Is it not a great farce that however incompetent a captain may be, he must of necessity become an Admiral, provided his age admits. Where you have a limited number of Admirals you must have the élite of your service. The other system was tolerated when your lists were so large that you had ample choice, but having once restricted the numbers, selection must follow. There were many, who, like myself in 1870, looked forward to this and other measures as certain soon to follow. We thought that three years would not elapse before death vacancies would be limited, if not abolished, before some sort of educational course would be instituted to qualify lieutenants for the rank of commander, not as an examination but as a test, and before attempts would be made to arrange a more certain retirement for lieutenants. We certainly did not think that after the declaration made from the Treasury bench it would be possible three years after to find the lists still blocked, and no promotion or employment. When I urge constant employment, I do not mean that it should of necessity be sea service, but that in lieu of half-pay with enforced idleness, you should attach your officers, when not at sea, to ports, dockyards, committees, and surveying vessels where they would be continually keeping themselves alive to all the changes and requirements of the time, and thus increasing their efficiency. If this policy is pursued in the French Navy, and found to be successful, surely we might adopt it with safety. Sir, I will not trouble the House further in the matter, I will only say that I am confident if the Committee is granted it will prove that the retirement scheme of 1870 has already done great good to many classes of officers, but that an imperative necessity exists for bringing the executive lists into a more healthy condition. As I have already said, the retirement scheme was based on reduced lists, and until this is done it will not have had a fair trial. In the present day, when vast improvements and alterations are being carried out, not only in the construction of your ships but in the science and art of war—when five short years are sufficient to revolutionize the whole aspect of modern warfare, it has become absolutely essential that our executive officers should be well trained in technical and scientific information of every description, that they should be zealous and contented, and that no special knowledge which they may have acquired should be allowed to rust. Our naval officers have ever distinguished themselves—they are worthy of higher consideration, of a more generous policy than has of late been accorded to them. I maintain it is unfair to them, it is unjust to the taxpayers of this country; it is derogatory to a great naval nation to carry on a system which keeps your officers in a chronic state of discontent, and prevents them maintaining their efficiency, and which, looking at it in the most mercenary point of view, does not even give you fair value for the money spent. I beg to second the Motion of the right hon. Baronet.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That a Select Committee be appointed to consider the present system of Promotion and Retirement in the Royal Navy, and to report their opinion thereon to this House."—(Sir John Hay.)

MR. T. BRASSEY

Before I proceed to speak to the Amendment which I have placed on the Paper, I desire to explain that if the forms of the House had permitted, I should have preferred to present my Amendment as an Instruction to the Committee for which the hon. and gallant Baronet (Sir John Hay) has moved. My object, however, will have been sufficiently attained if I can succeed in calling the attention of the House to the proposals which I am about to make. The efficiency of the Navy cannot be maintained if discontent prevails throughout the service. The enforced idleness to which so many naval officers have hitherto been condemned, would, under any circumstances, be a fruitful cause of discontent, and from every point of view it is a great evil. The origin of the difficulty is not far to seek. It has been our policy to train up, in time of peace, a number of officers sufficient to command our fleets in time of war; but, having trained these officers, it is impossible to find employment for them in a peace Navy. It has long been an accepted axiom that the number of lieutenants must be taken as the datum line upon which the lists of officers in the other ranks of the service must, to a great extent, be determined. As to the number at which the list of lieutenants should be maintained, the Select Committee on Naval Promotion and Retirement of 1863, in their Report, say that, including lieutenants in the Coast Guard and other services, 1,000 is the lowest number to which the active list of lieutenants can be prudently limited. At the same time, they say they were quite aware that this list is so large as to render the promotion of all the lieutenants on the list impracticable. By the recent Order in Council, the number of lieutenants has been fixed at 600; but without offering an opinion as to the wisdom of that reduction, it is sufficient for my present purpose to observe that the importance of finding employment is equally great, whatever be the actual numbers with which we have to deal, so long as a large proportion of the officers of the Navy are pining away in poverty or idleness on a miserable half-pay. For the purpose of maintaining the list of lieutenants at a number sufficient to meet the emergencies of war, it has been the practice of successive administrations to enter a far greater number of cadets than it has been possible to promote to the higher ranks of the service. When 200 cadets were entered in every year, and only seven officers were put on the flag list, it is clear that out of those 200 cadets, 193 were doomed to disappointment. They either died, or were put on the retired list. But, discouraging as are the prospects of the majority of the cadets who enter the Navy, the Admiralty is always beset with urgent solicitations from parents and friends for nominations to cadetships. This demand must be attributed to the desire of parents to obtain for their sons the advantage of the gratuitous education which is given to all-comers who aspire to become officers in the Navy. I strongly object to the principle of tempting parents in narrow circumstances, by the offer of this gratuitous education, to send their sons into a profession which is so ill adapted for those who have not the advantage of some independent resources. It has been urged by the most eminent officers that our naval cadets should be educated at a College ashore. But such an institution should be self-supporting, and the boys should be required to pay for their education in the same way as those who are trained for the Army at Sandhurst, and for every other profession. In support of this view, I may quote the opinions of Admiral Cooper Key, the Duke of Somerset, and many high authorities on naval subjects. If any exception be allowed to the rule requiring payment for the education of a cadet at a naval College, it should be limited to the sons of naval officers. Passing from the nomination and the education of cadets, we have now to deal with the more difficult problem of finding the means of employing and promoting a body of lieutenants whose numbers, even under the reduced scale laid down in the Order in Council prepared by my right hon. Friend (Mr. Childers), are considerably in excess of the ordinary requirements of a time of peace. Nearly one-third of the lieutenants are now on half-pay. Various means can doubtless be suggested for dealing with the case of these officers. The propriety of allowing lieutenants more leave on half-pay than they at present enjoy deserves consideration. Naval officers, after a long commission abroad, or when invalided home from a foreign station, are as much entitled to the privilege as the officers of the Army. After an absence of four years, a year's leave on full-pay cannot be considered an over liberal allowance. Under the existing regulations, an officer does not enjoy more than six months leave on full-pay in the first 10 or 15 years of his service. But an adequate promotion, as well as employment, is required for deserving lieutenants; and in order to secure a sufficient flow of promotion, the number of officers in the superior ranks of the Navy is maintained at a standard considerably in excess of the ordinary requirements of the service. This plan of rewarding good service in the Navy is of old date. In 1816, at the conclusion of the War, lieutenants' commissions were given to all mates of above two years standing. More than 1,000 lieutenants were then made. In the French Navy, no officers on the active flag list are without employment. In the United States Navy, all the officers of lower grade, and almost all the Admirals, are employed. But with us, in consequence of the disproportion between their numbers and the amount of employment during peace, the commanders and captains are not employed at sea on an average more than one-third of their time; and in the case of the flag officers, the proportion of time on half-pay is infinitely greater. It is unnecessary to dwell on the insufficiency of the half-pay. A naval officer without private means cannot maintain a social position commensurate with his rank in Her Majesty's service. On the other hand, the total amount of the non-effective Naval Vote is already so portentous, that no considerable permanent addition to that Vote could be entertained. Something might be done for the commanders and captains, both to improve their position in a pecuniary sense, and to give them more frequent opportunities of serving at sea, by employing commanders in lieu of first-lieutenants and captains in commanders' commands. But there is another means of relieving the overcrowded lists, to which I desire more especially on the present occasion to call attention. My proposal is that civil employment, of a kind for which naval experience is a fitting preparation, should be offered to officers for whom it is impossible to provide occupation afloat. There are two branches of the public service for which naval officers are thoroughly adapted. I mean the Consular service at foreign ports, and the surveyorships of shipping, under the Board of Trade, at home ports. The post of Consul at a foreign port can scarcely be regarded as a diplomatic appointment, though, if it were, I should be prepared to maintain that a well-selected naval officer would be as fit as most other men who would be available for the service. For the general business of a Consular office, nautical experience is an excellent preparation. The most important transactions with which our Consuls at ports abroad are accustomed to deal are connected with ships or sailors. When a British ship is wrecked abroad, and an application is made to the Consul for assistance, how much better qualified he would be to take whatever steps the necessity of the moment required, if he were himself an experienced sailor. The other class of civil employment to which I have referred is that of the surveyors of shipping under the Board of Trade. Some considerable technical knowledge of shipbuilding would be required in order to perform these duties; but it is a knowledge which a sailor would readily acquire. Character, indeed, is at least as essential as technical knowledge; and at present the salaries are so inadequate that it is difficult to induce men to enter the public service in this department, whose social position makes them independent of every kind of influence. If naval officers were appointed, their professional associations would make them superior to temptation; and with their half-pay in addition to their salary under the Board of Trade, their positions would, without additional expense to the country, be made more satisfactory than those held by the majority of the existing body of surveyors. These surveyorships and Consular appointments would offer a wide field for naval officers unable to find employment in their own profession. The surveyors under the Board of Trade are not a numerous body, but their number may probably be increased in order to provide for that more active supervision of our shipping, which, whatever be the form which it may ultimately take, seems to be impatiently demanded by public opinion. The withdrawal of so many officers on half-pay from the active lists would have the effect of giving increased employment to those officers who continued to serve exclusively in the Navy, thus adding materially to their efficiency. The advantage of this more frequent employment has been strongly insisted on by our best officers. In conclusion, I would refer to a field of employment in which naval officers judiciously selected would find it in their power to render services of great value. For the Royal Naval Reserve a staff of naval officers is absolutely essential. The discipline, the drill, the organization, the appliances for instruction, of the Royal Naval Reserve have hitherto suffered from not being placed under the close and constant supervision of a sufficient naval staff. An Admiral at the head of the Reserve is required at Whitehall; a lieutenant should be present during the drills on the gun-deck; captains should be appointed to superintend the general organization in their several districts, and to combine the varied resources of the Mercantile Marine in an effective manner for the local coast defence. The value of the Naval Reserve has been sometimes called in question. If the Reserve is not all that it ought to be, it is because we have hitherto neglected to supply the means by which the force may be more perfectly organized. A very different spirit has prevailed in the organization of our reserves for the land service. There are general officers at the head, supported by a vast array of colonels and adjutants. But hitherto the entire burden of organizing the Naval Reserves has been cast upon a member of the Board of Admiralty already overtasked by his other duties. The hon. Gentleman concluded by moving the Amendment of which he had given Notice.

MR. LIDDELL,

in seconding the Amendment, said, he felt such a love and interest for the Navy that he was induced to offer these remarks. He condemned the hard-and-fast line which had been used for the purpose of reducing the numbers of the senior members of the service. Any line drawn by the Admiralty which retired such men as his hon. and gallant Friend (Sir John Hay) bore upon its face its own condemnation. What the Admiralty ought to do was to act upon the service at both ends; they ought to limit the entries in the first place, and to establish a more generous scheme of retirement for the senior officers. If he understood the French system, there existed in it a principle wholly unknown in this country. In France there was a regular flow of employment for naval officers which never stopped. They were employed either at the Bureau de la Marine, or at sea, in the dockyards, at the arsenals, or on a duty unknown in this country—namely, organizing Naval Reserves, both offensive and defensive, in the ports. If we would consent to trust in time of war more than we had hitherto done to our Mercantile Marine for our second line of defence, we might safely limit the entries of young officers in time of peace; and by founding a generous system of retirement, we might maintain an efficient state of the Navy without those grievances and complaints which it would be cheap at the expense of hundreds or thousands to avoid.

Amendment proposed, To leave out from the word "consider" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "how far Naval Officers on half-pay can be more generally employed in the Consular Service, and in the numerous appointments under the Marine Department of the Board of Trade," —(Mr. Thomas Brassey,)

—instead thereof.

Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."

MR. CHILDERS

Sir, it may be convenient to the House if I make some remarks on this Motion before my right hon. Friend the First Lord of the Ad- miralty. The Motion, it is true, relates not only to the great changes which were effected while I was First Lord, in the rules of promotion and retirement, but also to the recent Acts of the Board of Admiralty, with which, of course, I am not conversant. But the main part of the hon. Baronet's attack is undoubtedly directed at the Order in Council of 1870; and so far as time allows, I should like to reply at once to that attack. I do so at great disadvantage, for I did not hear the hon. Baronet's speech. The unexplained absence from his place of the hon. Member for South Hants has deprived many of us of two debates, while others like myself who were not concerned with them, have missed what we wished to hear on the present subject. But I will reply to so much of the hon. Baronet's statements as have reached me. Let me now in the first place explain what were the circumstances in 1870, which led, to what is properly called, the "scheme of retirement," then established. Since the Crimean War it had been an acknowledged axiom that the number of naval officers was excessive. But the full force of this had hardly ever been admitted at the Admiralty, and the reductions which were made did not even keep up with the altered state of naval affairs from year to year. The substitution of vessels of new type for our old ships, a wiser policy as to England's share in the police of the seas, and other economical tendencies, were causing a rapid diminution in the amount of employment available for certain classes of the service. Nor was this the only difficulty. There was no method, no intelligible principle, I may say, in the rules as to pay, promotion, or retirement, as between different branches of the profession. Every class had its grievance, because it found some other with which it could make, in some respect, an unfavourable comparison. Each, in turn, found some friend at the Admiralty or in Parliament, and almost the only result of improvement in one class was the jealousy of other classes. In respect of retirement the scale and the conditions were unsatisfactory and inadequate throughout; and the same might be said of the pensions of the lower class of officers. Perhaps the House will allow me to give a few figures. Taking what is called the military branch first, there were, in 1858—a year or two after the Crimean War—2,100 officers of the rank of flag officer, captain, commander, and lieutenant. In 1870, all we wanted of these ranks was 1,000. But the previous three retirements of 1860, 1864, and 1866 had only brought the numbers down from 2,100 to 1,600, and the percentage of employment, which had been so low as 46 per cent at the former date, was still only 50 per cent in a list of younger men. On the other hand, while the Admiralty reduced the upper ranks by about 50 a-year, they absolutely entered not only as many, but far more naval cadets than were required for the larger number, and, in fact, taking the upper and lower ranks together, were increasing instead of diminishing the number of officers. In 1857 the number of entries was 105; exactly the number of officers who died, retired, or were dismissed in that year. But from 1858 to 1868, inclusive, the number of cadets entered was 1847, or about 170 a-year; while the total number of officers from Admiral to cadet who died or retired from the service was only 1,543, or 140 a-year. Professing, therefore, to reduce the number of officers, the Admiralty were really increasing it; with the additional circumstances that the inconvenience did not fall on themselves, but would only begin to tell on the lists when the cadets they nominated became lieutenants. I had, therefore, to deal with a list, the upper part of which had been insufficiently, but still, to a considerable extent, lessened, while the lower part had been enormously and most unnecessarily augmented, the diminution of employment being at last palpable to everyone. Nor was the case better in other branches of the services. The paymaster and clerks' list was more excessive in proportion even than the military officers. There were too many navigating officers, too many engineers, too many medical officers of the highest ranks, too many warrant officers. My predecessor had largely reduced the Marines, but increased the marine officers, leaving me a task the very reverse of agreeable in respect of this corps. And my hands were not a little tied by a part of the Orders of 1866—the supposed favouritism of which had all but produced a rejection of the Vote in the House of Commons. What I did in 1869–70 may be stated in a few words. There were altogether about 7,850 officers of the Navy and Marines; and I took in hand their reduction to about 5,500. I put the regulations as to retirement, half-pay promotion, and sea-time, on as as nearly as possible an uniform and simple basis, greatly improving in nearly every instance the pecuniary rights of the officer. I did my best to counteract, in spite of social pressure and a hostile Motion in this House, the privileges which certain officers had claimed, being anxious to treat all alike, from flag officer to midshipmen. And in respect of pay, I made very large additions to certain classes. The result, in spite of the hon. Baronet, I affirm, to be satisfactory. The grievances and the difficulties of two-thirds—I think I may say three-fourths—of the service have been removed. Except on a question which has no connection with number or retirement, even the navigating officers are satisfied; and the same may be said of every other class but the captains, commanders, and lieutenants on the military list. Here, I admit, the work is not complete. The list of these ranks, which numbered 2,100 in 1857, and 1,600 in 1869, and which ought to have come down to 1,000, still numbers above 1,250. It is with these 250 or 270 that we have now to deal. The hon. Baronet, I am aware, is not satisfied with this view of the case. He thinks we have too few flag officers, and by comparing the ages of the 56 youngest of each rank in 1870 with those of all the 56 in 1873, he has persuaded himself that we have actually older officers now than then. He has also calculated that even were the Order in Council in full operation it would not produce the amount of promotion and retirement really required. Now, on this point I must trouble the House with some figures. I have taken great pains to calculate, on the basis of the numbers established by the Order in Council, what promotion may be fairly expected; and I will give roughly the result. The problem to be solved is how many retirements—the probable deaths being determined by the usual scale—will give an average promotion to each rank at the right age? I take 23 as the desirable age, on the average, for promotion to lieutenant, 32 to commander, 38 to captain, and 53 to Bear Admiral; and I assume the number of those ranks to be 600, 200, 150, and 50 respectively. Now, I assert that if 70 cadets are annually entered, the Order in Council being in full operation, the proper promotion will be secured, if 21 lieutenants, 11 commanders, 5 captains, and 5 flag officers retire annually; and that the provisions of the Orders effectually secure an average retirement to that extent. For instance, if every Rear Admiral must retire at 60, and every vice or full Admiral at 65, it is certain that out of a list of flag officers, the youngest of whom is about 53, there will average 4 compulsory retirements and 2 deaths yearly. Allowing only one optional retirement, this will give 7 captain's promotions. Again, on a list of 150 captains from 38 to 53, there will be 3 deaths annually. At the rate in 1872 and 1873, there would be 10 retirements; but taking these only at 5, we should have 15 promotions for commanders. Similarly we may anticipate 4 deaths annually in the last-named rank, and at least 11 retirements; and this would give 30 promotions from the rank of lieutenant. Again, allowing nine years for service in this rank as the average of those who obtain promotion, there will be an ample margin of officers not promoted—and we must always allow for this in the lieutenants rank—if against 60 annually promoted from sub-lieutenant we set 9 deaths out of 600, 21 retirements, and 30 promotions to commander. An annual entry of 70 cadets will barely produce 60 lieutenants a-year, so that my calculations err if anything on the side of caution. There is therefore practically no doubt that once fully in force the Orders of 1870 will ensure for the military branch what they have already given to other branches of the service—adequate promotion and retirement on liberal terms. Sir, I confess I attach great value to the maintenance of the principle of these Orders. My hon. Friend the Member for South Northumberland (Mr. Liddell) has referred to a particular case, and has said that any rule which enforced the retirement of such an officer as the hon. Baronet (Sir John Hay), must be a bad rule. I admit that the hon. Baronet's case appears a hard one. But he had been offered employment which he had declined.

SIR JOHN HAY

said, he thought it a great misfortune that personal questions were brought before the House. He had carefully omitted doing so him- self, and he extremely regretted the reference which his hon. Friend had made to his own case. He was quite prepared to explain the circumstance to which the right hon. Gentleman alluded, if the House really cared to hear it. He denied having ever declined any appointment which he could have accepted with honour, and when he did decline he referred the question to his right hon. Friend the late Member for Tyrone (Mr. Corry) and his right hon. Friend the Member for Buckinghamshire who both said that he could not accept it with honour.

MR. CHILDERS

Every man must be the judge of his own honour. The hon. Baronet does not dispute the fact of my offer of employment, and I wish to carry the controversy no further.

SIR JOHN HAY

said, he did dispute the facts. The right hon. Gentleman had alluded to two occasions—one when, happening to meet his private Secretary in 1869, he said to him—"My man is very sweet upon you; if you let me know you want employment I shall be happy to get it for you." He supposed that to be a joke. The next occasion was a year and a-half afterwards, when the retirement scheme had been carried, and when an offer of employment was made which he had referred to his right hon. Friend, who decided that the office was one which he ought not to accept.

MR. CHILDERS

I mentioned the case because my hon. Friend almost challenged me to do so, and I gave it as an illustration of the old saying about hard cases. To go back to what I was saying I trust that the sound principles we laid down will be observed, however their application in detail may vary from time to time. Do not let it be supposed that in calculating the necessary numbers, we omitted the reserve for war. We fully allowed for this, and I should greatly deplore any further extension on this account. Everything, indeed, points in the other direction, and I find myself in certain quarters blamed now for the moderation of my reductions. Indeed, the very same persons, and their organs in the Press, who attacked me in 1870 for over reducing the lists—especially the captains and lieutenants—and if I am not mistaken, threatened me with a Motion on the subject in Parliament, are now the loudest to complain that in these very lists the reductions effected are inadequate and prevent sufficient employment. Hit high or hit low, there are some forms of opposition which nothing satisfies. Let it be remembered that in these days of progress, you cannot have an efficient Navy unless they are adequately employed at sea. Just as we decided to maintain an annual rate of shipbuilding, so as to keep with the times in mechanical improvements, so we determined to compel our officers to be, throughout their service, for an adequate time at sea, so as not to fall behind in scientific knowledge and practice. It is a libel on this policy to say that economy was its first object. Our main view was the efficiency and contentment of the service; but the result has been economical. The figures which have been quoted to-night have no reference whatever to either what I promised, or to the out-turn. I have carefully compared the cost to the country of the pay, half-pay, and retired pay of naval officers in each year from 1867 until now, not omitting to allow for commutations; and I find that whereas I estimated, and informed the House in 1870, that there would be a large increase of charge during the first two years, that increase was limited to the first year, and that the net cost is now £50,000 a-year less than in 1867–8, and just the same as in 1869–70. There is, therefore, a fair margin for some further action to bring down the excessive number from 1,270 to 1,000; and I hope my right hon. Friend will not shrink from a bold measure. I repudiate, as much as any one, the notion that through the time clauses of the Orders it was intended to drive out of the service efficient officers; and as only two cases have been even alleged, I think the action of my right hon. Friend in the past is fully justified. But he will have my warm approval in any scheme inducing a further number voluntarily to retire; and I sincerely hope that he will not listen to the plan of the hon. Baronet, which would work great mischief. I thank the House for having allowed me to defend a reform, every part of which I believe to be sound in principle, and certain, when in full operation, to be cordially accepted by the opinion of the Naval Service.

MR. F. STANLEY

observed that, however sanguine the expectations of the right hon. Gentleman might be, they had before them the fact that by his own acknowledgment the hopes held out to them in 1870 had not been realized. That circumstance alone was sufficient to justify his hon. Friend's demand for an inquiry. Again, the public expenditure had not been diminished by the new scheme, as they were told it would be; on the contrary, as the right hon. Gentleman had himself shown, it had been increased by the sum of £8,000. The right hon. Gentleman said that the criticism of the scheme was different now from what it formerly was, but it should be remembered that they spoke now from experience of its working, which was also different. He intended to support the appointment of the Committee, and he regretted that its advocacy had fallen into such weak hands as his own, in consequence of the illness of his noble Friend (Lord Henry Lennox) who sat beside him.

MR. GOSCHEN

said, he felt it due to Captain Sherard Osborn to state that he accepted command on the usual terms, and only applied to be relieved of it on account of unexpected events, the Admiralty at first refusing his application, but afterwards, on the recommendation of the Commander-in-Chief, acceding to it. There was no understanding on either side that his command would be a short one. The Admiralty had now under consideration a scheme for further improving Retirement, and there was every prospect of its being carried out. They wished to reduce the lists, but they had not endeavoured to effect this by forcing officers off and refusing to employ them. As to promotion, heartburnings had always existed on account of their being so many excellent officers and so few opportunities of promoting them, and the present state of things was no worse than formerly, while the anxiety to investigate every case was as great as it had ever been. The Government were so anxious to find increased employment for the officers, if possible, and also further inducements to retire that they would accept the Amendment of the hon. Member for Hastings (Mr. Brassey), and there being no difference of opinion as to the necessity of dealing with the case of the unemployed officers, he trusted the hon. Baronet would not divide.

MR. BARNETT

said, he had been told that there were four Admirals on The Navy List for active service whose united ages amounted to 335 years. If that were true, it was necessary that some further scheme of reduction should be set on foot.

SIR JOHN HAY

offered to withdraw his Motion on the understanding that the Committee would have power to inquire why the necessity for finding additional employment for officers had arisen.

MR. GOSCHEN

declined to agree to such an understanding.

Question put.

The House divided:—Ayes 64; Noes 81: Majority 17.

Words added.

Main Question, as amended, put, and agreed to.

Ordered, That a Select Committee be appointed to consider how far Naval Officers on half-pay can be more generally employed in the Consular Service, and in the numerous appointments under the Marine Department of the Board of Trade.