Commons Sitting of 20 April 1874

MINUTES.
WAYS AND MEANS—considered in Committee—Resolution [April 28] reported.
PUBLIC BILLS—Second Reading—Game Laws (Scotland) [17], put off.
Second Reading—Referred to Select Committee—Metropolitan Buildings and Management [3].
Select Committee—Offences against the Person * [13], nominated.
Considered as amended—Game Birds (Ireland) * [37].

METROPOLITAN BUILDINGS AND MANAGEMENT ACT.
(Colonel Hogg, Mr. Grantham, Sir Henry Wolff)
METROPOLITAN BUILDINGS AND MANAGEMENT ACT.

  SECOND READING.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  COLONEL HOGG, in moving that the Bill be now read the second time, said, that no one would deny the importance of a measure which dealt with the regulation of the buildings of this vast metropolis, with the construction and management of its streets, the regulating the storing of inflammatory substances, with protection against fire, and with many other cognate matters. The object of the Bill was to extend and modify the enactments of an Act which was introduced by Lord Lincoln in 1855. It was the result of a long and careful consideration by the Metropolitan Board of Works, after consultation with numerous persons carrying on the various trades and manufactures affected by its provisions. Notwithstanding this the Board were fully aware that a Bill of this great magnitude, the details of which were of so complicated and technical a character, might be susceptible of improvement, and he was therefore prepared, as soon as it should be read a second time, to move that it be referred to a Select Committee, before which the parties who were specially affected by any of the provisions would be at liberty to be heard by counsel. The buildings of the metropolis were at present under the provisions of an Act passed in 1855 (the Metropolitan Building Act) and its subsequent Amendments; but it had been found in the working of that Act by the Board of Works that many anomalies had arisen under it. And he might here mention that it was exactly 100 years since this matter was first dealt with comprehensively by legislation—namely, in 1774. Since then the provisions of that Act had been amended and extended in accordance with the growing circumstances of the metropolis. In 1844 the Metropolitan Buildings Act was passed for the regulation and construction of buildings in the metropolis; and it repealed and re-enacted with many additions the Act of 1774; and again in 1855, as he had already mentioned, another Bill was introduced and passed by Lord Lincoln, altering to a great extent the Act of 1844. This Act was amended by further statutes in 1860

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  and 1861 and 1869. The object of the present Bill was to remove the anomalies and amend the defects of the Act of 1855. It was the opinion of the Board that many important parts of this Act required amendment, and they had therefore brought forward the present Bill which proposed to repeal the whole of the existing statutes, to re-enact such of their provisions as seemed necessary and proper. The object of the Bill was fourfold—namely, to consolidate the Building Act, with the Amendments required by experience to confer powers for the regulation and management of the streets, to make special provisions against fire, and to provide better protection for the Board in respect of sewers. He would refer at present only to the more salient provisions of the Bill. Amongst them was one of a very important character, relating to the division of houses by party walls:—it required that houses should be divided by strong party walls of adequate thickness to prevent the extension of fire. By the Act of 1855 the limitation of the cubic contents of a building was fixed at 216,000 feet; but he magistrates had decided that that amount of cubical space might be contained on each separate floor. The Bill proposed that the 216,000 feet should be extended to 300,000 feet, but that the 300,000 feet should comprise the whole building. The recent great fires in the metropolis justified, in the opinion of the Board, such an alteration—take for instance the destruction of the Steam Flour Mills in Thames Street, which was a building 250 feet in length without a single vertical division; while the recent fire at the Pantechnicon was an instance of a building of enormous dimensions with divisions which had proved totally incapable of resisting fire. With regard to the storing of inflammable substances, the buildings in which they were contained were not sufficiently safe; and the Metropolitan Board of Works required increased powers in regard both to the storage of the materials themselves and to the buildings in which they were placed. There could be no doubt that the regulation of this matter was of great importance to the security of life and property. The Bill gave the Board increased powers with reference to dangerous structures. With regard to the public streets and public places, many of which were in a state of great
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  neglect, and stood in need of legislative improvement, the Board asked for increased powers to deal with them. If Parliament granted such powers they would be able to deal with such cases as Stamford Street, where houses had been left for years in a dilapidated condition, and also Leicester Square, which had long been a disgrace to the metropolis and to compel the owners of property to put it into such proper condition as that it would not be a nuisance to the neighbourhood. Another object with regard to streets was that they should be of a width of 40 feet at least. Many owners of property were unwilling, when building streets upon it, to build them of the width of 40 feet, their object, no doubt, was to obtain the largest rental by crowding their land; but this could not be allowed in the construction of metropolitan streets. The Board also took power to enforce their regulations as to the naming of streets and numbering of houses. Then as to the district surveyors:—these were to some extent independent of the control of the Board of Works. The Bill proposed that henceforward the Board should appoint the superintending architect and district surveyors, and should frame bye-laws regulating the qualifications and examination of the persons to be appointed; the district surveyors would therefore act under the direct authority of the Board, and the Board would be directly responsible for whatever might be done under the authority of this Act. He would be quite prepared, however, if it was desired by the Institute of British Architects, to insert in the Bill the clause relating to surveyors which was contained in the Act of 1855, which intrusted to the Institute the examination of candidates for the office of district surveyor. The Board had proposed to effect this arrangement by a bye-law; but they were prepared to introduce a clause into the Bill if the Institute desired it. The Bill gave power to the Board to enforce lines of frontage, to regulate, as he had intimated, the width of the streets and to prevent encroachments upon them, and to limit the height of buildings abutting on any street or open space. It was also proposed that all duties to be performed by a magistrate under this Bill should be assigned exclusively to one of the Metropolitan Police magistrates; and power was given for the

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  appointment of two assessors, who must be architects of 15 years' standing. At present the application under the Metropolis Building Act disturbed the ordinary business of the Courts; moreover, at present there was considerable conflict between the magistrates of different Courts in respect of these matters, and the Metropolitan Board of Works thought that if one magistrate were appointed to exercise the entire jurisdiction in those matters it would secure greater uniformity in the decisions. The Bill contained a clause prohibiting the exhibition of staring advertising placards on the walls and hoardings in the public streets and thoroughfares, and also for preventing the pavements in the public streets from being made a medium for stencilled or painted advertisements. The proposal with regard to placards on the walls and hoardings had, however, excited a great deal of discussion recently in the newspapers, and earnest representations had been made to the Board that if "bill sticking" were prohibited a large number of men, upon whom their wives and children were dependent for bread, would be thrown out of employment and deprived of the means of procuring support for their families. Under those circumstances the Board thought they would not be justified in maintaining that clause in the Bill. But with regard to the stencilling on the pavements, they held that that was not exactly the place for advertisements. They would, however, leave that to the decision of the Select Committee. Objection had also been taken to the provision with respect to the heating apparatus now in use in various houses. The clause in the Bill was, however, identical with the clause in the Act of 1855, and the Board thought it better that the provision in question should go before the Committee. In conclusion, he assured the House that the Metropolitan Board did not wish in any way to interfere with the trade or manufactures of the metropolis. Their object was to give the metropolis the benefit of 18 years' experience of the working of the Act of 1855, and he was sure they would have the approval of the House in their desire that the law should be consolidated. People were expected to know the law, but how could they know it if they had to look for it now in one place and now in another? He begged to move the second reading of the Bill.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time,"—(Colonel Hogg.)
  MR. BERESFORD HOPE, on behalf of a very important body, the Royal Institute of British Architects, whom he might claim to represent in that House, there being no other member of the Society in it, said he was glad to be able to express satisfaction with a statement made by the Chairman of the Metropolitan Board. The Royal Institute represented all the architects in the Kingdom, and more particularly those resident in the metropolis. They had had for many years the useful and honourable function of examining gentlemen for the office of district surveyors, and thus, as it were, of licensing and approving them. In fact, the appointment so regulated was a sort of degree, and the gentlemen thus chosen carried with them the evidence of competency. He hoped that such power would not be taken away. The Bill, as it stood, proposed that the statutable rights of the Institute should be remitted to the uncertain provisions of a bye-law. If they were embodied in the Bill itself, the Institute would be satisfied. There were other provisions as to which the body which he represented had misgivings; but as he gathered from his hon. and gallant Friend that the Bill would be referred to a Select Committee, before which ample opportunity would be given for hearing and considering the various objections, he would not at this stage offer any opposition to the Bill. At the same time, he must point out that if the Bill had raised misgivings, its authors were responsible, from the unusual way in which they had drafted it. The old idea of a Bill was that it should appear in a form capable of at once receiving the Royal Assent. But this one began with a sort of preface of observations of an ex parte character. If this precedent obtained, he did not see why Bills should not in future be illustrated by cartoons. He would recommend the Home Secretary to avail himself of Mr. Tenniel's very able pencil for the Licensing Bill, while no doubt the hon. Member for Carlisle could obtain the services of Mr. George Cruikshank.
  MR. SAMUDAsaid, he had himself given Notice of a Motion to refer the

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  Bill to a Select Committee, and he therefore heard with satisfaction from the hon. and gallant Member for Truro (Colonel Hogg) that he himself proposed to adopt that course. The Bill had been in the hands of the public only a few days, and yet he was himself assailed by representations from the different trades and manufactures at the East end of London as to the immense mischief which would be occasioned by the provisions of the measure. His hon. and gallant Friend said that the Metropolitan Board of Works did not ask for any new and extended legislation; but if he looked more closely into the Bill he would find that it proposed most important and extensive alterations. He might almost say that if the measure were passed in its present shape it would practically banish manufactures from the metropolis. The Bill proposed to limit the cubic space of every building—now it was well known that the modern tendency of trade was to extend its operations—the Bill would enforce the manufacturers to contract their works. It was true that a clause was relied on to relieve manufacturers in cases where the Board should otherwise direct; but he would observe that it was unreasonable to expect owners of factories to submit themselves to the alternative of coming cap in hand to the Metropolitan Board for their permission, and failing to obtain it to sacrifice their power of carrying on their businesses, after having already spent large sums to enable them to do so. Then, under the words of the Bill, the Board would be enabled to interfere with the operations of the great Dock Companies. He presumed this could not be intended; it certainly could not be allowed. He thought the traders and manufacturers had not been sufficiently consulted; and speaking at the request of a great number of very important interests, he could only say that they did not admit that this Bill had been framed in accordance with their views. The Bill had clearly been framed principally, if not wholly, to avoid fires—a very desirable object, he admitted, but one that could only be entertained when proposals to restrict risk from fires were so framed as to leave the greater and more important interests of trade and manufacture free from objectionable interference fatal to their success. As to the district surveyors, they had
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  hitherto been an independent body, examined and approved by the Royal Institute of British Architects, and the traders and manufacturers of the metropolis had reliance on them. But this Bill proposed that the Metropolitan Board should be invested with power to select whom they thought proper for the office. [Colonel HOGG said, the Board intended to give way on that point.] Yes; but then the Board proposed to make regulations, regarding their examinations, by bye-laws. [Colonel HOGG: It was intended that clauses should be inserted in the Bill.] Though he would not oppose the second reading, he hoped the various interests affected by the Bill would have full opportunity of being represented by counsel or otherwise before the Select Committee, and that a certain interval between the second reading and the reference to the Select Committee would be secured by the House.
  COLONEL BERESFORDsaid, he had hoped that the "harassing legislation," on which the late Chancellor of the Exchequer prided himself, had come to an end with the last Government; but it would be difficult to find a worse specimen of that legislation than was contained in the present Bill. If the "placard" clauses had been persevered with, he should certainly have opposed the Bill. He was glad his hon. and gallant Friend had, upon that point, "surrendered at discretion," and rendered it unnecessary for him to oppose the Bill. The effect of such a provision would be to throw a number of people out of employment.
  MR. NORWOODsaid, that the Bill, unless it were greatly modified by the Select Committee, would interfere seriously to the detriment of the trade and commerce of the metropolis. However, he understood that the hon. and gallant Gentleman was willing not only to refer the Bill to a Select Committee, but also to adopt the very terms of the Amendment which he put on the Paper to insure that the various parties affected should be represented by counsel before the Committee. [Colonel HOGG intimated assent.] That being so, he would not offer any opposition to the second reading; but he trusted the Home Secretary would make it his business to see that the sanitary condition of the Metropolis was not injuriously affected by the Bill, and that the Members who were to

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  sir on the Select Committee should be properly chosen.
  MR. WATNEYsaid, that if it was necessary to legislate for the metropolis in the manner proposed by this Bill, he thought the same legislation would have to be applied to all the large towns of the country. He objected to the provision with respect to limitation of 300,000 cubic feet as the contents of any one "building," on the ground that had it been in operation before now, none of the large manufacturing or trading concerns of the metropolis could have been built. That might be easily understood, when it was considered that 300,000 was the cube of 67, and, therefore, to build a house 67 feet high, and 67 feet deep, would leave only 67 feet for frontage. He might be told there was a saving clause in the words, "unless the Board otherwise allow." But why should people have to go, cap in hand, to the Metropolitan Board for permission, as long as what they proposed to build was not detrimental to the public welfare? With regard to the provision for the erection of party walls and the other precautions against fire—looking back to the great fires that had occurred within the last few years, it had been, in his opinion, impossible to prevent some of them from spreading. Take, for instance, the great fire at London Bridge some years ago. He ventured to say that it was impossible for a considerable time to arrest the progress of that fire, fed, as it was, with oil and other inflammable matter. Then, as to fires in buildings supported by iron columns, it was found that those columns, under the action of the fire, gave way as supports, and aided by their great heat to communicate the fire to woodwork, and thus contributed to extend it. In his opinion, such results might be prevented by enclosing the iron columns in brickwork, which would effectually protect them from the action of the fire. Reference was made in the Bill by the hon. and gallant Member the Chairman of the Metropolitan Board of Works to the great fire which occurred lately at the Pantechnicon. The destruction of that building would not have been prevented had this Bill been in force. In that building there were iron doors; but they were all left open, and they were thus of no use in arresting the progress of the flames, and preventing them from
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  communicating from one room to another. In the present Bill he did not see any provision for keeping iron doors shut in buildings, and whatever legislation the Board might advise about iron doors, it would be practically impossible to see that they were kept shut. He thought that the Board should have the right of interference in the case of inflammable materials being stored, but not without. Builders were now allowed to erect sets of chambers, constituting houses, one above the other; and he could not conceive why sets of chambers over one another should not be allowed in manufacturing buildings. With regard to district surveyors, he thought they should be independent of the Board of Works, and that too much power should not be thrown into the hands of the Board; and with regard to the clause in the Bill proposing that a police-magistrate should be appointed specially to hear applications in matters to which the provisions of the Bill were intended to apply, he considered it advisable that two magistrates should be appointed for the duties. There were great objections to the clause by which timber merchants were not allowed to store timber, without placing a wall round it, and if this were to be carried into effect, their premises would have to be considerably enlarged, where there was opportunity for so doing, but where there was not, it would be impossible for them to carry on their trade; he hoped, therefore, that these clauses would be reconsidered. With respect to buildings, he thought the Metropolitan Board of Works had taken an erroneous view of their duties. What they had to do was, to take care that a building was sufficiently safe, and it was only in the case of dangerous structures that they should have the right to interfere. However, he hoped the changes proposed to be made in the Act of 1855 would prove advantageous to the public interest.
  MR. KAY-SHUTTLEWORTHsaid, he did not, intend to join in the chorus of objections to the Bill; he would rather congratulate the hon. and gallant Gentleman (Colonel Hogg) on having made an attempt to deal on an adequate scale with the Metropolitan Building Act of 1855, which was notorious for its defects—in particular it had allowed a great many houses to be built,

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  which from the beginning were unfit for human habitation. The hon. and gallant Gentleman had acted wisely in expressing his readiness to have the Bill referred to a Select Committee. There were in the Bill many clauses which bore in a very important manner upon the health of the inhabitants of London, and it seemed only natural and obvious that the Medical Officers of the vestries should have been consulted with respect to these clauses. He understood they had not been consulted, and that they objected to many provisions of the Bill; and, therefore, he hoped the Medical Officers would be heard by the Select Committee. With regard to the prevention of fires, he did not hope for very much from the Bill, because, until we had such a water supply that we could have an unlimited quantity in a few minutes, we could not do much to diminish the ravages of fires when they once broke out. It was only by enforcing constant supply, with hydrants in every street, giving a plentiful supply of water immediately, that we could hope to prevent the destructiveness of fires.
  MR. BAILLIE COCHRANEsaid, that so far from complaining of the powers asked for by the Metropolitan Board, he only wished that greater powers than those contained in the Bill had been inserted, because until we had some centralization of authority in London, it would always be the worst governed metropolis in Europe. He thought that before introducing such a Bill us this, they ought to know distinctly what the present state of things was. What were the powers of the district surveyors? The condition of the district lying between the Knights-bridge Barracks and Hyde Park Corner was perfectly disgraceful from accumulations of dirt and the effluvia from drains, which had the effect of producing fever, and of reducing the value of property in the neighbourhood. The district surveyor, it appeared, had nothing to do with the matter, and therefore he should like to know what were the powers entrusted to those surveyors. At the same time he considered the Bill was a step in the right direction.
  ALDERMAN SIR JAMES LAWRENCEsaid, the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Chairman of the Board had stated that the Bill did not interfere with the traders and manufacturers of the metro-
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  polis; but anyone who had read the provisions of the Bill must see that it would interfere most materially with some of the manufactures of London—particularly those that were carried on in the suburbs. However well adapted to streets of dwellings, it was inapplicable to wharfside premises, and it would interfere to such an extent with many businesses that it would drive them away. Because it was difficult to extinguish a fire in a large warehouse, it was provided that large warehouses were to be prohibited; and further, if an existing warehouse were altered or if a fire occurred in it, it was to be divided into a number of cells—which would prevent the proprietor continuing his trade. Warehouses such as those belonging to Messrs. Marshall and Snelgrove, Cook, Pawson, Morrison, and Leaf could not be erected in future if the Bill passed. The Bill was drawn on the same lines as one that, had been twice withdrawn in anticipation of threatened opposition; and therefore its re-introduction had taken London by surprise. Besides being inimical to trades, it was objected to by the Medical Officers of Health, and also by the Institute of British Architects; and a member of the Institute had said to him, "One cannot imagine who can have drawn a Bill which shows so much ignorance of construction." The City Architect told him that he had received no communication with reference to the Bill. If carried out in its entirety it would interfere with the employment of thousands and tens of thousands in the metropolis. As to the limitation of height to 65 feet, the common law rightly protected adjoining properties from detriment, but the proposed limitation of 65 feet was one that would not be listened to in Manchester or Liverpool. If the Bill was not materially altered in the Select Committee, he should move its rejection on the Motion for the third reading.
  MR. STEVENSONcomplained that the Bill went into matters of detail which must seriously hamper architects and builders, without securing any corresponding advantage. He objected to the limitations as to shop fronts, projecting windows, and balconies; for he much wished to see our architects do something to break the dull monotony of the London Streets. Then, as to the width of streets, it was a matter which

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  very much concerned ventilation and the free circulation of air. Instead of requiring every street, however short, to be 40 feet in width, and so compelling the erection of deep blocks of buildings, supposed to be ventilated by wells in which the air was stagnant, he believed it would be more healthy, because more conducive to the circulation of air, if we permitted shorter streets of lesser width to be opened up.
  MR. KINNAIRDhoped the Select Committee would not meet before Whitsuntide, so that there might be ample time for district surveyors and others to examine the Bill. He trusted the work of the Select Committee would prepare the way for a comprehensive measure of local government for the metropolis, which he hoped the Ministry would introduce next Session.
  MR. ASSHETON CROSSsaid, the local government of the metropolis was no doubt a large and serious question, and one which must be entertained at some time; but certainly not at present. This Bill was important in two ways—as affecting the public interest and as affecting trades and industries—it was important that the Regulations proposed by the Board of Works should be made as effective as possible in the interests of the public; and it was important that the interests connected with trade and commerce should have their case amply considered—and it would be the desire of Parliament to get out of any legislation the maximum of public benefit with the minimum of inconvenience and disturbance to private interests. He would not enter into any of the details referred to by hon. Members in the course of this discussion—except to make one observation on the question of fire. The object of some of the provisions of the Bill was to diminish the frequency and, perhaps, also the extent of fires; but he could not help saying he hoped that at some time provision would be made for a more plentiful supply of water to the metropolis. The existing regulations were lamentably inefficient, and before long the matter must attract the serious attention of Parliament. As to the important clause providing for the appointment of a special police magistrate to deal with the questions that would arise under the operation of the Bill, he was inclined to think that justice was better administered by a magistrate dealing
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  with all classes of cases that might be brought before him, and that a Judge, however well intentioned, in dealing with a special class of cases, was apt to get into a groove. He should object also to the peculiar way in which the magistrate was proposed to be paid—a way which interfered with the application of fines and penalties, and took them out of their usual channels. This clause ought not to become law without attracting the serious attention of the Government and of the House. Undoubtedly the Bill ought to be referred to a Select Committee, and to a carefully appointed one; and it was his intention to propose that six members should be appointed by the House, three to represent the Metropolitan Board, and three to represent the trades affected, and that five members should be appointed by the Committee of Selection. It was also desirable that the Motion which stood on the Paper in the name of the hon. Member for Hull (Mr. Norwood) should be adopted, so that those who would be affected by the Bill should have the opportunity of appearing by counsel before the Committee. The Medical Officers of Health ought also to be heard with reference to the sanitary provisions of the Bill. The Bill was brought in on the 20th of March, and ordered to be printed on that day; and it was delivered on the 1st of April. If counsel were to be heard, the Committee would have to sit some time; and if it did not meet until after Whitsuntide the effect would be to postpone legislation and lose the work which had been done. He therefore proposed that the Committee should sit in a fortnight, which would give time to those interested to prepare the cases they wished to present to the Committee, and would give the Bill a chance of passing this Session.
  MR. GOSCHENthought the proposals of the right hon. Gentleman were fair, and would give satisfaction to those whose interests were affected. He must also express his satisfaction at the withdrawal of the clauses relating to advertisements, which had caused great-consternation. It would have been a bad return for the great obligations hon. Members were under to the bill-stickers to have harassed that useful interest at present.
  Motion agreed to;—Bill read a second time.
  MR. ASSHETON CROSS MR. ASSHETON CROSS moved that the Bill be referred to a Select Committee.
  COLONEL HOGGsaid, the Bill had been in the hands of hon. Members 29 days; and, if a fortnight were allowed before the Select Committee met, he hoped there would be no further delay. He had brought it in with an earnest desire to pass it this Session. He had no reason to complain of the manner in which the Bill had been received. The district surveyors had to do with buildings only, and therefore had nothing to do with the condition of the sewers in Belgravia, complained of by the hon. Member for the Isle of Wight, about which complaint should be made to the Inspector of Nuisances of the vestry. The City was represented at the Metropolitan Board by three members, one an architect, who had taken much interest in this Bill; and, therefore the City could not plead surprise. Streets of 40 feet width were as narrow as could be sanctioned for public traffic. The hon. Baronet the Member for Lambeth (Alderman Sir James Lawrence) complained that the trades of London had not been consulted; but the fact was a variety of trades had been requested by the Board several years ago to state their objections to the Bill in detail. They had been heard vivá voce against several clauses, and all their objections had been duly considered.
  Motion agreed to.
  Bill committed to a Select Committee of Eleven Members, Six to be nominated by the House, and Five to be nominated by the Committee of Selection.
  Ordered, That all Petitions presented against the Bill during the present Session be referred to the Committee; and that such of the Petitioners as pray to be heard by themselves, their Counsel, or Agents be heard upon their Petitions, if they think fit, and Counsel heard in favour of the Bill against the said Petitions:—Power to send for persons, papers, and records: five to be the quorum.

GAME LAWS (SCOTLAND) BILL.
(Mr. M'Lagan, Sir Edward Colebrooke, Mr. Orr Ewing, Mr. Maitland.)
GAME LAWS (SCOTLAND) BILL.

  [BILL 17.] SECOND READING.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  MR. M'LAGAN, in moving the second reading of the Bill, said: Mr. Speaker,—An apology is scarcely necessary from me for having introduced so early in
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  this Parliament the question of the game laws, for it is ripe for legislation. Four Sessions during the last 25 years have been occupied by the labours of two Select Committees appointed to investigate this subject. Part of another Session was spent in trying to make amendments on Bills and propositions before the House. In almost every Session of the last Parliament the subject of the game laws was discussed, and in one year no fewer than seven or eight different measures were brought forward. Not only has the subject been agitated throughout the country, but nearly every Chamber of Agriculture has expressed an opinion as to what amendments on the existing laws relating to game are necessary in order to effect a settlement of this vexed question. Therefore, I am fully warranted in saying that it is ripe for legislation. It would have been desirable to make the Bill applicable to England, Scotland, and Ireland. I framed it with that view, and I was promised the assistance of the Members for Norfolk and Leicestershire, who so well understood the practical parts of the question. An hon. Member from Ireland also offered his aid to enable me to carry out my original aim; but the suddenness of the Dissolution of Parliament, and other causes, have forced upon me the necessity of confining the Bill to the game laws of Scotland alone. There are three interests which must be taken into account in dealing with the game laws—namely, those of the landlord, of the tenant, and of the community at large. The landlord is affected in so far as the game laws protect his property against trespassers, and also protect certain wild animals which add to the value of his estate. The farmer is affected in so far as he is interested in the protection of his crops, alike from trespassers and from the depredations of game. The general public; are affected by the increase of crime which is annually committed under the Game Acts. The present game statutes affect all these interests in one way or another, and I have endeavoured, in framing this Bill, to give equal weight and consideration to each. The first and fourth parts of the measure are devoted to these three interests, the second part deals with the relations of landlord and tenant, and the third part fixes the machinery by which the provisions of the Bill are to be carried out. Some of

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  the witnesses who were examined before the Committee which sat in 1872 and 1873 recommended that the game laws should he abolished entirely; but, on being cross-examined, most of these gentlemen were obliged to admit that if the game laws were abolished it would be necessary to have a more stringent law of trespass than now exists. Official documents show that there is scarcely a country in Europe or America, from despotic Russia to the Republican United States, which has not a law of trespass. In the United States, 27 out of 34 of the States have a game law, or what is very like it a stringent law of trespass. In 1848 the game laws were abolished in Prussia and other German States, but so great was the amount of damage clone to landed property that it was found necessary to re-impose the game laws, or a very stringent law of trespass. A few of the witnesses examined before the Committee to which I have referred, also recommended that an inalienable concurrent right should be given to the landlord and tenant to shoot game. What would be the result of such a measure? If the landlord and tenant chose to exercise the rights the Legislature gave them, the result would be the extermination of winged and ground game. If, on the other hand, the landlord wished to reserve the game to him-self, he would easily manage to do so by some stipulations in the lease. Or they might both enter into a contract whereby the game might be increased to such an extent as to inflict a great deal of loss and damage upon the country. Such a measure would be quite ineffectual to secure the end in view. As an illustration, I may mention that one witness informed the Committee that he had full power under his lease to kill rabbits on Iris farm, but he did not exorcise it for fear of giving offence to the gamekeeper and the landlord, and the consequence was that his crops were so eaten up by game that he was compelled to remove to another part of the country. Another recommendation was that hares and rabbits should be taken out of the game list. That was no novel suggestion, for as far back as in the Committee of 1845, high authorities, such as the late Mr. Pusey and Sir Harry Verney, bore testimony that ground game was incompatible with good farming and the preservation
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  of crops. And almost every Chamber of Agriculture has approved of this suggestion. I propose that hares and rabbits should be taken out of the game list, and I justify that by the benefit which would be conferred on the farmers and on the community at large. First, as regards the farmers; the great cause of their dissatisfaction with the game laws is the damage done to their crops by the ground game; reduce the numbers of these, and the complaints from the tenants will be less frequent. Then as regards the community; the 10,000 convictions which take place annually under the Game Acts form an amount of crime which may well arrest the attention of every legislator and social reformer. If you trace the career of a poacher to its origin, you will find that the first criminal act he committed was the taking of a hare or rabbit, and that he did so without thinking for a moment he was doing anything wrong. A man may be walking across a field when a hare or a rabbit starts up. He catches and kills it—is seized by the gamekeeper, who was watching him all the time, and is convicted and fined. If unable to pay the fine, he is thrown into prison, where he becomes contaminated by the bad characters with whom he comes in contact. He leaves prison with a complete loss of self respect, and the degradation he has suffered leads him to commit other offences, so that a downward career which began with the simple taking of a hare or rabbit may terminate on the gallows. Let us ask ourselves whether, in passing Acts which are at variance with the moral sense of the community, and tend to increase crime, legislators are not more culpable than the men who break the law? One objection which has been made against the Bill is that it would lead to an increase of trespass, and also to the extermination of hares and rabbits. Now, what is the Scotch law of trespass? Two lawyers—Mr. Murray, of Edinburgh, and Sheriff Barclay, have explained the law to mean this—If you find a man trespassing on your property, and you warn him off, if he does not leave you can use violence to compel him, and can also make hint pay damages. If, therefore, the law has any effect in preventing poaching, my Bill will provide all that is necessary. For I retain all the pro-

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  visions against trespassing in pursuit of winged game, and if by the present law you can apprehend a man trespassing under suspicious circumstances you can equally do so under these provisions of my Bill. As regards extermination, the object of the Bill is to reduce the number of hares and rabbits, but not to exterminate them; and if we do not reduce the number of these animals in the country, we will never settle this question. Clause 10 of the Bill provides that anyone wishing to preserve hares and rabbits can do so by enclosing the land in such a way as to prevent egress, after giving due notice and taking out a licence. I insert that provision because I do not see why a proprietor should be debarred from preserving ground game so long as he does not thereby interfere with the rights and property of his neighbours, any more than a man who cultivates turnips and carrots should be prohibited from also cultivating roses and other flowers. I should like here to say a word on another branch of the subject. I believe there has been a great deal of exaggeration in the statements made respecting the evils of deer forests. Some statistics were given in evidence before the Committee last year as to the number of sheep displaced by deer, and it was found that the annual produce of this number only amounted to something like one day's consumption of butchers' moat in the country, while a mere fractional difference was caused in price, even though the venison, and the live animals, and meat imported were not taken into account in estimating the difference. The next point has reference to the jurisdiction of the Justices of the Peace. The Bill provides that all offences under the game laws should be transferred from the jurisdiction of the Justices of the Peace to that of the Sheriff. In making this proposition, I do not wish to cast the slightest reflection upon the Justices. I believe that no body of gentlemen discharge their duties more conscientiously than the Justices do; but still it is necessary that those who administer our laws should be above suspicion. Now in this matter, that cannot be said to be the case. Many people believe that they have a right to kill hares or rabbits and they do not think that a proprietor has any more right to the wild animals on
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  his property than they have. And it does not tend to increase the confidence which a man should have in our laws when he finds that poachers are tried by a bench of Justices, most of whom are notorious game preservers. We are all apt to have our judgments warped by prejudice. And as Sheriff Barclay very clearly put it—"there is in connection with sport an exceedingly keen and strong feeling to increase game, and to punish the destroyer of it." which is very apt to bias a sportsman; and most country gentlemen are sports-men, from among whom the country Justices are selected. I have the less hesitation in suggesting the transference of the jurisdiction from the Justices to the Sheriff as the Legislature has already in about a dozen Acts of Parliament guarded the administration of them even from suspicion. For instance, under the Bread Act, no miller or baker can act as a Justice; under the Mutiny Act, no military officer, in billeting soldiers; under the Factory Act, no occupier, or father, son, or brother of an occupier of a factory; under the Salmon Fishing Act, no fishing proprietors; under the Licensing Act, no brewer, maltster, distiller, or retailer of excisable liquors; under the Mine Acts, no coal master or tenant of coal works; no road trustee, in an appeal to quarter sessions from a meeting of road trustees of which he is a member; no solicitor, or procurator, or partner of any such, in any matter whatever falling under the jurisdiction of Justices. Another provision in the first part of the Bill gives protection by a close time, and makes it an offence to kill game within dates specified in the fourth clause; and here I may remark that a mistake has crept in, and that the dates of close time ought to be from the 1st February to the 12th August following. Then comes the clause for the protection of eggs of game, and protection against trespassers in pursuit of game, and protection against the poisoning of game. The next portion of the Bill which commends itself to our attention is that affecting the relation between landlord and tenant as regards game. By the present law of Scotland a tenant has a right to kill game unless there is an agreement to the contrary; but notwithstanding this provision, most landlords reserve the game to themselves. By the law of England the tenant has

  1363
  the right to the game unless reserved by the landlord, which is more in accordance with the principle of justice, for it is just that he should have a right to the game on whose crops it feeds. But it is a matter of little importance in practice who has the right to the game, as most landlords in England and Scotland reserve it. There are certain conditions attached to this alteration of the law. First, existing leases are not affected by it. Second, if the landlord docs not reserve the light of killing the game, the tenant cannot, assign it to any other party without the landlord's consent. Third, if the landlord reserves the game he must state in the lease the value he attaches to it. This proposition was specially suggested to me by the discussion on the rating of game when the rating liability was under discussion. In England it matters not what the rent may be; the tenant is not assessed upon that, but upon the general annual value of the land, and if that has been deteriorated by over-preservation of game, the tenant would have recourse under that Bill to a means of recovery of the difference between the value of the land and that to which it had been deteriorated by over-preservation of game. In Scotland we are assessed upon the actual rent paid which is mentioned in the lease. Certain landlords have been accustomed to make special agreements with the tenant—that is, they will reserve the game, and will allow a certain sum to the tenant on condition that he shall preserve the game; and I know some instances where a tenant has got a reduction of his rent to the extent of 2s. per acre, and sometimes more, these 2s. per acre being deducted from the agricultural value. This reduced rent is mentioned in the lease, and is the sum on which the assessment is laid; and then the landlord and tenant do not pay then-fair share of the rate, and the other ratepayers are compelled to pay more than their share. This provision will do away with the injustice to the public. This provision has another advantage. In the 14th clause there is a provision that if the landlord who reserves the game does not keep it down to what may be considered a fair and reasonable extent, he shall be liable to the tenant for any excess of damage done. Now, the great difficulty in such a case would be to say what was a fair and reasonable
  1364
  amount of game. In this case a fair and reasonable amount of game would be estimated by the value of it stated in the lease, and which was mutually agreed on by landlord and tenant. The fourth condition which I attach to the alteration or assimilation of the law is that if any landlord wishes to let tin-game, he shall give the first offer of it to the tenant at the value he puts on the game in his lease. I never heard of any tenant complaining of a landlord shooting over his farm, and I never met a farmer who did not complain of the sporting tenant. The landlord has sympathy with the tenant. He takes care that the fences are not destroyed by over-preservation. The sporting tenant, on the other hand, pays a good rent for the game, and tries to recoup himself by over-preservation; and the result is the destruction of fences and crops. I think, therefore, we should do away with the dissatisfaction of the tenant on this point, if we were to provide that the landlord, if he let the game at all, should give the tenant the first offer of it. I know there is some objection to this, and that while game might be kept down on some farms, it might be preserved to a great extent on a farm in the middle of an estate. I shall be glad if any remedy can be suggested for injury that might occur in such a case. Another part of the Bill is that which deals with compensation for damages. The principal point of it is that no landlord shall be entitled to bring an action against his tenant after three months from the time when the breach of contract has taken place; and that no tenant should be at liberty to bring an action against the landlord unless he gives three weeks, notice of his intention to do so before the crop is taken off the ground. In Clause 14 I have stated, that if there has been any agreement between the landlord and tenant after hares and rabbits have been taken out of the game-list, the tenant should be entitled to be recouped for an excess of damages. I know that objection has been taken to this, and that it has been said, "If you take hares and rabbits out of the game-lists, why make the landlord pay afterwards?" My reason is this. I find that after the agitation of the subject, various landlords have been stipulating for the reservation of game "and hares and rab-

  1365
  bits" to themselves, and if that be so. I think it is absolutely necessary that the landlord shall still be liable for damages. In Clauses 15 and 161 allow the landlord to have an action against the tenant for breach of contract, but in the consideration of that I prohibit him from exercising the right of interdict. That is to say, if the tenant goes shooting over his land when there is an excess of game, the landlord should not have the right of interdicting him. That clause is not my own. I took it from a Bill which met with great favour in the late House of Commons. That Bill was introduced by the late Lord Advocate, and met with considerable acceptance by the House. Some object to the clause, some think it a good part of the Bill, and some think it arbitrary. For my own part, I think it very hard that landlords, in spite of contracts, will persist in preserving game to a greater extent than was intended. It is only in such cases that the power given by this Bill will be exercised, and it is only in such cases that we would prevent the landlord from exercising his right at law. The other provisions are very simple. They refer to the settlements of disputes by arbitration. If the parties cannot agree, the case shall be referred to the Sheriff, who shall have it in his power to appoint a man to inquire into the matter and report to him, and the decision of the Sheriff shall be final. There shall be no appeal from him to the Court of Session. The last clause of the Bill refers to deer forests. Though I have introduced into the Bill a provision for putting up deer fences by the owner or tenant of a deer forest, if required by the lessee of the adjoining agricultural or sheep farm, I have at the same time, allowed the alternative of a sheep fence, which would prevent sheep from trespassing in the deer forests. In Committee last year, the farmers complained very much, not so mush that the deer came out, as that the sheep trespassing in the forest were hounded out by the keepers' dogs. They would be satisfied if the owners of deer forests would put up sheep fences, and I am glad to say that the owners of forests who are in this House, all have said that it is quite reasonable, and they are prepared to do it themselves. There are other provisions which I should think it necessary to introduce into this Bill, and I will assure hon. Gentlemen on both
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  sides of the House that if the Bill is allowed to go into Committee, I shall be willing to listen to any suggestions for improvement from either side of the House. It is impossible that you can get every man to agree to all its provisions. I was quite prepared to find that a number of hon. Members are opposed to the Bill generally, but I am quite prepared to listen to any Amendment from them when we get into Committee. Several other provisions might be introduced in Committee. For instance, the noble Lord the Member for East Suffolk moved a Resolution, which was only lost by the casting vote of the Chairman—namely, that any one selling game should take out a licence for doing so. And another useful suggestion has been made to me—namely, that game-dealers should keep a book, in which they should enter the names and addresses of all those from whom they purchase game, and which book should be open to inspection. We have a precedent for this in the Pawnbrokers' Act a similar provision in which has had the effect of increasing the facilities for detecting crime. In the Committee last year we had two divisions on what I may call the main points of this Bill. One division took place on the Amendment of the hon. Member for Leicestershire; and it was this—that rabbits should be struck out of the game list. That Amendment was carried by 11 to 7. The hon. Member for Norfolk moved that hares should be included in that Amendment; but on a division the proposal was defeated by 10 to 8, still showing that the opinion of the Committee was strongly in favour of taking hares and rabbits out of the game list. It must not be supposed that I am propounding any new principle. The main proposal is that hares and rabbits should be taken out of the game lists. The first time that was proposed was in 1867, when the hon. Member for Perthshire did me the honour of putting his name on the back of the Bill I then introduced. Hon. Members on the opposite side of the House have therefore heard of this proposal before. I trust that in the remarks I have made I have said nothing that would tend to provoke any bad feeling or increase the bitterness which unfortunately prevails in many parts of the country on this much vexed question. I have endeavoured to steer clear,

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  and I am convinced: from what I have heard, that those who oppose this Bill will not pursue a different course. Great courtesy was shown by the Mover of the Amendment in giving me notice of his intention, even before the Bill was tabled. If in my remarks I have said anything to remove his objections—if he considers that there are any good points in the Bill, I would put it to him whether he would not obtain his object as well by allowing the Bill to be read a second time, and move in Committee any Amendments he wishes, and which I should be glad to consider. I can assure the House that I feel the sooner this question is settled the better, because I am convinced that if a moderate measure is not accepted, the House will soon have to consider a much larger scheme. I thank the House for allowing me to detain them, so long, and I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
  Motion made and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Mr. M'Lagan.)
  MR. ASSHETON CROSS: I must apologize to the House for rising so early in the debate and interposing between the hon. and gallant Gentleman 'Colonel Alexander), who has given Notice of an Amendment; but as I am obliged to leave the House on other business, I think it only right that the House should know what the views of the Government are before I am called away. I may state at the outset that no one feels more than I do the great attention which the hon. Gentleman (Mr. M'Lagan) has given to this important subject. He was a Member of the Select Committee which inquired into this subject last year, and no one on that Committee took a more active and useful part. It was essential that the Committee should obtain full information as to the law of Scotland on this subject, in order that it might be considered in relation, not to the case of England alone, but in relation to the whole United Kingdom. I must, however, state that the Government feel compelled to oppose the measure he has brought in, and for the reasons which I will now give. In the first place this question of the game laws affects the whole of the United Kingdom, and not Scotland alone; whereas the provisions of this Bill are restricted to Scotland
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  alone, and that involves the objection that it makes the law of Scotland differ still more widely from that of England, instead of following the recommendation of the Committee to make the law of Scotland assimilate to that of England. A still greater objection to the Bill consists in the sweeping character of the measure as declared in Clause 4, for that clause repeals all statutes, laws, and usages relating to the protection of game, or of any wild animal classed or named in any Act of Parliament along with any game, as defined in the Bill, with a view to its protection, which may now be in force in Scotland. That is undoubtedly a sweeping proposition, and is one of the largest measures to be in the hands of a private Member which I ever knew laid on the Table of this House. I may say, further, that in order to carry such a measure at the hands of a private Member a considerable amount of justification would be required. I must say, further, that even should the Bill be accepted by the House it would not be a settlement of the case. It is clear that this Bill is not, and cannot be, a settlement. We have a Bill by another private Member dealing with the same subject in an entirely opposite spirit. If this Bill should pass—as I hope it will not—we shall have another Bill brought in and then the House would discover that it had satisfied nobody—that it had unsettled everything and settled nothing. If the hon. Gentleman will look at the scope of this Bill. I think he will see why it is that it settles nothing. In the first place, those who advocate the total abolition of the game laws cannot be expected to be satisfied by this Bill, for it contains stringent regulations for the protection of game; therefore they would remain unsatisfied. Those who take the opposite view of the case, and wish game to be preserved, would be equally unsatisfied, because, although it is true that there are provisions for protecting certain game, yet while hares and rabbits are taken out of the game list, the question of trespass is left undealt with. The hon. Member proposes, no doubt, to make the law of trespass more stringent with regard to winged game; but hares and rabbits having been taken out of the list, the Bill goes directly in the teeth of the recommendation of the Committee, that if hares and rabbits were taken out

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  there must be a more stringent law. This is the fatal objection which the Government take—that hares and rabbits are taken out of the game list; yet the land is left totally unprotected in regard to trespass committed in pursuit of hares and rabbits. I believe that if the Bill were passed into law the persons first to cry out against its operation would be, not the landlords, but the tenants. If Parliament throws open the land to all persons who may come upon it to shoot hares and rabbits—which will then be regarded as vermin—you cannot but expect there will be plenty to overrun the land when they know they cannot be punished for doing so. The damage to the crops that will then take place will really be due to our action in passing this Bill. The hon. Gentleman (Mr. M'Lagan) says there are provisions which would do away with that, by making the sellers of game subject to licence and registration. But if hares and rabbits are no longer game, no trespass could take place in respect to them, and therefore no protection would be afforded in this way. These are the objections we have; and we say that if any private Member of this House brings forward a Bill on the game laws, he must deal not only with part of the subject, but with the whole of it—he must not only protect the tenant from the ravages of an excessive quantity of game, but he must protect both the landlord and tenant from damages done by trespassers. When we come to the question of night trespass—which is dealt with by the 9th section—I have always understood the law, not of England only, but of Scotland also, to be that persons who go out armed late tit night really do not come under the game laws at all, but that the penalties of the law are directed against persons who go out armed in such a way as is likely to lead to a breach of the peace, and are not game laws but peace preservation laws. I believe that is the view that all learned Judges have taken of this law. Why treat as belonging to game what should be treated as a matter for the preservation of the public peace? But if hares and rabbits are taken out of the game laws, and are left at the mercy of whoever chooses to pursue them, night poachers will still go out in large numbers—and the same breaches of the peace will take place as at the present
  1370
  moment—without being liable to the penalties provided for the infraction of the game laws. I will not go further into the details of the Bill. Some of its provisions may be good; but the Government object to the vital principles of the measure, and I trust the House will not agree to the second reading.
  COLONEL ALEXANDER: We have been told, Sir, on high authority, no less than that of the hon. and learned Member for Denbighshire (Mr. Osborne Morgan), that speeches in this House are frequently intended for others than those who actually listen to them, and without entirely subscribing to that doctrine, I may say there are circumstances which will not allow me to give a silent vote on this occasion, and which compel me to state the course which I feel it my duty to pursue in connection with the second reading of this Bill. For, Sir, inexperienced as I am in the forms and procedure of this House, I cannot conceal from myself, and I think many hon. Members will acknowledge the substantial accuracy of my assertion, that a practice is beginning to obtain—a practice, I venture to think, by no means to be commended—of voting for the second reading of a Bill, not because its principle is approved, but—and I do not say this in any offensive sense—in order to save appearances and to avoid the imputation of hostility to reforms which the Bill may attempt, though indeed vainly, to promote. In short, Sir, to adopt the expressive language of the right hon. Gentleman at the head of Her Majesty's Government on another occasion, hon. Members, and especially Scotch hon. Members, are "very nervous" on the game question. I myself own to some degree of trepidation, for when I was canvassing the constituency which I have the honour to represent—not at the last, but at the penultimate General Election—a rabbit, I think, was brought in on a pole, and some attempt was made to establish a mysterious connection between that interesting animal and the right hon. Gentleman the present First Minister of the Crown. But, Sir, I cannot admit the claim of hon. Gentlemen opposite to a monopoly in this question: it is not a party question, and, moreover, ought never to be made a party question. Hon. Gentlemen sitting on these benches are quite as much interested as hon. Gentlemen opposite

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  in the welfare of the agricultural classes, and in promoting that good fooling between landlord and tenant at which all legislation ought to aim, but which the Bill now before the House will, as I venture to think, and as I shall presently attempt to show, entirely fail to secure. The first question we have to ask ourselves is—Does any grievance exist? Sir, I have no hesitation in answering that question in the affirmative—not relying on my own unassisted observation, which in such a matter I should be inclined to distrust, but on the Report of the Select Committee of this House, over which the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Admiralty last year presided, and of which the hon. Member For Linlithgowshire, the father of this Bill, was a member. That Committee, after examining 1 Scotch gentleman learned in the law, 18 Scotch tenant-farmers, 10 Scotch proprietors, 2 Scotch chief constables, 2 lessees of shootings in Scotland, 1 Scotch game dealer, 2 Scotch factors, 2 Scotch legal officials, and 1 Scotch forester, drew up a most exhaustive Report, in which they say, "they have found that in Scotland a much stronger feeling has been evoked by the preservation of game than in England." And why? Because, they add, "this is partly due to the excessive preservation of ground game on certain largo estates, and to the sale of the game from those estates." Sir, we may judge how excessive the preservation of ground game must be when we read that the number of hares and rabbits produced in the United Kingdom is about 30,000,000 annually; and although, doubtless, they supply about 40,000 tons of food, still, as the Committee observe—
  "These can be no question that the existence of a large number of haves and rabbits upon an arable form is most prejudicial to its profitable occupation, and your Committee cannot too Strongly reprobate the practice of some landlords and their shooting tenants of keeping up a large stock of those animals on cultivated lands, to the injury of the crops of the farming tenants."
  But, if I wanted further proof of the existence of a grievance, I should find it in the crop of Game Bills which annually flourish so luxuriantly in this House. Admitted, then, the grievance, where are we to look for a remedy? Sir, if I could find it within the four corners of this Bill I would not say one word in
  1372
  deprecation of its provisions. But does the hon. Member for Linlithgowshire believe—does my hon. Friend the Member for Dumbartonshire believe—does any hon. Member whose name is on the back of the Bill believe—that if it becomes law the irritation on the question will subside, and that its annual ventilation in this House will be permitted to drop? Without pretending to the gift of second sight, I venture confidently to predict that when, Sir, at the beginning of next Session you take the Chair of this House, the hon. Member for Forfarshire will give Notice of his intention, on an early day, to move for leave to bring in a Bill to amend the law relating to wild animals in Scotland. Sir, I turn to Clause 4 of this Bill, and perhaps it will be ungracious in me to make any comment upon it after what has been said by the hon. Member for Linlithgowshire. He says the dates contained therein are a mistake, and may be amended in Committee. The clause makes it an offence to destroy game, other than partridges, pheasants, and grouse, between the 10th day of December and the 12th day of August following. I must say that when I looked at the birds comprised in the term game—including woodcocks, snipes, and the varieties of wild ducks—I certainly was astonished. I was under the impression—though if this clause is right my impression was wrong—that those birds were at their very best during the months of December and January. But, as the hon. Member says he will amend this clause in Committee, I will not say anything further on the point except that as the Bill has been reprinted since the beginning of the Session, I think it would have been as well had such a glaring error not appeared in it. But while talking of Committee, I may say I have heard that it is the intention of many hon. Members, I will not say on which side of the House they sit, to allow this Bill to go into Committee and there endeavour to emasculate it. I do venture to hope the House will not allow these hon. Members to indulge in such a caprice, and will not suffer its valuable time to be wasted by endeavours in Committee to mould an unworkable Bill into shape. Let those hon. Gentlemen rise in their places to-day—there is plenty of time between this and a quarter to six—and stating openly their opinions on the subject, let

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  them vote "Aye" or "No" on this Motion. Sir, Clause 10 of the Bill appears to be principally devised in the interests of proprietors of newspapers and sheriffs' clerks, for under it anyone wishing to have; a deer park or warren must register it annually, paying to the sheriff's clerk a fee of 10s. for such registration, and must thereafter advertise once a week for four successive weeks, the fact of such registration each year in each of such newspapers as are published in the county, and as if that was not enough, he must further put up, and maintain, in not less than two conspicuous places on the land enclosed, notice that the land is thus registered. But if this clause confers a benefit on newspapers and sheriffs' clerks, the next, Clause 11, appears to be conceived, not directly perhaps, but indirectly, in the interest of the poacher; for although by it any person having the right to kill game may require a person trespassing in pursuit of game to quit the land, and if he refuse to give his name to apprehend him—that is to say if he can—a matter not always so easy perhaps as the authors of this Bill imagine—such person may always plead that he is not in pursuit of game but of wild animals not protected by the Bill; and I must say that I think this very extratraordinary, for on turning to the draft report proposed by the hon. Gentleman opposite last year in the Committee of which he was a Member, a cheap and summary process of injunction or interdict against the trespasser in the Sheriff's Small Debt Court similar to that suggested by Mr. Hector, sheriff's clerk of Renfrewshire, was specially recommended. You thus abolish, not in favour of the tenant farmer, but of the poacher, what has been well termed "a discriminating law of trespass." Clause 13 provides that the right of killing and taking game shall not be effectually reserved by a lessor unless the lease set forth the annual value of the right so reserved. Now, I venture to think the House will be of opinion that this clause is both objectionable and unworkable. For supposing the game on an estate to be worth £200 a-year, how is the value to be apportioned to each of the farms of which it is composed? Besides the value of game would not remain the same during the whole currency of a lease. Then, again, the same clause
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  precludes a lessor, who has reserved the right to the game, from letting it to any other person unless he shall first offer it to the lessee at a rent equal to the annual value as specified in the lease, and thus one tenant would have it in his power to destroy the letting value of an estate. Although the hon. Gentleman opposite has, it is true, offered to amend this clause, it would be much better not to allow a Bill requiring so many Amendments to go into Committee at all. Clause 14 provides that a lessor, who has reserved to himself—subject, of course, as I have already shown, to the superior right of the poacher—the exclusive right of killing game and wild animals, must be presumed to keep down the stock of game and wild animals on the farm to such an extent as shall be "fair and reasonable." But who is to define what is fair and reasonable? for what may appear so to one party may appear very unfair and very unreasonable to the other. Then, Sir, although Clause 15 makes a lessee who kills game or wild animals contrary to the terms of his contract with the lessor liable to damage. Clause 16 does not allow him to enforce the contract by injunction or interdict. Sir, a contract is either legal or illegal; if legal every facility should be given for enforcing it; if illegal it should not be enforced at all. This is an attempt to destroy freedom of contract by a side wind—
  "Letting I dare not, wait upon I would,"
  Sir, I will not pursue further the various clauses of this Bill. A few of them are doubtless good, but they are more than counterbalanced by those to which I have alluded. The capital error of the Bill is, as I have shown, that it is conceived more in the interest of the poacher than of the tenant farmer. It is another of those Bills which only touch the fringe of a great question; and I venture to think the House does not want Bills which only touch the fringe of great questions. Sir, I ask myself, will the hon. Member for Leicester vote for this Bill? He would apply, I think, a more drastic remedy. He has placed it on record that he considers a hare quite as bad as a Bengal tiger, and he is therefore perfectly consistent in demanding the extermination of the noxious animal. Will the hon. Member for Forfarshire support this Bill? If he votes for it he

  1375
  must certainly abandon his own. At any rate I claim the vote of the hon. and gallant General opposite, for I have heard that many of the farmers in Kincardineshire hold a meeting and rejected the Bill without even looking at its provisions. A few were in favour of the Bill of the hon. Member for Forfarshire, but the greater number preferred that of the hon. Member for Leicester. The fact is, Sir, Her Majesty's Government ran alone grapple successfully with this subject, and I must confess to some little feeling of disappointment that the right hon. Gentleman sitting below me did not express his intention of initiating next year legislation on the question. I had hoped the right hon. Gentleman the first Lord of the Admiralty, who presided over the Committee last year would have introduced a Bill, but he has now other fish to fry. Sir, we want a responsible Minister for Scotland, and till we have one, I am convinced that Scotch business will never be satisfactorily transacted in this House. The hon. Gentleman the senior Member for Glasgow stated, I think, the other day, that the late Government had to a certain extent at least neglected the interests of Scotland. Now, I must say the hon. Member was scarcely justified in his strictures, for no Government could I am sure be guilty of such huge ingratitude. Of the Scottish Liberal representation in the late Parliament, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Greenwich might surely say—
  "Mearum
  Grande decus columenque rerum."
  "Among the faithless, faithful only they."
  Sir, I do not impute systematic neglect of Scotch interests to the late or another Administration, but I do say that those interests are so complex and so multifarious that it would tax to the utmost even the great powers of the learned Lord Advocate and the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State to grapple with them successfully. Sir, I respectfully commend this question to the attention of the right hon. Gentleman at the head of Her Majesty's Government. I am sure he would earn the lasting gratitude of the people of Scotland by recommending to Her Majesty the appointment of a Minister for the management of business, exclusively Scotch; but pending the consummation of that happy event, I have a sugges-
  1376
  tion to make, and it is, that my hon. Friend the Member for Invernesshire should undertake the duty, for which, indeed, he is so well qualified, of introducing a Bill next Session on this subject. Sir, it is not because I am opposed to legislation, but because I deprecate crude and ill-considered legislation—unsettling everything, and settling nothing—because I seek a solution of a thorny and complex question, and because I do not find that solution within the limits of this Bill, I feel constrained, though assuredly not without regret, to move that it be read a second time on this day six months.
  SIR WILLIAM EDMONSTONEsaid, that as another Scotch County Member, he begged to second the Amendment which had just been proposed by his hon. and gallant Friend. At the same time, he desired to express his thanks to the hon. Member for Linlithgowshire (Mr. M'Lagan) for attempting to settle a question which at the last election in Scotland stood very often—he was speaking for himself—like a hon in the path, and it was high time it should be settled. The great recommendation of the hon. Gentleman's Bill was that it was the most moderate Game Bill that had been submitted to the House, but the question was one which it would not do to tinker; and, therefore, as the Bill would not permanently settle the question, he thought it would be better to reject it altogether. The desire of himself and his friends was to protect their tenants from damage being done to their crops by hares and rabbits. But, at the same time, they desired that the rights of property should not be infringed in any single way. In his election address he said he was willing to give the tenants of farms the right to kill hares and rabbits, but not more than that—he would not take them off the game list, because by doing so they would give great encouragement to trespassers and poachers. There was one grievance which he admitted—that was, that the renters of shootings naturally allowed hares and rabbits to increase. This, to a certain extent, was undoubtedly a grievance. On the whole, however, he thought the question was misunderstood, and was made a bugbear of. He quite agreed with the Home Secretary that if they intended to get a settlement of the question, it

  1377
  must be done by the Government, and not by a private Member. He should, therefore, be in favour of some pressure being brought to bear upon the Government to deal with the matter during another year.
  Amendment proposed, to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day six months."—(Colonel Alexander.)
  MR. J. W. BARCLAYsaid, he had considered very carefully and very anxiously, and he hoped impartially, the Bill which had been introduced by the hon. Member for Linlithgowshire (Mr. M'Lagan), and after giving it his fullest consideration, and speaking, as he did and was naturally expected to do, to a considerable extent for the farmers of Scotland, he said on their behalf that he did not think the Bill very much improved the existing state of matters. Yet he should give it his support, chiefly as a protest against the existing system of game laws, and in order that there should be no appearance of conflict between private Members who were trying to force the Government to deal with that question. What, then, were the grievances alleged against the game laws, and how was it proposed to remedy them? The first class of objections regarded the penalties and the mode in which the laws were administered. It was urged against the existing system that it was defective, and that the penalties were altogether out of proportion to the offences committed; that they were oppressive, inasmuch as a man for the same offence might be convicted several times; and that they were unconstitutional, because in a recent Act of Parliament authority was given to a policeman to stop and search people on the public highway simply on suspicion. And further there was this anomaly—that under these laws, and also under the fishery laws, offenders might be convicted upon the testimony of a single witness. As to the objection that the administration of the law was unsatisfactory, he was very glad to point out an improvement in that respect in this Bill—the Bill proposed to transfer the administration from the Justices of the Peace to the Sheriffs. This was a very decided improvement; and as he understood that the practice of convicting offenders on the testimony of one
  1378
  witness would be abolished, game would no longer be placed upon an exceptional footing from property. It would, in fact, require as much evidence to convict for poaching in future as it would for felony. As regarded the objection that the penalties were excessive, he must say that in his opinion the penalties provided in the Bill seemed quite as excessive as under the existing system. One of the penalties proposed was penal servitude for one year. But he believed this was contrary to the statute respecting penal servitude, which said that no term of penal servitude should be less than five years. In another part of the Bill the accumulation of penalties was retained. An individual for trespassing in search of game might be convicted no less than four times—in the first place for concealing his name if he declined to give it; in the second place, he might be convicted for trespass; in the third place, he might be sued for ordinary trespass; and in the fourth place, fined for shooting without a game licence. Now, he did not think this Bill, as regarded these penalties, was any material improvement upon the existing system. The second class of objections arose out of the relations between landlord and tenant, and the relations of these two to the public. The tenant complained that he was bound by conditions which he was powerless to resist, and compelled to keep any number of wild animals for the sole benefit of his landlord. Now, if there was one point about the evidence of last year which was prominently brought out, it was that the tenant was powerless to resist the conditions which the landlord chose to insist upon. On all the large estates in Scotland there were certain regulations or conditions concerning the leasing of farms, and under these conditions, which were printed, hares were almost invariably, and rabbits frequently, exclusively reserved for the landlord and his friends. In some eases it was specialty provided that the tenants should have no claim for compensation, notwithstanding any amount of damage which might be done by the hares and rabbits. He thought that if the Courts of Law looked at these contracts in the same light they did at other contracts, they would say they were illegal and unjust. Now, it had been brought out strongly in the

  1379
  evidence before the Committee, that the great damage to crops was that committed by hares and rabbits, and that nine-tenths of the complaints of tenants related to this. From inquiries he had made, he believed that if the tenants were allowed the control of hares and rabbits on their own farms, they would be satisfied:—even those tenants who complained of damage done by winged game said, that if they could get the Control over hares and rabbits they would be content. This Bill proposed to deal with this grievance, which was the great grievance of the tenant farmers of Scotland; but in taking hares and rabbits out of the game list, as far as he could see, it handed them over to poachers. He did not see how it could be otherwise. If hares were diminished, the price of them would rise in the market, and a good many people in the towns would prefer a night's poaching to an honest day's work. If, however, there was no other remedy for the grievance than the extermination of hares and rabbits, he would accept that remedy—though he confessed, as regarded hares, he should do so with regret. As to rabbits there was little difference of opinion. They were unmitigated nuisances on arable land under all circumstances; and if they were to be allowed to remain in sandy districts, they ought to be enclosed in warrens. As he had just said, if the grievance complained of by the farmers was only to be remedied by the extermination of the hares, he was quite ready to accept the remedy; but to his mind the simplest, the common-sense, and the intelligible remedy of the grievance was to hand over the control of these hares and rabbits to the tenant farmers themselves. This would be acceptable to, and was desired by, the farmers. At the conference at Aberdeen, at which tenant farmers from all parts, and of all shades of opinion were present, they came to the conclusion that if the control of hares and rabbits was given up to them, that would be a practical settlement of the game question, so far as they were concerned, for an indefinite period. He was at a loss to understand why the hon. Member for Linlithgow had not adopted this course in framing his Bill. The hon. Gentleman was probably desirous of preserving the sanctity of contract. But he (Mr. Barclay) was convinced that there were
  1380
  forces now in operation which would very soon cause the relations between landlords and tenants to be brought under the consideration of Parliament. Parliament having dealt with the relations of contract between every trade and profession in the community, would not hesitate, in the general interests of the public, to interfere with the relations and bargains existing between landlords and tenants—conditions which were of far greater importance to the country at large than some of the cases in which Parliament had already interfered. The hon. Member, however, did interfere with the sanctity of contract in his Bill—for the 13th clause declared certain contracts, which did not comply with certain conditions, null and void. The provision giving the tenant the option of taking the game, before the landlord could let it to a shooting tenant, was an interference with the freedom of contract. The provision for proceeding by way of interdict was an interference with contract, for if one of the parties to a contract broke it, the other party ought to be able to enforce it in the most effective manner. Moreover, he feared that the restrictions the Bill proposed to place on landlords would be illusory—for the landlord would still have full means of control over the tenant, so as to restrain him from killing the game on his farm. Then, as to deer forests. He was aware that many of the sheep farmers desired to have them fenced; but he entirely objected to recognize deer forests as a national institution. They were an entire mistake. They heard occasionally of the amount of money spent in deer forests; but he considered they were altogether a national loss, and in no shape were they national wealth. They were a convenience for wealthy people to spend their money. The population of the country near deer forests was banished, as was shown in the case of the north-west of Scotland. During the last 50 years, the population of the Highland districts had very much decreased in consequence of these deer forests. In former days many of the soldiers who fought so bravely in the Peninsula were taken from the glens of the Highlands of Scotland; but it would be difficult to find men there now for soldiers—they had been driven away. He would say that he had come un-willingly

  1381
  to the conclusion that although the hon. Gentleman (Mr. M'Lagan) had been most anxious to bring forward a measure to settle the question, yet in reality this Bill would not settle the question at all. It would not be acceptable to the proprietors, and although in some respects it would be acceptable to the tenants, yet a better method might have been found to meet their grievance. At all events there was no suggestion or improvement in the Bill which would justify the House or the country in regarding it as a settlement of the question.
  MR. MARK STEWART: Sir, I have to ask the indulgence of the House while I address them for the first time. I thank the hon. Member for Linlithgowshire (Mr. M'Lagan) for the very calm and careful statement he made respecting this Bill. He did not say anything which ought to be concealed, and he gave the House the full meaning of all the clauses which he touched upon. But I must say there is an opinion prevalent in this House—at least, on this side—unfavourable to touching these game laws. I am not only interested in land as a proprietor, but I am one of the largest tenant farmers in the House. I can therefore sympathize with the grievances of the tenants as well as any one sitting on the other side of the House. This Bill, no doubt, cannot be considered as a perfect one. It is a somewhat lame attempt to heal what is termed a great grievance, but it does not do it thoroughly. Nevertheless, had I received any communications in favour of the Bill, I should have voted in favour of it; but all the letters which I have received—and I have received letters from many different persons in the country possessing great influence, and who have acquired great experience in this and kindred questions—and one and all of these persons tell me that although opposed to me in polities, they consider this Bill would not give the satisfaction which the hon. Member expects it would. Therefore it is a bad Bill. It is most desirable that this House should view this question from a Scotch point of view, and I should like to state to the House the reasons which influence Scotland generally in taking so very strong a view as regards the game question. It must not be forgotten—what has been alluded to to-day—that one of the great
  1382
  causes of the evils complained of, is the fact that gentlemen—many, I am afraid, Members of this House—go down to Scotland in the autumn and expect to find as well preserved covers there as they have in England. Under ordinary circumstances such a system might work; but it does not suit the peculiar circumstances of Scotland. In that country, as hon. Members are aware, farming is carried on in a far higher manner than it is generally in England. Especially of late years, land has there been so highly cultivated, that the necessary expenditure incurred in cultivating a farm, instead of amounting, as formerly, to £10 per acre, would, in these days, come to about £15 per acre, and the consequence is, that men of great enterprise and spirit enter into farming, determined to secure every benefit they know the soil will give them, if they properly attend to it. That being the case, it is natural for them to be annoyed when they find their crops devoured and destroyed by hares and rabbits. There are two views in this House and in the country as regards this measure. There is the landlord's view—which at least is not unreasonable. He has probably given a high price for the purchase of his land, and perhaps finds that whereas he can get only 1¼ or 1½ per cent for his property for agricultural purposes, he can get 3 per cent more for the shootings upon it. Under these circumstances, he says to himself, "I have a perfect right to do what I please with my own." Unhappily, however, the landlord does not live all the year round in Scotland—or, at all events, not in the same place—and then he lets his shooting to other persons, who do not know the tenantry, and refuse to listen to their just complaints. Then as to the tenant farmers, they take two views of the question. There are those who think they have a right to the ground game. We know that the opinion of one Select Committee was totally adverse to their doctrine. They reported that the opinion had been strongly impressed on the Committee that some sort, of concurrent and inalienable right to the game should be given to the tenant by law, but they were convinced that means would be found of avoiding such a law; and in corroboration of this view they called attention to the evidence of Mr. Matthew. He was a gentleman

  1383
  who had permission to kill rabbits, but nevertheless in a few years gave up his farm, finding it impossible to profitably farm his lands without doing what he had reason to believe his landlord disapproved of. The persons who lay claim to this right support their claims by the example of other questions, such as the Factory Acts, under which women and children are taken under the especial care of the Legislature. But we in Scotland consider generally that the Scotch farmer is perfectly able, as a rule, to take care of himself. It is only when we get landlords who do not take this reasonable view, and who are not content with one rent for the agricultural value of their land, but demand another rent for the shooting of game on that land, the difficulty arises. Amore moderate view is entertained by another part of the tenantry. This view is, that the hares and rabbits should be given to the occupiers of the soil. That view I should not oppose, provided it were fenced in with certain requirements which I consider necessary to protect the occupier on his farm. My right hon. Friend on the Treasury Bench (Mr. Cross) has stated his view that the clause of this Bill which would enable the occupier to prosecute trespassers is not sufficiently strong; the whole thing therefore would fall to the ground, for whenever it was attempted to arrest the poacher, he would tell the person who came up to him that he was not in pursuit of game, but only of hares and rabbits. My hon. Friend, the Member for Linlithgow, referred to one instance as regards the necessity of maintaining the law of trespass; but it must not be thought there are no others, for in 1830, when the French Revolution flooded the whole land of France with its revolutionary ideas, the whole of the game laws were swept away; but no sooner did the Parliament sit again than Petitions were presented for the re-enactment of the game laws, and the law of trespass was restored. One of the best uses of these discussions in this House—although nothing very particular may come of them this Session in the way of legislation—will be to ventilate these views throughout the whole length and breadth of the country. It is not the generality of landlords who love to torture their tenants and take double rents out of them; and every year, as the world gets older, landlords become wiser,
  1384
  more care is taken to promote that good feeling and cordiality which ought to exist between landlords and tenants; and their object becomes not merely to get as much as possible for their property, but to extend and cultivate good relations between themselves and those who are placed by Providence under their care. I would like to say one word more about this subject, and that is to express my surprise at not having heard a word on the part of the Government to indicate that they would bring in a measure next Session. We hardly expected them to legislate this Session. In consequence of the peculiar circumstances in which this Parliament was assembled, the question was not properly brought before the constituencies. In Scotland, owing to the short time we had to prepare for the elections, and the hasty manner in which we had to make our speeches, the main topic of conversation, and of debate, was the Budget of the supposed incoming Government, and consequently these social questions, of which I maintain the game laws is one, and, with which the Conservative Government are bound to deal, were almost entirely overlooked. Some hon. Members seem pledged to go a great length to support claims never seriously discussed before; but the generality of candidates had none of those questions put to them which might have been expected at an ordinary General Election. The constituencies have hardly had time to consider the question, and consequently opinion in many parts of the country is not so matured as to have enabled the Government to take a statesmanlike view of the whole subject, and at once to bring in a measure dealing with it. While admitting this, however, I do humbly but earnestly urge on Her Majesty's Government the desirableness of doing something next Session. Matters have reached such a crisis that the subject may be said to be ripe for legislation. I therefore hope the Conservative Government will do something to assist Scotland in her present difficulty. What did the late Government do? It came in with a majority of 120, and talked about the game laws—and all it gave Scotland was a gun tax. Next Session I shall humbly endeavour, together with this question of the game laws, to urge the Government to give some redress to the payers of that

  1385
  tax. I must thank the House for giving me such a kind and patient hearing, for although I have not submitted any new plan for the settlement of this difficulty, what I have submitted. I have put before them in as concise and as clear a form as I could, and I have only further to say that I am heartily anxious to have this question amicably settled, alike, in the interest of the farmers and of the landlords.
  MR. MAITLANDsaid, that being in some measure responsible for this Bill, and also as representing an important county (Kirkcudbrightshire) in Scotland, in which there existed considerable feeling on this subject, he desired to be permitted to say a few words. The reason he supported this Bill lay in its extreme moderation. He fully admitted there were considerable imperfections in it; but he thought that from its very moderation, the measure was calculated to produce a great amount of satisfaction in Scotland. He was aware that neither of the extreme parties would be perfectly satisfied with it. The thoroughgoing game preservers would dislike any alteration of the law in this direction; and on the other hand, the uncompromising enemies of the game laws would of course consider this a very inadequate measure of reform. But he believed that the farmers and general public of Scotland would derive advantage from the Bill. He wished to call attention to the great difference of opinion that existed among hon. Gentlemen opposite who opposed the Bill. On the one hand the Home Secretary opposed the Bill; but did he propose to do anything himself? Why, he proposed to do absolutely nothing—he did not even say he was thinking of preparing a measure. But what did the Conservative Members from Scotland—his followers—say? Why, the hon. and gallant Gentleman who moved the Amendment objected to the Bill because it merely touched the fringe of a great subject. Now, he confessed that he did not wish any such tremendous measure as that suggested by the hon. and gallant Gentleman; nor did he believe the farmers and people of Scotland considered any very revolutionary measure necessary. There were, however, two other Bills dealing with the game question before the House. There was the Bill introduced by the hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. P. A.
  1386
  Taylor), which proposed the total abolition of the game laws—with the object, as every one knew, of effecting the total extinction of game. Now, this would, no doubt, be what the Home Secretary called a "final" measure; but would hon. Members opposite really prefer such a measure to the present Bill? He was very well aware that they did not. Then there was the Bill of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Forfarshire (Mr. Barclay) the principle of which was to prohibit all contracts between landlord and tenant, as to hares and rabbits. Did hon. Gentlemen opposite like that better? He confessed that, for his own part, he disliked the proposal in principle, and he believed it would be found unworkable in practice. How would such a measure as that of the hon. Member for Forfarshire serve the purpose intended—namely, the protection of the farmers' crops? His proposal was that tenants should have an inalienable right to kill rabbits and hares "on the land occupied by them." But, as everyone knew, hares and rabbits frequented the covers and plantations, and could not be effectually kept down except by persons having access to these covers, and that was a suggestion the House would never entertain. But as the covers and plantations were never included in the lands let to the tenant, he feared that the Bill of the hon. Member for Forfarshire would prove of very little value, and it would do a thing they would all dislike, and only be induced to do under the strongest necessity—namely, to interfere with the sanctity of contract. On the whole he believed that the present Bill would prove a wise measure of reform, and he hoped the House would view it favourably. At the same time, his hon. Friend (Mr. M'Lagan) was willing to allow many amendments in Committee; and, for his own part, he felt bound to say he thought the Bill required very many.
  GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOURsaid, he intended to vote for the Bill, not because he approved of all its details, but to show that the people of Scotland desired an alteration of the game laws. The hon. and, gallant Member (Colonel Alexander) had referred to the neglect of Scotland by the last Government. He joined with him in saying that the late Government was exceedingly neglectful of Scotland, and

  1387
  he hoped the present Government would give more attention than they did to Scotch questions. The question of the game had excited such an outburst of feeling as it would not be safe to neglect, and he trusted that the appeal to the Government would be acceded to, and that before this year closed a proper Bill would be brought in for removing the evils of the present system.
  MR. PELLsaid, he should vote in favour of the Bill, because he considered it to be a moderate measure. There were one or two other reasons which induced him to give it his support; first, it did not interfere with the law of contract in the way other Bills that had been introduced proposed to do; next, it was directly against preservation of rabbits under the game laws, and he was in favour of that. It did not meet the entire case, and no doubt it was a very difficult thing to deal properly with that inconvenient little animal. He was glad, however, that his hon. Friend had made the attempt; and if there were defects in the Bill, they could be remedied in Committee. He believed, many of the complaints they heard arose from want of knowledge as to the law of trespass. It had been suggested, that if hares and rabbits were taken out of the game-list, the farmer could be protected by the passing of a more severe trespass Act. He was inclined to believe neither the English, Scotch, nor Irish people would be satisfied with such a change. The only proper remedy they could have against trespass, was to kill the animal down to such an extent as to do away with the inducement to professional poachers to go in pursuit of him. There were other Bills to which he might be permitted to refer. There was the Bill of the hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. P. A. Taylor). That hon. Gentleman sat on the other side of the House, and he might say the Radical had no better friend in the world than the rabbit. So long as that little animal could be sprung like a mine upon them when they went to visit their constituents, so long would he be the friend of those who, without seeing their way clearly to deal with the question, might find him very useful in defeating a Tory candidate. In his county there was a division of opinion as to what should be done with the obnoxious little animal. For his own part, he disliked him on the
  1388
  table, he disliked him in the field, and he disliked him most of all as a political agent. As to the Bill of the hon. Member for Forfarshire (Mr. Barclay), they were told it was received with great favour in the country; but it contained provisions to which he could never assent for giving inalienable rights to tenants. He did not believe it was possible to carry out such a scheme. For these reasons he would vote for the second reading of the measure now before the House.
  MR. MUNTZsaid, he quite agreed with the hon. Gentleman who had just spoken, that the rabbit was the best friend the Radical ever had. If it had not been for the excessive preservation of ground game they would never have had the question brought before the House. Only those who had fully investigated the question, like those who had been Members of the Special Committee, could know the prejudicial effects of this over-preserving of ground game; and this, not on the food of the people only, but on their social condition. Though he did not agree with all the provisions of the Bill before the House he would vote for it as a protest against nothing being done. He did not agree, however, with the hon. Members who thought the Bill should apply only to Scotland—ho thought it should be for the whole British Kingdom. He hoped a satisfactory measure would be brought forward by the Government so as to settle this troublesome question.
  SIR WILLIAM CUNINGHAMEsaid, he would vote for the Amendment, but he did so with regret, because he knew the tenant-farmers of Scotland would be disappointed to learn that no measure having for its object the improvement of the game laws was to be proceeded with this Session. He, however, considered it a lesser evil to postpone the settlement of the question for a short time, than to accept a measure so objectionable as the Bill before the House. No doubt there were some good proposals in the Bill—such as the assimilation of the law of Scotland to that of England as to the ownership of game, and the provision for altering the Court before which game cases were to be brought; and those suggestions would be very useful on any future occasion when the preparation of a measure on this subject was under the consideration as he trusted it would be shortly, of the

  1389
  Government. His objection to the Bill differed entirely from that taken by the hon. Member who spoke last but one who objected to it as not being wide enough. He (Sir William Cuninghame) objected to it because it was too wide; because it attempted too much and went too far—indeed, the very first clause swept away the whole of our existing game law. He did not think the tenant-farmers wished to see the game law abolished and a new one substituted; they wished to have the over-preservation of game discouraged, and a simple and easy method of settling the compensation to be paid for damage done by game, but he believed they were in other respects satisfied with the law as it was. It was a serious matter to begin by abolishing our whole existing law, which had grown up with the growth of the nation, and had adapted itself to our customs and habits, in order to substitute a new plan, which, at the best, was not likely to be an improvement. It might not be easy to pick holes in the Bill before the House, but for all that it might not be found to work well in practice—even if it did it would be a new law. He could conceive that the poacher himself would have a greater objection to be punished under a new law than under one to which he was accustomed.
  MR. DILLWYNsaid, he should vote for the second reading of the Bill, because it contained two principles of which he approved. In the first place, there was the principle that hares and rabbits were to be exempted from the general category of game, subject to certain conditions as to trespass, which would, no doubt, have to be altered. The other principle was that the jurisdiction should be altered, and taken from the justices of the peace. If these principles were adopted for Scotland, and were found to work, they would soon be adopted in England; and if they did work well, he believed they would go far to settle the game question in this country.
  MR. BROMLEY DAVENPORTsaid, the hon. Member (Mr. Dillwyn) was in favour of taking the jurisdiction away from the justices of the peace; but he had omitted to say to whom he proposed to give it. Or, did he intend to make poaching no crime at all? It had been remarked that the entire difficulty rested with the ground game. Now, he lived
  1390
  in a district which bred hereditary poachers. Formerly these people sallied forth with guns after pheasants, and they had dangerous affrays with the keepers. During the last few years, however, they had given up guns, and had contented themselves with netting rabbits, of which there were great numbers. He did not say this was a proper thing for them to do, but it was better than going after pheasants, and if they did away with ground game, these poachers would take to the gun again, and shoot pheasants; if they could not get pheasants or rabbits, they would take chickens, and if they could not get chickens, they would go to something else.
  VISCOUNT MACDUFFsaid, that at the late elections in Scotland an eminent Member sitting on the other side of the House said he thought the tenant should have a joint right with the landlord in ground game. He sincerely hoped that that hon. Gentleman and other hon. Members would use their influence with the Government to induce them to bring in a Bill dealing with this subject. He approved the fencing of deer forests whenever practicable, but that was not always the case.
  MR. M'LAGAN, in reply, said, the Home Secretary had stated this Bill would give satisfaction to no one, but he begged to remind him that it was a Bill of compromises, and he asked the House to support it as such, because that was its merit. The right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary had further stated that it would not settle the question. Well, if the Government were prepared to bring in a Bill which would settle the question, he should be very much surprised, because he believed no Bill proposing anything short of the actual abolition of the game laws would be satisfactory to the hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. P. A. Taylor).
  MR. GREENEsaid, he thought the Scotch Members were perfectly capable of taking care of Scotland, but there were such things as epidemics, and if the principles of this Bill were adopted in Scotland, they might hereafter be proposed for England; and to that he objected. This Bill would allow men to go on other people's land and take hares and rabbits, and there was to be no punishment whatever. He did no; object to their excluding hares and rab-

  1391
  from the category of game, provided they gave a satisfactory law of trespass; for he believed the tenants would always be willing to provide their landlords with a sufficient quantity of game for sport. As to the feeling in Scotland, he had never made an arrangement with Scotchmen without feeling that they had the best of the bargain.
  Question put, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
  The House divided:—Ayes 127; Noes 192: Majority 65.
  Words added.
  Main Question, as amended, put, and agreed to.
  Second Reading put off for six months.

SUPPLY.
  THE WEST AFRICAN SETTLEMENTS.

    POSTPONEMENT OF ADJOURNED DEBATE.
    Order read, for resuming Adjourned Debate on Amendment proposed to Question [27th April], "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair" (for Committee of Supply); and which Amendment was,
    To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words thus House is of opinion, that, in the interests of civilization and commerce, it would not now be desirable to withdraw from the administration of the affairs of the Gold Coast,"—(Mr. Hanbury,)
    —instead thereof.
    Question again proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
    MR. HANBURYsaid, he would withdraw his Resolution on this subject, on the understanding that he would be able to bring it forward on Monday-next as a substantive Motion.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Committee deferred till To-morrow.

    WAYS AND MEANS.
    Resolution [April 28] reported;
    "That it is expedient to amend the Acts relating to the Customs."
    Resolution agreed to.
    Instruction to the Gentlemen appointed to prepare and bring in a Bill or Bills pursuant to the Resolutions which upon the 23 rd and 27th days respectively of this instant April were reported from the Committee of Ways and Means, and agreed to by the House, That they do make provision therein to the said Resolution.

    OFFENCES AGAINST THE PERSON BILL.
    Select Committee nominated:—Mr. CHARLEY. Mr. COLE, Mr. GREGORY, Mr. ALFRED MARTEN, Sir CHARLES MILLS, Mr. MUNDELLA, Mr. STANSFELD, Mr. WATNEY. Mr. WHEELHOUSE, Mr. WHITWELL and Mr. ATTORNEY GENERAL:—Five to be the quorum.
    House adjourned at ten minutes before Six o'clock.

MINUTES.
SELECT COMMITTEE—East India Finance, appointed and nominated; Explosive Substances, Mr. Arthur Vivian added; Adulteration of Food Act (1872), appointed; Jury System (Ireland), nominated.
SUPPLY—considered in Committee—GRANT TO SIR GARNET J. WOLSELEY, K.C.B., G.C.M.G. (£25,000)—NAVY ESTIMATES.
Resolutions [April 17] reported.
Ordered—First Reading—Land Tax Commissioners Names* [76]: County of Hertford and Liberty of St. A loan* [77].
Committee—Harbour of Colombo (Loan) * [66]—R.P.
Committee—Report—East India Annuity Funds [30]: Harbour Hues (Isle of Man)* [65].
Third Reading—Mutiny*; Marine Mutiny*.

CONTROVERTED ELECTIONS—STOCKPORT.
MR. SPEAKERinformed the House, that he had received from Mr. Justice Mellor, one of the Judges selected for the Trial of Election Petitions, pursuant to the Parliamentary Elections Act, 1868, a Report relating to the Election for the Borough of Stockport. And the same was read, to the effect following:—
"I beg to report that the summons for leave to withdraw the said Petition came on to be heard before me this day, and that no person claiming to be intitled having applied for leave to be substituted for the Petitioners, and I being satisfied that the withdrawal of such Petition was not the result of any corrupt arrangement or in consideration of the withdrawal of any other Petition made an order for the withdrawal of the same."

SCOTLAND—POLICE FORCE IN BURGHS.

  QUESTION.
  MR. GRIEVEasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, If he contemplates introducing any measure this Session to confer additional powers or duties on the Police Force in Burghs in Scotland; whether it is contemplated to establish a superannuation fund in
  812
  the Burgh Force, as recommended by the Select Committee of the House of Lords in 1867–8; and, whether he has fully considered a Circular from the Home Office, dated December 1873, restricting any member of the Police Force from being employed as Inspector of Nuisances; or, if so employed, to be disqualified from participating in the "Grant in aid of Police Expenses?"
  MR. ASSHETON CROSSin reply, said, as he understood the first part of the Question, it referred not so much to the grant of additional powers and duties to the police in burghs as to the extension of the powers and duties which they had within a burgh to pass to a county outside the burgh. That opened a much larger question. He thought from the representations which had been made, that it would be very easy to give them power as to the seaboard, but the question with reference to power inland was more serious, and was at present under the consideration of Her Majesty's Government. As to the part of the Question about establishing a superannuation fund, the subject of superannuation of the English police was at present under the consideration of Her Majesty's Government. The hon. Gentleman would remember that the Select Committee of the House of Lords in 1867 reported very strongly that any superannuation in Scotland should be paid by the public either by means of rates or out of a burgh fund. That matter required very serious consideration, and it was not his intention to introduce a measure on the subject. As to the third part of the Question, he found that opinion in Scotland was almost entirely in favour of cancelling the Order issued by the Home Office in December, 1873, and of returning to the former Order of the Home Office; and he was quite willing to cancel the Order made in December.

ARMY—THE ASHANTEE EXPEDITION—THE CRIMEAN WAR—WAR MEDALS.—QUESTION.
COLONEL BARTTELOTasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether it is correct that a Medal for the Ashantee Expedition is to be given to all Officers, Non-Commissioned Officers, and Men who were sent out to Cape Coast Castle; and, if so, whether as a simple act of

813
justice, it is proposed to give a Medal to all Officers, Non-Commissioned Officers, and Men who landed in the Crimea on and after September the 8th, 1855, up to the armistice in March 1856?
MR. GATHORNE HARDY, in reply, said, his hon. and gallant Friend was correct in supposing that a medal was to be given to all officers, non-commissioned officers, and men who were sent out to Cape Coast Castle between the 13th of June, 1873, and the capture of Coomassie, and not beyond that. In the ease of the Crimean War the grant of a medal was limited to those who landed in the Crimea before the 9th of September, 1855, the day on which Sebastopol was taken. No medal was granted to any one afterwards, except he was engaged in a special service, which was specified in the Order, such as was instanced in the capture of Kinburn. The hon. and gallant Gentleman must excuse him (Mr. Hardy) if he declined to be bound by the matter of the Crimean medal, with which he had nothing to do, when considering the case of Ashantee.

IRELAND—THE GRAND JURY SYSTEM.

  QUESTION.
  MR. ERRINGTONasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Whether the Government intend bringing in any measure this Session to reform the Irish Grand Jury system?
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH, in reply, said, it was not his intention to bring forward any measure that Session, but he was quite aware of the importance of the Question, and of the desire very widely felt for an amendment of the present law, and he hoped to be able to give such consideration to the subject during the autumn as would enable him to introduce a Bill on it next Session.

RETURNS—TURNPIKE TRUSTS (SCOTLAND).—QUESTION.
SIR ROBERT ANSTRUTHERasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, When the Returns moved for by him upon the 3rd and 7th of April 1873, relating to "Turnpike Trusts" and "Roads and Bridges" in Scotland, and ordered by the House to be prepared, will be laid upon the Table?
MR. ASSHETON CROSS, in reply, said, the Return moved for by the hon.
814
Baronet on the 3rd of April, 1873, had been prepared, and was at the present moment in the Home Office. It had been waiting there until the other Return, ordered on the 7th of April, also should be prepared. However, he had given instructions that it should be presented at once, and it was now in the hands of the printers. As to the Return moved for on the 7th of April, it was necessary to write to about 170 Road Boards, and answers had been received from only 145. The clerks of the Road Trustees were not Government officials, and the Returns could not be got with the same despatch as they could be got from Government officials, because there were no means of recompensing the clerks of the Trustees for the trouble to which they were put.

METROPOLIS—THE VACANT LAND IN ABINGDON STREET.—QUESTION.
SIR CHARLES RUSSELLasked the First Commissioner of Works, Whethere is included in the Estimates any sum for the purpose of levelling or placing in a less unsightly condition the plot of land in Abingdon-street, abutting on the south side of the Victoria Tower, which has so long been loft in a neglected state; or if any plan has been determined upon for utilising the same?
LORD HENRY LENNOX: My hon. and gallant Friend is probably aware that the houses were bought and the plot of ground in Abingdon Street was cleared about eight years ago. The purchase was made chiefly to protect the Victoria Tower from the danger of fire. Before deciding upon any plan for levelling or laying out the; ground, it was necessary that the Embankment should be proceeded with, and a sum of £10,000 for that purpose appears in the Estimates. Tenders have been invited and sent in, and one has been recommended by me for the acceptance of the Treasury. The work will take about 14 months, and until it is nearer completion it appears unadvisable to give an opinion as to what should be done with the site.

METROPOLIS—LABOURERS' DWELLINGS, SOMERS TOWN.—QUESTION.
SIR SYDNEY WATERLOWasked the Secretary of State for the Homo Department, Whether his attention has

815
been called to the Midland Railway (Additional Powers) Bill, by which the Midland Railway Company propose to take possession and appropriate to their purposes about fourteen acres of small houses in Somers Town, Saint Pancras, almost entirely occupied by the labouring population, without making any Return of the number of families to be evicted, or setting aside any of the land for the reconstruction of houses for the working classes, as required by Parliament on the passing of the Metropolitan Streets Improvement Act. 1872?
MR. ASSHETON CROSS: Sir, my attention has been called to the Bill which was brought in by the Midland Railway Company, and I have received a communication from the solicitor to the company. I am happy to say that the company have consented to strike out of the Bill the provision relating to the land on which the houses referred to by the hon. Baronet are built. Therefore, that part of the Bill will not be proceeded with at all this Session; and, if they bring in a Bill in the course of another Session, they undertake to ask for compulsory powers in the event of their wishing to have the land, so that they will be brought practically under the Standing Orders Committee of "another place."

ARMY—ADJUTANTS OF MILITIA.

  QUESTION.
  MR. NAGHTENasked the Secretary of State for War, If, inasmuch as Adjutants of Militia have been gazetted to the rank of Captains in the Army, their widows are entitled to pensions?
  MR. GATHORNE HARDY: Sir, those officers who have been so gazetted have received temporary rank while serving in the Militia, in order to give them due authority over the soldiers. As, however, they are not in the Army, their widows are not entitled to pensions.
  MR. NAGHTENthereupon gave Notice that he would, on an early day, call the attention of the House to the position of Adjutants of Militia, and move a Resolution on the subject.

CIVIL SERVICE WRITERS—SICK LEAVE.—QUESTION.
SIR CHARLES W. DILKEasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether
816
it is true that, while some Civil Service writers are allowed sick leave, and pay during sick leave, others, such as the old writers in the Customs, have their pay stopped during absence by sickness, and have no provision whatever for sick leave?
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: Sir, I understand that the writers employed in the Customs consist partly of persons taken from the register of the Civil Service Commissioners and partly of people nominated by the Customs Commissioners. I am informed that both classes of writers are allowed sick leave with pay, though on different terms, and that the old writers were asked by the Board whether they wished to exchange their terms for those which were to be applicable to the rest of the writers? Only one accepted the offer, and all the others declined.

IMPRISONMENT FOR DEBT—LEGISLATION.—QUESTION.
MR. M. T. BASSasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether he is prepared on a convenient opportunity to introduce a measure to remedy the admitted defects of the Law of Imprisonment for debt?
MR. ASSHETON CROSS, in reply, said, that after the difference of opinion which had been expressed he could not adopt the phrase "admitted defects of the Law;" but if the hon. Member would suggest a remedy that was not on the lines on which his Bill was drawn, he would give the subject due consideration.

ORDNANCE SURVEY—THE 25-INCH SCALE.—QUESTION.
MR. RYDERasked the First Commissioner of Works, Whether it is the intention of the Government to ask the House to vote such a sum of money for the Ordnance Survey on the 25-inch to the mile scale as will suffice to complete it without further delay, so as to provide a national Map of Reference for Land Registry?
LORD HENRY LENNOX, in reply, said, that there was in the Estimates of the year, an excess of £2,790 on the Vote for the Ordnance Surveys. He behoved that both his predecessors—Mr. Ayrton and the right hon. Member for Clackmannan (Mr. Adam)—had in different

817
ways tried to obtain a further advance for this object, but had not succeeded. When the next Estimates were considered he would bear in mind the wish expressed by his hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury, and endeavour to meet it as far as he could.

NEW PALACE AT WESTMINSTER— SUBWAY TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.

  QUESTION.
  MR. GRIEVEasked the First Commissioner of Works, When he will be prepared to re-open the subway to the Metropolitan District Railway Station?
  LORD HENRY LENNOX: Sir, the hon. Member is probably aware that the works connected with the Subway are being carried out by the Metropolitan District Railway. I was in hopes that the permanent subway would be ready by this time. I have ascertained, however, that some time will yet elapse before it is finished, and, feeling the great inconvenience to which hon. Members would be subject owing to this delay, I have requested that a letter may be written to the authorities of the Metropolitan District Railway urging them, until the larger work is completed, to re-open a temporary subway, which I am assured by the professional advisers of the Board of Works might be completed in a week.

WAYS AND MEANS—DUTY ON REFINED SUGAR.—QUESTION.
MR. GRIEVEasked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether he will consent to the abolition of Duty on Refined Sugar taking effect on the 10th of June instead of on the 21st of May next?
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: The hon. Gentleman asks me, in pursuance of the Notice he gave on Friday last, whether I can consent to the abolition of duty on refined sugar taking effect on the 10th of June instead of on the 21st of May. As I mentioned to the hon. Member on Friday, I named the 21st of May on the advice of the officers of Customs, not having then had any opportunity before I made my Budget Statement of communicating with gentlemen connected with the sugar trade. I promised to consider the subject between Friday and Monday, hoping that if I made such a public announcement,
818
I should receive some communications on the subject. The result was that all through Saturday I received an enormous number of telegrams from all parts of the United Kingdom, and the immense weight of evidence is against any alteration in the date fixed. I am afraid, therefore, I cannot make any change without causing more public inconvenience than I should do good to those for whom the hon. Member is interested.

METROPOLIS—HYDE PARK AND KENSINGTON GARDENS.—QUESTION.
MR. THOMPSONasked the First Commissioner of Works, If he will open the drives in Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens to public conveyances between the hours of 7 and 9 P.M. during the summer months?
LORD HENRY LENNOX, in reply, said, he must first apologize for his unavoidable absence from the House on Friday last. He wished to point out that, apparently, the hon. Member was under a misapprehension, as there were, in fact, no drives in Kensington Gardens. The only part which came under that category was the road between Queen's and Alexandra Gates, which was annexed to Kensington Gardens at the time of the building of the Memorial to the Prince Consort. Again, the part of the Park which was available for public conveyance was open from 5 A.M. till midnight, and the introduction of public conveyances to other parts of the Park could only be effected by a new rule, which, under the provision of the Parks Regulation Act, would have to be submitted for the approval of Parliament; and, having a lively recollection of the reception which that Act met with in its passage through the House, he had no intention of entering upon such debate-able ground.

PARLIAMENT—BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
SIR JOHN HAY, who had a Motion on the Paper relating to the Order for going into Committee of Supply directed against the expenditure of money on the building of Armoured Ships of a speed of less than ten knots, and in favour of applying it to the necessary

819
repairs of Iron-clads, said he would postpone the Motion to make way for the statement of the First Lord of the Admiralty if the right hon. Gentleman would consent to Votes 6 and 10, which related to shipbuilding, being postponed, so that he might have another opportunity of calling attention to the matter.
MR. HUNTsaid, he would accept the proposal of his right hon. and gallant Friend with regard to those Votes.

SUPPLY.
Order for Committee read.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."

HER MAJESTYS DOCKYARDS.

  OBSERVATIONS.
  ADMIRAL ELLIOT: Mr. Speaker, I rise to call the attention of this honourable House to the present condition and management of Her Majesty's Dockyards; and I should wish, in the first place, to explain to the House my reasons for bringing forward this question at the present moment, when the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Admiralty is about to make his Report upon the Navy Estimates. I am fully aware that the House would be far more pleased to listen to his voice than to hear what I have to say. For that reason I should wish to put myself right with the House, and to explain to it the grounds on which I have risen before my right hon. Friend. In the first place, then, I not only speak for myself, but for a number of hon. Members on both sides of the House who are extremely desirous that their intentions should not be mistaken, and that any observations which may fall from myself or front them this evening might not be supposed to be a comment upon the Report of the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord. Had we waited until we had heard his Statement, then such an opinion might have been formed of the observations which we are about to make. Another reason is, Sir, that I hold that this House is mainly responsible for the system which now prevails in Her Majesty's Dockyards; that that system is seriously defective, and dangerously impairs the material power of the British Navy; that it has not been
  820
  founded upon any military necessity, but chiefly upon political expediency; and for this reason I think that now that in this House the military or rather the naval element is strongly represented, it is our duty, and high time to step forward and endeavour to show to this House the dangers of the system which has been pursued. Sir, the personnel of this House has of late been greatly changed; and for that reason, also, I contend that it is desirable that hon. Members should have laid before them, at the earliest possible moment, the condition of the Dockyards; in fact, that as trustees of that property, they should take stock of what is handed over to them before forming any judgment as regards the Navy Estimates which are about to be proposed. Again, I hold, Sir, that the observations which may be made this night will not affect the amount of the Estimates. They will not affect the amount of the Expenditure, but they will affect the mode of applying the moneys which this House may think proper to grant for the support of the Navy of this country; and I therefore think that those observations, coming before the Statement of the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord, may enable him to judge whether in the mode of applying the amount of money that may be voted he may not see, in this earliest stage of his administration, the means by which something may be done towards remedying the evils which I am about to complain of. Another reason for my rising is that I consider the system has completely broken down as shown by the important changes which have taken place since the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London (Mr. Goschen) became the First Lord of the Admiralty. I trust that my right hon. Friend the present First Lord of the Admiralty will believe me when I say that all hon. Members of this House who belong to the naval service of the country have entire confidence in him. More than that we are pleased to think and to know that he brings to the office of First Lord of the Admiralty a practical turn of mind. We feel that the Navy has been too long dealt with theoretically, and we are glad to think that we have at the head of the Department a Gentleman who comes without prejudice to his work, and who, I believe, will bring practical

  821
  views to bear in its performance. I have no doubt that he would make inquiries for himself, but surrounded as he is by a permanent Staff connected with the system which now prevails. I think it is unnatural to suppose that he will have these errors which I am about to point out brought before him by others so readily as he will be likely to hear them from me—the permanent Staff would be more likely to stifle than promote inquiry. On that point I would like to quote an expression, in which I perfectly agree, which fell from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Halifax (Mr. Stansfeld), but who I regret is not now in his place. He said before the Select Committee of 1861—
  "There is beneath, in the lower regions of the Department, the ris inertiœ and the resistance of the great superstructure of officialism, that permanent, obstructive, and irresponsible body which so largely controls the Board, and represents so many external private interests the motive cause of so many indefensible jobs."
  If this existed in a Department the heads of which were old and tried servants of great experience—who had not been selected under one Government, but under each as it came into power—is it not likely that the permanent Staff of this Department, which I may say is almost entirely indebted for its existence to the late Government, would offer still greater resistance to the First Lord than that described by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Halifax? I expressed the opinion that Parliament was mainly responsible for the system that prevails in our Dockyards, and my reasons for expressing that opinion are founded on the evidence which Hansard affords of the debates in this House, and in the Reports of the Committees of Inquiry which have been made during the last 10 years. There was a Committee on Economy in our Dockyards in 1859, and more than 10 years ago a Royal Commission inquired into the control and management of our Dockyards. There was also a Select Committee on Admiralty Administration in 1861, and a Select Committee to inquire into Admiralty moneys and accounts in 1868. Now, Sir, these inquiries were asked for by a particular section of this House, forming a powerful party both within and without this House, and if you look through the whole of the evidence you will find there was not a single question asked
  822
  as to whether or not this or that measure affected the military power of the Royal Navy. As there is no digest of any of the evidence taken before the Committees or the Royal Commission it is difficult for me to prove my case. I have, however, waded through the evidence, and no doubt other hon. Members have done the same, and so far as I can see, the Reports are not supported by the evidence. I see pervading all the inquiries nothing but an effort to disparage the Dockyards, and that the object to be attained was simply what I call disestablishment, and also to confiscate the moneys from their legitimate purpose—namely, that all the money voted for Dockyards should be spent within the establishments, and not for the benefit of the private trade of the country. I shall be able to show many good reasons why it should not be done. In calling it disestablishment, I mean that the labourers in the Dockyards, instead of being established men, in the service of the Crown, are hired men able at a week's notice to leave the work on which they are employed. In Vote 6, to be proposed this year, it will be found that for the Dockyards there was to be a sum of £1,180,376 asked for, while no less than £1,851,067 was to be distributed among the contractors of this country, so that half of the whole amount proposed to be voted, nay the larger half, would go into the pockets of the private shipbuilders. I do not know whether I may say that coming events east their shadows before, but I found a very startling statement on the Dockyard question in The Times newspaper of the 4th inst.—
  "Happily we have outlived at least one of our troubles in these matters. There is no longer any 'Dockyard mystery' to irritate economists and perplex the public. We no longer hear much even of Dockyard extravagance."
  Feeling that it is an inspired article is the reason why I have quoted from it, and I am not surprised to find that at last those who have brought our Dockyards almost to a state of disestablishment should wish to be allowed to "rest and be thankful." We have had signs of disestablishment in Woolwich and Deptford Dockyards. I was at Pembroke the other day, and it looked very much to my mind, as a Dockyard officer, as if Pembroke is to follow in the same direction. I also see the same

  823
  signs at Sheerness, and when I hear of a civilian superintendent, and when I know as a fact that the great originator of the system which now prevails had actually recommended to the Admiralty that all the men in the Dockyards should be disestablished, that the establishment should cease altogether, and that we should trust entirely to hired labour, I say that I am justified in the supposition that I have expressed. If we look to the United States of America, and if we turn to the evidence and the Reports of the Secretary to the Navy you will find there what America has experienced during the late War ought to be a warning to this country. I have referred to those Reports because we are often called on to look to the United "States as an example. I have stated that in my opinion the present system has proved most fatal in its results, and a noble Duke has stated in "another place," that our Dockyards are the backbone of the Navy, and that if we wanted a lest of the material power of those establishments we could not do so better than by counting the number of men on the establishment lists. Now, I believe that this House will agree with me that the noble Duke is an authority on naval affairs, and whilst on one side he tests the material power for war of these establishments by the number of established men on the lists of the Dockyards, we have the late Controller of the Navy actually recommending to the Board of Admiralty to disestablish the Dockyards altogether. In the Estimates for this year, I find that we have on the establishment lists the names of 6,080 men, and on the hired list, 8,220 men, and taking the amount of money which it is proposed to spend in building ships by contract, and having taken the opinion of a very efficient officer who has given rue the number of men required for that purpose at 4,000, there are 18,300 men to be employed this year in building and repairing Her Majesty's ships, out of which 6,000 only are on the establishment. Is not this, I ask, partial disestablishment? But, Sir, I shall come to that subject again presently. I have said that this is an opportune time for bringing this subject before the House, and I would wish to explain my reasons more fully with regard to it. At the late Election hon. Members on both sides of the House in their addresses to their con-
  824
  stituents deemed it a very popular thing to advocate the maintenance of Her Majesty's military and naval establishments. Now, Sir, I ask any hon. Member who is likely to reply to me to-night, what is meant by maintaining the establishments of the Crown? Is it to be done by hired men who will be at liberty to leave their work any day they like, or does it not mean to maintain these establishments, as they have hitherto been maintained, by engaging the permanent service of the working-classes? If these addresses were favourably received by the constituencies, I have a right to claim from this House—returned, and as it were pledged, to maintain these establishments—that they should look well into this question and see whether these establishments, as at present existing, are in that state of preparation for a sudden outbreak of war that they ought to be; that they are intended to be; and which I believe the country believes thorn to be from the representations that have been made. Another reason why I think it expedient that this subject should be discussed thus early and before the Navy Estimates are taken into consideration is, as I stated just now, that in my opinion the system which has been introduced has completely broken down—the system originated out of the Royal Commission of 1861. At any rate, we have it in evidence on the loss of the Megæra, and we have heard it from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Pontefract (Mr. Childers) that he took the advice of the late Controller of the Navy, and that he carried out his scheme with regard to Admiralty reform almost entirely in its details. The right hon. Gentleman could have done nothing else I suppose in a matter of the kind than to take the advice of his naval colleagues. The system is fully stated in the Report of the Royal Commission of 1861, and it says—
  "The control and management of the Dockyards is inefficient. This inefficiency may be attributed to the following causes:—1st, the constitution of the Board of Admiralty; 2nd, the defective organization of the subordinate departments; 3rd, the want of clear and well-defined responsibility; 4th, the absence of any means, both now and in times past, of effectually checking expenditure, from the want of accurate accounts."
  The Report recommends, with a view to remedying these alleged defects, that a

  825
  Minister of the Navy Department should be appointed; and it goes on to recommend the appointment of a Controller General, who should have almost unlimited power over most of the establishments connected with the Admiralty. It so happens that this system was introduced and carried out under the most favourable auspices as regards the late Controller of the Navy, inasmuch as he himself was appointed Controller General. What occurred? We were told that the first advantage to be derived by the change was direct responsibility. A most lamentable occurrence happened shortly after the loss of the Captain; and what did we find? Why, we found that the Controller General threw the responsibility on the shoulders of the First Lord of the Admiralty, and up to this day it has never yet been brought home who was responsible for that sad affair. I am not going to leave anything in doubt with regard to my opinion. I speak in the presence of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Pontfract. Captain Coles was a great friend of mine; and I for one consider it was a cruel injury to endeavour to settle the responsibility on the shoulders of the right hon. Gentleman. I hold him entirely irresponsible. I also hold that Captain Coles was irresponsible, for it can be proved in the numerous letters that he wrote that he positively refused to have anything to do with the naval architectural qualities of that ship. I shall say no more upon that subject, except that it shows that the system broke down in one of the first recommendations made—namely, the establishment of direct responsibility. Then, also, in the case of the Magara it was impossible to establish direct responsibility. It is only to look into the working of the other portion of the system to see that it has also broken down. I am aware that this is not an interesting subject to this House; but I have a duty to perform. I know that I have difficulties to encounter, and to contend against vested interests which are strongly represented here and also outside the House. Sir, the chief objections which I hold to the present system are the transfer of the work to private firms; the hired system of workmen; the redundant accounts and returns; and the insufficient stock in hand of imperishable stores. The right hon. Gentle-
  826
  man the Member for Montrose (Mr. Baxter) will not, I am sure, feel hurt if I attribute in a great degree to him the carrying out of a system of accounts, and of the store supply of the Navy. The right hon. Gentleman has expressed himself strongly upon the satisfactory results obtained by that system. He has spoken of measures which he designates as being of a magnitude and importance unexampled in history; and has said that his consolation for the change of opinion which had been exhibited by the late Election was that not one of those grand achievements would ever be called in question. Well, Sir, I am afraid I have already commenced to call in question one of those "grand achievements;" and I say that the fault, as it appears to me, lies entirely in the misconceived notion that the Dockyards are to be dealt with as commercial establishments, and in the fact of legislators having lost sight of the military element which, in all matters connected with these departments, ought to be first considered. I will refer to these establishments under two heads—first, as regards their matériel; and, next, as regards their personnel; and, in each case, I think I shall be able to prove that neither as to economy nor efficiency is the present system at all satisfactory. Now, Sir, these Dockyards are very valuable property. If you were to capitalize them, their value—without overstating the case—would be between £50,000,000 and £100,000,000. They are placed in trust of this House; and this House appoints stewards to take care of that valuable property. Now, if they are to be dealt with as commercial establishments, would not commercial men consider it their duty to endeavour, to the utmost possible extent, to turn that vast property to the most profitable account? Would they not try, in every way, to realize the largest amount of profits out of those establishments? If they received orders to build ships, would they hand them over to other firms—to that of the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets (Mr. Samuda), or any other firm of shipbuilders? Would they pay interest on the capital of that private shipbuilder, while they allowed their own property to be fallow? A great question is involved, and if is this—You have from 50,000,000 to 100,000,000 of money, and the more

  827
  work you can do, the move likely you are to pay a profit upon the capital invested; but if you take only half the work you could do, and have the remainder done by private firms, are you not betraying your trust to this country? I am not a financier, but I can understand that; and I want to know how it is that the present state of things has been brought about. I shall presently hear some reason advanced for it, I dare say; but, as yet, I have not heard a good reason why we should deal with these establishments, if they are to be treated as commercial concerns, differently from what any commercial man would deal with his own establishment, or with his own capital, if it were invested in property of this kind. Supposing there were no great shipbuilding firms on this side of the channel, and there were such firms on the other side, would this House be prepared, for a moment, to hand over to the shipbuilders of France and Belgium the building of ships which now fall into the hands of private contractors in this country, so long as we had plenty of space in our Dockyards? I say, No, Sir. Why, then, should we do it to contractors in this country, if it is not done for the purpose of benefiting a particular class of trade? Sir, I have heard this side of the House accused of class legislation; but if that is not class legislation, I do not know what it is. It is only one class that is benefited—namely, the great shipbuilding class of this country—the great contractors for scores in this country: while all the vest of the community suffers. If you deteriorate the value of your property—if in fact, you put money, which ought to go into the public Exchequer, into the pockets of a particular class instead, then I maintain you are neglecting your duty—those who are acting as stewards of the property, are neglecting their duty to this House, and the Board of Admiralty, who are the stewards, will have to render an account of their stewardship. I have heard as one reason for this—that you ought to train the men, in these establishments, in the art of building ships-of-war. Now, Sir, is there any hon. Member of this House who would get up and say that if a war broke out to-morrow, we should have time to build one of our large ships before the war was ended? The war would, in all probability, break out with sudden-
  828
  ness, and end with equal suddenness; and I question whether, even within a fortnight's time of the declaration of war, the supremacy of the sea would not be decided in the Channel if the war were with any of the European maritime Powers. In what condition do you now find your Dockyards? You find them, in some of the most important elements of storage, with not six months' stores; and if two or three ships were commissioned to-morrow, you would not have enough to supply them with. Out of 18,000 men employed you have only 6,000 in the establishment. The other 12,000 are trades unionists. Your factories are full of trades unionists; and they have told you as much in the memorials they have sent to the Admiralty. These very men have actually come forward to teach the Government what they ought to do, and why they ought to do it. They say—" Place us on the establishment; "and they have given their reason why they should be so placed.
  MR. SHAW LEFEVRE: What is the date of the memorial to which you now refer?
  ADMIRAL ELLIOT: It was presented in 1859. There was more than one memorial addressed to the Committee on Dockyards from workmen at Portsmouth and other yards, all of them being equally strong. Here is one front Portsmouth. It states that labour being a marketable commodity those obtain the best description of work who pay the best price for it and hold forth a prospect of permanent employment, and that the Government by adding superannuation would obtain what is most desired by masters—namely, good, steady, and industrious workmen. I will not trouble the House further on this point as the Report of the Committee is in the hands of hon. Members; but I may observe that the memorials from these workmen show in every way why they consider it desirable for the benefit of the country at large that they should be placed on the establishment. Before I was asked the question to which I have now given an answer, I was remarking on the difficulty in which we might be placed in the event of war by the present system pursued at the Dockyards with regard to our unprepared state for war. If you look back to the Crimean War you will find that the Russian fleets were blockaded during the whole war, And

  829
  why? Because we produced an overpowering naval Force at the very commencement of the war, and they never dared to come ant to sea. What would occur if the Dockyards were left as they are now? You have 6,000 men on the establishment, and you have 12,000 hired men; 8,000 of these being in your Dockyards, and 4,000 out of them. By doing away with the hired system you would have a force of 18,000 workmen, skilled and disciplined, in your own Dockyards, available for any emergency. It would not cost you a penny this year, the only eventual cost being, that you would have to pay the men their pensions earlier than they receive them at present. Are you not helping to make the men discontented when, giving them what is called a pension, you do not count time for it till they reach the age of 40 years? It is a farce to tell them they will have a pension under a rule like that, for a man might be 15 years on the hired list before being put on the establishment, and hired time does not count for pension. It is a farce to say that a man shall have a maximum pension of £60 a-year when he has reached the age of 60 years, when at the same time you prevent his serving long enough to obtain it. Suppose you do not put these men on the established list, and a war breaks out, what may happen? They will probably strike to a man for higher wages. This has happened before: and to a certain degree I was the cause of it. Not many years ago I was visiting the French naval forts, and observing the great activity going on there, I came home at once and acquainted the First Lord of the Admiralty with the fact. A Supplementary Vote was taken; and the Achilles, the largest ship we then had building, was ordered to be hastened forward. The workmen got the hint that something was wanted, and they immediately struck for wages. They knew there was some threatened danger, and they turned the occasion to their own advantage, as they thought. What had we to do? Father than hold to these men who struck for wages, we discharged them, and we put in their place the established shipwrights—all of them experienced only in wooden ship-building—and they built the Achilles; and the First Lord of the Admiralty complimented them on the excellency of their workmanship. It is worthy of remark
  830
  that Dockyard men have never been known, on any one occasion, when placed on the establishment, to threaten to break their contract with the Government. They have been loyal to the Government at all times—in peace and in war, and have never, during wartime, talked of higher wages. Therefore I say that the difference between the efficiency of our naval administration now, and what it would be if the men were all placed on the established list, is beyond description; the advantages would be so incalculable to the Government and the country. If you are going to keep up the hired system, my experience induces me to say that you had better at once commercialize the Dockyards altogether, and hand them over to the private firms. Where your men may discharge themselves at a week's notice, you cannot have proper discipline. You are even obliged to submit to bad workmanship. First of all, you do not get skilled workmen to enter. I have ascertained from officers in the Dockyards that they get an inferior class of men—that is to say, less skilled. "We have to put him to machinery," said my informants, "when he first comes to the factory, and we have to teach him his work; and after being there a few years, he becomes a skilled workman. If you do not give him exactly what he wishes for—if you do not put him on the highest rate of pay—he goes off to a private builder's yard, and you have to begin again with teaching unskilled men." In fact, these factories are nurseries for the private tirade. Another objection is this:—Out of the 8,000 hired men, you have no selection for officers. You make your selection only from the established list. The men on the hired list are certainly expecting to get on the established one; but "Hope long deferred makes the heart sick," and no wonder there is discontent in the Dockyards. They have not the same social position in the town where they live, nor do they enjoy the same credit that the established men command. Therefore, in every sense of the word, it is desirable that the hired system should be discontinued. I fear I am wearying the House, but I trust that as this is the first time I have had the honour of addressing it, hon. Members will grant me that indulgence which they are always generously disposed to give on such occa-

  831
  sions. By this system of subsidizing the private trade, the Government get no return for it, except it be an inferior article, and that not at a less price. I have read all the Reports on the subject, with a view to ascertain whether we get the work done at a less price than we could do it for ourselves; but I find that exactly the contrary is the case, and I hold that, unless you add to the price of labour and material some extraordinary percentage for what is called "Establishment charges," it cannot be possible that the cost should be greater in the Dockyards than it is. I know that complaints have been made that Dockyard men on daily pay have been found skulking, and that it has been said supervision was wanted to prevent that. But what did they do at the very time they complained of the want of supervision? They took away the Inspectors from the Dockyards. In the present Estimates I find a charge of £10,000 to be devoted to defraying the expenses of Inspectors to watch the building of ships in the private yards; so that you take away your own supervision and hand it over to the private firms. These Inspectors must necessarily be men of great discernment to be capable of watching building operations in private shipyards. In one of these yards, which I visited the other day, I found that a ship was being built there entirely tinder sub-contracts, the sub-contracting parties being, for the most part, men who had risen from the ranks, with little or no education, and having undergone no competitive examination. They were men with a turn for making money, and after taking these sub-contracts they employed the labour. There were some 20 or 30, perhaps as many as 40, sub-contractors engaged on that vessel—every man interested in doing his work in such a manner as to make the most profit for himself. I maintain that you do not get the work done cheaper in the private shipyards. It is only due to those professional officers who are experienced in these matters to say so. I was once Superintendent of a Dockyard myself; and I found by my experience that you do not get a cheaper article in the private dockyard. But suppose, for the sake of argument, you do get as cheap an article, there are several reasons why the present system should not continue; and some of them I have
  832
  already mentioned. As regards the perfection of the workmanship, we have only to refer to the evidence of all experience, and we ought to have learnt a lesson in the loss sustained on the gunboats in the Crimean War. It was only the other day that I received a letter from Bermuda; and as it is dated the 11th January, it is evident that the letter was not prepared for the present occasion. It is written by an officer, and he says that—
  "The captain hits been on shore for the last fortnight on account of his cabin being in such a defective state, all around it, there being nothing but dry rot." (The vessel is Her Majesty's ship Niobe.) "But consider the Plover—Commissoned the same day as this ship, she was so rotten that she had to be patched up in order that she might be sent home with safety."
  MR. GOSCHEN: What date is that letter?
  ADMIRAL ELLIOT: The 11th of January.
  MR. GOSCHEN: This year?
  ADMIRAL ELLIOT: This year; either in January or February, I cannot make out which. The writer goes on to say—
  "Our boilers were in such a bad state that our stoker actually put his fingers through while he was feeling for something the other day."
  MR. GOSCHEN: Was she ä contract-built ship?
  ADMIRAL ELLIOT: I believe she was. But if she was not, the case still shows that our stores were so defective that, for the first time in the history of the Navy, we built ships with bad timber. Now, Sir, I have dealt with the matériel; and I next propose to refer to the personnel our Dockyards. I have said that the fluctuating number of workmen at the Dockyards, taking the average of the past few years, may be put down at 2,000 or 3,000; and what I suggest is that, out of the total number of 18,000 men employed, 15,000 of them might be placed on the Establishment. That would make our Dockyards three times as powerful as they are at present, according to the opinion of the noble Duke I before referred to, besides the advantage to the Government and the country of having the men under control: and I regard the question of discipline as a most important one. The only mode of punishing a workman is to keep him from coming into the dockyard for a few days, or discharge him. But if the workman is a hired one, you have no control over him whatever,

  833
  Only a short time since an occurrence took place in a private building yard, which might as easily happen in one of our own Dockyards. The officer whose duty it was to superintend such matters, went to complain of some rivets that had been improperly secured, and he was nearly "lynched" by the workmen before he left the yard. During the Russian War the workmen received 10 s. and 15 s. a-day, and their demoralized state, when they were receiving those wages in the private yards, was such as to offer an example to us that we ought to provide against. I believe I shall be borne out by the recollection of hon. Members when I say that those men were in such a demoralized state that it was only with great difficulty the private shipbuilders could get their contracts completed. The question is, whether you would have such men to deal with in case of war, or disciplined, skilled workmen, who would never fail in time of need? Now, Sir, I am told that, independent of the question of cheapness of work, and independent of the question of teaching shipbuilders in the private trade to build men-of-war, we should encourage the growth of plant in private yards. But surely it would be bettor to put the plant into our own yards. The argument is this—"If you employ private builders, they will enlarge their establishments; they will get more plant into their yards, and will be more ready to serve you at the outbreak of war." But why should we not put the plant into our own yards? It is curious that the annual requisition of the officers for machinery to make the Dockyards more productive, is a requisition that is always scratched out at the Admiralty; and I have ascertained within the last few days that it was intentionally done. Not only are we disestablishing the Dockyards, but they are intended gradually to become simply repairing yards, or perhaps there might be a ship or two built in them. If you go down to Portsmouth, Devonport, or Chatham, you walk almost through a wilderness, so little seems to be going on; and at Keyham we have 14 acres of boiler ground not utilized, while we are paying 20 per cent more to contractors than we can make boilers for ourselves. I have that on the very highest authority, and I could name other stores which, as regards the comparative cheapness of
  834
  manufacture, have been tested very closely; and the evidence was much in favour of the cheapness of manufacture in the Government establishments. If that be the case, the three points of objection raised to the Dockyards have fallen to the ground; but I will leave-some of my supporters to deal with those questions further when they are raised. As regards plant, there is a further point connected with the docks. I was at Pembroke the other day, where the Fury, one of our largest ships is building. A requisition was made that the Dockyard authorities should be allowed to widen the bottom of the dock in order that the Fury might be completed there, because she could not be so completed on account of the dock being too narrow. An estimate was made—it was very small in amount—and yet it was refused. That ship will have to be sent from Pembroke to another yard. All the iron plates are to be bent at Pembroke, and then the plates and the vessel will be sent to another yard where she will go into dock in order to have these plates put on. Then she will return to Pembroke to be finally completed; and the expense of all that will be quite as great as the cost of enlarging the dock at Pembroke would have been. I ask, why these refusals are given? Is it in pursuance of the system of disestablishing our Dockyards, and of going to war in future by contract. In regard to dock accommodation, it has been known that, even in times of peace, ships have been compelled to wait a considerable time in order to get into the docks. At Sheerness there is a deep water inlet of the sea admirably situated for the repair of any North Sea Fleet; and by an arrangement of having two docks thrown into one, you would have a deep water dock that any ship could go into even if she were sunk below her usual water-line. I see no attempt made in that direction; but I see great centralization at Chatham. I question now whether, looking at all things, it would not have been wiser to have retained Woolwich Dockyard. Chatham is not too large for our wants if we only utilized the place; but while we are going on employing private contractors, I cannot see why we should have enlarged the Dockyard at Chatham. Another feature of this system is the breaking up of ships. We have been breaking up ships by contract,

  835
  or we have been selling them to be broken up. The Report of 1868, which goes fully into this subject, appears to have been totally lost sight of, and we are still pursuing the old system. Here is a case which came to my knowledge yesterday. A vessel, perfectly sound—the Pelican—was sold for £5,000; and she was re-sold to the Portuguese Government for £40,000. It was always known that, in the breaking up of ships, the price of the wood paid for the work.
  MR. SHAW-LEFEVRE: When was the Pelican sold?
  ADMIRAL ELLIOT: The information is contained in a Return asked for by the hon. Member for Lincoln (Mr. Seely) in 1867.
  MR. GOSCHEN: In 1867?
  ADMIRAL ELLIOT: If the right hon. Gentleman is inquisitive, he will find all the information contained in the correspondence. These vessels were often sold for a small sum, and the Government sometimes bought back the copper which was taken from them. There was one case in which we sold a vessel for £300, and then paid £1,500 for the copper upon her; and, as the late Controller is reported to have said, it would have been better to have burnt the vessel, and allowed the copper to fall out in the Dockyard. The breaking up of those ships is a valuable feature in the Dockyard. It occupies labour; it increases the number of men you have there at the outbreak of war; and it gives them the opportunity of making higher wages, because you can break up a ship by task and job work. It is work to which you can put your men at any time if you happen to have a slack week or so; and yet these vessels have been sold wholesale to the private trade in the manner which I have described. There is another point to which I wish to allude—the employment of the Reserves of our Elect when at home in working in the Dockyards, and in performing the work which ought to be done by Dockyard labourers. I have been told lately that this is not so, because these men are employed in the Steam Reserve, and that only ships whose repairs are completed are in the Steam Reserve. But every ship that is not actually at the time being in the hands of the Dockyard is in the Steam Reserve; and these men, while in the
  836
  home ports instead of being employed for the benefit of the naval service and being instructed in their own duties, are employed in the Dockyards. I say that in employing these men in Dockyards you are doing a great detriment to the service. These men have been sailing abroad. You have them collected together at home for one year, and instead of taking that opportunity of improving their discipline and increasing their instruction, you put them into the Dockyards to supply the labour of the yards. I say that that is a most objectionable system. It is time when you have abolished hulks, even as habitations for convicts, that you should abolish them as habitations for the seamen in your Navy. I hope the question of naval barracks will soon receive the attention of Parliament; and I believe it is from want of naval support here that the subject has not before been taken up. I now come to the question of pay and pension in the Dockyards. I have said that if the men are well paid you will encourage good men to come to you. That is the best test of whether the pay of your Dockyard men is sufficient. If you find that the best class of men desire to enter the service, you may depend upon it that the men are sufficiently paid; if you find that you only get an inferior class of men you may depend upon it that they are not sufficiently paid. I am not going to deal with the question of the actual pay; but I must say here, in presence of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London (Mr. Goschen), that I believe that while he was at the Admiralty, if he had not the opportunity or power, he had the heart to have done all that he could for the good of the service with regard to the pay of the men, and that he acted to the best of his ability so far as he was advised. There were different ways of giving the advance of pay which he conceded; but it so happens that the way in which it has been done has raised old questions, and has made certain classes of men discontented. I hold Petitions in my hand from 10 different classes of workmen in the Dockyards complaining of the irregularity and injustice with which they have been treated in the late increase of pay. It was my intention to-night to have moved for an Inquiry into these matters; but looking to the advanced state of the Session, and to

  837
  the fact that it would probably be next year before a Report could be made, I am induced not to move for a Committee of Inquiry but to be satisfied with the assurance I have received, that every just claim will be fairly considered by the First Lord of the Admiralty. Now with regard to pensions, I have a few remarks to make. I say that the men do not get the pensions which are held out to them, because you do not allow them to come into the established class until they are too old to reap the full advantage. I find by tables showing the payments required for different amounts of pensions, that a man of 21 years of age entering the Navy, can receive £40 a-year at 60 years of age, by a payment of 2½d. a-day. I find that every man in the Dockyard may be insured against accident by a payment of a halfpenny a-day, and for that he would receive £ 1 a-week for six months if disabled, and £100 for his family, if killed. That is, a sum of 3d. would secure for each man a pension of £40 at 60 years of age, £1 a-week for six months if he were injured, and £100 for his family if he were killed. I think this mode of dealing with the question of pensions is well worthy of the attention of my right hon. Friend. I have already said that stores are not sufficiently supplied, and as regards the question of purchase, there is no doubt that we have sold stores out of our Dockyards at very low prices, and shortly afterwards repurchased stores of the same character at high prices. I do not think that is in the spirit of economy. I think that in the purchase of stores what we chiefly require is publicity, and that if we advertised more the prices that we pay for stores, we would by that means get better stores at lower prices. I hold the joining of the offices of master shipwright, engineer, and storekeeper, to have been not only a great mistake, but to have proved a dead failure. I have often heard great economists say that the expending officer ought not to be the custodian of his own stores, but that is exactly what has been done. When I was at Portsmouth Dockyard, when ships came in for repair, the officers had to send up an estimate of the cost of repair. It was afterwards found that the estimates in some cases were exceeded, and the officers got a severe reprimand. On the next occasion, not wishing to be reprimanded, the officers opened up the
  838
  ship to make sure of their estimate, and then the expenditure upon the ship was considered to be so great that they got another reprimand. There have been, however, no reprimands of late, and on enquiring why, I was told that the officers so managed the labour and the ships' stores, that they rectified the expenditure, and everybody was contented at the end of the year. Had I been in the place of these officers I would have done the same thing. We have a book supplied to this House called the Parliamentary Blue Book. It costs a great deal of money. I do not know whether any hon. Member has looked at it; but I am sorry to be obliged to tell the House that if hon. Members consider that that book contains an accurate statement of expenditure they are much mistaken. It is balanced at the end, I know; but its accuracy depends entirely on the system which prevails in the Dockyard. You have stock-taking in the yards, and instead of taking stock accurately you have fallacious ledger entries. There is a short story which I will tell the House on this point. There was a master painter in one of the Dockyards whose tanks were empty of paint. He goes to the store office and says—" I have got no paint." The clerk brings the ledger and says—" No paint! You have got five tons of paint in the ledger." The painter touched Ids hat and observed—" I am glad you have got paint in that book, because I have got none in the tanks." It is impossible that these Returns can be correct; but as this question will come on again I shall make no more remarks on it at present. The expenditure in the Accountant General's department is £15,000 more than it was seven years ago. You have just appointed what they call a book-keeper at £800, whilst your responsible officers in the Dockyards are not receiving anything like the same salary. If a Committee had been appointed I would have been able to prove that these Returns are perfectly useless and inaccurate, and when the Vote for the Accountant General's department comes on I will propose to reduce it by £15,000. I have detained the House longer than I should have done. I wished clearly to bring before hon. Members the state of our Dockyards. I wished to show that they were in a most unsatisfactory condition, and that this was due to the

  839
  policy which had been pursued, and which I hold was intended to place them in the position of which I complain. It was intended to disestablish the Dockyards—it was intended to confiscate money from the Dockyards so that it might benefit a particular class of trade. The question of the efficiency of our Dockyards has been totally neglected; and if in their present state war broke out, there would be imminent danger to the country. I trust that this discussion will not fall idly upon the House—that we may commence a course of reaction, and return to the state of things when our Dockyards did serve their purpose as the history of many wars has plainly proved.
  MR. HUNTsaid, he must congratulate the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Chatham (Admiral Elliot) on the very able manner in which he had enforced his views, and begged to assure him that the different matters on which he had spoken would receive his most careful attention. But his hon. and gallant Friend must be well aware that it was too early in his (Mr. Hunt's) official life as yet for him to have made up his mind on the different matters which he had discussed. The question what part of the shipbuilding of the Navy should take place in the Dockyards, and what part should be performed by private contract, was one on which there were great differences of opinion. The question, also, as to what should be the proportions of hired men and established men was one which would require very careful examination. The other matters also to which his hon. and gallant Friend had alluded required attentive consideration. He had only been able up to the present time to make a very cursory inspection of two Dockyards, and as soon as the Session was over he would devote a very considerable time to Dockyard questions, especially to those which had been brought before the House. He was very glad that his hon. and gallant Friend was satisfied to leave the matter as it stood without moving for a Committee, because, as his hon. and gallant Friend had himself said, no Committee could complete their task in the course of what was left of this Session; and suppose any changes were found necessary by his (Mr. Hunt's) Colleagues and himself in the course of their investigation nest autumn, it would be impossible
  840
  to make those changes when the Committee had not completed their inquiries, supposing they were to be re-appointed next Session. He was exceedingly anxious not to lose an opportunity that evening—it being so late in the Session—of explaining the Navy Estimates in Committee, and he therefore trusted that his hon. and gallant Friend would be satisfied with having called attention to the subjects he had dealt with in his speech.
  MR. E. J. REEDsaid, it was very desirable that, before the House went into Committee of Supply, some remarks should be made upon the speech of the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Chatham (Admiral Elliot)—a most unfortunate speech for our Dockyards. He had laid down propositions which were not essential to the well-being of the Dockyards, and, at the same time, would be very injurious to the country. He had protested against the policy of Government Business being done by the private trade of the country, but a more questionable doctrine was never propounded to the House, for everybody who had thoroughly considered the subject must be aware that it was one of the most fortunate things that had ever happened to the shipbuilding industry of this country that a considerable part of the shipbuilding ordered by the Government had been given to private firms. The hon. and gallant Member had argued that the Government Dockyards ought to be the only establishments in this country which should be allowed to build iron-clad ships. Why, it was the competition of the private yards which had rendered this country the principal resort of the world for the production of iron-clad vessels. Indeed, considering the enormous stimulus which the shipbuilding trade had given to the iron and coal interests of the country, he wondered that anyone should declaim in that House against the system of constructing some Government ships in private dockyards. No doubt the system required regulation, and of late he had noticed a tendency to place ships at low prices in the hands of inexperienced persons to an extent which was not altogether prudent. Still, he hoped we should never see the Government Dockyards converted into close establishments in which alone iron-clad ships could be built. As for the persistent efforts of different Ministries to disestablish all the

  841
  Dockyards, that was a phantom which existed only in the imagination of the hon. and gallant Member. For himself, he was not disposed to believe there had been any desire on the part of recent Ministers of either party to cut down the number of Dockyards improperly. Certainly, the Dockyard he represented ran no risk of being closed. Great additions had been made to the plant, and in the Estimates for the coming year, the First Lord of the Admiralty would propose to execute one-third of the iron-clad shipbuilding in Pembroke Dockyard. Again, with regard to the administration of the Dockyards, he was unable to concur with the hon. and gallant Member. For instance, the hon. and gallant Member objected to the placing of a mechanical officer over the shipbuilding, the machinery, and the stores, whereas that was one of the best arrangements ever made, and one, moreover, which existed in every private establishment in the country. An Admiral had never been appointed to the charge of a large private shipbuilding establishment, although one was frequently nominated to a similar post in the public service. He agreed that an Admiral was in his place at the head of Portsmouth and Devonport Dockyards, which were closely concerned with the outfit of ships, but he doubted the propriety of retaining such officers in Dockyards where the operations were purely mechanical. He approved the appointment' of mechanical chiefs by the right hon. Member for Pontefract, but thought their salaries ought to be increased to £1,000 a-year, as they would thus be placed in proper relations to the Naval Superintendents, who were at present, perhaps, too prone to use their position for the purpose of interfering with those mechanical operations of which they knew little or nothing. The hon. and gallant Member had invited the House to discuss the responsibility of the loss of the Captain, and although there was a time when it might have been desirable to discuss that sad and lamentable catastrophe, yet it was not his present intention to take up the challenge of the hon. and gallant Member, for he felt sure he should consult both the good feeling and the good taste of the House in declining to do so. He would next say that he was surprised that the hon. and gallant Gentleman should have directed so many of his re
  842
  marks against an officer of his own profession, who was unable to reply to him in that place, and he must say that the hon. and gallant Member had attributed to Sir Spencer Robinson views and opinions which he (Mr. Reed) had never before heard attributed to him.
  ADMIRAL ELLIOT: I have seen them in his own handwriting.
  MR. E. J. REED: If the handwriting was not in a public document I think it is unfortunate that it should have been produced here.
  ADMIRAL ELLIOT: It was in a public-document.
  MR. E. J. REED: Then I hope the hon. and gallant Officer will, when we are in Committee on the Estimates, give us the date and the occasion of that document.
  ADMIRAL ELLIOT: I shall be happy to move for it.
  MR. E. J. REEDsaid, the assertion that Sir Spencer Robinson desired to abolish the Dockyards was in direct contradiction to all he knew of that gallant officer, and he (Mr. Reed) had enjoyed a long and intimate connection with him. It might, perhaps, be supposed from the tenor of his remarks that he was wholly opposed to the hon. and gallant Member who brought forward this Motion, whereas, in truth, he was opposed only to the spirit of the speech, and to the general statements which had been imported into it. In his opinion, the officers and men in our Dockyards were labouring under considerable disadvantages, but the general statements of the hon. and gallant officer were calculated to prejudice their case, especially on the Opposition side of the House, where some economists still survived. The hon. and gallant Gentleman attacked the hired men, but the question of the admixture of hired and established artizans in the Dockyards was a very serious one, and one in which a Minister might easily go wrong. Unlike the hon. and gallant Member, he was fully prepared to maintain that the hired men had behaved well, and were a thoroughly valuable and reliable body. It was said they were union men, but it was a very prudent thing that they were so, because workmen were as entitled as themselves to look after their legitimate interests. Besides, the hired men, being members of trade societies, were in good relations with working men in other parts of the

  843
  country, and that circumstance naturally tended to pull up the wages of the established men. He concurred in much that was said by the hon. and gallant Gentleman as to the redundancy of Returns, because the abnormal activity of the House on that subject had been very injurious in its effect upon practical work in the Dockyards. He would not stand any longer between the House and the statement of the First Lord of the Admiralty, but would conclude by expressing his hope that those interested in the Dockyards would lay their heads together to devise a practical remedy for existing defects, instead of indulging in vague and general statements.
  MR. SHAW-LEFEVREsaid, he was not surprised at the speech of the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Chatham (Admiral Elliot), as during the late Election, that hon. Member had carried messages from one Dockyard to another, and had thereby raised expectations which he must do something to meet. The House would, therefore, do well to entertain, with great care, any statements coming from interested parties. There was a time when the Dockyards were managed with reference to politics, and when the Members for Dockyard towns were considered Government Members; but the Duke of Somerset was the first to lay it down, that the Dockyards should be managed without any regard to political considerations, and that course had been followed by right hon. Gentlemen opposite when before in office, and also by the late Government. He (Mr. Shaw-Lefevre) was sorry that the system appeared about to be revived again. He should have been glad to have acceded to the request of the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Hunt) to go into Committee at once, were it not that there were some observations which he wished to make upon what had fallen from the hon. and gallant Member for Chatham. When his right hon. Friend (Mr. Goschen) undertook last year to raise the wages of Dockyard men, he did it in such a way that it should not become a subject of discussion in that House, and that capital could not be made out of it by Members for the Dockyard towns. The main subject upon which the hon. and gallant Gentleman had addressed the House was what he called "the disestablishment" of the Dockyard men, and he gathered from his rather discursive speech, that
  844
  the two points to which he specially referred were what he held to be the undue proportion of non-established to established men in the Dockyards, and the great amount of work given to contractors outside the yards. For many years past it had been the custom to give some of the work to contractors outside, and he believed it to be a very wise course, for the reasons given by the hon. Member for Pembroke (Mr. Reed). But there were other reasons; it excited emulation, and enabled us to compare the one class of work with the other. Besides, in time of peace it would not be wise to employ all the labour of the Dockyards in building, for, if we did, we should not be able to execute the repairs which might be required. He did not think the late Government had exceeded the usual proportion of work put out on contract, the proportion given out by the previous Administration being, he was informed, larger. New machinery had always been done by contract outside. With regard to the question of established as compared with non-established men, he, equally with the hon. Member for Pembroke, regretted to hear the observations made by the hon. and gallant Gentleman with respect to the latter. The conduct of the non-established men might compare favourably with that of any other men in the United Kingdom, and certainly with that of the established men. There was no intention on the part of the late Government to disestablish a greater number of dockyard men than now existed; but whether it would be wise to increase the number of establishment men, and to extend the system to the factory to which it had never been extended hitherto, was a question well worth the attentive consideration of the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Admiralty. For his part, he did not think it would be wise to extend the system of establishment to the factory. The hon. and gallant Gentleman had pointed out that some years ago there was a practice of selling ships, with a view to their being broken up by contract. That was a very faulty practice, and it was put an end to by his right Friend the Member for Pontefract some years ago. The practice for the last five years had been that, where the Admiralty thought it right that a vessel should be broken up, it was done in the Dock-

  845
  yards, and where it was not thought proper to break the vessel up, she was sold, and fetched a good price. The hon. and gallant Gentleman spoke of the Pelican, which, he said, was sold in 18G7 for £5,000, and was afterwards resold to the Spaniards for £40,000. That was, no doubt, a very serious case; but, as it occurred in 1867, it was not during the tenure of office of the late Administration. [Admiral ELLIOT: The vessel was sold between 1859 and 1867.] That merely carried the matter a great deal further back; and as to what Administration had sold it, he did not care, but certainly it was not the late Administration. But those who had listened to the hon. and gallant Gentleman would conclude that it had been done either by the right hon. Member for Pontefract or by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London. He agreed with the remarks made by the hon. Member for Pembroke that the arrangement made five years ago with the object of concentrating in one hand the business management of the Dockyards, putting under the master shipwright not only all questions relating to engineers and machinery, but also to stores, was a wise one. He was aware that this arrangement met with great opposition from naval men, and that it was considered by many to be a prelude to doing away with the naval superintendents of the Dockyards. He was never in favour of doing away with them; but, at the same time, he could not look upon them as good business managers of those great establishments. He did not think they were, as a rule, qualified to act as business managers. What was required on the business side was to have really sound business managers, and that improvement was made by his right hon. Friend behind him. The hon. and gallant Gentleman had found great fault with the system of accounts; but in the main the Admiralty accounts might be looked upon as accurate, and as giving a correct account of the money spent, and with regard to them, the charge of falsification was brought before the Committee of the hon. Member for Lincoln (Mr. Seely), and disapproved. It might be questioned, however, whether it was worth while printing the accounts in such voluminous and costly detail.
  ADMIRAL SIR WILLIAM EDMON-STONEsaid, he did not believe it was the intention of his hon. and gallant
  846
  Friend (Admiral Elliot) to asperse the hired men; all that he did was to show the difference there was between the establishment men and the hired men, and he (Sir William Edmonstone) fully endorsed what his hon. and gallant Friend said. It was obvious that a great establishment like a Dockyard must rely upon established men if we were to be prepared for an emergency, and although he had not any fault to find with hired men, yet the proportion employed should be limited. He was thankful for the opportunity of protesting against, the assumption that Conservative Administrations were extravagant and careless in their accounts. It was true they did not conduct business on "commercial principles;" for instance, they kept up their stores so as to be prepared for any emergency, but they were not extravagant. He had himself held office in two Dockyards, and he knew that that was the case.
  CAPTAIN PRICEsaid, that it had been contended that there was an advantage in getting ships of war built by private contract, because it accustomed private builders to that kind of work, and caused a great demand to spring up from foreign countries. Now it was the first time that he had heard that this was an advantageous course for this country. It was private firms being experienced in building war ships that got us into the Alabama difficulty. No doubt a certain proportion of ship building should be given to private yards, but more than half the iron-dads in the British Navy had been built by contract, and that in addition to many other kinds of vessels being so built. At present there were being built by contract the Ant, the Hyena, and the Weasel, wretched little gunboats, besides three or four sloops and corvettes, a tug, and a troop-ship. The private yards did not want the latter class of work to keep them in practice; and why, therefore, should it not be done by our own established men? Why should we maintain in private yards plant to be used in building ships to be employed against ourselves? It had been laid down in a text-book that it was cheaper to build ironclads by contract than to build them in private yards, and the reason given was that builders did not look for any profit. The author of that remarkable text-book was the hon. Member for Pembroke. As to the state of our stores, the fact was that

  847
  from motives of what was called economy we had been living of late years upon capital. Our coal stores, for instance, had been very considerably reduced, and taking into account the rise which, had taken place in the price of coal, this could not be called an economy.
  MR. G. BENTINCKcould not but think that both the House and the country were indebted to his hon. and gallant Friend (Admiral Elliot) for the very able way in which he had brought forward the subject. Never was there an attack more undeserved than that of the hon. Member for Beading (Mr. Shaw-Lefevre) upon his hon. and gallant Friend, for he had almost impugned the motives, and certainly had impugned the qualifications of his hon. and gallant Friend to deal with it; but he was quite sure the House would not endorse that opinion. A more clear, able, and conclusive statement he had never heard; it was so complete that it appeared to be incapable of contradiction. His hon. and gallant Friend had shown that the present condition of the Dockyards was dangerous to the best interests of the country, because, in fact, the country was not prepared for war; and that it would be impossible to put it into that necessary condition, if it should become necessary, within a reasonable time. It was no doubt quite natural that the Government should ask for time for consideration; but he trusted that in considering the matter they would be as brief as possible, and would be to some extent guided by what they had heard that day. The case of the Pembroke Dockyard showed that the practice which had been pursued of late years, was a system which was crippling our resources. He believed that the present state of things had been brought about by the wretched system of Government after Government competing with one another for what was called economy, but which, when tested practically, amounted to nothing but extravagance. He did not understand the hon. and gallant Member who brought forward the matter, to attack private building yards; but he must say that the practice of so many hired men being employed in the Dockyards was properly attributed as a fault to the Government.
  Question, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair," put, and agreed to.
  SUPPLY—considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee).

ASHASTEE WAR.

  GRANT TO SIR GARNET J. WOLSELEY.
  Queen's Message [16th April] read.
  £25,000, Sir Garnet J. Wolseley, K.C.B., G.C.M.G.
  MR. DISRAELI: Sir, I rise to move that a Supply be granted to Her Majesty in order that Her Majesty may be enabled to carry into effect that object she has graciously expressed to her faithful Commons, to confer some mark of distinction on Sir Garnet Wolseley for having so successfully planned and conducted the Ashantee War. It is unnecessary, and I think the Committee will agree with me that it would be hardly becoming, that I should enter into the reasons which have induced Her Majesty's Government to advise that the recognition of the merits and services of Sir Garnet Wolseley should take the form of the Vote now before the Committee. It is enough for me to state that it takes that form merely in consideration of the feelings and wishes of the eminent individual whom it is the wish of the Sovereign of the country to honour and to reward. I would take this opportunity to announce that Her Majesty had graciously wished to confer upon Sir Garnet Wolseley an hereditary distinction, and to recommend to the House to provide the becoming means to maintain such an honour. Sir Garnet Wolseley, however, in declining it, said that the only rewards he sought in life were connected with that profession in which all his feelings and thoughts were centred, and that he looked with hope and anxiety always to professional promotion and professional opportunity. I may here observe that Sir Garnet Wolseley is a member of a family in which there are two Baronetcies, one of which is ancient, to both of which it is possible he may succeed. He has never cared to look forward to the possession of those Baronetcies, which if he were to succeed to them might interfere with the career to which he is devoted, but certainly he has no wish to add to the honours of that kind which his family already possesses. I thought it my duty to suggest to Sir Garnet Wolseley that however much I might admire the modesty of his charac-

  849
  ter in common with all who are acquainted with him, and which all must recognize, still I thought that by his refusal of these honours a false impression might circulate throughout the country with regard to the intentions of his Most Gracious Sovereign with respect to him, and that an idea might be prevalent that his services had not been recognized by the Crown in the manner which they deserved; but Sir Garnet Wolseley only answered me with the simplicity of truth, and said that he really thought he had been over-rewarded. Under those circumstances, the result is that I am about to propose the Vote—
  "That a sum not exceeding £25,000 be granted to Her Majesty to be issued to Major General Sir Garnet. J. Wolseley, K.C.B., (G.C.M.G., as an acknowledgment of his eminent services in planning and conducting the recent Expedition to Ashantee."
  Vote agreed to.

SUPPLY—NAVY ESTIMATES.
MR. HUNT, in moving the Vote for £602,757, for Wages, &c., for Seamen and Marines, said: Sir, I feel that I need the indulgence of the Committee in endeavouring to perform the task assigned to me on this occasion—because not only is the time since I undertook the duties of my present office exceedingly short, but the work of the Department is entirely new to me. Under these circumstances, I feel conscious that I shall not be able to give the assistance to the Committee in explaining the Estimates that I could have done if the time afforded to me had been longer; and therefore I hope the Committee will bear with me in any shortcomings I may exhibit.
At the outset it is better to say that the Estimates I am about to present to the Committee are the Estimates I found in my Department upon my accession to office—with one single exception, which I will mention hereafter. These Estimates were merely what are termed Departmental Estimates—that is to say, Estimates framed by my right hon. Predecessor the Member for London, with the assistance of the officers of the Department, in accordance with his views and the requirements of the service, but which had not received the sanction of his Colleagues in the Cabinet. It is under these circumstances that I present the Estimates to the Committee, and the
850
sums asked for are the sums that the right hon. Gentleman would have asked his Colleagues to sanction—with the exception of £7,000, which I added to the total amount before presenting them to Parliament, for the reason I will presently give. The gross sum asked for the naval service of the year is £10,179,485; but from this gross sum certain abatements have to be made. There are extra receipts and repayments amounting to £143,000, and contributions from the Indian Government on account of the expense of the fleet on the Indian station of £70,000; making together £213,000, leaving the net charge for the Navy for the year at £9,966,485. One thing, however, I should mention—that the comparison made in the printed Estimates between this year and the last is not now accurate, owing, as the Committee will remember, to a Supplemental Estimate having been presented at the close of the financial year of £105,000 for the enforcement of the squadron that is, amongst other things, to operate at Zanzibar for the prohibition of the slave trade. The sum stated in the Abstract presented with the Votes last year amounted to £9,899,725. which, with the Supplemental Vote of £105,000, amounted to £10,004,725. I propose to lay upon the Table a corrected statement of the expenditure for the past year for convenience of comparison with the Estimates for the present year. Comparing the sum now asked for with that of last year, there is an increase of £174,760, instead of £279,760 as shown in the Estimates so presented. As I have stated, the net amount required this year is £9,966,485; but of this amount there is a certain sum taken for the Army Service, which, by the rule in force at the Treasury, must be, as it is administered by the Admiralty, met in the Navy Estimates, amounting to £175,600, leaving the net balance chargeable for the Navy Services proper at £9,790,885. But there is reciprocity in these matters, for in the same way my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War takes in his Estimates certain charges for the Navy; and this year the balance is rather against me—the sum so taken amounting to £202,782—leaving with that sum the real charge for the Navy at £9,993,667, or as nearly as possible £10,000,000. The Committee

851
will no doubt like to hear how that sum is apportioned under the two great divisions of the Estimates—the Effective and the non-Effective Services. For the latter, which are represented by Votes 15 and 16, for Half-pay and Pensions, there will be required £ 1,815,000, leaving a little over £8,000,000 for the Effective Services. Of this sum one half may be considered, in round numbers, as spent on the personnel of the Navy, including' Marines, Coast Guards, and Naval Reserve, represented in Votes 1, 2, 4, 7, 8, and 12. Of the other half, the matériél as represented by Votes 6, 10, and 11, absorbs, in round numbers, £3,700,000, leaving something over £400,000 for Administration, Scientific Branches, Law Charges, and Miscellaneous. The division I have made must not be taken as strictly accurate, but for general purposes it will answer. Thus I have taken the charges for the Victualling Department and the Medical Establishments as part of the personnel of the Navy, because, for the most part they exist for the purpose of feeding and keeping in good health the officers, men, and boys of the Elect, though no doubt they are also available, to a certain extent, for those who are employed in the Dockyards as well as those on board ship.
I now propose to examine and go through the different Votes in order, and to call the attention of the Committee to any point I think of special interest to them, and to which I have been able to give particular attention, and to explain the difference between the amounts asked for this year as compared with those of last year, where such difference is of any substantial importance.
The Committee were good enough, a short time since, to vote the Number of Men without any statement being made by me; and I may remind the Committee that the number was the same as that of last year. The Officers, Men, and Boys have been taken at 46,000, and the Marines at 14,000, making a total of 60,000 asked for the year. The boys were reduced 500 last year, and they now remain at 7,000, of whom 3,000 are under training in training ships. During the Easter Recess I had the opportunity of inspecting a large portion of the force of boys under training. I inspected 1,700 of them at Devon-
852
port, and anything more satisfactory than their appearance, and the manner in which they did their drill cannot be imagined; and the military officers who were looking on envied me the promising nursery I had there for boys. The healthy appearance—I may say the muscular appearance—of these boys, their discipline, and the regularity of their movements excited the praise and commendation of all who were present. The Marines remain the same in number that they have stood at for years—14,000. The Wages for the Seamen and Marines stand at £2,602,757, of which the Committee has already voted £2,000,000, leaving a balance of a little over £600,000. There is an apparent decrease in the Estimates, in respect of this Vote, of £27,127, and it may appear strange that there should be this decrease upon the Vote when the numbers are the same. The fact is, that it is owing to a transfer to another Vote—in consequence of an alteration made by my predecessor—of the sum of £31,000, which would otherwise have appeared in this Vote, this sum now figures in the Victualling Vote. Indeed, after the accounts shall have been thus adjusted, there is an increase in the Wages Vote of nearly £5,000 over last year's Estimate.
I now come to Vote No. 2, the Victualling and Clothing Vote. When the number of men is once fixed, this Vote is governed by it, and the amount follows as a matter of course. A correction must be made in this Vote, consequential on the correction in Vote 1; so that there would have been, in fact, a decrease of £3,375 in Vote No. 2, instead of an increase of £28,545, as shown in the Estimates, if the transfer had not been made.
Vote No. 3, for the Admiralty Office, of £178,066, shows an increase of a little over £3,000, chiefly due to the progressive increase of salaries due to length of Service.
In Vote No. 4, of £163,311, for Coast Guard Service and Royal Naval Reserve, there is a decrease of £4,261; but those who remember the discussion introduced the other evening by my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings (Mr. Brassey) will be aware that this decrease does not represent a decrease in numbers, for it is satisfactory to find that, chiefly owing to the judicious alterations made by my predecessor, the right hon.

853
Gentleman opposite (Mr. Goschen) the Force is increased by 2,400 men. The reason for the decrease in the Estimate is that the experience of last year shows that a certain number of the men who enter the Naval Reserve do not present themselves when called upon for the training, and, therefore, it was felt that an abatement might be very fairly made, which has been taken at 10 per cent.
In Vote 5, £111,170 for the Scientific Branch, there is an increase of £12,516. of which the larger part, £7,000, is due to expenses in connection with the observations of the Transit of Venus, a charge which is, of course, exceptional for this year.
There is in the Vote a charge of £33,500 for the Royal Naval College at Greenwich. I am sorry I have not been able as yet to find time to visit this establishment, but I find from Sir Cowper Key, who is at its head, that 194 officers have availed themselves of the education given in the College; but I shall certainly watch with interest the progress of this establishment.
In Vote 6, the sum required is £1,180,326 for Dockyards and Naval Yards at home and abroad; there is an increase of £65,246, arising mainly from the employment of 800 additional men in the Dockyards. The reason which the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Goschen) had for the increase in the Vote which he contemplated was that this year there would be a great deal of repairing required in connection with our iron-clads. It is in this Vote that I have made the alteration alluded to, by adding 100 men to the 700 proposed by my predecessor, and rendered necessary by the great amount of repairing work required this year on account of our iron-clads now coming in for repair. The alteration I have made is for the sake of putting a new armament on the Minotaur, which will now be more powerful than before. I found that this vessel required very considerable repairs, and that her new armament had been prepared. Orders had already been given that the new armament should be put on board the Achilles, and the addition that I hare made will allow of the Minotaur being dealt with in the same way. The additions which I have referred to will give a total of 14,300 men, as proposed in the Estimates before the Committee, and the proportions are 6,080 men on
854
the establishment and 8,220 hired men. Of the additional men employed, 190 will be set to work at Chatham, 350 at Portsmouth, and the remaining 250 at Devonport. There are four iron-clads in commission now undergoing a temporary re-fit, and there are six not in commission that will have to undergo very substantial repairs. The experience we have had of the repairing of these ironclads is of very recent date. In the last financial year three iron-clads came in for repairs; two have been repaired, but the third is not quite finished. The experience gained in repairing these vessels shows that a larger number of men than was anticipated must be employed on these repairs. In addition to that a very formidable question arises with regard to the boilers. The improvements that have taken place in engines and boilers whereby certain advantages have been gained have resulted, apparently, in a much shorter duration of life than was formerly averaged to these boilers; and that experience has not been confined to the Royal Navy, because by communication with the great Steamship Companies we find that the same complaints are experienced by them. I may here say, therefore, that I have at once determined to do that which I rather believe my Predecessor had in contemplation—to appoint a Committee to consider the subject. I have the advantage of having secured the services as Chairman, of my hon. and gallant Friend (Admiral Elliot) who earlier in the evening called the attention of the House to the subject of Dockyards. With him will be associated the names of certain persons connected with the Admiralty whose position and authority will add weight to the decision arrived at by the Committee, and I have also asked the Steamship Companies to confer together and select a representative. The Committee will also number among its members an eminent chemist; so that we may be sure that anything that can be suggested as a remedy for the evils complained of will not be lost sight of. I have by me the Reports which have been made on this subject of the boilers by the Departmental Committee, and the Committee can see from them that the propriety of re-commissioning ships upon a foreign station, where there is not proper dockyard accommodation, is a very doubtful one. If it is wished, I will lay that Report

855
upon the Table; but, in any case, it will be submitted to the Committee which is to be appointed. The greater part of the Report is of so technical a nature that I will not trouble the Committee with it; but I desire to call attention to the case of the Dryad. The Dryad's boilers were put in order in 1866. On the 22nd of February, 1871, a little more than a month after the first signs of corrosion, a number of small holes began to appear in her boilers. During one portion of her commission she was serving on the south-cast coast of America, and during the other in the East Indies. Sonic repairs were made, and she was sent to Bombay, where a survey was made. Her boilers were reported to be defective, and in consequence of the unfavourable terms of the report she was ordered home. Now, this was one of the cases where reliance had been placed on the report that the ship's boilers were in good condition. The nest ship noticed is the Eclipse; and the Report states that when the boilers of the Eclipse were examined, after she was paid off—the boilers were put in in 1867, and she was paid off in 1872—they were found to be very much worn, but not to such au extent as not to be reparable. She was accordingly repaired at Sheerness at a great expense, the cost of the repairs being about half the first cost; but if the ship had been left in commission a few months longer, the boilers would have been past repair for a new commission. [Mr. GOSCHEN: She has not been re-commissioned?] No; the reason why I mentioned it was that here was a ship that has not been re-commissioned; but if she had been kept in commission a few months longer her boilers, according to the Report, would not have been worth repair. The Report goes on to say, in some general observations, that when circumstances permitted, it would be advisable to have boilers examined in Dockyards and repaired every three and a-half years. As to the propriety of that course, I am not, perhaps, so able to judge as some other members of the Committee; but if that opinion is correct, and if the recommendation ought to be attended to, it certainly is against the policy of re-commissioning ships at foreign stations without their undergoing a proper examination. I have stated
856
that the cost of repairs of iron-clads, according to the experience we have obtained is far greater than had been anticipated; and I will now give the Committee an account of the expense of the repairs of some of our iron-clads. There are three ships of which the repairs have been completed, and there are others in regard to which the expense is only estimated. The Warrior cost originally £356,693. She was seven and a-half years in commission; her first repair cost £69,928. [Mr. SHAW LEFEVRE: The first was the replacement of her boilers.] I am mentioning this, not with reference to boilers alone, but to the large expense incurred in the general repairs of these iron-clads. The cost of the repairs just completed is £51,897; so that the total cost of the repairs of the Warrior, after being seven and a-half years in commission is more than £121,000, which is a little in excess of one-third of the original cost. The Defence cost £232,000. She has been nine years in commission; her former repairs cost £32,000; and her recent repairs £33,000; making a total cost of £65,000. The Resistance cost originally £242,000; her repairs up to this time, when she has been a few months again in commission, have cost £68,610. I now come to the estimated repairs. The Hector cost £283,000. Her first repairs cost over £31,000; her estimated repairs are more than £44,000, making a total of £76,239. The Minotaur cost originally £456,804. She has been six years in commission, her former repairs cost £18,000, and her estimated repairs are £75,000, making a total of £93,000. The Achilles cost originally £444,546. She has been 8½ years in commission, her former repairs were £25,000, and her estimated repairs are £82,049. The Black Prince cost originally £357,636. She has been ten years and four months in commission, and the aggregate cost of her repairs amounts to the very large sum of £108,495, the present estimate being £61,000. The Valiant cost originally £320,288. She has been five years and four months in commission, her repairs cost £17,000, and her present repairs if the estimate be correct, will be £45,000; making a total of £62,000. This seems to be a rather alarming account of what we must expect to have to spend upon repairs of our ironclads. The matter is, indeed, so important that I

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propose to lay on the Table of the House a detailed statement showing the history of these ships—first of all where they were built—whether in Government Dockyards or private yards—the work they have done, so as to show the difference of climate and local influences upon the duration of a ship; and at what period the repairs of ships should be undertaken—I mean what period in the life of these ships should elapse before they are overhauled to see what repairs they require.
MR. MUNTZ: Will the Report give the distinction between the repairs of the boilers and the general repairs of the iron-clads?
MR. HUNT: Yes; the paper I have made out will distinguish between the cost of the hull and the cost of the machinery. I will, if practicable, have the cost of boilers added, and put into a separate column. A question which here arises, to which I will advert by-and-bye, is whether, in consequence of this state of affairs, the number of men taken for our Dockyards—namely, 14,300, will be sufficient to keep up the present establishment of ships. The work done in the Dockyards generally falls short of the estimate. The tonnage proposed to be built in the Dockyards in 1873–4 amounted, in the whole, to 12,757 tons: but of that only 10,902 were actually built. I believe that year will not be found to be an exceptional one, because, if the account is analyzed, it will be found that for some years past that has been the normal state of things; and it applies not only to Dockyards but also to the work done by private contract. As regards the distribution of the shipbuilding work, it was proposed to build 8,105 tons of iron-clads. The amount actually built last year was only 5,592 tons. In frigates and corvettes it was proposed to build 3,138 tons; but there was built more than the estimate—namely, 3,605 tons. Of sloops and gun boats, it was proposed to build 770 tons, but nearly double that quantity was built—namely, 1,395 tons. Of other vessels, it was proposed to build 444 tons, but there was actually built 310 tons only. I am not aware of the reasons, but the result is this, that whereas this House was under the impression that 8,000 tons would be added during the year to our iron-clads, it fell short of that to the amount I have named,
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while in other classes it was considerably more than was anticipated.
There then follow three Votes, No. 7, Victualling Yards, £72,000; No. 8, Medical Establishments, £63,701; No. 9, Marine Divisions, £18,720. There is a slight increase on these Votes, but not such as to call for any remark.
We next come to Vote 10, which is in two sections. The Vote being a large one usually gives rise to a good deal of discussion. The first section of it is for Stores, and the amount asked for is £1,143,159, showing an increase on the Vote of last year of upwards of £70,000. A very small amount of that increase is due to myself in consequence of the change in the armament of the Minotaur. Then there is Section 2, which is for Steam Machinery and ships built by contract. Upon that, there is an increase of £98,538, about half of this amount being for ships and half for machinery. There is included in the Vote a sum for breaking up ships—namely, £4,000. Now the question of the breaking up of ships is one on which I wish to make a few remarks. It is a question by no means now to me, because I used to discuss it, not unfrequently, with my late lamented friend Mr. Corry. I find that Mr. Corry was adverse to breaking up so large a tonnage of ships as he would like to have done by the consideration that the expense would nominally swell the amount of the Estimates. He was anxious that the amount paid for the work should come out of the proceeds of the ship. But that, according to the rule laid down by the Treasury—and a very proper one—was not permitted—the whole of the money to be spent must be shown on the Votes, even though it may be a remunerative outlay. However, Mr. Corry's endeavour to get the rule altered showed how far the increasing of the Estimates operated on his mind. For my own part, I believe that the breaking up of ships which are useless now, and never likely to be useful hereafter, is a very economical process, and I shall not shrink from increasing the Estimates for that purpose. The increase is only a nominal increase. There are two sides to the account. There is, first, the amount of stores which will be serviceable for the Navy for building and repairing purposes, particularly in the article of copper, which will, so to speak, add to the amount

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of your assets. There is the material which can be used again—copper which may be remanufactured and used for new ships, also iron work and wood. Then also there are the proceeds to go into the Exchequer of those parts of a ship which are not likely to be required for future use in the Dockyards. It seems to me that in a matter of this kind the Navy yard is very much in the position of any private establishment. You go into some private house and find there a lumber room containing old things which have been thrown aside as useless and not worth repair. Now, my own private experience has taught me that such things are not likely to be useful 50 years hence, and I have proceeded on the principle in my own house of having no lumber room. There is no use, in my opinion, in keeping a thing to be repaired at some distant date if it is not worth repairing at the moment. If there are any things which are found useless now, I would have them either burned, sold, or given away rather than keep thorn on the chance of of their being wanted. I made an inspection, with my late lamented friend Mr. Corry, of one of the principal Dockyards, and as it was my first visit I was struck at seeing the enormous amount of useless lumber that was lying about. No doubt there is the consideration that some large vessels may be converted to useful purposes. They may be used for receiving ships, hospital and store ships, coal hulks, and so on. But there are some that are quite useless for any service at present, and are not likely to be required in the future; and they are in the Admiralty lumber room. I am of opinion, under these circumstances, that it would be an economical operation to extend the breaking up of ships, and I shall not be afraid of the consideration which deterred Mr. Corry from extending it—that it would nominally swell the amount of the Estimates. I say so because I give credit to Members of this House who study the subject, for looking at the two sides of the account, and for seeing that what is apparently an increase in expenditure is in reality a reduction in the charge to the public. Of course the question of the breaking up of ships does not always depend on how much money can be spent on the operation, because there is always the question of what accommodation there is for
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the purpose. In some Dockyards there is very little, in others more. My wish is to cause reports to be made on the matter, and if even in the present year I were to ask the House of Commons to sanction the grant of an additional sum of money for breaking up old ships. I hope hon. Members will not consider that I am running into any very great extravagance. Section 2 of Vote 10 provides for building this year by contract three corvettes, two sloops, and two gun-boats. The total amount which it is proposed to build in the Dockyards and by contract is estimated in round numbers at 20,000 tons, of which 13,000 tons will be built in the Dockyards, the remainder being contract work.
The next Vote is No. 11, for New Works and Buildings, £682,061. This large amount is chiefly due to new works at Chatham and Portsmouth, the former absorbing about £110,000 and the latter about £300,000. There is no change in the amount of last year. Nor is there any change in Vote 12, for Medicine and Medical Stores. £70,520. Vote 13 is for Martial Law and Law Charges, and there is in this Vote a slight decrease, the amount being £15,505. The next Vote for Miscellaneous Services is £113,510, which shows an increase of £8,992, owing to its being found that the sum taken for telegraphic communication was not sufficient.
We come now to the Non-Effective Services. The Vote for Half-Pay and Retirement is £870,166, an increase on the sum voted last year of £7,704. The retirements among officers in 1873, excluding sub-lieutenants, navigating lieutenants, and assistant paymasters, have been 344. The numbers on the Retired List on the 1st of January, 1873, were 2,153, and on the 1st January of this year 2,360; showing an increase of 207. There is an increase in money on the two years of £52,842. The result of these and other changes in the Active Lists I will give the Committee. The Order in Council which governs the matter lays down what is considered as the standard numbers of the different ranks. The result is as follows:—Admirals of the Elect, 3, as proposed in the Order in Council; Admirals 12, being five in excess of the standard; Vice-Admirals, 15, the same as the Order; Pear-Admirals, 25, the same as the Order; Captains, 178, being 28 in excess of the

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standard; Commodores, 205, being only five in excess; Lieutenants, 662, being 62 in excess; Sub-Lieutenants, 382, or 182 in excess; Navigating Officers, 260, being 10 below the standard; Chaplains and Naval Instructors, 92, being 8 below the standard; Medical Officers, 441, or 35 below the standard which is 476; Paymasters, 217, being 17 in excess; Assistant Paymasters and clerks, 287, being 57 in excess. These figures show how the state of the Active List has been operated upon up to the present time by the retirement scheme of the right hon. Gentleman opposite.
The next Vote is No. 16 in the Non-Effective Service, for Military Pensions and Allowances, amounting for military pensions to £657,090, an increase of £13,874, which is owing to a greater number of seamen being pensioned off this year than last. Section 2 of the same Vote is for Civil Pensions, £288,670, being a decrease of £7,778, which is caused by the number of deaths. The Vote for the Army Service is £175,600, being an increase of £7,860. This is a Vote over which the Admiralty have no control:—it depends chiefly on the movement of troops, for which we have to provide in the Navy Estimates.
I come now to what is always a very interesting subject to hon. Members in these discussions—the programme of ship-building works provided for in these Estimates. It is proposed at Chatham to advance the Superb, ironclad broadside, to 56–100ths; the Téméraire, iron-clad broadside, to 33–100ths; the Euryalus, iron corvette, wooden-sheathed, to 52–100ths; a composite corvette (new Magicienne) to 32–100ths; and to provide materials for a composite sloop (new type Albatross), which is to be delivered. We shall also complete, after delivery from the contractors who have built them, the Rover, an iron corvette built by the Thames Company, and two composite sloops, the Sappho and the Daring, built by the firm of Wigram. At Sheerness, it is proposed to complete the corvette Diamond, which will be ready for launching next July; to begin a composite sloop (an improved Fantóme), though not to make much progress with her; to complete a paddle steamer, the Pioneer, built by contract; and to employ 850 men in repairing ships for reliefs, &c. At Portsmouth it is proposed to advance a new iron-clad, the
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Inflexible, to 22–100ths; to complete by September next the iron frigate the Shah; to advance the Boadicea, corvette, to 62–100ths, the Bacchante, corvette, to 46–100ths; to complete the turrets only of the turret-ship Thunderer; to complete the yacht Osborne by June next. I saw the Osborne the other day. She is now in the condition to have a commander appointed to her. She will be appropriated to Her Majesty's use; but it is to be understood that by permission of Her Majesty she will from time to time be used by the Prince of Wales, and in conveying foreigners of distinction coming to this country. It is proposed to complete the torpedo vessel Vesuvius on its arriral from Pembroke, and also the troopship Assistance, "built by the Messrs. Green. At Devonport it is proposed to complete the corvette Sapphire and the steam-tug Perseverance; to begin a composite sloop (an improved Fantóme); to complete the composite sloop Egeria; to complete the gunboats Cygnet, Contest, and Express, built by contract, and the composite sloops Arab and Lily, likewise built by contract; and also to employ 1,888 men on repairs. At Pembroke it is proposed to advance the Fury, turret-ship (an improved Devastation) to 69–100ths, and the Shannon to 44–100ths; also to begin a composite corvette—a new Magicienne. The number of men to be employed in the Dockyards is, as I have stated, 14,300: and they were apportioned in this way in the present Estimates. I say in the present Estimates, because my right hon. and gallant Friend (Sir John Hay), by a Notice he has given to-night, thinks they ought to be apportioned in a different manner. It is proposed to employ in shipbuilding, 4,700 men; in repairs and refits, 4,757; in yard manufactures, 1,931; in yard and harbour service, 2,809; and 103 for store purposes at Deptford and Haulbowline; making in all 14,300 or 800 more than last year. Next, I will give the Committee some account of the work to be done by contract. It is proposed, by contract, to complete the Dover, advance the Magicienne, and commence and advance three new Magiciennes—all five being corvettes; also to complete the following sloops and gunboats:—The Sappho, Daring, Arab, Lily, Cygnet, Express, and Contest; to commence and advance one new Fantôme, 427 tons, and

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another, 428 tons. We shall likewise advance three new Cygnets, complete the Resistance, troopship, for which 592 tons are required; and the Pioneer, paddle steamer, requiring 166 tons. It is proposed that a new tug shall be purchased, if possible, or built by contract. That is the detail of the works proposed under these Estimates to be done by contract, and in the Dockyards. The tonnage to be built is—in the Dockyards, 13,851 tons, builders' measurement, and 5,618 tons by contract; making together a total of 19,469 tons. This is the work proposed to be done; but, according to the number of men taken for the purpose, if we look at the experience of the past as regards the Estimate and the actual result, I do not think we are likely quite to realize the full amount that is expected.
The list of the fighting ships in commission at the present time is as follows:—23 iron-clads—besides the Glatlon and Gorgon—one Devastation, eight frigates, 14 corvettes, 27 sloops, 32 gun vessels, and 18 gunboats—total, 123. As stated in the Controller's Report, there are of efficient unarmoured ships and vessels 110 altogether, of which 25 require immediate repairs. That is exclusive of troop and store ships, yachts, and tenders.
I now come to the question of the ironclads. I should not be satisfied to give the Committee the present state of the iron-clad fleet, and what is proposed to be done with respect to it, without looking back for a period of years. I must revert to the time before the late Government acceded to office to show what was done under the previous Government of which I had the honour to be a Member, although not then holding in it my present position. I wish to show what was then done in strengthening the Navy in the matter of iton-clads, what has been the course pursued since then, and also to draw attention to the result which has ensued. In 1867, my noble Friend (Lord Hampton) was at the head of the Commission, but in February that year he was transferred to the War Office, and his place at the Admiralty was filled by the late Mr. Corry. In that year—1867—the following iron-clads were commenced:—The Audacious, the Captain, the Invincible, the Vanguard, the Iron Duke, and the Sultan—making six. The next year,
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while my lamented Friend was still First Lord, there were commenced four more iron-clad ships—namely, the Hotspur, the Swiftsure, the Glatton, and the Triumph. That is to say, 10 were commenced in those two years. [Sir JOHN HAY: And the Repulse, which was not only begun, but finished.] My right hon. and gallant Friend says, I ought to add the Repulse, and there appears to be good authority for doing so. These, then, were the iron-clads commenced in 1867 and 1868. I would ask where should we have been as regarded our fleet had not that policy been pursued by Mr. Corry? It was the fashion at the time and shortly afterwards in the House and in the Press to decry the extravagance of the Conservative Government; but without that so-called extravagance would my right hon. Friend who preceded me have been able to effect the so-called economics of the Liberal Government? What has since been done in the way of iron-clad building? Seven have been begun, of which the Cyclops, Hecate, Gorgon, Hydra, Devastation, and Rupert, have been completed; while the Thunderer, though considerably advanced, will not at the present rate of progress be completed till October, 1875. My predecessor has bequeathed to me five more iron-clads—the Superb, Fury, Shannon, Téméraire, and Inflexible; but the first three of these will be completed very late in 1876, the Téméraire in July, 1877, and the Inflexible, which is only just commenced, in October, 1877. It has been said in some quarters that the Conservative Government commenced a lot of ships and left them as a burden on their successors; so that the former could not take credit for them. I do not wish to claim any credit which is not due, but I have obtained a Return of the gross tonnage of ships of all kinds built in different years. In 1866–7, under the programme of the Russell Government, which preceded that of Lord Derdy, it was 15,384 tons; in 1867–8, for which Mr. Corry was responsible, 33,701; in 1868–9. 26,290; in 1869–70—when, notwithstanding a change of Government, there had been no great change of policy—24,230; in 1870–1, 19,925; in 1871–2, 21,137; in 1872–3, 16,092; and in 1873–4, 17,329. Taking the tonnage of iron-clads only, the figures for the successive years were 7,013, 12,448, 15,045, 18,769, 12,567,

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10,678, 4,798, and 4,050, showing a rapidly descending ratio down to a very small amount indeed. As regards the present strength of the Navy, especially the iron-clad fleet, which is its mainstay for fighting purposes, the "extravagant Conservative Governments" may take credit for having added a very large part. The sums spent in building and repairing ships of all descriptions were in 1867–8, £2,236,000; in 1868–9, £2,316,000; in 1869–70, £1,833,000; in 1870–1, £1,344,000; in 1871–2, £1,719,000; in 1872–3, £1,456,000; and in 1873–4, £1,781,000; while the present proposal is to spend £1,888,000. The result of the policy which has been pursued has excited much interest, and has led to a discussion "in another place," while my right hon. and gallant Friend (Sir John Hay) who intended to offer a Motion upon the subject before the House went into Committee has courteously deferred it, in order to save me the inconvenience of having to reply to it before introducing the Estimates.
With a view to ascertain the present condition of the iron-clad fleet, I have employed all the resources of the Admiralty establishment, and have obtained the assistance of the Controller of the Navy and of all the Sea Lords; not satisfied with which I have endeavoured to check their accounts by information from the Admirals in command of squadrons. I have accidentally been able to confer personally with one of them and go into detail as to the state of his ships; while from the Admirals at different stations I have availed myself of opportunities, which I admit were not very great, of getting valuable information. Pessimists may think my statement too flattering, while others may deem it too disparaging; but I have no wish to exalt or depreciate our strength unduly. We have 55 ironclads, of which 41 are seagoing, and 14 are adapted for harbour and coast defence. In the latter category I have included the Devastation; for though some authorities think her fit for seagoing service, I shrink, after the sad warning furnished by another ship of novel construction, from placing her without further trial and advice among the seagoing ships. Wherever she is she is no doubt a very powerful instrument of war, and the most extraordinary piece of mechanism which human inge-
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nuity has ever devised. What is the condition of the seagoing ships? I think the Committee will be prepared to hear, after all they have read in the ordinary channels of communication, that the state of many of those ships, not to put it too strongly, is anything but satisfactory. The list of 41 includes the five now building. With respect to the rest I must decline to give their names, however I may be pressed to do so. It is a very delicate matter to state to the public, British or foreign, the exact condition of every ship in the Navy. Five ships are, as I have said, being built. There are nine others that are either obsolete or considered not worth repairing for seagoing purposes. That reduces the list to 27; and of these only 18 can be considered as effective in the proper sense for service during the present year. Fourteen out of the 18 are now serviceable and effective, and 4 are under repair, and will not be ready until August next. There are 9 others which are not condemned but which cannot be considered as effective for the service of the year. Some of them are under repair, and these will not be ready until next year. There are some now undergoing a temporary refit, which, when refitted, cannot be counted upon as good for more than a year.
MR. GOSCHEN: What ships are these?
MR. HUNT: I decline to specify them more particularly; but there are nine of the description I have stated.
MR. GOSCHEN: Will you say how many are in each category?
MR. HUNT: Three will be reach-next year, and 2, when out of hand, will be fit for one year—the sanguine say for a longer time, but the best authorities say but one year can be reckoned upon. Then there are 4 ships whose boilers are nearly worn out, and which will require thorough repair. Such is the account I have to give of the sea-going iron-clads according to the best information I can acquire. Then of the 14 which are adapted for harbour and coast defence only 9 can be considered effective, of which number 8 are complete and 1 is being built; and of the 8 the Devastation is one. The other 5 are not worth mentioning; some of them are at distant stations where they serve certain purposes, but from which they never can be brought home. Such, according

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to the best investigation I have been able to make, is the condition of the iron-clad fleet. I have no doubt it is too sanguine a view for my right hon. Friend (Sir John nay), and too disparaging a view for some hon. Gentlemen opposite; but I offer it to the Committee as a moderate, and proper, and reasonable view to take of the ease. For my part I do not think, after the history I have given of the shipbuilding operations of the last few years, that any different result is likely to be exhibited.
I am more anxious, in consequence of the absence from among us of my late right hon. Friend (Mr. Corry), whose reputation is much concerned in the matter, than I otherwise should be, to state the cost of the Naval Service since the year 1867–8 inclusive, because I want to show that that which has been called great economy was not and has been found not to be any real achievement of that nature. In 1867–8, the aggregate Votes were £10,976,253.
SIR JOHN HAY: Including Abyssinian expenditure.
MR. CHILDERS: There was an excess Vote of £340,000.
MR. HUNT: Well, I did not prepare the paper before me; but I am quite prepared to take the fact to be as my right hon. Friend states. In 1868–9, the Vote amounted to £11,157,290; but a correction of about £200,000 should be made in consequence of a different mode of keeping the accounts then and now; so that the sum voted really was nearly £11,000,000, the highest amount reached during the period to which I am calling attention, and that was the last year for which my late right hon. Friend (Mr. Corry) was responsible. It has been stated that the Estimates of my late right hon. Friend for the year were what the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Greenwich would call "transitional Estimates." It has, been admitted from that bench that if my late right hon. Friend had remained in office the Estimates would have fallen by about £600,000, as the reduction did not depend upon any change of policy. I now come to the reductions which were made under the late Administration. These reductions were, I suppose, the work of political necessity, but I do not wish to go into controversial matters. I have stated facts to the Committee, and I hope in a
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manner which has not been at all unpalatable to right hon. Gentlemen opposite. I suppose the reductions in question were the result of political necessity, because so much had been said about the extravagance of the last Conservative Administration, and the enormous economies that could be effected by a Liberal Government coming into office; and those views of economy recommending themselves to the country, it was almost impossible not to make very considerable reductions in the Estimates as a matter, as I have said, of political necessity. Accordingly, the Estimates next year, 1869–70, instead of being nearly £11,000,000, were £9,996,000, or, in round numbers, £10,000,000. In 1870–1, they amounted to £9,370,000, the Estimates being artificially swelled by £ 120,000 to meet certain extra charges consequent upon monthly instead of quarterly payments. The sum voted when that abatement was made was £9,250,000—the lowest sum to which the Estimates fell during the period I am reviewing. Well, the great political necessity having passed away, the requirements of the Navy began to be taken into consideration, and we find that in the year 1871–2 the Estimates increased from£9,250,000 to £9,891,000. In the year 1872–3, they amounted to £9,532,000, and in 1873–4, they amounted to £10,004,075; so that the late Government, with a change at the Admiralty, found the necessity of retracing their steps and of spending more money on the Navy. The proposal for this year is, as I have already explained, departmental only, they not having received the sanction of the late Cabinet; but the sum that the right hon. Gentleman thought it would have been necessary for him to propose to his Colleagues, for the Naval Service for the present year, is £10,170,000, and I wish to ask how much that is short of the sum taken by my late Friend (Mr. Corry), after deducting the £600,000 by which, it was admitted after the change of Government, he would have reduced his Estimates for 1868–9. I have not made the calculation before; but the original amount being something under £11,000,000, after the £600,000 and the £200,000 to which I have referred had been deducted, there would remain the sum of £10,350,000 as against the Estimate of the right hon. Gentleman

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for the present year of £10,170,000. I wish to know whether there could be a clearer vindication of the policy of my late Friend (Mr. Corry) than these figures exhibit? I do not wish to overstate anything in connection with this subject; but there is no question that, even after making due allowance for the very considerable increase since 1868–9 in the amount of wages and the price of coal and iron and many other materials, the right hon. Gentleman had raised his Estimates to nearly the level at which they were left by Mr. Corry. Having in view the statements I have just made to the Committee, I wish to ask whether the policy of Mr. Corry and of the late Conservative Administration was one which ought to have been derided as extravagant and foolish, and whether the so-called economical policy of the late Government was really in the true interest of the Navy and the country? I have felt it to be my duty to make this explanation in justice to the memory of my late Friend (Mr. Corry) as well as in the public interest.
I wish to explain to the Committee the position in which I am placed with regard to these Estimates. The Committee are well aware of the extraordinary difficulties under which the Government have presented anything to the House during the early days of this Session. The time at which the dissolution of Parliament took place, and the consequent change of Government, left the incoming Administration so short a time to discharge its duties that I have found it impossible to revise the Estimates which had been prepared by my predecessor, except with regard to the point of the new armament of the Minotaur—the necessity for which was so obvious that I did not hesitate, after a few days, to sanction the necessary expenditure for it. But the question is am I satisfied with the provision made for the Naval Service for the year? Representations were made to me early on my accession to office that the provision was insufficient. I thought that it would be wrong of me in a hasty way to alter the figures which had been arrived at by my predecessor in his responsible position after the short time allowed me for the preparation of my Estimates; and I do not lightly estimate the responsibilities of a Minister when I place my Estimates upon the Table of this
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House,—and even now I do not feel that I am prepared at the present moment to make any proposal to the Committee in augmentation of those Estimates. I, however, feel bound to say that urgent appeals for further expenditure have been made continually, and that demands which I do not see my way to refuse are daily pressed upon me, and that they are daily increasing. Representations have been made to me from the responsible officer of the Department that the number of men taken for the Dockyards is not sufficient to keep up the present establishments. I have had the assistance of my hon. Friends beside me, the Financial Secretary and the Civil Lord, in looking into this matter, and with the aid of the naval members of the Board, I have gone into the scheme of reliefs established by the late First Lord, and although I am not prepared to dispute that that scheme might suffice for the present year, the right hon. Gentleman himself will doubtless admit that it provides no margin, and that if a single important ship in that scheme came to an untoward end there is nothing whatever to take its place. In my opinion that is a state of things which is not satisfactory. I have, however, thought it my duty to look into the question of reliefs for next year, and I will lay before the Committee the information I have obtained up to the present moment. Bearing in mind what has come upon us in connection with the worn-out boilers, there will be, as far as I understand the matter, a hiatus valde deflendus in two of the squadrons which form part of the establishment, taking it upon the present numbers as considered sufficient by the late Administration. That is a very serious matter. I am not in a position to make any proposal to the House at the present time, and, as I have already stated, the seriousness of disputing the Estimates of my predecessor weighs very much with me because I know that he had paid very great attention to the Navy, and because I could see that in his policy he was endeavouring to correct many of the evils which had resulted from the mistaken and misconceived reduction: and therefore without very careful consideration, and without further examination, I should hesitate to announce to the Committee any proposition for additional demands upon

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the public purse. I cannot, neither have I the wish to conceal from the Committee that I shall have to submit to my Colleagues in the Cabinet some further demands for the service for the year. There has been an impression in some portion of the public mind that when a change of Government took place, what was tailed "the old Tory notions" of expenditure and of extravagance would be revived. I do not know what those old Tory notions were, because I have never lived in those days; but I can say that my late official experience has been in a Department where expenditure is very closely watched, where it is the special duty of the Department to check extravagance in all the great spending departments; that I have come to the Admiralty with Treasury views, and that I shall feel it my duty to regard with the most rigid scrutiny any proposals for increased expenditure. At the same time, however, if I see that the exigency of the service requires it I shall not shrink from my duty in coming to this Committee and stating what I think is necessary for the public service, and unreasons for thinking so. As long as I remain at the Admiralty it must be understood that I do not mean to have a fleet on paper; that whatever ships appear as forming a part of the strength of the Navy must be real and effective ships and not dummies. It is with that view that I have taken the office which I now hold, and it is with that view that I have made the statement which I have had the honour of making to the Committee to-night. The right hon. Gentleman concluded by moving the Vote for £2,602,757 for Wages for Seamen and Marines.
Motion made, and Question proposed,
"That a sum, not exceeding £602,757, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Expense of Wages, &c. to Seamen and Marines, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1875."
MR. E. J. REEDsaid, that if they had not heard the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. Hunt) that evening, they would nevertheless have known perfectly well that for several years past the expenditure of the Government upon now iron-clad ships had been undergoing a very rapid diminution. In fact, close
872
observers of the Navy Estimates must have noticed that our expenditure upon new iron-clads, the difficulty in repairing the iron-clads needing repair, and the corresponding diversion of money from iron-clads to other vessels, had been characteristics of recent Estimates. Doubtless, many hon. Members had listened to the right hon. Gentleman's statement with considerable alarm, and it was natural that many should feel disposed to greatly censure the late Government for having cut down our ironclad shipbuilding to the degree they had done. He cared very little for the political recriminations which they must naturally expect in debates of this kind; but he was most anxious to show to the Committee that there were far larger causes than mere political tendencies and considerations underlying the difficulty in which the Committee found itself; for he thought it would be acknowledged that when they had heard descriptions like that of the right hon. Gentleman, of our iron-clad Navy, it would be found that we were in a very considerable difficulty, and he could not hold out the least encouragement to the right hon. Gentleman that he would be able to avoid Supplementary Estimates in the present year. The Committee would easily see the difficulties underlying this question. Under the old state of things a line-of-battle ship would cost £150,000, and carry 1,000 men; whereas, an iron-clad now-a-days cost double the money and carried half the number of men. If, therefore, they now desired to send the same number of men to sea as they did formerly, the idea of securing uniform Estimates was a delusion. It would, of course, be said that a great number of our ships were not iron-clads; that a very large portion of the public service was performed by other ships, and that was true; but it was also true that all the ships of to-day were much more ex-pensive than the ships of former times, because of the introduction of sanitary and other improvements. He had been told by an official that night, that if one took the whole of the ships of the Royal Navy afloat now, it would be found that they had cost nearly 1·7 times the cost of ships in former days; or, to put it in another form, for every £100 which we had to invest in ships in the old days, we had now to invest £170 in order to carry the same number of men to sea.

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It therefore followed, as a matter of course, that if we wished to expend the same sum of money annually upon the Navy—if we had to enhance the expenditure upon ships per man in the proportion named—it was a matter of necessity to cut down the number of men in order to do it. But we did not cut down the number of men enormously. In 1869–70 the number of men was 63,000; in each of the three succeeding years, 61,000; last year it was 60,000; and the last-mentioned number appeared again in the present Estimates. Therefore, since 1869–70, there had been a reduction of only 3,000 men; and he thought, in connection with this part of the subject, that if any naval reformer should attempt to induce the present Parliament to reduce the number of men in proportion to the increase in the cost of ships, he would entirely fail in his object, for as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London (Mr. Goschen) showed last year, a very large part of the Navy was employed on service which could not—merely because iron-clads had gone tip in price—be done away with. Therefore, they found themselves in this position—that if the 60,000 men were to be retained, and it was to be made practicable to send them at any time to sea, it was necessary to spend more money upon the costly ships that Mere now employed, for it was unwise to hide from ourselves the absolute necessity that existed for a large expenditure on those services which were the means of retaining the great possessions which this country enjoyed. If any hon. Member on the Opposition benches could show him how they could go on sending 60,000 men to sea in modern ships at the present Estimates he would be very happy indeed to hear the solution of the difficulty; but it seemed to him that it was an impossibility, and he would be sorry if this fact remained concealed amid political recriminations passing between opposite benches. Now, what were the actual circumstances with regard to the expenditure? During the first 10 years of the existence of ironclads, when they were merely in an experimental condition, the expenditure on them had averaged £984,000 per annum; in 1869–70, the year in which the economics of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Pontefract (Mr. Childers) were in full bloom, the expen-
874
diture exceeded £1,000,000 sterling, owing, it would probably be said, to the necessity for completing a number of ships which the predecessor of that right hon. Gentleman had begun. However that might be, the outlay in 1869–70 was greater than it had been in any of the previous 10 years. So great and rapid, however, had been the diminution in the expenditure on our iron-clads since then, that the average had been reduced from £981,000—the sum he had already mentioned with regard to the first 10 years—to £925,000, the average for the past 15 years; and the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Admiralty had put before the Committee Estimates that evening, and had hesitated to increase them, saying that he still doubted whether he would have to ask the Committee to increase them or not, to the amount of only £660,000 for the expenditure of this year upon iron-clad ships. That expenditure was about 30 per cent less than it had been during the first 10 years of their existence when they were purely experimental, and it would surprise him if the House regarded this proposal with satisfaction. If they did, it would deprive the Ministerial side of the opportunity in the future of declaring that its policy was to correct any deficiencies they might discover in the public services of the country. Not only was the outlay on the building of these ships falling off, but the arrears of repairs were also accumulating, and although the right hon. Gentleman had given them fuller information on this head than they had been accustomed to receive, still it was incomplete, and it left a great doubt in his mind as to whether it was the intention of the Government to bring the existing iron-clads as far as possible into a state of efficiency during the year, that being, as he thought, the least duty of the Administration. Was there anything to justify this enormous diminution of expenditure upon iron-clads—this setting aside, he might almost say, of the ironclad as one of the things on which we counted most in connection with the armaments of the country? In the autumn of 1872 he ventured in the columns of The Times to draw attention to our iron-clad Navy as compared with that of foreign Powers, and there followed an official contradiction, not of his statements, but of himself; for whereas his

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affirmation had referred to the rate of progress in the construction of iron-dads, the reply was, that we were very strong in those vessels, and that was quite a different matter. He had the satisfaction of finding, however, that the Admiralty immediately afterwards pressed on the work to which he had referred. That was just what he had wanted, and it was well to be content with accomplishing our objects, though we got a little ill-usage in the process. He would mention another objection that he had to the Estimates of this year. Before he left the Admiralty, foreseeing the necessity for increasing the number of armour-plated ships, and believing that the day would come when some foreign Power, wiser than we, would adopt the Whitworth gun, which penetrated armour beneath the water, he prepared a plan of such a vessel as he thought was required, and this plan, which he had kept secret from everyone except the confidential draftsmen and the Controller of the Navy, he left in the possession of the Admiralty. While the excitement prevailed, a year ago, about building more ships, the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Goschen) came down to the House and spoke in very glowing terms of a vessel which he proposed to construct. The designs were explained minutely to a Committee of 16 gentlemen called together for the purpose, and he was surprised subsequently to find an account of the plans offered him in Germany, and it was known also in Russia some months before it was published in England. Somehow private documents on these subjects did reach foreign countries, and in the present instance the system which had been so much extolled in the House by the right hon. Gentleman had been adopted by foreign Powers. The system to which he referred was that which had been proposed for the Inflexible, and it was precisely the one which he had secretly prepared in outline for the Admiralty. The right hon. Gentleman having undertaken to push forward the building of the ship, failed to perform this task, and the tenth part which he proposed to execute during the year dwindled down to a hundredth part. The work done represented only 79 tons out of a total of 8,000, and he trusted the House would not think it too much to urge the Government to make much greater exer-
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tions than were proposed in the construction of the Inflexible. The amount of tonnage to be built in the iron-clads now in course of construction was to be reduced to an extent that made some of the figures in the Estimate seem to him incredible. He more particularly referred to the Thunderer. The reason seemed to be to test the Devastation still further in some way or other, and until that was done it seemed that the Thunderer was only to have 231 tons added between this time and the 31st March, 1875, leaving more that 500 tons still unfinished. He could not understand such a policy, and it appeared to him to be perfectly incredible that any Minister should make such a proposal. The argument which led the right hon. Gentleman to take that course, if allowed to influence the mind of a naval administrator, must bar his action whenever he was called upon to do anything which was really right and wise. He hoped, however, the Committee would not sanction a proposal to keep the Thunderer in an unfinished state during the whole of the year. It was one of the advantages of our Dockyards, that emergencies of that kind could be met by simply employing more men on the ships we were engaged in building, and the present Government would, he felt satisfied, give great satisfaction to Members even on the Liberal side of the House who took an interest in the Navy if they would undertake to proceed a great deal further with the Inflexible, the Fury, the Thunderer, and the Superb, so that the country might feel that the fleet of the future was not meant to be a phantom fleet, a fleet on paper, as the right hon. Gentleman had promised. He was afraid, however, that if the policy which the right hon. Gentleman had indicated were to be followed, we should be a long time in arriving at that result with regard to some ships.
MR. HUNTsaid, the hon. Member had misapprehended him. He had stated that he was determined to have an efficient Navy, and for that purpose, after consultation with his Colleagues, he trusted to be enabled to propose some additional Estimates. In the meantime, he contented himself with moving the Estimates of his predecessor in office.
MR. E. J. REEDsaid, he was glad to receive that explanation from the right hon. Gentleman, because the less he

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followed the Estimates of his predecessor in this matter the better he should be pleased; and although it might seem a strange thing that increased expenditure should be urged from his side of the House, yet until it was recognized by the House that the circumstances of the Nary demanded an increased relative expenditure upon ships as compared with men, nothing effectual would be done. He would add that it was one thing to build and repair our iron-clad fleet, and another thing to use our ships properly when we had got them. That we had not hitherto dealt properly with our iron squadron, he was sure the naval Members of that House would support him in maintaining, and upon one point he wished to impress the House very strongly. We had not worked out the problem of naval tactics and manœuvres to the extent we ought to have done, nor had we placed at the disposal of the Admiral in command a sufficient supply of coal for the purpose. He did not-mean that a great increase of coals should be given to the Admiral to do what he pleased with; but the time had, in his opinion, arrived when it should be made the duty of the Admirals of our Channel Reserve squadrons to meet in the autumn and to carry out a proper programme, which they should be furnished with after due deliberation at the Admiralty. If we did not take more pains in the development of naval tactics we should, he was afraid, find ourselves in a very unfortunate position in time of war. Another point to which he desired to direct the attention of the First Lord of the Admiralty was that with respect to compound engines. It was doubtful whether we might not suffer from the general adoption of compound engines in time of war, and it was desirable that we should make provision for using low pressure steam in action. He would further observe—after complimenting the First Lord of the Admiralty upon the appointment of Captain Evans, R.N., as Hydrographer—that we seemed to be in a somewhat unfortunate position with respect to the surveying service, and the House was, he thought, entitled to further information as to what surveys were in progress, and how they were being carried on. The result at present was, that the only use of the official documents sent in by surveying ships was to supply the Chairman of the Royal Geogra-
878
phical Society with a paragraph for his annual address. The surveying service had not, in his opinion, a farthing too much expended on it; but the country ought not, he maintained, to be left in such complete ignorance as to its objects and results. In conclusion, he might say that while he congratulated the late First Lord on the establishment of the Naval College at Greenwich, he observed the disappearance of a former Tote for a Director of Admiralty Education, and trusted this was not to be taken as evincing an intention to leave the superintendence of education to the admiral in command of the College, who had other duties to perform.
SIR JOHN HAYthanked his right hon. Friend the First Lord of the Admiralty, not for his Estimates, which he thought were insufficient, but for the clear and candid statement he had made to the House as to the state of the Navy generally; above all, he thanked him for his excellent defence of his lamented Friend, Mr. Corry, from all the slander which had been heaped upon him. The memory of Mr. Corry, he felt sure, would never be forgotten as that of the civilian in this country who best understood the wants of the Navy. He intended, he might add, to move to-morrow for a Committee to inquire into the state of our Iron-clad Fleet, but after the statement of his right hon. Friend, he did not think it would be necessary for him to take up the time of the House on the subject, or to force the right hon. Gentleman's hand, which would be unfair to one newly come into office. With regard to Vote 1, his right hon. Friend had mentioned the sums of money which had been appropriated to the public service, but he did not mention the number of men, and they ought to be contrasted, because in former days the number of men ruled the amount of money voted for the Navy. The sum appropriated to the Naval Service in 1868–9 was £10,806,690, and the number of men voted in that year was 67,120; but in this year's Estimates, which amounted to above £10,000,000, only 60,000 men, or 7,120 fewer, were provided for. Therefore, when the reduced expenditure was spoken of, hon. Members ought to remember that the Navy itself had been reduced both in the number of men and the quantity of supplies, as well as in the number of ships, of which

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so sorry an account had just been placed before the Committee. The Marines bad been reduced from 14,700 to 14,000, and the seamen and officers from 52,070 to 46,000. He would now call, attention to the charge on the other Votes. In 1868–9, the last year in which be had had a share in the administration of the Nary, the Vote for Victuals amounted to £1,335,842. It was now £1,064,264, or nearly the same sum for 7,000 fewer men. Again, a vast deal had been said of the great advantage which was to accrue to the country from sundry reductions which were made at the Admiralty by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Pontefract. Well, in 1867–8, the charge for the Admiralty was £ 176,018, and this year it was £178,066. In addition to that, the Civil Pension List had increased from £176,000 to £214,300. The violent reductions which were made threw a number of gentlemen out of work, but they continued to draw their civil pensions, and had been replaced by persons of less experience, who would also have to be pensioned eventually. As to the Vote for Stores, it amounted in 1868–9 to £892,908, but this year, although the number of ironclads was smaller, the amount was £1,143,159. In 1869–70, this Vote was reduced to £801,789, as the Navy was living on the stores accumulated by former Administrations. Referring next to the Building Vote, he wished to point out that the number of men employed in shipbuilding in 1868–9 was 5,439, and that the number employed in repairing was 9,815, making a total of 15,254 men, exclusive of the 4,000 engaged as hired men during six months of that year. But in 1870–1 the building men were 6,349 in number; while the number of men employed in repairing was reduced to 4,793, or about one-half the number winch had always been considered necessary to maintain our Fleet in its proper condition. In fact, it was owing to the reduction of the men employed in repairing that the iron-clad fleet was in the disgraceful condition reported to the House to-night by his right hon. Friend. The fact was, that the men had been reduced to 11,000, while it had been stated by a noble Duke (the Duke of Somerset) that 18,000 was the lowest number of men that ought to be employed in our Dockyards. That number, however, bad not been
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reached since the noble Duke himself was in office. In the Estimates of this year the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Goschen) had increased the number of repairing men to 9,497; but, unfortunately, we had only 4,700 men for building. He was represented by his right hon. Friend as taking the pessimist view of the condition of the Fleet. Well, he would state his opinion of the condition of the Fleet, and leave the future to be the judge between his right hon. Friend and himself. He would now refer to the subject of restoring the rank of major to the Marine service. There were three so-called seniority corps in Her Majesty's Service—namely, the Royal Engineers, the Royal Artillery, and the Royal Marines. Till 1798 the officers of the Royal Marines rose to the rank of major, but in that year the corps was deprived of the rank of major in order to assimilate it to the corps of the Royal Engineers and the Royal Artillery. Within the last two or three years the rank of major had been restored to the Engineers and Artillery, and a considerable number of senior captains of Marines were being-passed over constantly by officers of corresponding rank in the Engineers and Artillery, who were obtaining the rank of major. He brought this subject forward last Session, when the right bon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London made a sort of promise that, as far as the Marine Artillery were concerned, the rank of major should be conceded. It was to be hoped that that promise would be carried out in both branches, and he hoped the gallant corps of Royal Marines would no longer be deprived of the rank of major, to which they had so strong a claim in consequence of its having been restored to the other seniority corps. The gallant manner in which Colonel Festing and his Marines had borne the brunt of the Ashantee War in the worst months ought to induce the Government to do justice to a portion of our Force which had, not only upon that, but upon all occasions, displayed such gallantry. With respect to the condition of the ironclad fleet, he would refer to a Return he had recently moved for. He wished to call the attention of the Committee to the condition of our iron-clad fleet as it was reported to the House by the right hon. Member for Pontefract (Mr. Childers) on

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the breaking out of the Franco-German war, and he would then compare it with its present condition. On the breaking out of that war, the right hon. Gentleman, in reply to some observations which he (Sir John Hay) addressed to the House, said that there were 28 broadside iron-clad ships and 12 special ships then ready for sea.
"What I have said," remarked the right hon. Gentleman, "are plain official facts of which there is no doubt. …There are 5 in the Channel Fleet, 8 in the Reserve, 6 in the Mediterranean, 3 on distant stations, and 6 fitting out. … Of the 12 special ships, 2 are of the first class, 4 of the second, I of the third, and 5 of the fourth."…[3 Hansard, cciii. 1350.]
Although he believed that there were three short of the number, three having been launched afterwards, he was not going to contest the official figures of the right hon. Gentleman; but what was the condition of the ships? The Hercules and Sultan, the two first-class ships of the Navy, were in good condition. The Audacious, the Invincible, the Vanguard, the Iron Duke, the Swift-sure, and the Triumph were built by the Conservative Government, and were all serviceable. The Bellerophon, he believed, was also serviceable. The Lord Warden, now in the Mediterranean, had her boilers very much worn out, and her hull in a bad state. The Lord Clyde had been in a wretched condition for a long time, and the right hon. Gentleman could only recognize her as a gigantic mushroom bed, seeing that he (Mr. Hunt) had been shown a prodigious mushroom which she had produced, and which in the space of 21 hours had grown 24 feet. The Minotaur was at present re-fitting, and was not as yet ready for sea; but, no doubt, as his right hon. Friend had promised to improve her armament, she would be made in time, a good serviceable ship. The Agincourt and the Northumberland both had their boilers much worn. [Mr. CHILDERS: Is the right hon. Gentleman reading from the Return?] He was not, but he was giving some information additional to the Return, which would be found to be correct, though he might be told he was speaking from the pessimist point of view. The Royal Alfred was completely worn out in her boilers and hull. The Repulse was in good order, but the Penelope, he believed, had her boilers in a bad condition, and the ship in her present state
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was useless for the line of battle. The boilers of the Achilles were worn out, but were being replaced by new ones. The Royal Oak, the Prince Consort, the Caledonia, the Ocean, had not only their boilers worn out, but their hulls also, and were not worth repair. The Valiant and the Hector had their boilers worn out, and so had the Zealous, and her hull was much out of repair. The Warrior had her boilers in good condition, and so had the Defence and Resistance, but the Black Prince required new boilers before she could be considered fit for service. The boilers of the Pallas were good, but the boilers of the Favorite were worn out. The Research was in good condition, but the Enterprise was worn out in boilers and hull. This completed the list of the broadside armour-clad ships of the Navy. He should not weary the Committee by going through the turret and special vessels; but the Monarch, one of the most powerful ships in the Navy, was about to be commissioned with boilers, in which the pressure was reduced. In this year's Estimates it was proposed to repair the Minotaur, and, thanks to his right hon. Friend, she was to have a new armament, the money for which was not included in the Estimates before the House. It was also proposed to repair the Hector, the Hercules, the Achilles, the Black Prince, the Valiant, the Audacious, and the Penelope. But there were 10 ships—namely, the Agincourt, the Northumberland, the Lord Clyde, the Lord Warden, the Caledonia, the Ocean, the Prince Consort, the Royal Oak, the Zealous, the Favorite, the Enterprise, and the Royal Alfred, which were not worth repairing, and which ought to be rejected at once from the effective force of our iron-clad Navy. No Estimate was taken for repairing the Monarch, the Prince Albert, and the Royal Sovereign, which also required repair. He now wished to point out how little had been done to build new ships for the Navy in the last five years. Of the iron-clads laid down by the late Administration only one, the Rupert, had been completed, except the four harbour-defence ships of the Cyclops class. So far as concerned the building of the Repulse and the Monarch, they were completed all but seven-eighths of an eighth during the time he had the honour of being at the Admiralty. There were 10 iron-

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clads which they had in hand, and so far from their being in the condition which the right hon. Gentleman mentioned at Bristol, out of 80 eighths into which they were divided. 35 eighths had been completed before he and his Colleagues left office, and the remaining 45 eighths was leisurely done in the two or three following years. He wished now to call the attention of his right hon. Friend to the condition of the only five ships which were coming forward—the Superb, the Téméraire, the Inflexible, the Fury, and the Shannon. Something also was to be done with the Thunderer, but he agreed with the hon. Member for Pembroke (Mr. E. J. Reed) that they might proceed with the Thunderer somewhat more leisurely in order to push forward the ships which were so much behind. The number of men employed on our iron-clad fleet was 2,821, an increase of 401 upon the number employed last year. Last year, 6,705 tons were estimated for, but only 4,475 were built. This year it was proposed in the Estimates to advance 8,022 tons; but if 2,420 men could only build 4,475 tons last year, it was quite evident that fewer men were taken this year than would be required to build the amount of tonnage proposed to be built. He ventured to say that in this particular these were very foolish Estimates. In the first place, 8,022 tons was too small an amount of tonnage to build, and, in the next place, the men taken to build this tonnage were too few even for that purpose. The Superb it was proposed to advance to 56–100ths, or little more than one-half: but if the money voted last year and the year before had been expended, she would have been advanced as far as that now. The estimated advance for 1872–3 was 1,500 tons, and £82,500 was voted; yet only 191 tons Mere built, and only £9,500 expended: so that the arrears of work in 1872–3 were 1,309 tons, and the arrears of expenditure amounted to £73,000, which must have been applied to some other purpose. In 1873–4 it was proposed to advance her 2,087 tons, but only 1,265 tons, or little more than half of that was done, and the arrears were 822 tons, or £42,900 in expenditure. In the original estimate of the cost of this and other ships, a proportion was taken for labour and a proportion for materials, but this information was not now given. No
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approximate sum was given of what was expended on material, and some explanation should be given of the cause of this omission in the table of ships building. In the Estimates for 1872–3 and 1873–4, the Superb was proposed as a most powerful steam ship, with 9,000 indicated horse-power for engines; that horse-power was now reduced to 8,000, which seemed insufficient, and no explanation of that reduction had been given to the Committee. The progress made in the Téméraire was equally lamentable. She was estimated to cost £281,000, and was to have engines of 7,000 horsepower. She was to have been advanced to 1,162 tons, and instead of that only 354 were built, so that the arrears were 880 tons on that small estimate. They were now invited to advance her to 1,826 tons, and the number of men was totally insufficient to do the work. The date of completion of the five ships building—namely, Superb, Téméraire, Inflexible, Shannon, and Fury, was stated to be uncertain in the Return now in the hands of hon. Members. This was the condition of the five iron-clads which ought to have been built, which were handed over on paper, and which the right hon. Member for the City took credit for. With all respect for his naval Colleagues, he wished to say it was discreditable that the late Board of Admiralty should have allowed the Navy to get into its present condition. It was the duty of the naval officers of the Board, if they saw it getting into that state, to have resigned their seats, and not to have lent their countenance to an Administration which had done so much mischief to the profession. He had the greatest respect for Sir Alexander Milne, with whose personal friendship he had long been honoured, but he said that if he could not convince the right hon. Gentleman opposite of the necessities of the service and the danger of our ships falling into decay, it was his business to have resigned. That was the course which he (Sir John Hay) and his late lamented Colleague (Admiral Seymour) adopted, and the result was a change in the Estimates for the purpose of adding to the armour-clad Navy. No doubt, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City was anxious to remedy the mistakes and blunders of his predecessor; he gave him credit for what he did with such an Administration as that to

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which he belonged, who were pledged to parsimony, and whose sole object seemed to be to discredit the Navy. He had criticized the Estimates, which were the Estimates of the late Administration, as he would have criticized them had he been sitting on the Opposition benches, and he condemned them as insufficient for the public service, and he gave the First Lord credit for his announcement that when he was more completely master of the subject, he would seek to restore the Navy to a decent condition, or at least to rescue it from the deplorable condition in which it was now left.
MR. GOSCHENsaid, he anticipated receiving the sympathy of both sides of the House on this account—that three elaborate speeches having been made against the Estimates for which he was more or less responsible, he laboured under the disadvantage of having to reply to those speeches on the spur of the moment, and of being required to remember the innumerable charges which had been made, while in such a case the attack had a great advantage over the defence in the careful preparation of all statements that were to be advanced. Under these circumstances, he hoped the Committee would not be dissatisfied if he made out that the case was not so black as it had been painted. He thought that even the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Admiralty would not be sorry if the effect of the speech of the right hon. Baronet (Sir John Hay) was somewhat mitigated, preceded, as it was, by the far more cautious, but also far more important, statement of the First Lord. One circumstance he greatly regretted, and that was that the speech of the First Lord was not made before the delivery of the Budget by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer. But five days ago, when the surplus was settled, a very delicate and slight allusion was made to the possibility of Supplementary Estimates which might be called for by unforeseen circumstances, and it was said that the Estimates submitted by the Government might be taken to be substantially those of their predecessors. He could not understand the discrepancy now revealed: but he was glad of one thing, and that was that this debate had occurred before the proposals of the Chancellor of the
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Exchequer were finally settled. After the important speech of the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Admiralty this matter could not be disposed of without much further discussion; and without acting up to the views which evidently were in the mind of the right hon. Gentleman, he (Mr. Goschen) would promise on the part of the Opposition, that every proposal he might make for additional expenditure should be examined with the greatest anxiety to arrive at the truth, and not with any view to prove that his (Mr. Goschen's) own Estimates were adequate to the occasion. It was far more important that the country should be satisfied the Navy was in an efficient condition than that his own Estimates should be vindicated. The right hon. Gentleman had gone into a comparison of the Estimates for the last six years; but he (Mr. Goschen) had hoped that that night they might have discussed the Navy Estimates in a different spirit; he had thought they might possibly have done with what had happened six years ago, for year after year precisely the same comparisons had been made, and he was sorry that they were a legacy from one Parliament to another. The right hon. Gentleman had been a comparatively short time in office, yet from his speech it appeared that the greater part of his time had been occupied in obtaining comparative historical statistics with regard to what had been done by different Administrations instead of devoting himself to the more essential part—namely, the present state of the Navy. He (Mr. Goschen) hoped that that would be the last time of its occurrence, and that in the future they would be able to discuss the Navy Estimates without continually recurring to the past, and he trusted that not even the spirit which that debate had assumed would cause his late Colleagues or himself to depart from the resolution at which they had arrived, which was that they would discuss the Navy Estimates, so far as they could, without any party spirit whatever. The right hon. Gentleman would now have great responsibility. For himself, he (Mr. Goschen) had not been free from anxiety and responsibility; he had had a very difficult task, to which, possibly, the right hon. Gentleman had scarcely given adequate consideration, for on

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comparing the present with preceding Estimates, the right hon. Gentleman did not mention one important consideration, or only mentioned it as an after-thought—that coal, iron, and wages, everything entering into the composition of the Estimates and the cost of ships, had risen enormously in price. During a time like that, in which it was his duty to preside at the Admiralty, though he knew that they would be exposed to the obloquy of spending more money and increasing the Estimates, he said to his Colleagues in the Government that they must not shrink from asking increased sums to be voted, in view of the increased price of such articles as he had enumerated, and they had not shrunk from doing so. It was to be hoped that the right hon. Gentleman intended making up the arrears in a similar way, for the comparatively small sum of £150,000 would not meet the kind of objection to which the right hon. Baronet the Member for Stamford and those who seconded his views directed attention. For two or three years the Estimates had been rising, and now the turn of the right hon. Gentleman opposite had come would he shrink from acting up to his opinions, and placing on the Table Supplemental Estimates adequate to what he conceived to be the necessities of the case? They had been taunted with arrears; did the right hon. Gentleman mean to make them up? The hon. Member for Pembroke (Mr. Reed) had spoken with great candour, and told them that the state of the iron-clads was such that they should not be content with the progress sketched out in the Estimates, but that they should be finished as fast as possible by placing on them as many men as they could get. That was an intelligible course, but he (Mr. Goschen) did deprecate any Minister standing up in that House and giving a picture of the Navy which might alarm the country, and which would have its effect upon foreign countries; while at the same time that Minister did not take adequate action and deal with the matter in a bold and broad spirit. The hon. and gallant Member for Devonport (Captain Price), in the early part of the evening, said that for five years the Conservative party had been denouncing Dockyard economies as practised by the late Government: he accepted the challenge of the hon. and gallant
888
Gentleman, who had very properly said, either let them be acquitted of the charge, or let the evil be remedied. But to tell the country that they had been starving the Dockyards, that what had been done was insufficient, and yet to abstain from measures to correct the evil, while they had a surplus of £6,000,000, could not be endured. If the late Government had left the Navy inefficient, they had at least given their successors a surplus of between £5,000,000 and £6,000,000 to put it right, and he therefore asked the Government not at the same time to denounce their parsimony, while taking advantage of their surplus to apply it to other objects. But now, with regard to the charge that they had done nothing during the five years they had been in office, they had, within 200 tons, added the respectable figure of 100,000 tons, or 20,000 tons of shipping a-year to the Royal Navy. With regard to himself, it had been his duty to propose to the House and receive its sanction for the commencement of nearly 50 men-of-war during the last three years—four iron-clads, 10 corvettes, eight sloops, three double-screw gunboats, 11 seagoing gunboats, 10 coast-defence ships, a troop-ship, and a brig. That might not be a very sensational programme, but he thought it was sufficient to show they had not been idle, and if they considered that in five years he had added 100,000 tons to the shipping of the Navy, and received the sanction of Parliament for the commencement of 50 ships during the last three years, it would show that, at all events, he had not been insensible to the wants of the country. At the same time, he must candidly say he had during the last three years to contend against difficulties which had thrown them back more than he liked with reference to shipbuilding of various kinds. It had, therefore, been his duty to propose the addition of 700 men, and last year he also asked for 600 more men to complete the work undertaken. For those connected with the administration of the Dockyards and with shipbuilding in them, had found during the last two years that the cost of repairing the iron-clads had been much greater than was anticipated, and was that to be made a reproach to them? They had taken extreme pains with the Dockyard officers to estimate the number of men

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that would be required to carry out the programme in its entirety. They asked how many men would be required for repairing such and such ships which were inserted in the programme; but, notwithstanding this precaution, they had been greatly disappointed. The right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Admiralty did not state the number of men that would be required to repair the iron-clads; but he (Mr. Goschen) would do so. The Warrior required 425 men, while only 851 were estimated: the Defence required 320, while the estimate made was 144; the Resistance required 270, while only 159 had been estimated. It would, therefore, be apparent to the Committee that if the men required thus exceeded the estimate, unless the estimate was to be greatly exceeded the men would have to be taken off other work. He now came to a point with reference to which he asked the attention of the hon. Member for Pembroke (Mr. Peed) and he was glad to meet that hon. Gentleman in the House rather than have to reply to him in the columns of a newspaper. The hon. Gentleman alluded to a controversy that had taken place respecting the state of our iron-clad Navy, and spoke of a fallacy which he thought had been introduced into it. It would be remembered that in a letter which he addressed to the newspapers, the hon. Member rather scared the public by the account he gave of the Peter the Great, which was to steam into our ports and find no vessel able to resist her. The general impression was, at the time, that the hon. Member was speaking of the present, though he now called this a fallacy. It certainly was the fact that the iron plates of the Peter the Great had not at the time left this country, but were still at Sheffield. Now, if the Devastation was not to be classed as a sea-going ship, he (Mr. Goschen) trusted that the same reservation would be applied to vessels like the Peter the Great. He found that it was always English ships which suffered from these disparaging comparisons, and that those who made these attacks upon our ships as obsolete, actually adduced as examples for intimidation, the ships of other countries which were still more obsolete. The right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Admiralty deprecated any public statement of the condition of any ship in the Navy, but his
890
appeal did not have much effect upon the right hon. and gallant Gentleman (Sir John Hay), and the public would have to-morrow his pessimist account of the state of the Navy, without being-able to compare and correct it with the First Lord's official statement of the condition of these ships. There was another subject of great anxiety which had prevented the late Admiralty from carrying out their programme as they could have wished, in relation to which it might be interesting to the Committee to receive some figures as to unarmoured ships in order that they might realize the course which lay before them if they intended to act upon those pessimist views. The late Government had to repair unarmoured ships, and had devoted a considerable amount of their resources to that purpose; but if they had neglected them, they would have been told that they had no ships to send to foreign stations, and that they had allowed this useful class of vessels to fall into arrears. During the last three or four years the ships of the most modern construction required a stupendous outlay in repairs after a very short time. The Eclipse was launched in 1867, and after being in commission four years she cost £'21,000, or 33 per cent on her original cost for repairs. The Sirius was launched in 1868, and after four or five years' work, her original cost having been £'02,000, her repairs cost £21,000. The Nymph was built in 1866, and after four years' work, her original cost having been £63,000, her repairs cost £30,000. The Juno, a vessel of 1,400 tons, was launched in 1867, and, her cost having been £72,000, he received proposals for her repair at a cost of £36,000. These vessels had absorbed so large an amount of the time of the Dockyards in their repair that they had made it excessively difficult for the Admiralty to keep time in their programme, and, in fact, none of their scientific advisers had been aware until the last two or three years that the timber and boilers of these vessels would wear out so fast. In the first place, then, the late Government had had to contend against dearer coal, higher wages, dearer iron, and dearer materials of every kind; next, the iron-clads which had come upon the Admiralty for repairs had taken almost twice the number of men that had boon anticipated; and, in

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the third place, it had been found that ships of modern construction, which might have been expected to last through two commissions before they required great and serious repairs, now came up for repairs after one commission. That was the state of things which the late Admiralty had to deal with during the last few years, and it was not, he thought, a bad account of their stewardship to state that they had added 100,000 tons to the Navy. The right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Admiralty had truly said that these were not the Estimates of the late Government, but that they were departmental Estimates. Being departmental, they might be regarded as maximum Estimates, as a Cabinet was apt to question whether Estimates were not too great, rather than to complain that they were not greater. What they had to ask themselves was this—looking to the fact that the cost of building ships was very much greater than it used to be, and that the repairs were more costly and extensive, the question remained, how Parliament was to deal with this state of things? Were the Government to go on increasing the Navy Estimates in every direction, and were they to look exclusively at the state of the British Navy, without looking to the armaments and shipbuilding of foreign countries, or were they not rather to take stock of all these considerations, and at the same time go forward with caution and prudence? He had yet another reason to give for the non-fulfilment of their programme. There had been very great difficulty in the delivery of iron owing to the extraordinary and abnormal position of the iron trade, and the late Board of Admiralty pressed repeatedly for the delivery of iron for the Téméraire and another ship, but it was impossible for a long time to get it. Special iron was required for all these particular ships, a special order had to be given, and it was difficult to get the orders executed. He only hoped the right hon. Gentleman would be fortunate with his deliveries as regarded the programme of this year, and that he would not suffer as the late Board of Admiralty had suffered, without any fault of their own, from the non-delivery of iron. The First Lord of the Admiralty stated that at the present rate of progress the Thunderer would not be
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completed till October, 1875. But why would not she be completed till then at the present rate of progress? The story was told in the Estimates, and it was this—that a most important experiment was to be tried upon the Thunderer, with regard to loading by hydraulic machinery. A contract had been made with Sir William Armstrong for carrying this out, and an important experiment was being tried on the turrets of the Thunderer, which involved considerable delay, and the work of which was by no means of an ordinary character. But the Thunderer could be finished, if it was desired to complete her beforehand, at a much earlier period. That experiment had been one of very great interest. It would enable the Thunderer to mount very much heavier guns than the 3.3-ton guns which she already had, and, looking at the state of Europe, the late Board of Admiralty thought it was not necessary to complete the Thunderer to the prejudice of a new mechanical experiment, which might be of the greatest advantage to ships that we might build in future. If the hon. Member for Pembroke had been in the House last year, he would have known that the late Board of Admiralty were urged not to proceed with the building of the Fury until experiments had been made on the Devastation.
MR. E. J. REEDsaid, his complaint was that, in addition to the 200 tons on the turrets, there were 500 tons on the hull not to be completed.
MR. GOSCHENsaid, the ship was practically completed, except as to the turrets; and the 500 tons was equivalent to so much more money to be spent for men and material. That led him (Mr. Goschen) to the comparatively small amount of iron-clad ships that had been built during the last two or three years. The delay had not been an unmixed evil. The late Board of Admiralty were desirous of avoiding the building of iron-clads which in a few months might be pronounced out of date. The result of the delay had been that they received most important suggestions as to modifications of the design for the Inflexible, which had made her infinitely more powerful than she would have been if she had been proceeded with before. The noble Lord the Member for Chichester (Lord Henry Lennox) last year urged that no new iron-clads of

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the first class should be laid down till the Devastation had been tried. In that view nothing could have been more imprudent than to rush into the construction of new iron-clads before the type had been finally settled by naval architects; and while experiments were being tried, the late Board of Admiralty did their best to increase the number of our unarmoured ships, a course which was approved by the House, for unarmoured ships were as necessary for their purposes as ironclads were for theirs, not to take into account the fact that through the chief efforts of the Admiralty being concentrated on iron-clads for five or ten years, the number of unarmoured ships had fallen into arrear. He therefore maintained that the late Board had endeavoured, taking Parliament Session after Session into their confidence, to arrive at the best programme they could, and their only regret was that, owing to the causes which he had stated, they had not been able to proceed so far with that programme as they had anticipated. He wished to say a few words as to the state of the iron-clad Navy as placed before the Committee by the right hon. Gentleman. The words "obsolete," "inefficient," and other epithets of that kind were very difficult of definition. What did an obsolete iron-clad mean? Did it mean an iron-clad that had 41 inches of iron? An iron-clad with 4½ inches of iron might be obsolete when sent against ships of superior power, but it was not obsolete when sent against ships plated with a similar thickness of iron. He should have liked the right hon. Gentleman when he presented his statement as to the number of ships requiring repair, to have stated whether it was ships of the best class or ships of the worst class that most required repair. He was glad that even the right hon. Baronet the Member for Stamford had said something re-assuring on that point. The right hon. Baronet had said that the Sultan, the Audacious, and her sister ships were in excellent repair, and in those vessels combined with the Monarch and the Devastation, we really possessed an enormous force, because we must estimate the force of our Navy not by the numbers, but by the qualities of our ships. He did not wish the doctrine to be spread about that these vessels could not hold their own in the Channel, for he maintained they could sweep it without being sup-
894
plemented with other ships. Other countries had ships whose boilers required repair, and there was no steam packet company with all its boilers perfect; indeed he wished the Committee could read the debates which took place in France and America on the subject, for those countries possessed corresponding critics to the right hon. Baronet the Member for Stamford. Boilers must be in various stages of repairs, and the difficulties on this head belonged to all Administrations. The right hon. Gentleman (Sir John Hay) had stated that the First Lord's guarded account of the state of our Navy showed it to be in a disgraceful state. The right hon. Baronet, however, himself admitted the first 10 of the 41 sea-going ships to be in excellent order, and at any period of our history there must be a certain number of ships coining in, after four years' service, which required new boilers. That accounted for six or seven more, and unfortunately, many ships having been built at about the same time, their boilers had to be replaced at the same moment. The boilers, however, were quite reach' for them, as shown by a Return moved for by the right hon. Baronet. The charge, he presumed, was, that boilers had not been put into all the ships early enough; but would the First Lord pull ships to pieces and put in new boilers as soon as the old ones were three or four years old? If boilers were to be at all times in first-rate order the additional expense would, he predicted, be more than hundreds of thousands, and this would be pursuing a policy not adopted by any other country. He trusted the boilers would be kept in sufficient repair; but if the Admiralty were to be blamed if there were six or ten boilers at any time on which pressure had been reduced, the practice of all previous Administrations would have to be reversed. He regretted much that he had felt it his duty to make any remarks of a controversial character; it had not been his intention to do so, but after what had been said he had felt it his duty to touch upon the various subjects, and he thanked the Committee for the attention with which they had listened to him. He did not wish these alarmist statements to go forth uncontradicted to the country, and he would only conclude by saving that if the right hon. Gentleman the First

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Lord made out a case for increased expenditure, he would promise him that it should not be criticized, as far as his own influence went, from a party point of view. If the right hon. Gentleman had simply spoken of lagging behind for the last two years, leeway might easily be made up; but if he imputed such a fault to the last five years he would find it his duty to submit very different Estimates. If the notion that every ship was to be efficient were pushed too far, we should not have so many ships at sea for the training of our men, for the most liberal House of Commons would at length be staggered by the expense incurred. During the last ten years our unarmoured as well as armoured Navy had had to be reconstructed, and of the ships built previously to 1860 or 1865 very few remained. He had always advocated Estimates sufficient to keep the Navy in a proper state with reference to its duties, but he deprecated alarmist statements, and if the First Lord thought that whenever an important ship broke down there should be another to fill her place, whether she was immediately wanted for any special service or not, and that there must be a certain number of ships in commission, whatever the requirements of the public service might be, he did not wonder that he spoke of difficulties. There was now a Reserve, however, in the Flying Squadron formed by his right hon. Friend (Mr. Childers); and from that Reserve ships might be detached when there was real occasion for the presence of another ship on any foreign station. He had hoped and still hoped to co-operate with the First Lord for the benefit of the Navy and the Service. That right hon. Gentleman was surrounded by naval men in whom he (Mr. Goschen) himself had the greatest confidence, and by professional men of the highest ability. Two of his naval advisers were summoned to the Board of Admiralty by himself, and the third, Lord Gilford, was appointed by himself to a responsible position at Portsmouth. On the professional questions, therefore, the First Lord would have the best advice, and any supplementary proposals he might make would be candidly considered by himself.
MR. SCOURFIELDthought that the statements they had listened to that evening went to show that those hon.
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Members who, like himself, were afraid that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had over-estimated the amount of the surplus, were justified in holding that opinion. If the naval expenditure was to be so elastic, they might expect that the same elasticity would extend to other branches of the expenditure, and that consequently the claims upon the Revenue would be considerably increased.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Chairman report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."—(Mr. Samuda.)
MR. GOSCHENasked when the debate would be resumed?
MR. HUNT: I am not able to say at present; probably not for a week.
Motion agreed to.
Resolution to be reported To-morrow:
Committee also report Progress; to sit again upon Wednesday.

SUPPLY.
Resolutions [April 17 th] reported.
MR. DILLWYN, in referring to the Vote for the Office of the Auditor General, called attention to an instance he had discovered in the Appropriation Accounts in which the correctness of an account had not been certified by that officer, asked whether it was the habit of the Treasury to pay the money in such cases?
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER, while promising to look into the particular case alluded to, pointed out that it was the practice of the Auditor General to bring irregularities to the notice of the Committee of Public Accounts, and thereby to secure their rectification.
Resolutions agreed to.

EAST INDIA ANNUITY FUNDS BILL.
(Mr. Raikes, Lord George Hamilton, Mr. William Henry Smith.)
EAST INDIA ANNUITY FUNDS BILL.

  [BILL 30.] COMMITTEE.
  Order for Committee read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."
  MR. BECKETT-DENISON, in moving that the Bill be referred to a Select Committee, said, he had hoped that

  897
  Government would have undertaken to deal with the case of the dissatisfied annuitants, and as they had not done so, he had to oppose the Motion in order to call attention to the charges of those gentlemen. The three Presidency Funds had been raised by a percentage upon the salaries of the Civil Servants, and was individual property, to which Government had no title whatever. From what he understood he expected to be met by the legal argument, and therefore he appealed to the House at large. If ever equity ought to be upheld against the dry letter of the law that was such a case. The gentlemen he represented had done good service to the State, and some were now in the Service. They did not ask for the grant of a lump of money out of the contributions of the taxpayers, but that the Government would give them either the whole, or part of the excess of their own payments over the half value of their annuities. It was hardly a case the Government should refuse. It was true that one of those gentlemen had brought his case into Court, and that the decision had been against him, and he now appealed to the equity and justice of Parliament to set aside that judgment. In his opinion, the addition to the clause proposed by the noble Lord would be absolutely useless, because it would give him no power to deal with these unsettled claims. All he (Mr. Denison) asked was that the Government should inquire into the justice of these claims, and after examination determine whether they were or were not well-founded, the claimants being those who by position, character, and long service were entitled to generous consideration. The moderate request which he made to have the matter referred to a Committee was one which in the circumstances the Government could scarcely refuse, and he trusted he should have the support of the House in urging on the Treasury bench to grant that request. The hon. Member concluded by moving the Amendment of which he had given Notice.
  SIR EDWARD COLEBROOKEseconded the Amendment.
  Amendment proposed, to leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "the Bill be committed to a Select Committee,"—(Mr. Beckett Denison,)—instead thereof.
  MR. GRANT DUFFobjected that the House of Commons was not the place for discussion of questions of private right which could be brought before the tribunals of the country. The question had already been decided against the annuitants by three eminent legal authorities—Lord Westbury, Lord Cranworth, and Lord Chelmsford. He believed that their claims were founded neither on law nor justice, and that what was true of the Courts of Law would be equally true of any person who entered into this question with a sense of responsibility.
  MR. FORSYTHdenied that there was any contract with these gentlemen entitling them to the excess beyond the half value of their annuity.
  MR. LAINGconsidered that nothing could be clearer than that the claim put forward was a just one, and he believed that a Select Committee was the best tribunal before whom to bring a question of this sort, turning, not upon dry technicalities of law, but on considerations of policy and broad equity. For that reason he should support the Amendment.
  LORD GEORGE HAMILTON, in opposing the Amendment, wished to remind the House that what his hon. Friend was asking the House to do was to refer to a Select Committee claims which had been rejected by every tribunal before whom they had been brought. The transfer of the funds had been rendered necessary by certain alterations that had taken place, at the suggestion of the Covenanted Civil Servants themselves. He was sorry that hon. Members were not satisfied with the Bill, especially when it was remembered that words were about to be introduced in it, making the Secretary of State liable for any claim that might be established. Lord Salisbury had also directed him to state that all the documents at the India Office bearing on the subject might be inspected at any time by persons interested, and that no advantage would be taken of the Statute of Limitations in resisting claims that might be advanced.
  Question, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question," put, and agreed to.
  Main Question put, and agreed to.
  Bill considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  On the Motion of Lord GEORGE HAMILTON, the following Amendments were made:—
  Clause 1, line 3, leave out "make over," and insert "transfer."
  Line 9, leave out "take and assume," and insert "accept."
  Clause 2, line 2, leave out "made over," and insert "transferred."
  Line 5, after "India," insert—
  "all existing liabilities of the said Funds shall be deemed to be liabilities of the revenues of India, and all such liabilities may be enforced against the Secretary of State for India in Council in like manner as they might have been enforced against the trustees of the said Funds if this Act had not been passed; and."
  Line 8, leave out "made over," and insert "transferred."
  Bill reported; as amended, to be considered upon Monday next.

  EAST INDIA FINANCE.
  Select Committee appointed, "to inquire into charges payable in this Country for which the Revenues of India are liable: "—Committee to consist of seventeen Members:—Mr. STEPHEN CAVE, Mr. GRANT DUPE, Mr. BECKETT DENISON, Mr. STANLEY, Mr. MASSEY, Sir THOMAS BAZLEY, Mr. BIRLEY, Sir GEORGE BALFOUR, Sir SEYMOUR FITZGERALD, Sir HENRY HAVELOCK, Mr. ONSLOW, Lord EDMOND FITZMAURICE. Mr. EUSTACE SMITH, Lord GEORGE HAMILTON, Mr. SAMPSON LLOYD, Mr. DICKINSON, and Sir JAMES ELPHINSTONE:—Power to send for persons, papers, and records; Five to be the quorum.
  And on April 30, Mr. FAWCETT, Mr. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN, Mr. DALRYMPLE, Mr. BALFOUR, and Mr. DUNBAR added.

  ADULTERATION OF FOOD ACT, 1872.
  Select Committee appointed, "to inquire into the operation of the Adulteration of Food Act. 1872."—(Mr. Sclater-Booth.)
  And, on April 27, Committee nominated as follows:—Mr. CLARE READ. Mr. MUNTZ, Mr. WELBY, Sir CHARLES DILKE. Mr. PEEK, Mr. COLMAN, Mr. CARPENTER GARNIER, Mr. ALEXANDER BROWN, Viscount BARRINCTON, Mr. BACKHOUSE, Mr. HEYGATE, Mr. MUNDELLA, Mr. SANDFORD, Dr. BRADY, and Mr. BENYON:—Power to send for persons, papers, and records: Five to be the quorum.

  LAND TAX COMMISSIONERS NAMES BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. WILLIAM HENRY SMITH, Bill to appoint additional Commissioners for executing the Acts for granting a Land Tax and other Rates and Taxes, ordered to be brought in by Mr. WILLIAM HENRY SMITH and Mr. CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 76.]

  COUNTY OF HERTFORD AND LIBERTY OF SAINT ALBAN BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. COWPER, Bill for making better provision respecting the boundaries of the Liberty of Saint Alban, in the county of Hertford; the transaction of county business: and the administration of justice at quarter sessions in that county, ordered to be brought in by Mr. COWPER, Mr. HALSEY, and Mr. ABEL SMITH.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 77.]
  House adjourned at Two o'clock.