COLONEL BERESFORDasked the President of the Board of Trade, Whether the attention of the Government has been directed to the experiments on various life-saving apparatus which took place off Dover on Thursday, 20th instant; and, whether it is the intention of the Government in any way to assist Mr. G. F. Parrott in the further trials he proposes to make with similar apparatus during the summer and autumn?
§ SIR CHARLES ADDERLEY, in reply, said, that he understood that certain experiments had been made off Dover last Saturday of the kind referred to, but he did not know with what result, beyond that which appeared in the papers. There was no fund at the disposal of the Board of Trade to encourage inventors, and even if there was one there were so many inventors that it would be unadvisable for the Board of Trade to show any favour towards any particular one, or in any way to express their judgment upon the comparative merits of the various methods.