CIVIL SERVICE ESTIMATES, CLASS II. (Hansard, 9 April 1877)

§ MR. DILLWYN
said, he could not allow the Vote to pass without remarking upon the very large expenditure incurred for officers in the House of Lords as compared with the House of Commons. The work done by the officers of the House of Commons was four times as much as that performed by the officers of the other House.

§ MR. CHILDERS
asked what arrangement had been made for the payment of Black Rod? That officer had hitherto been paid only a nominal salary; but rumour said he had received very large emoluments in fees.

§ MR. W. H. SMITH
said, the House of Lords paid their own officers. There 797 had been no new offices created, and no new charges incurred. He had reason to believe that the House of Lords would propose that Black Rod should be paid a salary of £2,000 a-year in future, which would be a very considerable reduction from the emoluments that officer had formerly received. The fees would be paid into the Exchequer, and it was estimated that between £4,000 and £5,000 would be paid into the Exchequer in the coming year, and the gain, therefore, to the Treasury would amount to between £2,000 and £3,000.

§ MR. CHILDERS
pointed out that the charges for the officers of the House of Lords was only £8,000 when he was Secretary of the Treasury; now it was no less than £19,000.

MR. GOLDSMID
said, of course if they kept an ornament they must pay for it. They were all quite aware that the House of Lords was an expensive ornament. The doorkeepers of the House of Commons were paid much less than similar officers in the House of Lords. The House of Commons sat for many hours every night, whereas the House of Lords scarcely ever had a late sitting; and yet, while the doorkeepers of the House of Commons received one £250, and the other £300 per annum, there were more of these functionaries in the House of Lords and they received at least as much, if not more, than those of the House of Commons for doing not a a tenth of the work. The pruning-knife of the Secretary of the Treasury might be well exercised in that branch of expenditure.

§ SIR WILLIAM FRASER
suggested that it might be worthy of consideration whether the offices of the First Lord of the Treasury and the Privy Seal, which were now both held by the present Prime Minister, should be permanently combined, and that the £2,000 a-year, to which the Privy Seal was now entitled by law, but which was not drawn by the present holder of that office, should be received by the occupant of the two offices when 798 so united, in addition to the £5,000 now paid to him. The First Lord of the Treasury, although he had the largest share of responsibility and was put to great expense, was only paid £5,000 a-year, the same amount as the Chancellor of the Exchequer and various other officers of the Crown, and it was only reasonable that he should receive some increase of payment. He thought the time was opportune for granting some slight additional salary. Another point to be considered was that the Prime Minister had no social precedence except as Privy Councillor.

MR. GOLDSMID
rose to Order. There was no payment for social precedence.

THE CHAIRMAN
ruled that the hon. Member was not strictly in Order.

§ SIR WILLIAM FRASER
said, his suggestion was, that the two offices he had mentioned should be permanently united, and the salary of the Lord Privy Seal, which was now only nominal, added to that of the First Lord of the Treasury.

§ SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFF
inquired whether any clerks had been admitted into the Treasury by public competition? His reason for asking the question was, that lie understood the clerks in the Foreign Office did not receive as high salaries as the clerks in the Treasury, because the positions in the one Office were not thrown open to competition while in the other they were.

§ MR. W. H. SMITH
said, there had been no examinations for admission into the Treasury during the present Government by open competition. There had been two appointments made within the last three years, and the gentlemen selected were transferred from the Admiralty, where there had been a redundant number of clerks.

§ SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFF
asked whether the Government would take into consideration the salaries of the clerks in this Department, and raise them to a point equal to the salaries of 799 the clerks at the Treasury. Such salaries had been raised at the Colonial and Home Offices.

MR. GOLDSMID
said, it was stated the other day that it had become necessary to appoint a new Under Secretary in this Department. He wished to know who had been appointed, and whether it was a permanent one?

§ MR. WHITWELL
asked for an explanation as to what position the gentleman, if appointed, would fill?

§ MR. BOURKE
said, the Secretary of State, after a full consideration of the matter, found it was impossible to get on with the work of the Foreign Office without the aid of a gentleman well acquainted with legal documents and with the preparation of them. Some years ago a gentleman with such acquirements was appointed to assist the Colonial Office. Sir Julian Pauncefote, who had for some time acted as legal adviser to the Colonial Office, had been appointed Assistant Under Secretary to the Department. The appointment was a permanent one, and the gentleman appointed would perform the double function of looking after such of the legal business of the Department as was not referred to the Law Officers of the Crown, and of taking a share in the current business of the Under Secretary's and the Assistant Under Secretary's Departments. Since the appointment of Sir Julian the work had been performed in a more satisfactory manner. With regard to the observations of his hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch, he had to state that his noble Friend at the head of the Department was most anxious to carry out economy in his Department. He had given much consideration to the question of the salaries, and last year and the year before a very careful inquiry was made with reference to the salaries of the clerks in the Foreign Office and the salaries of the clerks in the Treasury and the Colonial Office, and it was found very difficult to make a just comparison between the salaries paid in the Foreign Office and those paid in other offices. The Foreign Office, upon the whole, came to the conclusion that the clerks in the Foreign Office were not paid less than the clerks in the Treasury and the Colonial Office, because their hours of employment were different and they had different functions to perform. He could not hold out any hope at pre- 800 sent that there would be an increase in the salaries.

MR. GOLDSMID
said, it was only fair to remark that as a new appointment was requisite, a better selection could not possibly have been made than that of Sir Julian Pauncefote.

§ MR. DILLWYN
complained of the great delay in this office in making the Returns ordered by Parliament.

§ MR. J. LOWTHER
said, his hon. Friend opposite (Mr. Dillwyn) spoke as if the Colonial Department had only to put its hands into a basket and produce a Return asked for. He would admit that there had been sometimes delays in the production of Papers ordered by Parliament; but it was due to the necessities of the case, and arose through the Office having to send to distant parts of the world for the information desired; and then, after waiting probably many weeks or months for the arrival of a mail, when it came, the Returns had to be compiled. He would, however, endeavour to secure that the Orders of the House should be fulfilled as punctually as possible, and no effort on the part of the Colonial Office should be wanting to promote the convenience of hon. Gentlemen. He might observe that there had been no reduction in the number of clerks, but a re-arrangement of their duties in the Office.

§ MR. WHITWELL
asked, why it was intended to abolish the Secretaryship of the Veterinary department; and at this time, when so much attention was necessary in reference to the cattle plague?

§ MR. J. W. BARCLAY
said, he thought there was a very large number of clerks in the Office in proportion to the amount of work which was done. No doubt, the Department issued very many statistics, but a large portion of them were of no value whatever. He doubted whether the inspection of foreign cattle had been sufficiently strict, and hoped that in future the Department would be administered with greater vigour. The sum of £6,000 was voted, and that seemed to him to be amply sufficient for 801 an inspection which should guard this country against the importation of the cattle plague.

§ VISCOUNT SANDON
stated that Dr. Williams, who had been working very hard, was prematurely cut off this year, and he did not think the re-organization of the Office was completely arranged at the present moment. With regard to the working of the Office being rendered as efficient as possible, he could assure the hon. Member opposite (Mr. Barclay) that the Lord President took an immense amount of personal trouble in this matter. His noble Friend had been constantly watching the working of the Office during the last few months, and if the hon. Gentleman had any suggestions to make for the promotion of its efficiency the noble Duke would be very glad to receive them. The Department, he might observe, was not in his (Viscount Sandon's) hands administratively, being entirely administered by the Lord President of the Council; but he would communicate to him the hon. Gentleman's remarks.

§ MR. A. J. MOORE,
alluding to the charge of £278 for special trains, asked what they were employed for by this Department?

§ VISCOUNT SANDON
said, the outlay was in connection with the visits to the Queen when special Privy Councils were held in the country.

§ MR. RAMSAY
asked for an explanation concerning the 18 clerks of the lower division who had been recently appointed.

§ MR. BIGGAR
asked, whether any Inspectors in England were paid out of local rates, or whether all were paid out of the Consolidated Fund, and what special duties they had to perform?

§ MR. KNATCHBULL-HUGESSEN,
in reference to the remark of the noble Lord the Vice President of the Council, said, he had always understood that every Department was represented by some Member of the Government in that House, and that if the noble Lord was not the officer properly responsible for the Vote now before the Committee, it was desirable that the House should know who was responsible.

§ VISCOUNT SANDON
remarked, that he did not mean to say that he was not the proper officer to answer in that House for the Department, which, however, was practically not under his ad- 802 ministration; but under that of the noble Duke. The 18 clerks of the lower division took the place of the 23 temporary clerks who were formerly employed.

§ MR. WHEELHOUSE
bore testimony to the great exertions made both by the central and the local authorities to prevent the spread of cattle disease since its re-appearance in England.

§ VISCOUNT SANDON
explained, in reply to the hon. Member for Cavan, that in some cases it was desirable to appoint temporary Inspectors who did not come on the permanent Staff. They were sent down when any outbreak of disease occurred; and they also had to see that railway companies performed their duties; and that the local authorities did their duty. He believed the cost was defrayed out of Imperial funds.

§ MR. BUTT
said, what his hon. Friend the Member for Cavan wanted to know was, whether the expenses of these gentlemen were all paid out of the Estimates voted by Parliament; or were any of those expenses paid out of local funds, as in Ireland? Did any of these Inspectors discharge analogous duties to the Inspectors in Ireland?

§ VISCOUNT SANDON
replied, that he would give the hon. Member for Cavan the information asked for before the Report on Supply was taken.

§ MR. J. W. BARCLAY
expressed the hope that a Report with reference to the recent cases of cattle plague, showing how the disease had found its way into this country, and stating what action had been taken by the Veterinary department in dealing with it, would be laid before the House at the earliest possible opportunity.

§ VISCOUNT SANDON
thought the suggestion a very valuable one, and he would take care that some Report was laid on the Table of the House on the subject as soon as possible.

§ MR. RYLANDS
said, he desired to call the attention of the Committee to the enormous increase which had taken place in the expenditure of the Board of Trade in consequence of the passing of the Merchant Shipping Act of last year. He found that the total amount required for salaries and allowances under that Act was no less a sum than £47,138. He was not quite sure that it was contemplated, when the measure to which he referred became law, that it would be necessary to appoint such a large number of officials as had actually been appointed—namely, 170, and he must call attention to the fact that many of the gentlemen who had received appointments under the Act were officers of the Royal Navy already in receipt of pensions. He should like to know, and he thought it would also be satisfactory to the country to be informed whether the salaries of the surveyors of the Board were fixed in view of the amount of labour which they rendered to the public, or in view of the fact that they received additional sums of money in the shape of those pensions?

§ MR. HERMON
said, the Merchant Shipping Act of last Session was very much required, and was a very important one; and that being the case hon. Members should not now carp at the expense necessarily incurred in carrying it out. Every Act which was passed entailed a certain and justifiable outlay, and hon. Gentlemen should not forget that fact when they were doing all they could to press certain measures through the House.

§ MR. E. J. REED
said, he would admit the force of much that had been said in relation to the importance of the Merchant Shipping Act; but he did not think that credit should necessarily be given to the manner in which it was being carried out, and he would like to ask what were the results of the expenditure? There could be no objection to any reasonable and proper expenditure being incurred in carrying out an Act of Parliament, but the question was, whether the outlay which took place under the Merchant Shipping Act was an expenditure of that description. In connection with the subject he desired to call the attention of the Committee to certain proceedings which had been taken by the Board of Trade surveyors, and he must say that the Returns pre- 804 sented by that Board to Parliament were either very misleading, or that the work which was being done was not only unnecessary, but was not at all what was contemplated or desired when the measure of last Session was passed. Parliament had desired one thing, and one thing only, in the legislation to which he alluded, and that was that the Board of Trade should interfere where it was necessary to prevent ships from proceeding to sea when they were in a dangerous condition. He had before him a long list of vessels which were said to have been detained by surveyors of the Board owing to unseaworthiness, overloading, or other causes. It was a list which was perfectly appalling; and he did not hesitate to say that if the Returns which had been presented to Parliament by the Board of Trade were authentic and accurate, and did not include a number of items requiring explanation, they would reflect upon the shipowners of the country and upon the underwriters more than any documents which had ever been laid before the House of Commons. But what was the actual state of the case? He did not say that the officers of the Board of Trade were not rendering excellent service to the country; but he desired to point out that Parliament was paying for certain things being done which were entirely unnecessary, and which the Legislature had never contemplated. Perhaps the Committee would be surprised to hear, but it was the fact, that what the Board of Trade had been doing was not to exhibit great care and anxiety in order to prevent the going to sea of unseaworthy ships, but to lay hold of vessels which were known to be unseaworthy, and which were consequently under actual repair at the time of their "detention." In other words, the Board went through the farce of "detaining" those ships when there was riot the slightest intention of sending them to sea; and then they were inserted in the official lists as vessels which the activity of the officers of the Board of Trade had prevented from going to sea when in an unseaworthy condition. For instance, a vessel called the Hope, appeared in the Board of Trade list. This ship had put to sea in a seaworthy state, but was obliged by stress of weather to put back to port, where, when repairing the damage done to her, a detainer was laid upon her to prevent 805 her from going to sea. Ultimately, she was released; but the fact was that she was voluntarily placed by the owners under repair, and ought not to have appeared on the list at all. In another case a vessel, having met with heavy weather, broke a crank shaft; the owners could not afford or did not choose to repair her, and wished to have her laid up for sale. There was no thought of sending her to sea, but the Board of Trade stepped in and "detained" her. In another case the Board of Trade officials laid a vessel under detention, and ordered her cargo to be unloaded. Her owner appealed, and her cargo was ordered to be put on board again. The hon. Member went page after page through his Return, and read instances wherein ships were detained on alleged frivolous grounds; one of them, notably, on the statement of a drunken sailor, who stated unfoundedly that her pumps would not work. He (Mr. Reed) did not complain that vessels were detained when unseaworthy; what he complained of was that the Board of Trade did not lay cases of the kind he had mentioned before Parliament, and he emphatically objected to such vessels being paraded in the Returns of the Board of Trade as ships which would have proceeded on their voyage but for the vigilance of the Board of Trade surveyors. In some of those cases the owners were put to considerable expense, and in others owners resisted and refused to pay damages which they considered unjust. Those were matters which he considered called for explanation; and he hoped for the satisfaction of the House and the shipowners, for whom the Government seemed to care so much, that they would be given. He wished also to call attention to a statement formerly made by the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board with reference to the percentage of the vessels detained which had been classed at Lloyds and other offices. There was something he could not understand in that statement—that of the 50 ships detained since the Act of last year, 22 had been classed; but it now appeared that only 12 classed ships had been detained, seven of which had been classed at Lloyds and five at other Registry Offices. In other cases ships had been detained, simply because of imaginary defects. What he wished to point out was, that it was very injurious 806 to the register offices and shipowners, as well as to the public, to have such ships, ships which had been classed and which were detained only because of some trivial defects, put into the same category as those which were detained for unseaworthiness. He did not wish to reflect upon the Board of Trade, or give the right hon. Gentleman any uneasiness; but the practical suggestion he would make was, that the Return, professing as it did to give specific information to the House, ought to be drawn up in the clearest possible form so as to give exact information as to the ground on which the ships had been stopped. They ought not in future to look down the list and see the names of ships which had been detained under the circumstances alluded to, and then be told they had been stopped for unseaworthiness. The authority of the House ought not to be used, as it now practically was, to injure ship property in the way it must be injured when owners found their vessels improperly classed with unseaworthy ships. He could hardly doubt that the right hon. Gentleman was anxious to give satisfaction to shipowners; but it never was intended to detain a vessel unnecessarily or to cast odium on its owner, unless it was in a disreputable condition. He had said a few evenings ago that he was not entirely satisfied with the appointments which had been made under that Act. He had been complained of for that, but he still felt bound to say that gentlemen had been appointed at high salaries to perform duties which they did not understand. A very large part of their duties depended upon their knowledge of the structural condition and the state of repair of the ships, and he was afraid that at the Board of Trade, as in other places, people made the mistake of supposing that people who had been to sea in ships necessarily understood their construction. But a ship captain was no more able to go on board a ship and say what was necessary to be done for her in the shape of structural repairs than a shipbuilder was to command her, and he knew, as a matter of fact, that a great number of these officials admitted that they did not even know the name of some of the parts of the vessels. He would say, however, for the credit of the Department, that they had usually given the chief appointments to men in every way worthy of them, and 807 to officers who understood the technical details.

§ MR. J. W. BARCLAY
said, he could speak from his own knowledge of many similar cases to those of which his hon. Friend(Mr. E. J. Reed) had spoken, for during the past two or three years numerous complaints had been made to him with reference to the objectionable manner in which ship's owners had been dealt with by the Board of Trade. In one case which was brought under his notice, the ship had just arrived in port, and it was found that a small part of her bulwarks had been broken away. The captain had scarcely commenced to unload, when the vessel was arrested as unseaworthy. She was surveyed from day to day, and £15 was charged by the surveyors; and payment of the amount was forced from the captain by the Board of Trade, who would not release the vessel until the money was forthcoming. In another case, a ship had been arrested by the Board of Trade, acting upon an anonymous letter addressed to them in London. They sent off a telegram ordering the arrest of the vessel, and that order was complied with. Yet that letter was afterwards found to have emanated from a rival owner, and to have been inspired by unworthy motives. Such cases as these and others he could name reflected great discredit upon the surveyors. With regard to side lights, great complaints were made by smaller shipowners, such as owners of coasting vessels, who could ill afford to pay for the caprices of the surveyors. He had heard of a case in which the side lights of a ship had been objected to no less than three times by three different surveyors, who had each ordered a different pattern. At one port the surveyor insisted on the lights being altered. His order was complied with; but at the next port the ship put into, the surveyor condemned the new lights, and ordered others, and this instruction was also carried out. And then, again, at a third place, another surveyor had taken a different opinion, and had ordered other lights. He knew the Act of Parliament had not intended to deal with such cases; but it was a fact that a surveyor could and did go on board ships, particularly coasting vessels, and insist upon these alterations being made. If they found a ship wanting a rail, or some small thing of that kind the result was 808 that she was arrested and detained until the repair was carried out. The surveyors were composed of officers in the Royal Navy, and it seemed to him that they were not proper persons to appoint to such a position. The ships of the Navy, as everyone knew, were fitted up in a style which was impossible in merchant ships, and an officer who had come from one of Her Majesty's ships, which had been fitted up without regard to expense, was likely to have notions of his own how a merchant vessel should be prepared for sea. He would naturally expect a higher standard of excellence in merchant ships than at all necessary when he examined them. If shipowners were to be obliged to fit up their vessels as ships in the Royal Navy were fitted up, those owners would soon be driven to the Bankruptcy Court. Then it was most unfair, he held, that merchant captains should be judged by the same standard as captains in the Navy. There were many cases where, in consequence of the assessors being Navy captains, captains of merchant vessels did not get the proper allowance made for them for thenature of their service as compared with that of the Navy. He should be happy to submit a list of the cases he had alluded to to the Secretary to the Board of Trade. He also stated that he was informed as a fact that the surveyors received £1 a-day as expenses in such cases where ships were detained.

§ MR. GOURLEY
said, the Returns of the Board of Trade were misleading with reference to the stoppage of classed ships, and he would mention a ease in which a vessel that was being repaired by the owners was stopped by the Board. The Returns led to the impression that classed ships were stopped, because they were unseaworthy, whilst in many of the cases, it was because the owners had not done a few necessary, but non-essential, repairs. He also reiterated the complaint made by the last speaker (Mr. J. W. Barclay) of a want of regularity and system among the Board of Trade surveyors as to what was really required to render a ship fit for sea. For instance, some of them had insisted upon particular lights, which were objected to at the first port the vessel came to. He thought there should be a more systematic survey, and that rules should be prepared for the guidance of the surveyors, in order that the 809 shipowners might be secure from that harassment they laboured under at present. He did not quite concur with hon. Member for Pembroke (Mr. E. J. Reed) as to the appointment of captains as Board of Trade surveyors. His experience went to show that many captains knew rather more than some shipbuilders, not only about the technicalities, but about building and repairing.

§ SIR CHARLES ADDERLEY
said, that the hon. Member for Sunderland (Mr. Gourley) had complained of want of system in the inspection of ships by Board of Trade officers. The principal object of the Act of last year, however, was to introduce more systematic action and uniformity of practice, and in that it had been successful, for the blemish referred to had been reduced, if not altogether obliterated, by the Act of last year. The hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands) had complained of what he styled the enormous expense which had been incurred under the Act, and which he said amounted to £47,000. If the hon. Member had looked to the other side of the account, he would have seen that giving credit for the amount received by the Treasury, the expense was not £47,000, but, in round numbers, £13,000. The hon. Member further complained that a number of officers of the Royal Navy had been appointed under the Act by the Board of Trade; but the fact was that, so far as he knew, not one officer of the Royal Navy had been appointed to conduct the survey of ships alleged to be unseaworthy. Again, with respect to the complaint of the hon. Member as to the number of surveyors, it should be recollected that the House passed the Act with a full knowledge of the Staff that was to be employed, and it was now rather late to make a complaint on that point. With respect to the criticisms of the hon. Member for Pembroke (Mr. E. J. Reed), he would say that they amounted to a contradiction—that the Board of Trade had done too much and had done too little. They had acted simply in accordance with the intentions of Parliament in discharging the duty imposed on them. Reference had been made by the hon. Member to the large number of ships that were, as he said, unnecessarily detained, as they were not going to sea. Now, he (Sir Charles Adderley) thought that was a compliment to the Act of last year. One 810 of the merits, indeed, a special one, of the Act of last year was that it limited the duty of the Board of Trade, as imposed on them by the Act of 1873, to stopping only unseaworthy ships when about to go to sea. The whole list of the quotations of the hon. Member for Pembroke was in praise of the Act of last year, as cases of the more offensive duty which existed before; and he would ask the hon. Gentleman to give him the list, and he would then state the real facts respecting every one of the cases mentioned, and would lay a statement of them on the Table of the House, and thus enable hon. Members to judge on what foundation the present statements were made. He believed that ex parte statements were generally without foundation. He had had a Return made and carefully revised, of all the ships which had been stopped since the Act of last year came into operation, and he found that all of them were being brought forward for some service at sea. He thought that the hon. Member for Pembroke must allow that his charge in that respect had fallen to the ground.

§ MR. E. J. REED
said, he could allow nothing of the kind. The right hon. Gentleman said he stopped those ships when they were brought forward to go to sea; but a ship which was brought "forward" need not be going to sea.

§ SIR CHARLES ADDERLEY
remarked that one of the benefits of the Acts of last year was that it only called upon the Board of Trade to stop a rotten ship from going to sea, and not when she was brought forward to prepare to go to sea, and he defied the hon. Member to adduce a single instance of a ship being stopped which was not going to sea. The next point of the hon. Member was the statement he (Sir Charles Adderley) had made to the House, in answer to a Question, as to the kind of ships which were detained during the three months after the coming into force of the Act, and the hon. Member thought the answer conveyed a reflection upon Lloyd's. So far from that being the case, it was the highest compliment that could be paid to Lloyd's. It was his (Sir Charles Adderley's) duty, in answer to the special question, to show that classification was no guarantee against unsafe ships being sent to sea, for out of 12 ships that were detained, six of them were classified at Lloyd's. And if 811 the classification at Lloyd's, which was the most perfect, accurate, and trustworthy in the country, was no guarantee against a ship being sent to sea in an unseaworthy state, what guarantee could any classification have? No less than 50 per cent of the ships detained for defective hulls were classed at Lloyd's. The hon. Member then stated that the Board of Trade had appointed officers under the Act to perform duties they did not understand, and complained that more engineers had not been selected. It so happened that there was a considerable number of engineers, both amongst the principal and subordinate officers, and he could only say that all matters in reference to machinery passed under the eye of an engineer officer; but it must be remembered that many other subjects had to be considered and decided on by the principal Superintendents of Districts, and that the various requirements of the officers included a knowledge of seamanship as well as of engineering, and of the general work of ship artificers. The hon. Member might as well say that over a great landed estate the agent should be an agricultural engineer. On that ground, therefore, he took issue with the hon. Member. He hoped the Committee would consider that the Government had made some effort to perfect the survey organization throughout the Kingdom laid down by the Act of last year, and that they had effected this not only without increasing the burdens on the public, but with an absolute saving to the country.

§ MR. D. JENKINS
observed that though there was no increased burden on the public, yet a large amount had been received in a form which created a tax on merchant shipping. He objected very much to the system of appointing naval officers and merchant captains to be surveyors of merchant ships. It by no means followed that seamen made the best surveyors. [Sir CHARLES ADDERLEY: They are not appointed under the new Act.] Not one? [Sir CHARLES ADDERLEY: No.] Then the sooner they were got rid of the better. He wished to point out that the right hon. Gentleman had not said how the ships referred to as being unseaworthy had been classed at Lloyd's. In his opinion not a single one of the ships had been classed A1.

§ MR. E. J. REED
expressed much surprise at the tone and substance of the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman. The right hon. Gentleman had stated that he (Mr. Reed) had taken his instances from the old Act, but at least two of them were taken from the new Return. He could not admit that the Board of Trade had in all cases made a judicious choice of surveyors, or that they had always entered upon their duties in the proper spirit. The right hon. Gentleman said he would only answer his (Mr. Reed's) complaints, if he would give him a list of the vessels detained. All he could say was that all the details in his possession were at the right hon. Gentleman's service, and he should be glad to see that a public Department could be vindicated.

§ SIR CHARLES ADDERLEY
wished to explain that when the principal surveyor was an engineer, the second was always a sailor, and vice versâ. He would again remind the Committee that one of the improvements of the Act of last Session was limiting the Board of Trade to detain only those ships that were about to proceed in an unsafe state to sea. Before that Act passed the Board was obliged to detain ships on other grounds.

§ SIR ANDREW LUSK
said, there could be no doubt that the Board of Trade sometimes stopped ships for very small matters; but he must honestly admit that the Board of Trade surveyors managed things fairly well. The Act had given the Board of Trade enormous powers, and he trusted that the right hon. Gentleman would deal generously and discreetly with shipowners, because a vessel could not be stopped without serious damage to a man's property, and it was not right that ships should be stopped for the fees. It was too late to complain then, and he hoped the Board would not place unnecessary restrictions on trade.

§ MR. SAMPSON LLOYD
asked the President of the Board of Trade, why it was that the Board had not provided standards of metric weights and measures? Some years ago a Bill was brought in and carried by the then hon. Member for Dumfries, by which metric weights and measures were legalized. No standard for the metric system had, however, been since provided by the Board of Trade. He saw that there was 813 an item in the Votes for the expenses of attending the Congress on the metric system which met at Paris, and he wanted to know whether the Government meant at any time to prepare metric standards; and if not, whether they proposed to abolish the legalization of a system which it was impossible to test by standards?

§ MR. RYLANDS
observed that the real question was, whether the surveying officers had not been appointed in excessive numbers, and whether the effect had not been an oppressive action on merchant shipping. The general rule of the Civil Service of the country was, that when an officer received a salary which was a full remuneration for the duties he performed, any pension he might be in the enjoyment of merged in the salary. In the present case, however, a new rule had been established which the President of the Board of Trade had not at all justified. He objected also to the sum paid to certain officers of the Staff for appearing as experts, or producing documents in Courts of Law at the instance of litigants. In conclusion he moved that the Vote be reduced by £4,000, which sum, at the least, was enjoyed by the first-named officers in the form of pensions.

§ MR. RAMSAY
wished to ask a question with reference to a different branch of this Vote, and that was, whether the expenses of the Law Charges included the costs incurred by the Crown in the various attempts which had been made to subvert the law of Scotland with respect to the foreshore and have the foreshore conveyed to the Crown. Various attempts had been made to deprive individuals of their right to the foreshore. By the law of Scotland persons having the land adjacent to the sea had usually a right to the foreshore. The Crown brought an action a few years ago for the purpose of obtaining the right to the whole of the foreshore; but that action was according 814 to the Scotch law decided against the Crown. He thought it was wrong that the Crown should try to establish rights which had never heretofore been known in the law of Scotland.

§ SIR CHARLES ADDERLEY
believed there had been an attempt on the part of the Board of Trade to defend the rights of the Crown with regard to certain foreshore in Scotland, and that it had failed; but he thought the Vote did not apply to that. The Vote proposed for the surveying staff was the inevitable result of the Act of last year. The whole staff had been transferred to the Treasury and the receipts also; and the two so nearly balanced each other that there was only a net charge of £13,000. As to the number of the new officers, he could say they were only 10, a number much smaller than was contemplated when the Act was under discussion. He could hardly conceive on what ground the hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Rylands) complained of the Vote, or in what other way he would propose the carrying out of the Act of last year. The hon. Member for Plymouth (Mr. Sampson Lloyd) asked why this Department had not adopted the metric system. They had not done so simply because they had not been authorized by Parliament to do so. It was a matter not to be decided by any Executive Department.

§ MR. E. J. REED
said, it was a rule of the Public Service that if an officer in the receipt of a pension received new employment, his pension should merge for the time in the salary which he was to receive. He should very much like to hear, what had not been given, an explanation as to the way in which such of these officers as had naval pensions had been dealt with. And he would repeat the question, did these estimates bring a number of gentlemen for the first time into the Civil Service of the country?

§ MR. D. JENKINS
asked, whether there would be 10 additional appointments under the new Act?

§ MR. SAMPSON LLOYD
wished to know, whether the Government would ask Parliament to give them the authority which the right hon. Gentleman said they wanted.

§ SIR ANDREW LUSK
hoped the right hon. Gentleman would answer the questions put. Would a surveyor be entitled to receive a salary and a pension at the same time?

§ MR. E. STANHOPE
said, that as difficulty would have arisen in settling the rights of these gentlemen, it was thought advisable to transfer them with all their rights as they stood.

§ MR. CHILDERS
said, that 178 men appeared for the first time in the Estimates receiving an average pay of £300 each. Were these salaries formerly paid out of the Mercantile Marine Fund, or were they paid under some new scale settled between the Board of Trade and the Treasury? If their footing was a new one, then the Committee were entitled to apply to them the rule which was applied to all Departments—namely, that their salaries should be the whole sum which they received. While they were drawing salary the pension should be in abeyance.

§ MR. W. H. SMITH
said, he fully concurred in the remarks which had been made. He understood that the old Staff would be paid under this new arrangement precisely the same salaries and pensions as they were paid under the Mercantile Marine Fund. There were additional officers with additional duties, and their salaries were paid under the scale now before the Committee. The new ones received no pension.

§ MR. RYLANDS
Were they on the Civil Service Establishment before this new arrangement?

§ MR. W. H. SMITH
They were not. If they were, they would not receive pensions for both naval and civil service.

§ MR. RYLANDS
said, that this was so, no doubt. But these gentlemen, receiving pensions already, wore put in the way of receiving other pensions without passing through the Civil Service. This was, therefore, a re-organization.

§ MR. WHITWELL
had hoped that the right hon. Gentleman would have seen that all the exertions made on that side of the House were in his favour by assisting him to keep down expenditure. The Board of Trade had taken over from former establishments a large Staff without proper consideration, and thus all were liable to become civil servants, and to acquire pensions accordingly. The Board had not been sufficiently careful in the appointment of their officers, and had spent large sums which were unintelligible—for instance, £900 for "charwomen."

§ MR. CHILDERS
wished to know whether the transferred officers would in future be in precisely the same position as they had been in the past?

§ MR. W. H. SMITH
said, that was undoubtedly the intention and spirit of the arrangement, and he would take very good care, so long as he was at the Treasury, that it should be carried out.

§ MR. RYLANDS
inquired, whether they had been receiving from the Mercantile Marine Fund salaries with the same annual increment as it was now proposed to pay them.

§ MR. W. H. SMITH
replied that they were transferred precisely as they stood, no change whatever being made in their position.

§ MR. RAMSAY
again complained of the action of the Crown in attempting to establish a right to the foreshore in Scotland, and moved to reduce the Vote by £500.

THE LORD ADVOCATE
said, the right to the foreshore in Scotland belonged to the Crown, except in cases where it was granted to the owners of private property; and it would be an unfortunate principle to lay down that, where a Crown right existed, that right should not be enforced.

§ MR. CHILDERS
hoped the Motion would not be pressed.

§ MR. J. W. BARCLAY
said, in cases where the right to the foreshore was vested in the proprietors by charter, there would be no difficulty in showing their right to it.

§ MR. RAMSAY
said, he would withdraw his Motion.