RESOLUTION. (Hansard, 8 August 1878)

§ CAPTAIN PIM

Mr. Speaker, I rise to call attention to the present condition of the Royal Naval Reserve; and to move— That, in the opinion of this House, the Royal Naval Reserve is not adapted for the present requirements of the Nation, and should at once be superseded or at least supplemented by a large increase of Royal Naval Artillery Volunteers; and that in order to secure efficiency such men should he trained on hoard sea-going gunboats stationed round the Coast and available for service on the shortest notice. Sir, I do not propose to take up the time of the House by going into the state and condition of the Coastguard, but 1534 will confine myself chiefly to the Naval Reserves raised from the Mercantile Marine, and that splendid body of Volunteers, the Royal Naval Artillery Volunteers. I should not have addressed the House on this subject had I not been, nearly 20 years ago, when in command of H. M. S. Gorgon, intrusted with raising and organizing the Royal Naval Reserve in our Northern ports, and had I not, from that day to this, taken a deep interest in the Force, and in the Voluntary movement generally. To give an idea of the present value of the Royal Naval Reserve, I must ask the indulgence of the House for a few minutes, while I lay before hon. Members a few facts about the British Mercantile Marine. Our Mercantile Marine consists of about 25,000 ships, of which, say, 5,000 are steamers. These vessels are manned by some 200,000 persons, of whom certainly not more than 20,000 are real British seamen, the rest being made up mostly of foreigners and riff-raff of the worst description—drunken, mutinous scoundrels, with no knowledge of their work— in fact, a disgrace to the flag under which they serve. I am bound to say that the best of these men are the foreigners, especially some 8,000 to 10,000 Russian Fins, who are now serving in our Mercantile Marine; but I have seen very many ships with not an Englishman on board—not even the captain. Take the case of the Lennie, Caswell, and many more. Sir, it is from such men as that we have to draw our Reserves; and the late Admiral Superintendent of these Reserves reported in a Return, laid before this House last year, that all the available British seamen in the Mercantile Marine—some 12,000 or 13,000—had entered the Reserve. The original idea was that the nation should have 30,000 seamen out of the Merchant Service as Reserve men to man our Fleets in time of war, and I submit to the House that this number was not one too many; but we find, from the Admiral Superintendent's Report, that we have every available British seaman, and that the total amounts only to 12,000 or 13,000. But, Sir, I will show to the House that we dare not take any of these men away from our merchant ships in time of war, and that, practically, we have no Reserve whatever from our Merchant Service; that it is a snare and a delusion, and that the nation is paying some £200,000 1535 per annum for what is worse than useless; and that at a time when, for the same money, the services of at least 30,000 Royal Naval Artillery Volunteers might be easily obtained. We dare not take any of the so-called Royal Naval Reserve men in time of war, even if they happened to be at home, and for this reason—that our own merchant ships must be manned to lay out coals, stores, munitions, troops, &c.; and, above all, bring home our food supply, without which we should be starved into submission in a month. We are a great nation, but we must have food; and, as I take it, no shipowner would risk his vessel with foreigners and riff-raff in the day of need, it is quite evident that our 12,000 or 13,000 Reserve men could not be spared from our merchant ships for a single day. I have more than once pointed out the grave danger to England in respect to her food supply, and the employment of foreign seamen, who, of course, would either leave in war time, or remain only to seize, scuttle, or otherwise destroy our helpless merchant ships on board of which they were serving. That this is no imaginary danger is more than shadowed forth in the proclamation, which I hold in my hand, of the Czarewitch, in respect to fitting out Russian privateers—the full text of which is published in The Morning Post of the 13th of May last. I will only read one clause— Will our sailors be able to attack? Of course, they will, for they are Russians. But we must give them an abundance of good and rapid ships, and they will soon find out the weak points of our new adversary. Dozens of vessels, under the command of competent captains, may be scattered over all the commercial routes of our new enemy and put a stop to his universal trade. A month's blockade like this will have a singular effect upon that trade, and the heaps of gold of which he is so proud will almost melt away like snow. As regards the urgent necessity of keeping up our supplies, I must ask the indulgence of the House to a few facts and figures. At the risk of being accused of repetition, I will again point out that the population, according to the statistical Return, in the year 1801, amounted to 10,472,048; and increased from this to 34,000,000 in 1878. That the United Kingdom was not dependent on foreign countries for the supply of wheat for the first 35 years of the present century. During the period which has elapsed 1536 since 1835, a remarkable change has taken place; the requirements of an increased population, the consequent demand for an increased quantity of food, have combined to render the country dependent for two-thirds of its supply of food on foreign countries. Of wheat alone, it appears that the annual importation had risen to a total of grain of all kinds, including flour, to 107,521,642 cwt. in 1875, and last year to 1,000,000 cwt. more. Sir, last year we imported no less than 1,000,000 tons of grain from America, mostly in English vessels. I think I have shown that our Mercantile Marine is in a most deplorable condition, and that, practically, we have no Naval Reserve. I now come to the second part of my Motion—namely, That the Royal Naval Reserve should at once be superseded, or at least supplemented, by a large increase of Royal Naval Artillery Volunteers; and that in order to secure efficiency such men should he trained on board sea-going gunboats stationed round the coast and available for service on the shortest notice. It is needless to take up the time of the House by eulogizing the Royal Naval Artillery Volunteers. I can only say that in all my experience I have never seen more zeal or better drill on board the smartest man-of-war than I have seen at Liverpool and London on board the drill ships used by the Royal Naval Artillery Volunteers; and, moreover, they are always on the spot, ready for service. Sir, the Government proposed to utilize our merchant steam ships in the event of war by putting guns on board. There never was a greater mistake. Our long narrow merchant steam vessels are totally unfit to carry guns. I believe they would capsize when light, and getting out of coals, or, at all events, when the guns were fired all the rivet-heads would be started or fall out, and the vessels never see a harbour again. What we want is a number of sea-going gun vessels with the longest-range guns on board. These vessels—of which there has been a mechanical drawing for some months in the Tea Room—would cost some £30,000, as against £70,000 or £80,000 for a merchant steamer. What I say to the Government is this—Encourage the Royal Naval Artillery Volunteers, increase their strength from 500 to 30,000 at least, and station sea-going gunboats, each carrying a heavy gun, at every point where there is water enough 1537 to float them. This Force alone, manned by Volunteers, would set at defiance any and every hostile combination against England. Seamen and handy sea-going small craft is what England wants, and it will go hard with her if she does not strain every nerve to obtain them. The Navy is the life's blood of the nation; good and efficient Reserves are essential to it; therefore, Sir, I beg to move the Resolution of which I have given Notice.

§ MR. W. H. SMITH

regretted that it was not possible for him to agree to the Motion of the hon. and gallant Gentleman. The hon. and gallant Gentleman had stated that there were only 500 Royal Naval Artillery Volunteers, and they consisted of three brigades, stationed in London, Liverpool, and Bristol. The total number of officers and men was 1,056, and only 592 were efficient men. The question really was, what was the best Reserve that could be obtained? He believed that the first and second class of the Royal Naval Reserve —composed, as they were, of bonâ fide sailors—were the best kind of Reserve we could get. The first-class numbered 11,753 men, and the second 5,642. But, said the hon. and gallant Member, the first-class Reserve men would not be available in time of war. There he differed from the hon. and gallant Gentleman, and his impression was shared not only by his Colleagues, but by almost every naval officer he had come into contact with. In the event of war the maritime trade of this country would inevitably fall off to some extent, and numbers of those men would consequently be set free for their naval duties. If there were 30,000 men in the Royal 1538 Naval Volunteers, he thought that would be a sufficient resource on which to draw for the Navy. He believed both classes of the Reserve to be efficient men, who knew how to handle a ship, and considered that they would be most efficient in time of war; but he could not say the same of the Royal Naval Volunteers, who had not had the same practical training at sea. The hon. and gallant Gentleman had spoken in somewhat severe terms of the seamen of the Mercantile Marine. Well, it was not his duty to vindicate the character of the seamen of the Mercantile Marine; but he might remind the hon. and gallant Member that they had contributed a good deal towards the strength of this country, that they formed a very powerful body of men, and that they performed important functions, not for this country alone, but for the whole world. He did not know that it was necessary for him to say any more on this subject. Looking to the training and experience of the men of the Royal Naval Reserve, he could only add that he placed great reliance upon them, as his Predecessors had done, though he earnestly hoped they might not be called upon.