§ SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFFasked the Secretary to the Admiralty, Whether, considering the great discomfort and dissatisfaction caused to the seamen of Her Majesty's Fleet by the recent order prohibiting the landing of fresh meat rations, a pratice of long usage, the Admiralty are prepared to rescind or modify such order; or, in any case, whether an opportunity will be given to the seamen freely to represent to the authorities their views on the matter; and, if so, what steps will be taken to give the men such hearing?
§ MR. TREVELYANSir, the Order prohibiting the landing of rations is not recent; but, as I informed the hon. Member last week, has been in the Queen's Regulations for at least 36 years. A practice opposed to that Regulation has undoubtedly grown up, and the question has been brought forward by the Commander in Chief at Portsmouth. The Board of Admiralty are inquiring into the matter fully, deliberately, and with reference to the whole Service, and not to a single ship, or a single port, or a single article of diet. But I must plainly tell the hon. Member that the Lords of the Admiralty would not deserve to be responsible for the discipline of the Navy, if they allowed themselves to be influenced by his declaration in Parliament that great dissatisfaction existed among the seamen of Her Majesty's Fleet in consequence of a Regulation which was in force long before any of them entered it.
§ SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFFsaid, he would call the attention of the House to the subject on the Motion for going into Committee of Supply on the Navy Estimates.