MOTION FOR A SELECT COMMITTEE. (Hansard, 13 June 1884)

MR. MAGFARLANE
, in rising to call attention to the claims of Mr. Lynal Thomas against the War Department; and to move— That a Select Committee be appointed to consider the claims of Mr. Lynal Thomas against the War Department, said, he had to submit to the House the case of a poor inventor who had suffered grievous injustice. It was about 30 years since Mr. Thomas began foolishly to serve his country. If he had been wiser in his generation he would have known better than to adopt the profession of an inventor. The result had been absolute ruin to him. Mr. Thomas went to the War Office with the statement that he had invented a particular kind of gun, and, in fact, had started an entirely new theory with regard to explosives. He laid the case before the War Office, and received assurances from General Peel, who was then Secretary of State for War, that if 311 he would carry out experiments at his own expense and the inventions proved beneficial, he should at least be repaid the costs which he had incurred. He had a copy of General Peel's letter to that effect. Mr. Thomas acted on that assurance, and proceeded with his experiments, which proved successful, and on those experiments was founded the artillery which was now used in the Navy. For several years Mr. Thomas was engaged in an ineffectual endeavour to obtain the redemption of General Peel's promise from the War Office. Failing in those endeavours he sued the Department, and at the trial before the late Lord Chief Baron and a jury, extending over three weeks, he obtained a verdict for nearly £9,000. But the Department appealed, and the verdict was set aside —not on the merits, but on purely technical grounds, which were—first, that the War Office could not bind the Crown; and, secondly, that the contract was insufficient to bind the Department. The question had been before the House once or twice already, but had never been fairly discussed. Successive War Ministers had stated that they had investigated Mr. Thomas's claims and found them to be unsustainable. But, of course, all that meant was that Ministers had made inquiries of War Office officials, who were the very persons inculpated. Mr. Thomas charged certain War Office officials with fraud and perjury, and those officials had not thought proper to vindicate their characters. If such a charge were made against an officer in the Army or Navy he would not be allowed to display the meek spirit of those officials, but would be compelled to demand a court martial. He was afraid the Surveyor General of Ordnance would take refuge in the acts of former Ministers and refuse to wash this atrociously dirty linen in public. But he still entertained hopes that the hon. Gentleman would agree to refer the question to the recognized tribunal of the House, a Select Committee. If it was a just claim let it be proved; and if it was not, let it be shown to be unjust. He did not propose to enter into the merits of the case, but would leave the whole question to be dealt with by that Select Committee. Without attempting to deal with the merits of the ! case he asked that the grievance of Mr. Thomas should, in a spirit not only of equity but of justice, be referred to a 312 Committee of the House, whose inquiry, he was told, the facts being simple, need not last more than a day. In conclusion, the hon. Member moved that a Select Committee be appointed to consider the claims of Mr. Lynal Thomas.

§ MR. LEAKE
, in seconding the Motion, said, he saw no reason why the Government should refuse the demand which Mr. Thomas had made, and in support of his contention produced models of guns to show that the weapon made by the War Department must of necessity have be:-n based upon the designs of Mr. Thomas, which were submitted to, and rejected by, the officials of that Department. He asked that the charge of fraud should be investigated by any number of impartial Members of Parliament. It was not alleged that the Government had taken Mr. Thomas's gun, but that they had taken the whole of the principles upon which his gun. was manufactured. Two years ago he thoroughly investigated the claim of Mr. Thomas with all the impartiality of which he was capable; and the conclusion which he came to was that Mr. Thomas was the victim of administrative antagonism and sharp practice.

§ COLONEL NOLAN
, in supporting the Motion, said, he did not impute fraud to the War Office, but thought the officials of the Department had overstrained their very useful function of trying to spare expense to the Public Purse. The Artillery officers who had advised the War Office could not understand the claim of a man like Mr. Thomas. Though there were some of them clever enough to improve guns they had never invented any, and they were too wise to spend £8,000 or £10,000 in their manufacture. Consequently, they could not understand the commercial claims of a man like Mr. Thomas, who had spent £7,000 or £8,000 in carrying out his idea. The fact was that there was no one in our time who had made money by the invention of guns but Sir Wil- 313 liam Armstrong. He contended that Mr. Thomas was the first man who made a really useful heavy gun in this country. That gun was a success, and although Mr. Thomas spent £7,000 or £8,000 in making his experiments, it was not taken up by the Government. All the facts of the case were before the House and the War Office, and he saw no reason why a Committee should not be appointed to examine them. A Committee might settle the whole thing in five or six hours, and be able to present a Report which the Government could accept and act upon.

§ MR. BRAND
said, it was quite true, as the hon. Member for Carlow (Mr. Macfarlane) had stated, that General Peel gave an assurance to Mr. Thomas that if his invention proved to be of public benefit he would be reimbursed the cost of his experiments. The War Office, however, contended that the invention did not succeed, that it had totally failed, that they had not adopted Mr. Thomas's theories or ideas, and that the gun made by him in 1860 had nothing whatever to do with the present system of ordnance. The War Office contended that Mr. Lynal Thomas had neither an equitable nor a legal claim against the public. It would be a very easy thing for him, in answer to the Motion of the hon. Gentleman, to say that the Government were prepared to give Mr. Thomas £10,000, or any other sum which might be considered necessary; but strict regard to the public interests prevented him from taking that course. They who sat there as the Representatives of the people were bound to see that no public money was expended unless that expenditure could be justified. The courage of the hon. Member in bringing forward for discussion a question which ought to have passed out of the region of controversy was much to be admired. There was absolutely no novel feature in the case, unless the charge of fraud made by Mr. Lynal Thomas against the permanent officials of the War Office could be so considered. For his own part, he could not envy the condition of mind of a man who made such a charge against permanent officials who had no other object to serve than the interests of the public. The charge of fraud, however, was only one of many charges made against War Office officials by Mr. Thomas. It was one more unfortunate incident in a long 314 and weary case, and proved a very sad condition of mind in the case of Mr. Lynal Thomas. The charge was that certain War Office officials had wilfully given false evidence at the trial of the action instituted against the Crown by Mr. Thomas with the view to strengthen the case of the Crown. The hon. Member made objection to the manner in which that charge had been met by the War Office; and he stated his opinion that when officials were charged with fraud they, being the defendants, should not act as judges in their own case. The officials at the War Office had certainly not acted as judges in this case, for the points at issue had been most carefully considered by successive Secretaries of State, as well as by the tribunals of the country. The present charge of fraud, oven if it were true, had no bearing on the case, for the trial at which this alleged false evidence was given ended in a verdict for Mr. Lynal Thomas. When the second trial ended in a verdict for the Crown. Mr. Lynal Thomas did not give notice of appeal; and having failed to do' so, the hon. Member now desired to constitute the House of Commons a Court of Appeal in this case to review the decision of a Court of Law. The House of Commons had enough work to do without usurping the functions proper to another place; and he was sure that there would be a general consensus of opinion that Mr. Thomas, having appealed to the law. should abide by the decision which he himself had invoked. The facts of the case were shortly as follows. For some years subsequent to the year 1854, Mr. Thomas was engaged in endeavours to improve the system of heavy ordnance. During these years frequent communications passed between him and the War Office, the general tenour of which, as far as the War Office was concerned, was to the effect that no expense was to be incurred by the public, no guarantee entered into, nor promise of future compensation made, before the superiority of the invention had been clearly proved. The War Office did not deny that Mr. Thomas's gun of 1860 was of a considerable weight and thickness; and as an instance of evidence contrary to what Mr. Thomas had alluded to in illustration of fraud, he would refer to Captain Noble's admission that the service breech-loader 7-inch guns were much lighter than Mr. Thomas's—four 315 tons as against seven tons. On the other hand, the officials at the War Office urged and maintained that heavy muzzle-loader guns of considerable weight and thickness had been designed before Mr. Thomas's gun of 1860, and they urged and maintained that neither Mr. Thomas's theories and laws nor his gun of 1860 had been instrumental in any way in bringing about the service system for construction of muzzle-loading ordnance. They also urged and maintained that any promise of payment of expenses to Mr. Thomas depended on a successful result of his trials, which was not attained. Such was the position of affairs when Mr. Thomas, in 1867, claimed his expenses and compensation for his invention. This claim was considered and rejected by successive Secretaries of State on the ground that the superiority of the invention had not been proved, and that, as a matter of fact, his proposals had not been adopted nor his invention used. Thereupon Mr. Thomas commenced proceedings at law, and obtained in March, 1877, a verdict for £6,500, a portion of expenses which he said he had incurred and was entitled to recover under a contract with the War Office. The War Office denied that any contract of the kind ever existed, and in June, 1877, they moved to set aside the verdict. After full inquiry the Court decided that thorn was no contract, and they left Mr. Thomas to appeal. He had not done so, and the decision of the Court was therefore final. The hon. Gentleman now asked for a Select Committee to review the decision of successive Secretaries of State, of the present Chancellor of the Exchequer, who had carefully examined this matter, of the present Secretary of State, and of the Courts of Law. He denied that any reason existed for the adoption of this course, which would be a most unwise one. If the House of Commons were to allow itself to be placed in this position, and wore to review the decisions in this case, it would open the door to a host of inventors who were equally persuaded with Mr. Thomas that the WarOffice had acted unjustly to them in refusing to estimate their inventions at the value which they themselves set upon them.

§ GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOUR
stated that having, when in the War Office, had occasion to read the Papers connected with this claim, he was then 316 quite satisfied with the decision that had been previously passed. From what had fallen from the Surveyor General, he accepted the more recent decisions, as in keeping with those originally come to, as adverse. He could bear testimony to the impartiality and high sense of honour of the officials of the Department concerned in regard to judging fairly on the claim. He could assure the House that there was no ground for the charges which were brought against the officers of that Department in connection with this claim. With regard to inventors and their claims for large rewards, he could remember the way in which the lobbies of the War Office were at one time constantly haunted by inventors; and he had always protested against that system, which seemed to him an abominable one, by exposing officers of rank to vilification because they would not squander the public money to inventors, who had no merit except in the minds of the individuals.