§ SIR HENRY TYLER (Great Yarmouth)asked the Secretary of State for War, Whether a large gun, stated to be a 10-inch gun, has lately failed under proof at Woolwich; and, if so, under what circumstances and from what 872 causes, and where it was designed and constructed; and, whether any guns have burst, or otherwise failed, since the failure of the 43-ton Collingwood gun; and, if so, what guns, and in what particulars?
§ THE SECRETARY OF STATE (Mr. E. STANHOPE) (Lincolnshire, Horncastle)A 10-inch gun lately failed under proof at Woolwich, the chase snapping in two at the forward end of the liner at the first proof round. The gun was otherwise uninjured. The cause of the failure is now under investigation by the Ordnance Committee. The gun had been designed at the Royal Gun Factory; but the design was modified during manufacture, the gun being chase-hooped and lined in accordance with the proposal of the Elswick Ordnance Company, who made it. No guns have burst on service since the failure of the 43-ton Collingwood gun; though several have been found defective at proof. I think it only right that a marked distinction should be drawn between failures at proof and failures on service. Our guns are subjected to very severe proof; and I should be sorry if severe criticism in Parliament upon failures at proof were to produce any tendency to pass into actual service guns which had not been most scrupulously tested.