§ MR. HOLLOWAY (Gloucester, Stroud)I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty if the Papers to be laid upon the Table of the House of Commons relating to the claims of Admiral Colomb as the inventor of the system of flashing signals in use in the Navy will include copies of the Correspondence between Major General Henry P. Babbage and the First Lord of the Admiralty regarding the title of his father, the late Charles Babbage, M.A., F.R.S., &c., to the invention?
§ *THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (Lord G. HAMILTON,) Middlesex, EalingI have only undertaken that the Official Correspondence relating to the claims of Admiral Colomb shall be presented to Parliament, and this is voluminous in itself. I see no advantage in adding to it the letters alluded to, as the 1309 question is not who invented flashing signals, bat the value of Admiral Colomb's system in adapting such signals to naval purposes.
§ In answer to further questions from Mr. WINTERBOTHAM (Gloucester, Cirencester), and Mr. BRADLAUGH,
§ *LORD G. HAMILTONI must adhere to my answer, that it would be useless to add to the Correspondence the letters I refer to. If Mr. Babbage or any other person was the real inventor of the system of flashing signals, he could have made his title good in a Court of Law.