§ 1. "That a sum, not exceeding £1,260,700, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the Expense of Victualling and Clothing for the Navy, including the cost of Victualling Establishments at Home and Abroad, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1894."
§ 2 "That a sum, not exceeding £133,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the Expense of Medical Services, including the cost of Medical Establishments at Home and A broad, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1894."
233§ 3. "That a sum, not exceeding £10,900, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the Expense of Martial Law, including the cost of Naval Prisons at Home and Abroad, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1894."
§ COMMANDER BETHELL (York, E.R., Holderness)said, he wished to make some reply to the observations made the previous night by the Civil Lord of the Admiralty, upon whom was placed the duty of defending the action of the Admiralty in connection with the Howe Court Martial. After his hon. Friend the Civil Lord had spoken there was no opportunity left for reply, and therefore he asked the indulgence of the House while he examined the statement made by his hon. Friend. His hon. Friend, in the early part of his speech, dealt with the reasons which had induced the Admiralty to appoint a second Court Martial. He would not dwell on that part of the subject, for he admitted the right of the Admiralty to order a second Court Martial if they thought proper to do so, though he himself had doubts of the wisdom of such a course of action. He would only say that he gladly associated himself with the advice which the Home Secretary gave the Admiralty that in all Courts Martial a prosecutor should be present in order that the ends of justice might be more perfectly obtained. He passed on to the action of the Admiralty in, according to his judgment, passing outside their legal powers, and using the illegal course, as he thought, of increasing a sentence imposed by a duly constituted Court. His hon. Friend the Civil Lord of the Admiralty based his defence of that action upon two grounds. One was the ground of precedent. The precedent was a somewhat similar case to the case of the Howe, which occurred in 1862. The ship was wrecked, and the captain was tried in due course. The Admiralty thought the sentence was not sufficient, and they censured the Captain in much the same way as in this case. The action of the Admiralty was raised in Parliament, and Lord Palmerston, amongst others, defended the action of the Admiralty. But his hon. 234 Friend, in quoting that precedent, forgot two circumstances. One was that the case referred to—the case of the Conqueror—was not held under the present law. The ship was wrecked in 1862. In 1866 the present Naval Discipline Act was passed, and as the law had since been altered the case of the Conqueror could be no precedent. If the House declared that it was a precedent, let them inquire into the matter more closely, and they would see that it was set aside by a much earlier case. A very interesting and curious case occurred in 1790, in which there was a very important legal point involved. Captain Coffin was tried for irregularities on board his ship; he was dismissed his ship; but the Admiralty did not think his punishment sufficient, and they ordered his name to be struck off the lists. Captain Coffin petitioned the King, on the ground that, having been tried by Court Martial and sentenced, no one had authority to alter the sentence. The case was referred to the 12 Judges. They held that the action of the Admiralty was illegal—that the sentence of the Court Martial was illegal; that the punishment ordered by the Admiralty to be inflicted could not be inflicted and judgment thereon be pronounced by any authority but the Court Martial. Therefore, if the case quoted by the Civil Lord of the Admiralty was a precedent, it was governed by the precedent of 1790, and that precedent showed that the action of the Admiralty in going beyond the sentence of the Court Martial was illegal. He maintained that the precedent of the Conqueror was not a true precedent, since it took place under another and a different law; but, if it were a precedent, it was a precedent that could be cited on his side of the argument and not on the side of the Admiralty, on account of the opinion of the Judges which he had quoted. The Naval Discipline Act distinctly laid it down that the Admiralty had not the power to increase a sentence inflicted by a Court Martial. It declared that the Admiralty might suspend, annul, or modify a sentence, so that the punishment involved in the sentence was not increased. The salient paragraph of the Admiralty Minute, in itself, and by the admission of his hon. Friend, did sub- 235 stantially, if not technically, award punishment to an officer who had been honourably acquitted by a Court Martial. The action of the Admiralty was, therefore, illegal, and ought not to have been initiated. He regretted very much to hear both the noble Lord who was the Lord of Admiralty in the late Government, and the Home Secretary vindicating the action of the Admiralty on the plea that the Admiralty was responsible for everything that took place in the Navy, and that, therefore, it had the right of revising the sentences of Courts Martial? He considered that a monstrous doctrine, a doctrine that could not be maintained in any analogous circumstances under the Civil Law, and, in his judgment, there was nothing in the nature of the Navy to warrant the Admiralty in passing outside the bounds of law, and punishing where they had no right to punish. The plea of the speakers on both Front Benches was the plea of impatience, of narrow officialism, of the weak and not of the strong administration. He did not wish to shelter officers from their irregularities. He wished to see them punished, but let them at least be punished by "due process of law in accordance with settled principles and precedents," and not by the arbitrary, autocratic action of a Board of gentlemen who were certainly not so fitted to exercise the power as the Court Martial whose judgment they so coolly and monstrously set aside. The rest of the Minute issued by the Admiralty was absolutely insignificant, and might be passed over with indifference. His hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Eastbourne had said this question was stale, and ought not to have been raised. He thought illegalities were never stale, and in a matter of this kind, he was guided by what he believed to be the dictates of common sense; by constitutional and legal doctrine which, as it seemed to him, taught them that though it was essential that disciplinary forces should be governed by exceptional laws, yet that those exceptional laws should be administered as closely as might be in the same manner as the ordinary laws of the land, and that no authority, however distinguished it might be—that no person, however great his experience, 236 should presume to pass outside the strict limits of legality.
MR. GIBSON BOWLES (Lynn Regis)said, the House had received very little information as to whether this vessel was or was not properly handled before the accident occurred. They were told that she struck upon an unknown rock; she struck not on an isolated unknown rock, as was suggested, but upon the mainland of Spain, and any student of the chart would see that the ground gradually sloped from three and a half to seven fathoms. As Sir Houston Stewart said, there was no difficulty in entering Ferrol at any time, "being careful to keep in mid-channel." But that was just what the Howe did not do, for she was 150 yards off her mid-channel course, although there was an easy stern bearing off Mount Christoval, which would have kept heron it, and which she never used. As to the distribution of the blame, it was manifest to everybody that the safe time to enter a harbour such as Ferrol was at slack water, when they had nothing to divert them from their course. He entirely concurred with every word of the Memorandum written by the Admiralty. There had been a want of precaution, especially in entering the harbour at flood tide. But if the Admiral was somewhat in fault—as he believed he was—Captain Hastings was still more in fault; in fact, the greatest blame was upon him. He held that the Admiralty had no option but to order the second Court Martial, and to issue the Memorandum.
§ Resolutions agreed to.