MAJOR JONESOn behalf of thehon. Member for Middlesbrough, I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether the Committee appointed to consider the best means for establishing electrical communication between lightships and the mainland is still sitting; whether the trials of swivels have until now been confined to one novelty; and whether it is intended to submit the other swivels submitted to the Committee to similar trials, for the purpose of securing for the Government the invention best intended to meet the requirements of the Board of Trade?
§ THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. BRYCE,) Aberdeen, S.The Committee to which the hon. Member would appear to refer reported and closed its sittings in 1889. The whole subject is now being dealt with by the Royal Commission on Electrical Communication with Lighthouses and Light-vessels. I understand that a number of inventions, including various modes of applying swivels, for establishing electrical communication between light-ships and the mainland, have been considered 24 by the Royal Commission, and I would refer the hon. Member to the paragraph at the top of page 8 of their Second Report, dated March last, in which the Commissioners state that, in their opinion, none of the inventions which they have considered are preferable to the system known as the Sunk system, which has now been applied to the Goodwin and Kentish Knock Light Vessels. I have no doubt that the Royal Commission will consider, and, if necessary, test, any inventions brought before them which appear to them to be superior to the Sunk system.
MAJOR JONESIs it not a fact that only two inventions have been submitted, and that only one has been tested?