§ MR. NAPIER (Kent, Faversham)To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty if he will state why the discharges from the Royal Dockyard at Sheerness, from 1st April, 1905, to 31st January, 1906, amounting to 33 per cent. of the men employed at the former date, have been proportionately so much more numerous than the discharges at the other British dockyards, which on the average amount to 19 per cent. of the men employed at the date in question.
(Answered by Mr. Edmund Robertson.) The work of Sheerness dockyard in the past consisted to a great extent in the construction of sloops, and the repair of vessels of this and similar types. The decision to build no more sloops, and to withdraw from the fleet vessels of small fighting efficiency, has appreciably reduced the class of work which the yard is capable of undertaking. The comparatively large reductions at Sheerness may, therefore, be regarded as the direct outcome of the recent re-organisation and re-distribution of the Fleet.