HC Deb 07 March 1906 vol 153 cc465-82

1. Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £100, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1906, for additional Expenditure on the following Navy Services, viz.:—

Vote 8. Shipbuilding, Repairs, Maintenance, &c.:— £
Section II. Matèriel 100,000
Section III. Contract Work 100
Vote 10. Works, Buildings, and Repairs, &c. 100
Vote 11. Miscellaneous Effective Services 61,000
161,200
Less Surpluses on other Votes 161,100
£100"

THE SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. EDMUND ROBERTSON,) Dundee

said he should like to give a short explanation of this Vote. Last week in introducing the Navy Estimates for the coming year he stated that the reduction of £1,500,000 shown on the face of them was, in part, partly accounted for by the purchase of armour in the now expiring year. The amount of armour so required was something like £286,000. The Treasury, by virtue of powers given in every Appropriation Act, might sanction such expenditure on the part of the Admiralty, provided it could be met oat of savings on other Votes as was the case in this instance; but, in the exercise of their discretion, they stipulated that, as a condition of their sanction being given, the new purchase of armour should be presented to the House in a Supplementary Estimate so that the sanction of Parliament could be given. The Estimates was now introduced for that purpose. At the same time the Treasury asked the Admiralty to include in the Supplemen- tary Estimate various other minor items not actually provided for in the Estimates for the expiring year. The Estimates therefore included the armour to which he had referred, and one or two other things. The amount of armour was £286,000. The next item was £56,000 for hulls of ships, due to the purchase of a ship called the "Cyclops" during the now expiring financial year to take the place of the "Assistance" temporarily disabled. Then, under Vote 11, there was an extra sum of £17,000 for piloting and towing due to the piloting of a larger number of ships through the Suez Canal. A further item of £44,000 was for compensation for damage done to ships. That was mainly due to the running down of a ship called the "Afghanistan" by the "Caesar" in the course of the year. Those various items accounted for the amounts of the Supplementary Estimates except for £100, the balance shown between the new expenditure and the amount of savings. They might have taken the whole out of the Navy Estimates, but, in order to get the sanction of Treasury, they had to bring the matter before Parliament, and they therefore showed a balance of £100 to be provided for. He hoped he had made the matter clear.

MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN (Worcestershire, E.)

said he understood that on the present occasion the Treasury had taken, under pressure, he fancied, of the Public Accounts Committee, something in the nature of a new departure. Parliament had hitherto been pleased to direct that the Treasury should exercise its discretion in regard to allowing money already voted to be diverted in certain instances to other cognate purposes. In the Army and Navy Votes the practice had been that the Secretary of State for War or the Board of Admiralty, with the sanction of the Treasury, might transfer a surplus on one Vote to another Vote. In the case of the Civil Service Estimates, the discretion of the Treasury to authorise the surplus on one Vote being used to meet the deficiency on another Vote was, owing to technical reasons, much more limited, but in principle he conceived that there was absolutely no difference. He would like to ask the Secretary to the Treasury what was the policy of the Treasury in this matter. On the present occasion the Admiralty desired to take certain surpluses available on certain Votes and apply them to meet an excessive expenditure under other headings. He gathered that there was nothing in the nature of new work included in the Estimate. There was more armour for ships than contemplated, but there was no armour for ships not included in Vote 8 at all. There was included in the Vote one new purpose not hitherto sanctioned by Parliament, which might be said to raise a question which had never been before the House, and on which other Gentlemen would desire to question the Secretary to the Admiralty; but he was dealing with the matter from the point of view of finance and not of Admiralty policy. The main item, as he understood it, out of which the Estimate arose, was the provision of additional armour. The Admiralty did not ask that anything should be done of which the House had not previous cognizance or that the Admiralty had not contemplated; indeed, by what the House had already sanctioned they had encouraged the Admiralty to commit themselves to the expenditure. The only difference was that the delivery of the material had gone on faster than was contemplated, and therefore more money was required. He wanted to ask the Financial Secretary to the Admiralty whether it was the policy of the Treasury now that any divergence from Estimates, even where it was possible to meet the deficiency by a surplus on another Vote, should be sanctioned by the Treasury only subject to the presentation of a Supplementary Estimate to the House of Commons. He presumed, of course, that whatever answer was given to the question it would apply also to the Army Votes. If this were not so, then he would ask the Secretary to the Treasury what were the principles which the Treasury now laid down and what were the limits within which they would exercise their discretion without recourse to Supplementary Estimates? Then he would venture to ask him a further question. Were the principles which he applied to the Navy Estimates to be applied to the Civil Service Estimates? He hoped the right bon. Gentleman would appreciate that he was not raising the question captiously. He had been Financial Secretary himself; he had been on the Public Accounts Committee, and he had been Chancellor of the Exchequer, so that he had been for the ten years of his official life brought in contact with this class of questions from, he thought, every point of view; and he recognised that amongst unofficial Members of the House there was a natural tendency to be jealous of the discretion exercised by the Gentlemen who happened to sit on the Front Bench at any one time; but, if he might interpret the views of the hon. Gentlemen with whom he sat in the Public Accounts Committee with regard to these transferences, he thought they were not inspired by any narrow jealousy of the Government of the day and had no suspicion as to its motives or actions, but were animated by a belief that this transference from one Vote to another, from one subject to another, with sole appeal to the Treasury, led to careless finance, to extravagance, and to disregard of economy. The practice was open to abuse; he would not attempt to deny it; but he thought he knew enough of the Treasury to say that they, who were the especially-appointed guardians of economy and prudence in these matters, exercised an efficient and a sufficient control to prevent those abuses arising. He frequently stated to the Committee his firm opinions, as the result of long official experience, that anything which tended to interfere unduly with the discretion of the Treasury to sanction transference from one Vote to another, and from one subject to another, so far from serving the interests of economy, would lead to direct extravagance and waste. Anyone who had been Secretary to the Treasury or Chancellor of the Exchequer knew it was extremely difficult for a person holding that position to test effectively the real urgency of certain demands made upon him, especially for technical services. They had an illustration in the present correspondence, though he regretted that the letter on which the whole of that correspondence arose was not published. That letter would have shown at once the case the Admiralty put before the Treasury, whilst at the present time they were dependent upon the extracts in the Treasury's letter for what the Admiralty said. The Treasury said— In view of the statement in your letter that it would be detrimental to the public service if the expenditure in question were postponed until provision could be made by Parliament in the usual course, my Lords feel bound to assume that such a case has now arisen, and they accordingly give the required sanction. It was very difficult for the Treasury, when a member of the Admiralty or the Army Council came to them and said, with the full measure of their responsibility as heads of one of the great defensive services, and with all the technical advice they had at their command, that some expenditure could not be postponed without detriment to the public service, to take upon themselves the responsibility of disputing the accuracy of the views of the experts or of rejecting the recommendations they made. He had known similar cases in his own experience. He had in mind a case where the Army Council pressed upon the Treasury in his day some expenditure for a hospital which he thought ought to be submitted to Parliament in the usual manner before it was incurred. He was confronted with the opinion, not merely of the Medical Officers of the Army, but of the Advisory Council of hospital and medical experts who helped the Army Council in these matters, and, when they stated that the Army Council and their advisers would not be responsible for the ill results if he did not exercise the discretion vested in him and sanction the expenditure, anticipating Parliamentary approval, he felt that he could not take the responsibility, in a matter affecting the life and death of our soldiers, of refusing what all the experts pressed upon him. He apologised if he made the illustration at too great a length, but the House would see the point he wished to make—the difficulty of the Treasury in setting their discretion in matters avowedly expert against the statements of those who had behind them an enormous force of expert opinion. There was, however, one thing the Treasury could do, and which, in his experience, was constantly done, and it was a real test of the importance attached to the demand made. The Treasury could say to the Secretary of State for War or to the Admiralty: "You have made out a case, but, as guardians of the public purse, we cannot afford to spend more than Parliament has sanctioned, and therefore, if this expenditure is of the urgency you allege, you must make a saving elsewhere. Then we will sanc- tion the expenditure." In that way the power of the Treasury, both in the Military and Naval Vote and in the Civil Service Vote, did certainly control and check wasteful and extravagant expenditure. It was a real help to the Treasury to have this authority; but it should be remembered that the Estimates were not only framed very often three months in advance of the commencement of the fiscal year, but fifteen months before the close of that year, and that they very often applied to items scattered over all parts of the world. Information had to be collected and weighed at an even earlier period. Was there any man who could make a budget of his own expenditure fifteen months ahead and could exactly adhere to his heading of expenses throughout the whole twelve or fifteen months and not have to spend less on one item and more on another? Not a single Member could do it with regard to his own expenditure, which was more under his immediate control and in regard to which there was not anything like the difficulty there was in framing the Estimates. It was not reasonable, when they insisted upon Estimates being presented in detail as they were presented, to expect that they could be rigidly adhered to and that there would be no divergence in practice from what was anticipated fifteen months before the expenditure was incurred. Therefore, whilst putting his question to the Financial Secretary as to what principles the Treasury were now going to act upon, he wished to express the earnest hope that, in the interests of economy and of the Treasury, they would not lightly surrender the power to use the discretion which Parliament had conferred upon them, and to urge upon the Committee, whilst watching that discretion, if it liked, with jealous scrutiny, not unnecessarily to limit it or to destroy its usefulness.

THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. MCKENNA,) Monmouthshire, N.

said that the right hon. Gentleman had stated quite accurately what the powers of the Treasury were with regard to the transference of surpluses from one Vote to another within either the Army or Navy Estimates or with regard to the transference from one subject to another subject in the same Vote in respect of Civil Service Estimates. He went on to ask him (Mr. McKenna) whether the present form of Supplementary Estimates indicated any intended change of policy on the part of the Treasury. He might say at once that the Treasury intended no change of policy. The Treasury received very great powers from the House, but, in the exercise of them, they conceived it their duty, whenever anything of an exceptional nature took place, that the attention of the House should be called to the fact. It would have been perfectly open to the Treasury to have allowed the Estimate to be submitted in a form which would not have informed the Committee, but, in the exercise of their statutory authority, they believed it to be their duty to inform the Committee of the very exceptional circumstances of the present case. He could assure the right hon. Gentleman that the Treasury would continue to exercise their power without conceiving it necessary to consult the Committee in every case where things were of small importance; but he trusted the Treasury would always refer back to the House of Commons in respect of all matters which were exceptional. That was the sole reason of the course adopted on the present occasion. The right hon. Gentleman had asked if there was any new Treasury rule, and as to the limits within which the Treasury would exercise their discretion in the future. It was, of course, impossible to define those limits, but the Treasury would be disposed always in the future to bring before the House of Commons any circumstances of an exceptional nature as in the present case. The same principle would apply to the Civil Service Estimates. He hoped he had satisfied the right Gentleman and relieved his anxiety.

SIR CHARLES DILKE (Gloucestershire, Forest of Dean)

said the desire of the late Chancellor of the Exchequer and of the Secretary to the Treasury was the same. They both desired that the House and Committee should be in full possession of all the facts, and that the intention of Parliament, as shown in the discussions in Committee of Supply at the beginning of the financial year, should not be changed without Parliament being informed. It was from the point of view of that object that he wished to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty where the main saving or main changes had taken place. The Secretary to the Admiralty had just alluded to exceptional savings, and at first sight one would be inclined to find them in that point in which he believed they had not, as a fact, been made, and as to which no statement had been made. He alluded to the four armoured cruisers in last year's programme. He believed one of them had been dropped, and it would seem at first sight that the large saving concerned that dropping of one of them, but, on examination, he believed that that was not the case. No statement had been made with regard to them, he thought, either by the late or by the present Board; neither in the new Memorandum on the Estimates nor in Lord Cawdor's Memorandum; but he understood that, although four armoured cruisers were in the programme of the present financial year and were in the contract Vote, in which there were changes both up and down, and although only three were in that of the new financial year, yet more money, as a fact, had been spent in the year on the three than was to have been spent on the four. As far as he could make out not one of these three had been actually laid down. The sums taken in the Estimates last year were, he thought, one £80,000, two sums of £20,000, and one £10,000, or one £80,000, one £20,000, and two sums of £10,000, and although one had been dropped out of the Estimates three sums of £80,000 had been taken. Thus a larger sum had been spent than was expected. He was not blaming the Admiralty for dropping one of the cruisers, but he thought a change in the programme ought not to be made without the House being informed of it. A great deal of progress seemed to have been made before the laying down of the cruisers, but the only permanent change, he thought, was the dropping of one of them. There had been savings, and he thought they ought to know on what they had been effected.

MR. J. WARD (Stoke-on-Trent)

asked if he should be in order in calling attention to the wages paid for certain classes of work, particularly in connection with the construction of docks, etc., on Vote 10 of the Supplementary Estimates.

MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON

said that Vote 10 would come on later; these were only Supplementary Estimates.

MR. AUSTIN TAYLOR (Liverpool, East Toxteth)

thought there was one point germane to the item on which he should like to ask a question of the Secretary to the Admiralty. He understood that the purchase of the armour had been owing to the unforeseen rapidity of construction of the vessels. If that was the case, it raised a point of greater importance than any that had arisen during the debate, and that was the rapidity with which we could turn out vessels. In Lord Cawdor's Report specific allusion was made to the necessity for that policy, first, on the ground that by turning vessels out quickly we avoided the risk of their becoming prematurely obsolete; secondly, that by pushing forward a limited number of vessels into the fighting line, we obtained a greater efficiency than by having a larger number of vessels constructed more slowly; and, thirdly, that we got interest on our capital very much more quickly than if we delayed construction. If he might express his own opinion, he thought, from the point of view of the efficiency of our Fleet, that the rapid construction of our cruisers exceeded perhaps the importance of any other point raised in the course of the debate, and he thought, if the occasion was in the opinion of the Chairman fit, that the Secretary to the Admiralty might do what had not been done so far as he knew, either in this House or in another place, namely, give some indication as to how far that most important policy recommended in the Report of Lord Cawdor was being pursued by the Admiralty.

MR. J. WILLIAMS BENN (Devonport)

said that for the first time the Committee was in possession of figures which set out the amount of money spent in the royal dockyards and the amount spent in private yards. He noticed that there was a balance in favour of the private yards for the years 1905–6 to the amount of £500,000. It seemed to him that in that significant fact they had the true explanation of those discharges which had caused such distress in dockyard centres. He was extremely anxious to secure from the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Admiralty some assurance that the policy in future would be to study the needs of the royal dockyards, and after that was done to give every consideration to the private yards. During the past few years the private yards had been very busy, but so far as the royal dockyards were concerned, they had a sad story to tell of the discharge of thousands of workmen. He wished to draw attention to the great reputation which the royal dockyards enjoyed for being able to turn out shipbuilding rapidly and efficiently. The Secretary to the Admiralty might remember a statement made by Lord George Hamilton in the last Parliament, in which he gave a very valuable testimonial to the efficiency of the royal dockyards. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would be able to make some statement which would tend to reassure the dockyard Members in this important matter. The royal dockyards could certainly turn out these ships as economically as private yards, and with equal rapidity. With regard to another item in the Vote—the clothing of the seamen—he wondered whether the right hon. Gentleman was aware that a great desire existed in the Navy for the reconsideration of the clothing, more particularly of those men who had to do with trades. The blue jacket costume was considered to be very inconvenient and unsatisfactory for the men who had, for instance, to do plumber's work on board ship. If the right hon. Gentleman made inquiry into this matter he would find a general desire that certain ratings should have a costume more suitable to the industry in which the men were engaged.

MR. MORTON (Sutherland)

said he was glad that the Treasury had insisted on this Vote being brought before the Committee, but it was very deceptive, because many people believed that it was only for the expenditure of £100, whereas they were asked to approve of an expenditure of nearly £500,000. The late Chancellor of the Exchequer had suggested that the Treasury were going to take a new departure and allow, by way of Supplementary Estimates, these matters to be brought before the Committee; but he gathered from the reply of the Financial Secretary to the Treasury that that was not to be so. He thought that last autumn there was a sort of undertaking that some attention should be paid to these matters. Every year those responsible for the Army and Navy Estimates asked for more money than they could expend on certain Votes, with the view of manipulating it for other purposes; and the result was that hundreds of thousands of pounds were spent without being sanctioned by the Committee of Supply at all. He wanted some assurance that in future the practice adopted on this Vote would be continued. When he was on the Public Accounts Committee—he noticed that he had been carefully left out of it in this Parliament, probably because he had made too many inquiries—he found on inquiry that money had been spent which had never come before the Committee of Supply at all. He hoped that in future these Votes would not be smuggled throughout that the Committee of Supply would have an opportunity of considering all expenditure. They all knew that the expenditure on the Navy was excessive and extravagant, and, if reforms were to be obtained for the people, savings must be made on the Navy and Army; and it was on Votes like that now under consideration that they ought to consider whether economy might be effected. He wanted an assurance from the Government as to what was going to happen in the future, and for that purpose he moved the reduction of the Vote by £50.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a sum, not exceeding £50, be granted for the said Service."—(Mr. Morton.)

CAPTAIN HEEVEY (Bury St. Edmunds)

said that after the words which had fallen from the hon. Member for Sutherland it was only right that he should get up and say that he did not think the sums which were voted for the Navy were being wasted. He did not think it was right that what was necessary for the Army and Navy should, for the sake of the fad of a great many people, be taken away from the purpose for which it was originally required, viz., the Navy, and appropriated to some other purpose. He objected to any statement that we were spending more on the Navy than was necessary for its efficiency. Since this point of economy at the expense of efficiency—[MINISTERIAL cries of "No, no!"]—had been raised, it was necessary that they should consider one or two points in regard to the Supplementary Estimates. One was the Shipbuilding Vote. Experience gained in the last great naval war showed that efficiency depended on the size of battleships; and this question of size was nothing less than a question of money.

THE CHAIRMAN

said that the hon. and gallant Member was entering on a large question of policy which did not arise on the Supplementary Estimates.

CAPTAIN HERVEY

said he bowed to the ruling of the Chairman; but he had drawn attention to the point which he wished to refer to, namely, that the efficiency of the Navy should not be made the sport of a fad.

MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN

asked for what ships this armour was required?

MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON

said he hoped the Committee realised that practically all the expenditure the sanction of which was now asked for was due to proposals inherited by the present Government from their predecessors. The Government were only carrying into effect in this and in other matters the policy which had been accepted by the House before they came into office, as the history of the last financial year would show. The information he had about these Votes was not information for which he was personally responsible, but had been gathered at second hand from the permanent officials concerned in these matters. The right hon. Baronet the Member for Forest of Dean had spoken about four cruisers. He was informed that one of these cruisers had been dropped, and that there had been some delay in regard to the other three which were now being laid down. The ships for which the additional armour was "required were the "Dreadnought," the "Shannon," the "Defence" and the "Minotaur." The right hon. Baronet the Member for Forest of Dean asked where the amount saved upon the Estimates was coming from. It had accrued partly in consequence of the abandonment of the manœuvres last year, which had resulted in a saving. Under Vote 8, Section 2, there was a saving of about £200,000, a good part of which was expected to be used upon the manœuvres, but was not used because the manœuvres were abandoned. There was also a diminution of expenditure due to the earnings of contractors being less than had been expected. The amounts which contractors would earn in the course of a year were of a most speculative nature, and in the past year a very large decrease of expenditure had taken place upon that score. Another and a curious diminution was the saving upon the Victualling Vote, upon which there had been a saving of £81,100, due to the diminished issue of clothing because of a lesser demand for new clothes. The reason for this diminution was the prospective issue of the new kit, and the men did not want to buy things which were not up to date. Therefore there had been less demand for clothing, and there had been a saving, or rather a non-expenditure. His hon. friend the Member for East Toxteth had raised the very large question of the rapidity of construction, and all he had to say was that he would not purchase it at too dear a price. That was to say, he would not pay too much overtime. He thought that that should be avoided either in the royal dockyards or in the private dockyards of the country, in regard to either of which we feared no rival. It was not a good thing, in his judgment. Then his hon. friend the Member for Devonport had raised the still larger question, which hardly came within this Vote, of the distribution of orders between private and royal dockyards. To discuss that question fully would need a very long time, and all he could say was that the Government should do all in their power to keep the royal dockyards as fully and efficiently employed as possible. He could not say anything as to Devonport or as to any other dockyard at present, but by-and-by he should be able to explain his views upon them, though he could not now, he thought, be expected to go beyond the declaration he had made. The only other point that he recollected was one raised by his hon. friend the Member for Sutherland, which he had made the basis of a Motion for reduction. It was that money voted by the House should be devoted to the particular purpose for which it was voted. Nobody had spoken more strongly on that subject than he had himself. He understood that the Motion of his hon. friend was not a substantial one, but was intended to direct the attention of the House of Commons and the Government to the question, and the only assurance he had to give was that the Government would not, when they came to propose Estimates of their own, ask the House of Commons to grant more than they believed they could efficiently expend for the good of the country and its government. Moreover when they had got the consent of the House of Commons to that expenditure they would do their best to work closely to their Estimates

MR. ARTHUR LEE (Hampshire, Fareham)

said the right hon. Gentleman had spoken in such a manner as to give the public the impression that the present Board of Admiralty had introduced a new and more desirable policy of keeping the Estimates down more closely to the actual expenditure. That was the declared policy of the late Board of Admiralty, specially referred to in the Cawdor Memorandum, and it was owing to the fact that the late Government had cut down the Estimates of the current year to the quick, and left no margin, that the necessity for these Supplementary Estimates had arisen. It was contemplated that this action of the late Board of Admiralty would often lead to the necessity for Supplementary Estimates such as these. But it was felt that it was a choice of two evils, and certainly the lesser evil was to put the Estimates as low as possible, because that would tend to greater economy in a big spending Department, as the officials would know that they had no margin to play with. This would, however, frequently result in the presentation of a Supplementary Estimate such as that under discussion. He thought credit for that ought to be given to the late Board and not be put forward as a new and improved policy which the new Government intended to introduce.

MR. O. C. PHILIPPS (Pembroke and Haverfordwest)

welcomed the statement of the Secretary to the Admiralty that he intended to keep the royal dockyards fully employed. He was also glad to see that more money was being spent upon the royal dockyards than was voted at the beginning of the year, but he would point out that the late Government had departed from the traditions of the Royal Navy in giving work in the first intance to private dockyards, and then considering the interests of the royal dockyards. The old tradition of the Navy, which had always been carried, out by previous Governments—and he hoped would be carried out by this Government—was that the first to be given work were the royal dockyards, and then when they were fully employed it was the custom to give the remaining work to private contractors. He considered that it was a shame to pay off Government men who for years had been dependent upon the Government, and employ private firms.

MR. ARTHUR LEE

thought the hon. Gentlemen who had just addressed the Committee was more fortunate than some of them in hearing the assurance that the Secretary to the Admiralty would keep the royal dockyards fully employed.

MR. NAPIER (Kent, Faversham)

said he understood that the Secretary to the Admiralty preferred that the discussion on the comparative merits of Royal and private dockyards should be deferred till another time. He hoped the Committee would be afforded an opportunity at another time of fully discussing this question. During the year just expired, as the Secretary to the Admiralty must be aware, a very large number of employees had been discharged from the little dockyard in the constituency which he represented, namely, Sheerness. The number in that dockyard had been reduced one-third of what they were formerly. Every soul in Sheerness was dependent upon the Admiralty In the Secretary to the Admiralty they might be said to live, move, and have their being, and towards him they turned their eyes with singular anxiety. Dockyard Members were glad they were to have a day to discuss the matter, because they felt that their desires were co-extensive with the desires of those who wished to introduce greater economy into the Navy. Economy might be introduced without any sacrifice of efficiency if they gave larger employment to our expensive and costly dockyards. The royal dockyards were valuable national assets. The estimates were for one-third less men in the Sheerness dockyard, and, of course, if one-third less men were employed, the output would be one-third less than it was previously, though the expenditure on police and supervision would be exactly the same. He desired to elicit whether it was the intention of the Board to adhere to the policy as to repairs laid down by the previous Board. Whatever might be the respective merits and demerits of public and private dockyards in construction, he thought it had been definitely agreed—and he thought it was said by Mr. Pretyman, a member of the late Government—that the Government dockyard was more economical for repairs than the private dockyard. Mr. Pretyman in July of last year said that there was no doubt whatever that the cost of repairs in private yards had been considerably greater than in Government yards, and that they had therefore decided that, in so far as was possible, repairs should be carried out in Government yards. Unfortunately, Sheerness was not a dockyard in which it had lately been considered advisable to construct and build ships, but he hoped that policy might be altered. At all events, he was deeply interested in the matter, and Sheerness had suffered severely in consequence of the action of the Admiralty in discharging so many men from the dockyard. He did not refer to those discharges in pursuance of any pledges he gave during the election, as he had declined to refer to the discharges as affording any reason for votes being given against the late Government. He felt every confidence in pressing the claims of this constituency upon the earnest consideration of the Secretary to the Admiralty.

MR. MADDISON (Burnley)

said the right hon. Gentleman was surrounded by an active group of service and dockyard Members who professed themselves entirely moved by great national motives. He had three years experience in this House some time ago and he might say he thought he knew every one of those speeches. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would take a broader view than that which had been expressed by the dockyard Members. The hon. Member for Devonport had laid down that the first consideration ought to be given to the dockyards, and the second to the private yards, but he would suggest that the first consideration should be given to the nation.

MR. J. WILLIAMS BENN

It is the same thing.

MR. MADDISON

said he should hardly like to think that Devonport and the nation were the same thing—at any rate not from what he had seen of it. No doubt his hon. friend the Member for Devonport would go up in the estimation of his constituency for his last remark. He thought there was something to be said for unemployment generally. With regard to the derelict condition of Sheerness, the people there appeared to be dependent upon the right hon. Gentleman as a sort of Providence, but he hoped that they had a better Providence than the Secretary to the Admiralty. A dockyard discharge of workmen was a pathetic thing, and a man discharged from Armstrong's, or from a dockyard on the Clyde, or any other dockyard, was also a pathetic thing. Unemployment was unemployment everywhere, and if the Secretary to the Admiralty was to be approached on his sentimental side—it would be rather a difficult approach from what he knew of him—he hoped he would remember that it was as pathetic a thing for a Tyne or a Clyde workman to be out of work as for a dockyard workman. Therefore he asked the right hon. Gentleman to be very suspicious of the service Members. The country did not expect him merely to shuffle the Votes from one account to another, but substantially to reduce the total cost of the Navy.

MR. MORTON

said he objected to the remarks made by an hon. Member opposite who said that he desired to sacrifice efficiency to economy. He did not desire anything of the kind, and he would remind the Committee that Mr. Gladstone produced an efficient Navy with £18,000,000, and the Government were now proposing to spend £36,000,000 on the same service. He had listened with something like amazement to the statement that there had been economy by the late Government in regard to this Vote. He thought the late Government was the most wasteful and extravagant Administration that ever existed in this or any other country. He desired to thank the Secretary to the Admiralty for his assurance that the present Government would take the Committee into its confidence before money was spent. He begged leave to withdraw his Amendment.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

Original Question again proposed.

MR. JENKINS (Chatham)

said he only rose in consequence of the reference made to the dockyard Members by the hon. Member for Burnley. He wished to point out that those who occupied the very invidious distinction of representing dockyard constituencies were there in the interests of the nation, and they were in a position to prove that from an economical point of view

THE CHAIRMAN

I think the hon. Member is now trenching upon the Question which I have ruled out of order.

MR. JENKINS

said he would reserve what he had to say until Vote 10 was reached.

Question put, and agreed to.

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