§ MR. BOWERMAN (Deptford)To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty if he can state the number of mechanicians who have been sent to each of the ships of the Channel and Atlantic fleets, with the number of engine-room artificers who have thus been displaced, and the economy in expenditure of money thereby represented.
(Answered by Mr. Edmund Robertson.) Orders were given in March last for mechanicians who had recently been confirmed in that rating to be drafted to ships of the sea-going fleets. Under these orders forty-four mechanicians have been drafted to Channel, Atlantic, and Mediterranean fleets in the proportion of four to each ship, displacing twenty-two engine-room artificers. No economy in expenditure either in pay or victualling has been effected by this change.