§ THE EARL OF HARDWICKErose, pursuant to notice, to call the attention of the Government to the question of Naval Reserves, which, he said, their Lordships would acknowledge to be one of the greatest importance. He did not rise so much for the purpose of expressing any opinion on the subject as for the purpose of calling attention to the present state and condition of that force, and also from a strong desire to give to the noble Duke at the head of the Admiralty any aid in his power to carry out the necessary and important work in which he was engaged. Although this was not a question upon which their Lordships would feel any great degree of excitement, yet no one would deny that it was one of extreme importance, both as regarded the defences of the country and in other respects, especially at a time when the country was called upon to spend an enormous sum of money in time of peace, 1825 owing to the unsettled state of Europe. He thought it would he highly satisfactory to the country and of great service to the State if we had a force of seamen upon whom we could thoroughly rely in a sudden emergency for the defence of the nation. In the present state of Europe we were compelled to keep afloat an armament equal to the carrying on of a considerable war, and this too at a moment when our relations with our allies were of the most friendly character. It was well known to their Lordships that we had always possessed a Naval Reserve—that was to say, the whole merchant service, the seamen of which were liable by Acts of Parliament to serve the Crown in case of any emergency. These statutes were still in force? but public opinion had so anxiously pressed upon the Government the impossibility of raising a force by compulsion, and the facilities of locomotion both by sea and land were so rapid and extended, that the hope of raising seamen by impressment was almost universally abandoned; and although there was no intention of repealing the statutes, yet it was felt that they could not be carried out until too late, and until an enemy was thundering at our doors. Under these considerations his noble Friend behind him (the Earl of Derby) appointed a Commission to consider the best mode of Manning the Navy. The Commissioners made several recommendations, and in August last an Act was passed empowering the Crown to raise a volunteer reserve of seamen. This year a Vote had been taken on the Navy Estimates for paying this volunteer force, and the present was therefore a fitting time to inquire into the prospects and present condition of our Naval Reserve. He would not go into the question of matériel—that was to say, of steam ships and other appliances—but would confine himself to the question of our ability to man those ships on any sudden emergency. We had for some years possessed a valuable reserve in the Coastguard; and he would call their Lordships' particular attention to them in connection with a body to whom he would presently allude—the Naval Coast Volunteers. Those men had all served the Crown at sea for ten years; they were thorough seamen, trained to the use of all descriptions of arms, and in the highest vigour of life. They consisted of between 7,000 and 8,000, but not more than about 4,000 were now seamen, the rest having served in the Revenue service on shore. The Commis- 1826 sioners hoped that the Revenue service would employ more seamen, and that a larger number would be available for the Royal Navy in case of need. The next portion of the Naval Reserve were called Coast Volunteers. They were constituted by Act of Parliament; but they were very inadequate in numbers, and, although they might be valuable along the coast at the commencement of a war, yet being only bound to serve one year, they could never be depended on as an efficient body for all the requirements of military service afloat, and to the extent of 100 leagues from the land. The Commissioners then recommended that a force of Volunteer Reserve of 30,000 seamen should be formed, and held together by a retaining fee. They recommended that their retaining fee should be £6, but that £1 of this amount should be carried to a pension fund, to be paid after a certain period of service. The object was to renew, if possible, that Mercantile Marine Fund which was of so much value and importance in connecting the whole of the seamen of England together by a common bond to the service of their country. It was formed by a small contribution from their wages, so that at a certain age they could have a claim upon the fund to support them during the later years of life. Unfortunately, however, partly from mismanagement and partly from the small control over the seamen themselves, that fund had gone to ruin; but it would be a great object if the present scheme could be connected with a Mercantile Marine Fund, the idea being that £1 of the retainer should go to a fund enabling the Volunteer Reserve to receive £12, £18, or £20, a year, according to length of service. It was hoped also that the public would liberally aid a fund which was known to be established for so praiseworthy an object as the pensioning old seamen. The Commissioners also recommended that naval schools should be established at the different ports for the instruction of boys, and that one portion of the boys should be draughted off to the Royal Navy, and another to the mercantile marine. He earnestly called the attention of the noble Duke to these recommendations of the Commissioners. He wished to make an observation or two on the operation of the third article of the rules issued by the Admiralty regulating the admission of Volunteers, by which candidates were required to have served five years at sea, to be certified as AB. The object of this, of course, 1827 was to get AB seamen. Now, there was no term so vague as that of AB seamen. One man might be good for one purpose and another for another, but all received general certificates after service. By proceeding on this principle of selection the probability was that when they got their 30,000 men they would find that a great many of them were not up to the mark. Why should it not be at once distinctly stated that there were certain qualifications which the men should possess, and why should they not be asked to show on examination what they were able to do? In this way they would be sure to know what description of men they were who presented themselves. Under the system proposed there could be no certainty of procuring good men. He had heard it said that certificates were even made matters of bargain and sale by the men. Then, as to the system of training, he thought it very inadequate. The Volunteers were to be a picked body of seamen, trained to the use of arms, well drilled, and made practically acquainted not only with the use of the great gun, but of small arms. The time set apart for drill was twenty-eight days in the year, which, by deducting Sundays and the time required for travelling, would be reduced to twenty-two—a time wholly inadequate to train and drill the men effectively. Now, they knew perfectly well that without an immense deal of practice no man could be of any great value in the management of artillery; and he feared, therefore, that if the country depended upon these Volunteers as being first-rate seamen, accustomed to artillery, and ready to fight an enemy, it would be deceived. He wished next to point out to the noble Duke that if they were not able to produce a better class of men than these were likely to be, they would absolutely ruin the reserve they now had. By one of the regulations, No. 151, it was provided that Naval Volunteers would be eligible for the Coastguard force. He had shown their Lordships that they might confidently rely on the Coastguard to the extent of their numbers. They might be called off their stations to-day and be ready to man a ship to-morrow. But supposing they had 30,000 Volunteers of the description he had referred to, and they had a right to enter the Coastguard service after ten or seven years, he was afraid it would be found that the latter would lose in efficiency. A naval volunteer might pass and not be a seaman at all in the proper sense of the 1828 word; he might be only partially drilled and trained—and, yet after he had been a certain number of years on the books he would have the right to enter as one of the élite of our reserve, he being an inferior man and unable to perform any of the duties that a Coastguard man now discharged. In this way the Coastguard force would be deteriorated. It was provided by rule 6 that no naval pensioner could enter that service. But there was a body of men, called short-service pensioners, men of good character and who had each served ten years on board of a man-of-war. They were now scattered over the face of the earth: but, if permitted to join the reserve force, they would be found a most valuable accession to it. At present they received a pension of 6d. a day, but by making a difference in their pay of from about £9 to £15 a year, the Government would attract an excellent class of men to the proposed force. There was at present a description of reserve which was considered of some value, but which he thought susceptible of improvement—he meant the crews of the eleven ships that were now stationed in the various out-ports for the purpose of affording facilities for drill to the Coastguard and Coast Volunteers. Those men at present never had any practice, for the ships never moved from their moorings; but he thought if they were sent to sea in summer much might be done to render their crews really efficient. There was a point of some importance to which he wished to advert. At this moment he was told there was a feeling among the mercantile seamen throughout the country that a trap was being laid for them in this plan of the Government. They imagined that when they entered the service of the Government as reserve men they were liable to be pounced upon at any moment and carried off to China or some other distant part of the world were we might be engaged in some petty war. He (the Earl of Hardwicke) was sure he only spoke the feeling of both Houses of Parliament and of the Government when he said most distinctly and emphatically that the end and object of the whole scheme was to obviate the necessity of having recourse to impressment; so that the seamen of the country, of all men, had the greatest interest in its success, and were under the strongest obligations to support it. He was satisfied that no petty war or political accident would ever induce the Government to 1829 break the contract they had made in this matter with the seamen of England, or to take those men from their usual occupations on any such enterprise; so that they might rest assured that when they were called on to serve it would only be in the performance of that great duty of national defence which was incumbent on every citizen.
§ THE DUKE OF SOMERSETsaid, he was not surprised to find that the noble Earl, having acted as Chairman of the Manning Commission, took a considerable interest in the success of the plan in question. He assured the noble Earl that he did not in the least complain of any criticism or even censure which might be passed on a scheme which was still an experiment, and which was now for the first time being tried on a large scale. He (the Duke of Somerset) might shortly advert to some of the principal recommendations of the Manning Commission, and to the course the Admiralty had pursued with respect to them. The Commissioners had made several special recommendations, the first, and perhaps the most important of which related to the establishment of training ships for boys. On that subject two different plans were suggested. One was, that at the naval ports—Portsmouth and Plymouth, for instance—training vessels should be stationed for lads who, after having undergone a certain amount of instruction, should all go into the navy. Another was that at all the great commercial ports training ships should be placed for boys, some of whom should afterwards enter the navy. and others of them be at liberty to join the merchant service. When the Admiralty came to consider those two suggestions it appeared to them that they would have to do something more than place a vessel at each of the large ports—that they would have to attach to each of those vessels a small brig or yacht in which the lads should go to sea, and so have opportunities for practice in seamanship. Under the circumstances he had thought it would be well to pause before they adopted in the large commercial ports a system of training schools such as had been recommended. But, in the meantime, he had thought it desirable to try the experiment on a different scale,—namely, to have training ships stationed at Portsmouth and Plymouth for boys, with small vessels attached, so that during the whole summer the lads might be going out to sea, and rendering themselves really efficient sea- 1830 men, and he was told that after a year of such instruction these lads would become valuable acquisitions to the Royal Navy. He believed that this would prove a right course to adopt as a commencement, and the Admiralty had accordingly decided on giving practical effect to it. Another recommendation of the Manning Commission related to seamen gunners, and certainly nothing was more important than good naval gunnery. The Admiralty had made arrangements for giving increased pay to seamen gunners, had appointed gunnery lieutenants and instructors of gunnery: so that they had taken some steps to give effect to this recommendation of the Commission. The Commissioners had reported that the supply of provisions to the seamen was too small, and the Admiralty, acting upon the suggestion, had increased the quantity issued to the men. Free grants of bedding and clothing were now also given, the practice having been begun by the late Board of Admiralty, in accordance with the recommendation of the Commission. Another recommendation of the Commissioners was that the seamen should be paid their wages at shorter intervals. That question required some consideration, which it was now receiving; but it so happened that it was not a matter of pressing importance, because all those men who had entered the service during the present year had received the bounty, which, perhaps, met the views of the Commissioners, that an allowance should be given to the men at a time when they most required it. With respect to warrant officers the Commissioners recommended that certain alterations should be made, and that pensions should be granted to their widows. The Admiralty thought the propositions were just, and had acted upon them. So also with respect to petty officers,—they were to receive an allowance upon being promoted. An important reform had been effected by increasing the number of marines. That force had been increased by 2,000 men last year, and by 1,000 in the Estimates of this year, thus raising the force from 15,000 to 18,000. It was not desirable to increase the force too rapidly, because of the difficulty of drilling a largo number of recruits, and he had therefore resolved upon effecting for the present a smaller augmentation of the corps than had taken place during the last year. He next came to the Coastguard, the importance of which force he fully admitted. That force had been increased 1831 this year by 500 seamen, and the number I of seamen would be continually increased as the landsmen serving in that body were pensioned off. He had next to refer to the great question of the establishment of a naval reserve force. That reserve at present consisted of the Coastguard, of the Royal Naval Coast Volunteers, and the new reserve force created by the Act passed in the course of last summer. There were at present in the Coastguard serving on shore only about 3,200 seamen. In the district Coastguard ships about 1,800 more, making a total of 5,000 seamen fit for service at sea. In the Royal Naval Coast Volunteers there were of men who had been drilled and were ready for immediate embarcation in case of emergency about 6,600. It must be remembered, however, that in creating the new force many men had been attracted to it who would otherwise have joined the Coast Volunteers. The scheme of a naval reserve was one attended by many difficulties, and required the combined action of the Royal Navy and the mercantile marine. He had been told by those well acquainted with the commercial marine that if the Admiralty trusted entirely to naval officers to raise the force they would fail, from the suspicious that would be entertained by the merchant seamen. He, being desirous to avail himself of the assistance of shipping masters and of other persons connected with the commercial marine, applied to the Board of Trade, and the officers of that department had exhibited great zeal and taken great pains to promote his object. The result was that the Board of Trade, after having entered into communication with mercantile men in all parts of the country had drawn up a set of regulations, which were generally approved of by the Admiralty: but he had felt it to be, in the first instance, desirable to make certain restrictions. Thus be had restricted the entry for the present to able seamen. He had been told if he wanted 30,000 men it would not do to restrict the entries to able seamen. He admitted that statement; but if it had been announced that on a given day the Admiralty were prepared to receive all who might choose to enter—whether able or ordinary seamen—the number might have been too large to allow of the whole being drilled effectively, and the system might have broken down at the outset. He had therefore thought it best in the first instance to confine the entries to able seamen, and 1832 if they succeeded in getting good men the force would become popular, and they could take more volunteers as they were able to drill them. The liberality of the Admiralty and of Parliament had created the suspicion of the sailors. For many years schemes of a reserve had been in agitation, but the objection always was that the country would pay the bounty, but would not get the force. Last year the offer of £6, and to pay the men during the time of drill, was made, and the force, it was stated was only to be called upon to serve upon occasions of great emergency. He quite agreed with the noble Earl (the Earl of Hardwicke) that no Government should use the reserve, except in case of a great national danger or critical emergency. The particular emergency could not be defined beforehand; but before the men of the reserve could be called upon to embark, there must be an Order in Council and a special proclamation addressed to the reserve. Thus the men in that force could only be called upon to serve after a decision of the Cabinet, and under circumstances which made it almost certain that Parliament, if not then sitting, must be immediately assembled. Thus every possible security was given to the men that they would not be called upon to serve except in a time of some sudden danger or great national emergency. At first, however, seamen thought the terms were too good, and were suspicious that as soon as they had joined the Government intended to ship them off to China. There was no ground, of course, for such doubts, and as to China that was the most popular station just now. Indeed, had he had five times the number of ships to send to China, he would have had no difficulty in manning them. The new scheme only came into operation on January 1, and, despite its restriction to able seamen, the natural suspicions of the men, and the difficulty of all at once understanding the arrangements, he believed about forty or fifty were entering every week, and if that went on for a short time longer, the country would have the nucleus of an efficient reserve. The noble Earl had suggested that the reserve ought to be formed of sailors who had served ten years in the fleet, their places being supplied by bringing in other men. This, however, would greatly injure the efficiency of the service, for the men who had been ten years afloat were some of the best in the navy, and could not at present be spared. Perhaps, hereafter, this plan might be resorted to; but at pre- 1833 sent it was impossible to part with those men without greatly impairing the efficiency of our naval force; and it was moreover deemed necessary to proceed gradually, otherwise the country would be committed to a large outlay. Under the system he had adopted none were entered but able seamen and those who were likely to be really effective. It had been objected that men were required to be doubly approved, first by a shipping master and then by a naval officer. To some extent that objection was well founded; but if you tried to raise this reserve by naval officers alone the men would not join. It was found necessary to deal with merchant sailors by those to whom they were accustomed. The responsibility of accepting or rejecting any men must rest, of course, on the naval officer; but arrangements had been made by which the naval officer now attended along with the shipping master—so that, although a double approval was still necessary, only a single attendance was required on the part of the men. The noble Earl complained that twenty-two days' training was quite inadequate. The same complaint had been made respecting the twenty-eight days' training to which the militia were subjected. It was true that the Naval Reserve would not be made so efficient as if they were trained for several months; but it should be remembered that the country did not want to engage these men entirely, they wanted them for reserve purposes; they did not want to withdraw them from the mercantile service altogether; and if they took them for more than twenty-two days it was unfair to the interests of that service. He admitted that if they could give more days' training it would be an advantage; but that could only be done by taking the men for a longer period of drill, which would be objectionable. The expense would be enormous, and it would not answer the purpose, because they wanted seamen for seafaring purposes. To pay sailors to be kept on shore would never answer. If they took able seamen, he did not think it was impossible to train the men to the use of the guns, and get them into a state of considerable proficiency in the space of twenty-two days. He did not speak without authority on this point. He had applied to the authorities at the different ports, and he found that marines who had been in training for three weeks only had attained considerable proficiency. This objection, therefore, ought not to weigh with their Lordships and lead them to condemn 1834 the system. The noble Earl had spoken of the desirability of connecting the reserve force with a Seamen's Fund. No doubt, it would be desirable; but the Commission had expressed their opinion that the object aimed at would be better attained by means of a fund voluntarily supported. He (the Duke of Somerset) thought that, as these men seemed suspicious already, they would perhaps imagine that some further hold upon them was to be established by a compulsory payment. It had been thought better, therefore, not to mix up any such fund with the now force, but to leave it for voluntary adoption whenever a good scheme could be laid down. The Merchant Seamen's Fund, it would be remembered, had become bankrupt, and great distrust would therefore exist on this point. The noble Earl said there was at present no sufficient instruction for officers or men on board the Coastguard ships. Every district ship, however, had one or two gun-boats attached to it, and during most of the year these boats were sent out along the coast, and excellent practice was thus afforded. There was great difficulty in securing all the advantages which could be wished for in this way, with a due regard to economy. If they had gunboats they must have steam machinery, engineers, and superintendence, and they would be constantly liable to the expense of repairs. The Estimates this year were very heavy, but the chief amount was taken for men, and the more men introduced into the navy the wider the basis for a future naval reserve. He had thought it better to begin cautiously in the formation of a reserve; but if it continued at its present rate of increase, some forty or fifty men joining it per week, and if sailors get rid of their suspicions that they were about to be entrapped, and found that they would be called out only on some national emergency, he hoped before long that they would join it still more freely, and that if in a few months' time the noble Earl again called attention to the subject he would be able to enter into the discussion with more hopeful prospects for the future.
§ THE EARL OF ELLENBOROUGHsaid, that about fourteen years ago he was a member of a Commission which had to consider the state of the Merchant Seamen's Fund. They found it in a bankrupt condition, through the miscalculations of those by whom it had been established; but the earnest desire of the Commission and of the Government which then existed 1835 was that the fund should be re-established on a better footing, and it was proposed to do this by the acquisition of certain funds which they could properly lay their hands on, to enable the fund to go forward and prove of advantage to the service. He, indeed, when occupying the position now held by the noble Duke, had gone so far as to conceive the design of a hospital for merchant seamen, which would show that they, as well as the sailors in the Royal Navy, were objects of the tenderest care and solicitude on the part of their country. As regarded the measure for the establishment of this Naval Reserve, he confessed that he never expected great things from it. He had always felt that persons would be disappointed who hoped by its means to be able at all times to lay their hands upon a certain number of men for service in the Royal Navy, because he knew that the men best calculated for the naval reserve were the men who would always be shipping for distant voyages, and were not at home when war was imminent. In point of fact, however, there was at such times in this country a reserve which had not been duly appreciated. People fell into two errors in speaking of the mercantile marine. Some thought that, in the event of war, the whole of that body of men, consisting, according to some calculations, of 200,000 or 300,000, would be available for service in the navy; while others supposed that no sailors would be available, except those who had actually engaged to servo. Now, the fact was this:—There was at all times in the United Kingdom a very considerable body of merchant seamen unemployed, the number varying according to the season. That would form the reserve force of Her Majesty's navy in case of war. It would become available in this way—The moment there arose a reasonable apprehension, and long before a declaration, of war, merchants were afraid to send their ships to sea, and of course did not need hands;—the men were compelled to find some service, and, being unable to do so in merchant ships, they were of necessity forced to seek employment in the Royal Navy. The number of men unemployed at the commencement of the next war would be infinitely greater than at the commencement of former wars, because, in consequence of the very narrow balance between our naval force and that of the French it would he impossible, at the beginning of the war, to keep up our convoys to enable merchants to make their voyages; the na- 1836 vigation of the seas by merchants would be stopped, and a great many men usually employed in the mercantile service would then be disposable here for Her Majesty's service. The same thing would occur in every part of the world; for the merchant would be afraid of putting his ship to sea unless he could receive a great degree of protection from men-of-war. Therefore the men of the merchant service in different districts abroad would be available for service in the Queen's ships in the same districts; and, even if the proposed naval reserve should fail, still he thought there would be that reserve which he had just now alluded to, and of which no circumstances could deprive this country. He must say that the account given by the noble Duke of the prospects of the Naval Reserve was a great deal better than he had expected; and, considering that the Admiralty had confined themselves in the first instance to accepting as volunteers able seamen, he had no doubt, recollecting how comparatively few were the numbers of that body, they might congratulate themselves on having established a system which would produce on paper a respectable force. He was, however, under the apprehension that, in consequence of the men being engaged in distant voyages, the number available in war would not be so great as he should desire to see. There was one thing he would venture to recommend, and that was the Admiralty should consult Lieutenant Brown, who was a perfect master of this subject, and would be able to tell them the number of merchant seamen usually at home at different periods of the year. He would likewise advise them to have at all times in their possession an account of the number of seamen actually in this country. The number, of course, varied at different times, but there should be no week in which the Government should not be aware of the total force of the seamen in the country. He congratulated the country on the efforts made by successive Boards of Admiralty to improve the condition of the seamen. There could be no doubt that the country had acted with great wisdom, liberality, and benevolence towards the seamen, and he trusted that the jealousies and suspicions entertained by the latter would gradually cease to exist, when the seamen observed, as they must of necessity soon perceive, the kind manner in which they were dealt with by successive Boards of Admiralty and by Parliament.