§ THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWNsaid, he wished to ask the Under Secretary for War a question of considerable importance, of which he had given notice. It was a question connected with the national defences of the country. He was one of those who believed that the defence of this country must mainly depend upon our maintaining our navy in a greater state of efficiency than that of any other country in the world, and it gave him great satisfaction when the Secretary for War stated 493 in February last in the other House, in moving the Army Estimates, that he was anxious, as soon as possible, to issue rifle guns for the use of the navy. The right hon. Gentleman then stated that he hoped, by means of enlarging the Royal Factory at Woolwich, and with the aid of Sir William Armstrong's factory at Elswick, to have, between the 1st of January last and the end of the next financial year, something not very far short of 3,000 rifled guns on board Her Majesty's ships. When rifled guns were about to be introduced into the French and other navies, he hoped the answer which his noble Friend was able to give would be that a large number of guns had been rifled and delivered to the navy. He had so framed his question that it might have reference to cast-iron guns, because he found this class of guns distinctly mentioned in the evidence of Captain Caffin before the National Defence Commission. When asked about the guns that were being prepared for the navy, he said—"The present arrangement is to encase a east-iron gun in a wrought-iron cylinder;" and on being further asked if Sir William Armstrong was doing that, his answer was "Yes." Now he was informed that the Government had been warned that these cast-iron guns, when they came to be tested, would be sure to burst. Nevertheless, large contracts for cast-iron guns had been entered into by the Government, and he was informed that when experiments came to be made the result was that the whole of the guns experimented upon burst. The consequence, he believed, was that the contracts had been cancelled. He wished, therefore, to ask his noble Friend the Under Secretary for War, What number of cast-iron guns have been rifled and delivered to the navy; by whose advice cast-iron guns have been hooped and rifled; what has been the results of the experiments upon the cast-iron guns so treated; and whether the Ordnance Select Committee were consulted on the subject, and approved of the rifling of the guns in question? He asked this question because he was at a loss to know who was responsible for the advice that had been given—whether it was the Secretary for War, the Commander-in-Chief, or Sir William Armstrong. He thought it was an anomalous position to place Sir William Armstrong in, a gentleman enjoying a salary from the Government, to ask him to make a report on the very article which he had contracted to manufacture for the Government. He 494 thought it right that the very best advice should be given to the Government on such a subject, but it was unfair to place an individual in the invidious position of being a contractor for the manufacture of an article, and then to call on him to give advice to the Government with respect to the very article he and his partners were manufacturing.
THE EARL DE GREY AND RIPON, in answering the Question of the noble Earl, had, in the first place, to draw their Lordships' attention to the circumstance, that he thought it desirable that he should answer it strictly as it stood on the paper, and in the next, that there were good reasons why he should not go into all the particulars to which his noble Friend had referred. With regard to the question, what number of cast-iron guns had been rifled and delivered to the navy, his answer was that no rifled cast-iron guns had been delivered to the navy; for that description did not apply to the guns called the Armstrong guns, which were not cast-iron guns. With regard to the second question, by whose advice cast-iron guns had been hooped and rifled, he had to state that at the end of last year, and in the early part of the present, it was a subject of serious consideration with the Government how they should be able, at the earliest possible period, to supply both the army and navy with rifled guns. The gun of Sir William Armstrong had been adopted after a full and satisfactory trial, but it was found that Sir William Armstrong's guns could only be delivered comparatively slowly. The Government had therefore to consider whether they might not issue guns not exactly so perfect as the Armstrong, but still rifled guns, that could be supplied more rapidly. At that time orders were given that cast-iron guns should be provided, and subsequently rifled by Sir William Armstrong. A certain number of guns were prepared and hooped, and some of them were subsequently rifled. The rifling was upon what was called the "shunting" plan, which was suggested by Sir William Armstrong. Those guns were tried, but the result was not satisfactory, and all proceedings with respect to guns rifled upon that plan had been suspended. The hooped guns—that was, the ordinary service guns turned down and hooped, but not rifled—had also been tried, and in the experiments those smoothbore guns had stood considerable trials, but all had ultimately burst—in fact, they 495 had been tested to destruction; and although it was not in his power to say that the hooped smooth-bore guns had established any marked superiority over the ordinary smooth-bore guns, yet neither could he say that the trials had proved them to be failures. It would be, in fact, rather premature to pronounce upon the matter as it then stood. The noble Earl had further asked whether the Ordnance Select Committee had been consulted on the subject, and had approved the rifling of the guns in question. That question implied some misconception on the part of the noble Earl as to the nature of the functions of the Ordnance Select Committee. That Committee was a body of officers of experience and scientific attainments, to whom every description of invention for warlike purposes that was brought forward was referred. They examined all those inventions and reported to the Secretary of State whether they were likely to be useful, or whether they were of such a nature as to render it undesirable that the Government should have anything to do with them. The Committee had no function to decide what description of gun or other materials should be ordered for experiment—that was the function of the Secretary of State—it was the province of the Committee to conduct the experiments and to report the result. Therefore, the answer to the third question of the noble Earl must be in the negative—that the Ordnance Select Committeee was not consulted before these guns were rifled. The noble Earl, at the conclusion of his speech, had alluded to the position of Sir William Armstrong, and had spoken of that gentleman as contractor with the Government. It was due to Sir William Armstrong that that matter should be cleared up. The facts were that Sir William Armstrong was not a Government contractor at all, for he was not a partner in the Elswick Iron Works, which supplied the guns. He had no profitable interest in those works, but he had advanced money to that concern, for which he held security, and of course received interest, but none of the profits of the concern. It was also true that Sir William Armstrong was a partner in certain iron Works at Elswick, but those were not the Works which supplied ordnance to the Government. Having now answered the noble Earl's questions, he would only further observe that their Lordships would not expect him to give very minute in- 496 formation upon a subject of this nature. He had answered the questions, he hoped, to the satisfaction of his noble Friend, but certainly as far as was consistent with the public interests.