SECOND READING. (Hansard, 5 August 1872)

THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN

, in moving that the Bill be now read the second time, said, that its main object was to provide life annuities for masters and seamen in the Mercantile Marine who had contributed 6d. per month out of their wages to the funds of Greenwich Hospital. The persons who had thus contributed down to the year 1834 to those funds had complained that although they had subscribed to the funds of the Hospital, they had received no benefit in return. Those complaints went on until the year 1869, in which year the Admiralty were empowered by Act of Parliament to provide £4,000, which should be spent, as far as it would go, in pensions to seamen who had contributed for five years or more to the Hospital funds. These seamen had, however, since renewed their complaints on the ground that they were old men, and that they would probably die before it came to their turn to receive a pension under the regulations. It was therefore proposed under the present Bill that the Admiralty should have power to purchase pensions for these persons under the regulations laid down by an Order in Council. There were two other provisions in the Bill, one of which was to empower the Admiralty to provide wholly or in part for the education and main- 441 tenance of the daughters of warrant officers, non-commissioned officers, and men in the Navy and Marines, provided that not more than 200 girls were so educated and maintained, and that the expense should not exceed £20 a-year per head. That provision was in continuation of a somewhat similar one which existed down to the year 1841, for previously to that year there was in connection with Greenwich Hospital a school for 200 of those girls. It was then abolished; but a Royal Commission and a Committee of the other House of Parliament had recommended that in future a sum not exceeding £4,000 a-year should be expended—not in setting up schools under the Admiralty, but in contributing towards the education of 200 girls in female schools in the neigbourhood of London. The other provision of the Bill, which was also recommended by these Bodies, was to provide for the education of the sons and daughters of deceased non-commissioned officers and men who had been educated in the school attached to Greenwich Hospital, but who had dropped out of that school in consequence of the change which had been made in the regulations of the place. The expense, however, was not to exceed £20 a-year per head, or £1,000 in all. This contribution was to be made in lieu of the sum expended on the education of such children in schools which had formerly been held in connection with the Hospital. In conclusion, he begged to move the second reading of the Bill.