§ VISCOUNT SIDMOUTHsaid, he wished to make a personal explanation. The noble Marquess the First Lord of the Admiralty (the Marquess of Ripon) the other night seemed to be under misapprehension that the letter to which his Question had referred was written by the late Chief Constructor, Mr. Barnaby, and consequently the answer of the noble Marquees had not exactly applied to the Question. The letter to which he referred was that of Mr. White, the present Chief Constructor, who, in his letter, clearly intended that water should be introduced into unarmour-ended ships of the Admiral, class as a means not only of correcting the trim, but also as a protection in time of action; and he further gave them to understand that the loss of speed from the consequent immersion of the vessel to a depth of 15 or 18 inches would be very trifling. For himself, he thought that naval officers could not be expected to take their ships into action on untried systems; for they all knew that scientific inventions, although they might be exceedingly clever and ingenious, often failed when brought to the test of a practical trial because of the existence of conditions which were not and could not be foreseen by the inventor. When naval officers were let ashore sometimes for two or three years without being employed in the command of vessels, and when invention went on at the rate at which it progressed at present, it was impossible to expect the officers to keep abreast of those new in- 1247 ventions, or when the hour of trial came that they should be required to make use of those inventions on the spur of the moment.
§ THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (The Marquess of RIPON)said, it was a somewhat inconvenient practice that a Question which was not on the Paper should be asked and then afterwards supplemented by a lengthened statement. He would not follow the noble Viscount in this respect. In answer to the Question he had to say that he was afraid there was no hope of the noble Viscount and himself coming to a conclusion with respect to Mr. White's letter, because he had copied out the very extracts from that letter which the noble Viscount had used in order to prove exactly the opposite of that which the noble Viscount argued he had established. He still held to the statement which he made the other day. He admitted, however, that he had made a mistake in supposing that the letter referred to was from Mr. Barnaby. He had been led into that mistake because he had had a long conversation with Mr. White on the subject, and that gentleman had stated to him those views with respect to the purposes and intentions of the Admiralty as to those vessels which he had mentioned to their Lordships the other evening.