Sitting of 1 March 1866

MINUTES.
NEW MEMBERS SWORN—Richard Arkwright, esquire, for Leominster: Earl of Brecknock, for Brecknock; Marquess of Hartington, for Lancaster County (Northern Division).
SELECT COMMITTEE—On Public Offices (Site) nominated.
SUPPLY—considered in Committee—NAVY ESTIMATES.
WAYS AND MEANS—considered in Committee. PUBLIC BILLS—Ordered—Entail (Scotland).*
First Heading—Entail (Scotland)*[45].
Second Reading—Exchequer and Audit Departments [3]. Third Reading—Cattle Diseases (Ireland)*[37], and passed.

PRISONS ACT.—QUESTION.
MR. HIBBERTsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether any arrangements have been made to ensure the uniform carrying into effect of the Prisons Act of last Session; and, if so, whether such arrangements include the appointment of an additional Inspector of Prisons?
SIR GEORGE GREY,in reply, said, the correspondence on the subject had been laid upon the table. It was in the hands of the printers, and would shortly be delivered to hon. Members, when it would be found to give full information with reference to the carrying into effect the Prisons Act of last Session.
MR. HIBBERTsaid, he wished to know if it would refer to the appointment of an additional inspector?
SIR GEORGE GREYsaid, the correspondence would show the course intended to be taken.

WORKS AT ALDERNEY.

  QUESTION.
  MR. BAXTERsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary of the Treasury, If any time has been fixed for bringing to a close the enormous expenditure at Alderney, and if the Estimate of £1,300,000 was to be exceeded?
  MR. CHILDERS: Sir, the total expenditure at Alderney to the 31st of December last is stated in the Estimates, now in the hands of hon. Members, to have been £1,175,346. To complete the work to the point known as D, without constructing the eastern arm, will cost less than £100,000 more, of which amount £50,000 will fall on the present financial year, and the remainder on the financial year 1866–7, but there is also a claim on the part of the contractors on account of damage done in the gales of last year which may slightly increase this amount. But all the work which Government now contemplates doing is expected to be completed within the £1,300,000, and the final payment will he in 1867–8. The House will remember that an Act was passed last year transferring Alderney from the Admiralty to the Board of Trade, and no further work would be undertaken there except on the recommendation of the Board of Trade to the Treasury. The formal transfer has just been completed, but I have no reason to expect that my right hon. Friend (Mr.

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  Milner Gibson) contemplates any further works there.

DEAN AND CHAPTER OF WESTMINSTER.

  QUESTION.
  MR. BENTINCKsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether the Dean and Chapter of Westminster are about to surrender their Capitular Estates to the Ecclesiastical Commission; and, if so, whether they are to receive in exchange an annual "commutation" payment, and of what amount, or a re-transfer of a portion of the Capitular Estates, and of what annual value; and whether any and what arrangement has been come to upon such surrender for securing adequate stipends to the Non-capitular Members of the Collegiate Church? He also wished to ask if the scheme was prepared, and whether the right hon. Gentleman will lay it on the table?
  SIR GEORGE GREY: I am informed that the Ecclesiastical Commissioners are in negotiation with the Dean and Chapter of Westminster for a commutation of their capitular estates, but that the terms of the transfer have not been yet settled.

  ORNAMENTAL WATER IN REGENT'S PARK.—QUESTION.
  MR. HARVEY LEWISsaid, he wished to ask the First Commissioner of Works, Whether his attention has been called by the Medical Officer of Health for the parish of St. Marylebone to the dangerously filthy condition of the Ornamental Water in the Regent's Park, and whether he proposes to take any steps to cause the same to be cleansed; and whether he has any objection to lay upon the table of the House the Report and Analysis of the same forwarded to him by the Medical Officer.
  MR. COWPER,in reply, said, before sanitary facts were attended to the owners of houses used to drain them into the nearest river or ornamental water. This practice prevailed to some extent in Regent's Park, and in 1862 he discovered that the sewage of one of the villas was flowing into the ornamental water. He then succeeded in diverting the sewage, and last year, during the hot weather, the medical officer of Marylebone reported to him that there was a smell from the ornamental water which was very disagreeable and injurious to health. He then had to consider what was to be done in that state
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  of things, and whether he ought to draw off the water and clear out the mud; but the exposure of decomposing mud would have been dangerous to health and very disagreeable, and he caused two millions and a half of gallons of water to be poured into the lake, and since that time the water in the lake had been higher in consequence of the rains, and no unpleasant effluvium had been apparent. He was prepared to lay on the table of the House the documents to which the hon. Gentleman alluded.

LOSS OF THE "LONDON."

  QUESTION.
  COLONEL WILLIAMSsaid, he wished to ask the President of the Board of Trade, When the Report of the loss of the ship London will be laid upon the table of the House; whether it is the intention of Her Majesty's Government to take any steps for the better regulation of Passenger Ships generally, and the introduction of more stringent enactments as to their equipment, cargo, and crew; and whether some restraints should not be put on the departure of such Vessels under circumstances that threaten danger?
  MR. MILNER GIBSON: Sir, the Report relating to the loss of the London shall be laid on the table immediately. The London, as to her construction and equipments, had been inspected and passed as a good ship by three sets of surveyors—namely, Board of Trade surveyors, Emigration surveyors, and Lloyd's surveyors. The Emigration surveyors exercised a control over her departure till the last moment before her sailing. It is not the intention of the Government, as at present advised, to propose any Bill containing more stringent enactments respecting the equipment, cargo, or crews of passenger ships.

EAST INDIES—THE INDIAN BUDGET.

  QUESTION.
  MR. J. B. SMITHsaid, he rose to ask the Under Secretary for India, When the India Budget is to be brought forward; whether the late Secretary of State for India has communicated with the Government of India, as he promised this House in 1864, as to the practicability of making up the Indian Finance Accounts to a period which would enable him to lay them upon the table of the House at the opening of the Session of Parliament; and whether it be the intention of the Secretary of State

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  for India in future to make such arrangements as will enable him to bring forward the Budget at the beginning of the Session, instead of at the close, as heretofore.
  MR. STANSFELD,in reply, said, his noble Friend the late Secretary of State had communicated with the financial member of the Council, to whom the subject had been referred. The answer he received was under the consideration of the present Secretary of State, but it did not appear to be sufficiently definite. The Indian Government had been officially communicated with, and when their answer was received he would communicate it to the House.
  MR. J. B. SMITH: When does the hon. Gentleman expect to receive the answer?
  MR. STANSFELD: The communication has only been ordered to-day.
  MR. J. B. SMITH: The hon. Gentleman has not answered my first question.
  MR. STANSFELDsaid, that the finance accounts would be laid upon the table, according to the provision of the law, before the 14th of May; and, as far as the Indian Department was concerned, he should be prepared to introduce the Budget on the earliest day afterwards consistently with the necessities of public business and the convenience of the House.

METROPOLITAN RAILWAYS.

  QUESTION.
  COLONEL WILSON PATTENsaid, he wished to ask the President of the Board of Trade, Whether the Government propose to introduce any measure relating to the Standing Order of which the hon. Member for Lambeth (Mr. T, Hughes) had given notice?
  MR. MILNER GIBSON: I presume, Sir, the Question of the hon. and gallant Member refers to a Bill which I introduced last Session containing certain clauses in the public interest with the view of its being incorporated in any special Railway Act affecting the metropolis. That Bill would not have met the proposal of the hon. Member for Lambeth, as his suggested Standing Orders are to apply to all companies asking powers to take lands and houses for any kind of works. Our Bill was limited to railway companies. We are in communication with the Metropolitan Board of Works on the subject of the
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  Bill we introduced last year, and I hope to be able to lay it on the table shortly.
  COLONEL WILSON PATTEN: Will it be convenient to introduce the Bill of the Government before the discussion of the hon. Gentleman's (Mr. T. Hughes) Standing Order?
  MR. MILNER GIBSON: I will undertake to bring in the Bill in the course of a few days.

PARLIAMENTARY REFORM.

  NOTICE.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: I wish to give notice that on Monday, March 12, I will call the attention of the House to so much of Her Majesty's gracious Speech as relates to the constituencies of counties and boroughs, and move for leave to bring in a Bill founded thereon. I may also state that the Returns which are in preparation for the information of the House, and which will amount to a volume of several hundred pages, are undergoing a final revision; but I cannot promise that they will be in the hands of Members till the end of next week, and possibly not until even the day after my statement. No time, however, shall be lost in placing them on the table.
  VISCOUNT CRANBOURNE: Does the right hon. Gentleman propose that the Bill shall be read a first time before the statistics are in the hands of Members? If so, it will be in direct contradiction to the statement in the Queen's Speech.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: I am not aware of any such contradiction. My Motion will be for leave to bring in a Bill. After that Motion is granted it will be quite competent for any hon. Gentleman to raise the question as to the first reading of the Bill. ["No, no!"] I say it is perfectly competent to raise the question on the first reading. ["No!"] Well, then, Sir, I am in your hands.
  MR. SPEAKER: When a Bill is brought in it is at once read a first time.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: When it is brought in, then. I do not know what the noble Lord (Viscount Cranbourne) means when he speaks of a direct contradiction to Her Majesty's Speech. However, I will refer to the terms of Her Majesty's Speech, and then I shall be prepared to-morrow to answer that part of the Question.

  SUPPLY.
  Order for Committee read. Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."

  DEVONPORT ELECTION.—QUESTION.
  SIR JOHN PAKINGTONin rising, pursuant to notice, to call the attention of the Government to certain statements as to the manner in which Dockyard workmen who are Voters for the Borough of Devon-port have been examined in the Dockyard with reference to their intended evidence before the Election Committee for that Borough, and to ask for explanation, said: I am sincerely sorry that I am compelled by a sense of duty to ask the attention of Her Majesty's Government, and of the House, to the statements that have been laid before me with regard to certain proceedings that have been taken during the last few days in the borough of Devonport. I confess I had hoped that the day of political scandal and intimidation, or even of the suspicion of either in our dockyards, had passed away; and I very much hope that my noble Friend opposite (Lord Clarence Paget) may be able either to state that I have been misinformed, or to offer a satisfactory explanation with regard to the allegations that I am about to lay before the House. Sir, the facts to which I wish to draw attention are very simple, and I think I shall be able to state them in a very few sentences. The first fact to which I wish to call attention is a telegram which I am informed was sent down by the Admiralty to the borough of Devonport last week. It is dated February 20, but it was not sent down to Devonport until the following day, the 21st. The wording of the telegram is as follows:—
  "Admiralty, Feb. 20, 1866.
  "Every facility is to be given for serving the Speaker's warrant on the workmen in the yard in the ease of the petition against the sitting Members for Devonport.—For the information of the officers."
  I wish to ask a few questions relative to this telegram. In the first place, By whom was it sent?—by the noble Lord opposite (Lord Clarence Paget), or by Mr. Romaine, the permanent Under Secretary? and, if it were sent at all, it was sent by order of the First Lord of the Admiralty, or the Board? In the second place, I wish to ask to whom this telegram was sent? I presume, and I do not think my noble Friend will contradict me, that no order would be
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  communicated to the officers or the workmen of the dockyard except through the medium of the Admiral Superintendent. I must inform the House that I know nothing personally of what has been going on at Devonport; but I am informed that the duties of the office of Admiral Superintendent of the dockyard were never more ably or more honourably performed than by Admiral Symonds, the present Admiral Superindendent. I am especially informed that no officer ever held the office of Admiral Superintendent of the Dockyard at Devonport who has more honourably and scrupulously observed the strict injunctions given against political interference in the yard. I therefore, Sir, desire to know whether the Admiral Superintendent was called upon to carry out this telegram?—because I am convinced, from what I know of this officer, that he would not have acted upon this telegram unless he had direct injunctions from head-quarters. I ask, then, to whom this telegram was sent?—but the most important question I wish to put is this, Why was it sent at all? Why was it necessary for the Board of Admiralty, either through the Admiral Superintendent or any other agency, to interfere in the proceedings preliminary to the trial of the petition against the return of the Members for Devonport? Every voter who is a workman in the dockyard is a resident in the town of Devonport, and every such workman votes as a £10 householder; they are all easily accessible at their places of abode, which are perfectly well known; and therefore I wish to know what is meant by it when I am told that the Lords of the Admiralty have telegraphed that every facility is to be given for serving the Speaker's warrant? What facilities were wanted? How are the Speaker's warrants served in those boroughs where there happens to be no dockyard? How are they served in Devonport upon voters required as witnesses who are not workmen in the dockyard? As a matter of course in every case of a controverted election it is the constant practice to serve the voters with these warrants at their own houses. What reason was there, then, for telegraphing that facilities should be afforded in this particular instance for serving these warrants upon the workmen in the dockyard, instead of leaving them to be served at the voters' houses in the regular and ordinary course? This is the first point on which I wish to elicit information from my noble Friend. I now

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  pass to the manner in which the instructions of this telegram were carried out. The telegram, as I hare stated, was sent either on Tuesday, the 20th, or Wednesday, the 21st, and on this day week (Thursday, the 22nd) I am informed that the messengers and principal officers of the yard were employed, early in the morning, in going round the yard with a list of the names of the men, and giving them to the inspectors and leading men, with directions for the men to attend in the sail-room at ten o'clock—the workmen here alluded to, some thirty or thirty-five in number, being workmen in the yard who had given their votes for the present Members for Devon-port, Mr. Ferrand and Mr. Fleming, were on that day ordered by those officers to assemble in the sail-room of Devonport Dockyard. I understand that that sail-room is now used as a police-office by the Government police acting in the dockyard, On Thursday, the 22nd, at ten o'clock, these thirty or thirty-five dockyard workmen were taken away from the discharge of their duties—taken away from the work for which we are about to pay by our Votes in Supply—and were assembled in that police-office. The only persons at that time in that police-office who were not either policemen or workmen in the yard were first of all the town-crier, who, I understand, is a very warm political partizan, an attorney in the town, who is a solicitor for the petitioners, and a gentleman not known to the parties, but who, I believe, is an agent of the petitioners, and was sent down from London. Well, when these thirty or thirty-five workmen were brought together, one of them—for the sake of the men I had better not mention names—was called forward and subjected to examination by these hostile examiners. He was called upon to criminate himself. He was asked whether he had accepted bribes for his vote at the election, and when he denied any such illegality he was then cross - examined in an offensive and hostile manner as to his powers of memory, and even questioned, I believe, whether he recollected his own birthday. After this examination he was dismissed; and I am informed that the examination of the first man not turning out quite satisfactorily to the examiners, as soon as it ceased an inspector of police was called in who desired all the voters so assembled to go outside the building, which they did. Thereupon, the men were called in one by one, and singly exposed to the same system of hos-
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  tile examination, cross-examination, and attempts to make them criminate themselves which had been adopted towards the first workman. These are the main facts as regards what took place on Thursday, the 22nd. I am informed that on Friday the same sort of scene was repeated. Some fifteen or twenty voters were brought together in the same place and served with the Speaker's warrant: and I have heard that similar proceedings have taken place on subsequent days. Here, I must again ask, What reason was there for all that? What could have been the motive for bringing these voters to the police-office and thus calling on them to criminate themselves, under circumstances which, without at all wishing to prejudice the matter, I must say, unless they are fully explained, unavoidably inspire in one's mind the suspicion that the object was to intimidate and alarm these men? The warrants might have been served—it appears to me they ought to have been served—at their residences, after their hours of work were over. Instead of that, however, all these men—between thirty and forty on the Thursday, some twenty others on the Friday, and more I am told since then—were taken from their labour, they were each absent from it, on an average, for an hour and a half—in some cases less, in others, as much as two hours; and this amount of labour of fifty or sixty men was withdrawn from the yard, and for what? To submit to a process which could have been more conveniently, and, as I contend, far more properly carried out at their own houses. There is another fact to be noticed, to which, however, I would not attach undue importance—namely, that one of the petitioners on whose behalf this telegram was sent, or on whose behalf these men were withdrawn from their work and brought to be examined in the police-office, is an official of the Board of Admiralty—a gentleman well known to all of us, I mean Mr. Phinn, who long held the office of Secretary to the Board of Admiralty, and is now their standing counsel. These, Sir, are what appear to me, to say the least, to be the most unusual circumstances connected with the manner in which the service of these warrants took place; and after all that has passed in former years—I hope the case will never arise again—I believe the House would feel that I should fail in my duty if, when these alleged facts were brought before me, I did not call upon the noble Lord opposite to give some explana-

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  tion of the reason why the ordinary practice on such occasion has in this case been departed from—and this under circumstances which, as I have before said, are attended with some degree of suspicion. I need not detain the House any longer, but simply beg to ask my noble Friend opposite in the first place—Are the statements which I have made correct? Have I been rightly informed or misinformed? And, in the next place, if I have been rightly informed, I have to call on my noble Friend to state whether he is able to offer any satisfactory explanation of circumstances which, I must say, on their first aspect, wear an appearance of grave impropriety and irregularity.
  LORD CLARENCE PAGET: Sir, I am bound to say that the right hon. Gentleman opposite, in bringing this matter before the notice of the House, has not accompanied his speech with any very strong remarks; but, on the contrary, he has made a temperate statement, and calls upon me to reply as to how far it is correct. I will, therefore, in a very few words explain all that I know of this transaction. The right hon. Gentleman first asks me whether I was cognizant of the telegram that was sent from the Admiralty to the Admiral Superintendent at Devonport. Well, what I am about to read to the House will show that it so happens that I was not cognizant of this transaction until it was brought to my notice by him. On Monday evening my right hon. Friend came to me in the lobby and said, "I find it necessary to give a notice for Thursday next, which I request you to read." This is the paper which he placed in ray hands—
  "To call the attention of the Government to certain statements as to the manner in which dockyard labourers, who are voters for the borough of Devonport, have been examined in the dockyard with reference to their intended evidence before the Election Committee for that borough, and to ask for explanation."
  Now, thinking this looked serious, I asked my right hon. Friend whether he would allow me to retain a copy, in order that I might write to the Superintendent and inquire what had occurred. My right hon. Friend consented; and, accordingly, that evening I enclosed the notice in a note to the Superintendent, Admiral Symonds, asking for full information. I was pleased to hear my right hon. Friend give Admiral Symonds credit for being above acting on any political consideration whatever. I got a letter next day from the
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  Admiral Superintendent, which I am permitted to read, and which was as follows:—
  "H. M.'s Dockyard, Devonport, Feb. 27,1866.
  "My dear Lord Clarence Paget,—I send you copies of the orders under which I have acted, also of the applications made to and approved by me in obedience to the two orders, which contained the same words, 'on workmen in the yard.' I therefore ordered that the people sought and applied for should assemble at the hour requested in a quiet part of the yard, instead of their being sought separately at their work—
  [Laughter.] Hon. Gentlemen no doubt think it very diverting; but I believe they will see that the course which the Superintendent took was the best for the public service. He goes on to say—
  "Where they saw the parties applying by Speaker's warrant, and were perfectly uninterfered with by their own officers. You have everything I can think of.—Yours faithfully,
  "T. M. SYMONDS."
  And the Admiral makes a remark at the end of the letter which I commend to the attention of hon. Gentlemen on both sides of the House. He says—
  "Is not this much in favour of disfranchising dockyards?"
  On inquiry at the Admiralty I found that my noble Friend the Duke of Somerset had received a letter, which I will read to the House. It is dated from 43, Parliament Street, the 20th of February, and is from Messrs. Travers, Smith, and De Gex—
  "We have the honour to inform you that a petition has just been presented against the return of the sitting Members for the borough of Devon-port. A large number of the witnesses who will be required to attend on the Speaker's warrants are employed in the dockyard, and the hours of their attendance are very long. It would not be necessary that they should be disturbed at their work for more than a few minutes in the case of any witness, but it would be a matter of very considerable inconvenience and annoyance to the men, as well as of the utmost possible difficulty to ourselves as agents having the conduct of the petition, if it were necessary to find them at their own residences after the hours of work. Under these circumstances, we have to request that we may be favoured (should there riot be any objection to such a course being taken by the Department) with a letter addressed to the Port Admiral requesting that officer to afford our chief clerk facilities for serving the Speaker's warrants in the dockyard, and seeing the men during hours of work for that purpose. We believe we are not wrong in saying that in an analogous case pending before the courts of common law where it would be necessary to serve a subpoena this facility would be given. We may mention that the Speaker's warrants went down by special messenger this morning, and we shall, perhaps, under these circumstances, be permitted to beg that our request may receive immediate attention.—We

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  have the honour to be, Sir, your very obedient and faithful servants,
  "TRAVERS, SMITH, and DE GEX."
  The Duke of Somerset upon this sent the following telegram to Devonport yard:—
  "Every facility is to be given for serving the Speaker's warrants on workmen in the yard, in the case of the petition against the sitting Members at Devonport."
  That was the telegram, and a letter to the same effect was directed to the Admiral Superintendent by the same night's post. Now my noble Friend (the Duke of Somerset) is a man who, as every one will admit, is known to be extremely fair. The letter is dated "Admiralty, Feb. 20, 1866," and is as follows:—
  "In confirmation of my telegram of this day, their Lordships desire that every facility may be afforded for serving Speaker's warrants on workmen in Devonport yard, in the case of the petition against the sitting Members for Devonport. By command of their Lordships,
  "W. G. ROMAINE."
  The Duke of Somerset considered that there were two dockyards against the Members for which there were petitions pending, and he decided that the proper course was to give the Superintendents directions to afford facility for inquiry. Now, Sir, I understand that your warrant has access to all public establishments, and the fact of these Parliamentary agents applying was a mere matter of courtesy, as they had a perfect right to enter the dockyards with your warrant every hour of the day. And the Superintendent had either of two courses to follow—to allow these persons to go into the workshops, disturbing the men and causing a certain degree of excitement, or to ask the names of the men and the hours at which they were wanted. The latter was the course which the Superintendent took. He desired that the names of the individuals wanted should be sent; and instead of allowing the clerks of the Parliamentary agents to disturb them in their workshops, he directed that the men should be sent to the same spot. That such was the course which was taken will be seen from what I am now about to read. The persons armed with the Speaker's warrant wrote on the 21st of February to the Superintendent to say—
  "Sir,—We have Speaker's warrants to serve on the following persons in the matter of the Devonport election petition."
  Then follow the names. My right hon. Friend is perfectly right in stating that
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  I believe upwards of fifty men were taken away from their work for an average of about an hour and a half. I lament equally with him that such a proceeding was necessary. On the 22nd the same persons requested "the attendance of the under-mentioned dockyard men at the Bail-room of Her Majesty's Dockyard;" and again on the 26th they asked for a certain number of men. Now, I will appeal to the House whether the Duke of Somerset could, on the representation of those persons that they were armed with the Speaker's warrant, refuse to give them access; and if that be so, whether it was not his proper course to order the Superintendent to give them facilities; and, again, whether it was not better that the Superintendent, having the names of the men given to him, should direct them to go to the sail-room—a large empty room—than to have the lawyers' clerks go into the workshops and disturb the men while they were at their work, in order to take the evidence of the men? I can only say, in conclusion, that the same course which has been pursued at Devonport will be followed at Portsmouth, where also, unhappily, there is a petition pending; but I think it is a matter which both sides of the House should consider whether the workmen in the dockyards should be disfranchised or not.
  VISCOUNT CRANBOURNE: The latter part of the noble Lord's speech appears an anticipation of a proposition which we are to expect on the 12th of March. I think it will be convenient to defer the consideration of that question until we have arrived at the much wished-for day. Coming, however, to the subject immediately before the House. I do not know whether the answer given by the noble Lord to my right hon. Friend's Question will be considered by the House as exceedingly satisfactory. I confess for my own part, when I hear any person accused of a particular charge praised for his excellent character, I am inclined to think that there is nothing else to be appealed to; and, therefore, when the character of the Duke of Somerset is praised by the noble Lord—a course which is universally adopted at the bar, but never when any other course is open to the defence—I think the noble Lord misapprehended the real nature of the charge made against the dockyard authorities. There is no doubt, Sir, that your warrant has access to all the dockyards, and if these workmen had merely been assembled

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  together and the warrant placed in their hands, no human being could have a word to say against it. But what really happened was this—The counsel for the petitioners were given a facility for getting up the case for the petitioners during the time when these workmen were earning public money, and under the sanction of officers to whom these men look for their daily bread. I want the House to imagine in what light the workmen looked upon the attorneys' clerks who were authorized to subject them to a hostile examination. They were summoned by their own authorities, they were taken to "a quiet part of the yard," and a gentleman came forward, called them out in an authoritative manner, and subjected them to a cross-examination, which no one had a right to do except in a court of law; and, as I understand, two policemen were actually employed to enable them to carry it out. Now, this House has always shown the greatest jealousy of the interference of executive Governments in the conduct of an election. We know how these things are done in France; and the spectacle of what goes on there has perhaps sharpened our zeal to prevent any imitation of them on this side of the water. Therefore the slightest expression of preference for any candidate on the part of any officer in the employment of the Executive has always been looked upon by this House as deserving of censure. The House will recollect the deep censure that was passed on an officer of the Admiralty, because he was seen in company with a candidate for a dockyard constituency. But this case is at least equally bad—it is taking distinctly the part of one of the candidates, and every man in the dockyards must know that they to whom he looks for support are plainly aiding those who desire to upset the case of those who sit for the borough. But this is not the gravest part of the matter. Supposing the evidence of these men to be true, I think the case is bad enough; but, supposing it should turn out to be false—supposing it should appear that some of these men, having been submitted to this sharp cross-examination under the sanction of the Admiralty, come and give perjured evidence to the House of Commons, and this be afterwards proved—what do you imagine the public will believe, and what will they have a right to believe? Why, that some subordinate officer of the Government has been engaged in suborning evidence for the purpose of ousting a Member opposed to the
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  Government. And if the case rest on perjured evidence, the responsibility will lie with those that have illegitimately assisted in procuring it. I am sorry this way of putting the question is so distasteful to hon. Members on the Ministerial side of the House, but I will test their opinions in this way: I will ask, do they suppose that, if the Portsmouth Election Committee had come first and Devonport afterwards, the electors of Portsmouth would have been taken into "a quiet part of the yard," and that the Conservative attorney would have been allowed to cross-examine them? If the noble Lord will answer me that question in the affirmative, I will give him credit for great presence of mind. [Lord CLARENCE PAGET: I did not hear the question.] The question is this—Supposing the Portsmouth election case had come first, whether he imagines that a similar telegram would have been sent down to that port, and the electors gathered into a quiet corner of the yard to be cross-examined by the Conservative attorney?
  LORD CLARENCE PAGET: I believe the same course would have been pursued.
  VISCOUNT CRANBOURNE: Well, I will keep my promise, and I give the noble Lord credit for the utmost presence of mind. Is there any other virtue you would wish me to ascribe to him? I do not wish to pursue this discussion further. I hope, however, that the Election Committee upon the case will take into their serious consideration the statements that have been made this evening, and will consider what weight they are to attach to the evidence sent up to them by the electioneering agents.
  MR. LOWE: I entirely agree with the noble Lord who has just sat down (Viscount Cranbourne) that an impropriety has been committed in this case. It is quite clear to me it was not right that these men should be cross-examined by the attorney for the petitioner in the dockyard, and in the manner described, because they must necessarily have felt that they were under duress to answer questions which it is not likely they would have answered if put to them in their private houses. Looking at the matter fully and fairly, it is quite clear that the question we are really concerned with is, not whether the clerk of the petitioners may have been a little over-zealous in pressing this matter, and have availed himself to the utmost of the advantages he obtained, but whether any serious blame or discredit rests upon the authorities by

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  whom he was enabled to take this advantage. I listened as carefully as I could to the statements that have been made, and it appears to me that all that was done by the authorities of the Admiralty in London, was to permit the Speaker's warrant to be served in the dockyard. That, I think, was perfectly reasonable. It was more convenient for the petitioners to execute their warrant at the dockyard, and probably it was more convenient for the men than if they had been waited upon at their own houses. In this way time and expense were saved—though that, perhaps, is not a matter much considered- in election petitions. I think these circumstances ought not to be lost sight of; and I am not able myself to say that the Admiralty authorities are in any degree to be blamed in permitting the execution of the warrant in the dockyard. Whatever was done beyond may have been a matter of indiscretion or oversight on the part of the local authorities of the port. I am not, however, of opinion that because this authority was in some degree abused in the manner I think it was, from the facts stated by the noble Lord the Secretary for the Admiralty, there is any ground for a charge against the nobleman who has presided over the Admiralty during the last seven years—I am sorry to say, probably from circumstances not under his own control, without giving us a satisfactory new ship or new gun—but certainly without the slightest stain on, or doubt respecting, his absolute integrity.
  SIR HUGH CAIRNS: I cannot agree with the right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down, in absolving the heads of the Admiralty from all blame in this matter, although, perhaps, the consequence of the permission given by the Duke of Somerset was not, in the first instance, properly attended to. Now, let us observe how the case stands. We all know that, according to the best authorities, the warrant of the Speaker can be served perfectly well, not personally, but by being left at the dwelling-houses of the persons required to give evidence. All that was necessary on the part of the agents for this petition was the service of the warrant. They knew where these men lived, and all they had to do was to leave the warrant at the dwelling-houses of the witnesses. But I must do the agents the justice of saying that nothing could have been more explicit than the statement they made to the Duke of Somerset. In the letter to the noble Lord, if I correctly heard the words, the agents of the peti-
  1298
  tioner in substance said, "We have got the Speaker's warrant." Here let me observe that the ordinary course of procedure before you get the Speaker's warrant is to find out the persons who are to be called as witnesses, and then to obtain the warrant and serve it on them; but the agents do not stop there; they say, 'We have got the Speaker's warrant to serve upon these men; we know very well where they live, and we also understand that they are employed for a number of hours in the dockyard. We want some conversation with the men which will take a considerable time; but this we cannot obtain at their own houses."["Oh, oh!"] I am not repeating the exact words of the agents; but I think, that if the noble Lord will read the letter again he will find that it bears this interpretation. The agents say, "We must have some time with the voters for conversation, which can only be obtained at the dockyard." Now, my belief is that the proper way of serving the Speaker's warrants is either personally or at the dwelling-house. Well, what does the head of the Admiralty say in his letter? He says, in effect, "I will put the men at the disposal of the agents, allow them to be assembled in a quiet part of the dockyard, and cross-examined to the extent required." I am quite willing to believe that the Duke of Somerset did not perceive the consequences of granting such a permission. But any person on reading the letter of the agents ought to have seen that their object was to get the authority of the heads of the Admiralty in order to obtain what the Scotch call a precognition of these witnesses. Observe what the agents have done. They have actually got the Speaker's war-rant to be served upon, as far as I can learn, 100 persons, without knowing anything as to the evidence any one of them would be able to give. The agents wanted to make up their case, and they went down under the colour of a Speaker's warrant to conduct an inquisition, and I will say that it was an abuse of the authority of the House. It was not merely an abuse of the Speaker's warrant, but it was an abuse of the power of Parliament, to obtain warrants for the purpose of assailing 100 persons who had never been examined; and when it was not known what they would say, to take them out into a private yard, and search out their consciences and see what evidence they would give. Remember, they were not examined as to what they could tell of their neighbours, but as to what they could

  1299
  tell about themselves—they were examined in order to make them criminate themselves, without any kind of assistance—they were called upon to give answers under the supposed authority of the Lords of the Admiralty, which might be used against them on other proceedings. The noble Lord the Secretary of the Admiralty has answered one question in the most solemn and emphatic manner. I take the liberty of asking him another. Does he suppose that if the gentleman had gone to the house of each of these workmen, after the hours of labour, and said, "I am agent for the petition founded upon certain charges against the sitting Members for the borough. Will you be kind enough to tell me did you get a bribe or anything of that kind for the vote you gave?"—does he suppose that these men would have answered the questions in their own houses? I should like to ask the noble Lord whether he thinks the same sort of answer would be given by a man in his own house and by a man in a corner of the dockyard when summoned by the Admiralty?
  LORD CLARENCE PAGET: The hon. and learned Gentleman asks for information as to a particular passage in the letter of Messrs. Travers, Smith, and De Gex, which I have already read to the House.
  SIR HUGH CAIRNS: Would the noble Lord kindly read the whole letter?
  LORD CLARENCE PAGET: The whole letter? ["No, no!"and "Yes, yes!"] Well, I have no objection to read as far as the hon. and learned Gentleman likes.
  "We have the honour to inform you that a petition has just been presented against the return of the sitting Members for the Borough of Devon-port. A large number of the witnesses who will be required to attend on the Speaker's warrants are employed in the dockyard, and the hours of their attendance are very long. It would not be necessary that they should be disturbed at their work for more than a few minutes in the case of any witness, but it would be a matter of very considerable inconvenience and annoyance to the men, as well as of the utmost possible difficulty to ourselves as agents having the conduct of the petition, if it were necessary to find them at their own residences after the hours of work."
  THE SOLICITOR GENERAL: I wish to say merely a word or two upon this question. It may be difficult to determine—my learned Friend himself has not a decided opinion upon it—whether personal service of the Speaker's warrant is necessary or not, and I will for the present assume that such service is not absolutely required. We all, however, know that it
  1300
  is no easy matter to find the place of abode of those dockyard labourers. ["Oh, oh!"] Well, I have canvassed the borough of Plymouth myself, and, speaking from experience, I can safely assert that it is uncommonly difficult to catch dockyard men at home. Any prudent attorney would, of course, under those circumstances, be aware that it would not be sufficient for his purpose to leave a warrant at the place where one of those men was said to be lodging, and that it would be his duty to put it, if possible, into his own hands. That is the course which any attorney who knew his business would take; and if he were to act otherwise, and content himself with simply leaving the warrant where he was told a man lived—not knowing whether it would ever reach him or not—he would be guilty of gross neglect. It was, therefore, clearly the duty of the attorney in the present instance to serve the warrant on the men personally if he could, whether it was absolutely required by law or not, and all the Board of Admiralty did was to afford facilities for the discharge of this duty in a proper manner. That is the whole question. ["No, no!"] It is the whole question, at all events, so far as the Admiralty are concerned ["No, no !"], and my right hon. Friend the Member for Calne (Mr. Lowe) saw no ground for blaming their action in the matter. I do not know exactly what occurred in the dockyard. I have not heard the whole of the discussion, for I have only just come into the House. It may be that it would have been better not to cross-examine the witnesses, if, indeed, that was done. At the same time, we all know that it is not very easy to stop the months of attorneys if they are determined to ask a number of questions. All that we are concerned with, however, is the conduct of the Admiralty, and that has been, I contend, entirely free from blame in the transaction.
  MR. WALPOLE: My hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor General does not apprehend the nature of the case altogether, if he imagines that the main issue is involved in the service of the warrant. At the close of his speech he touched indirectly upon the graver part of the subject. I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Calne (Mr. Lowe) that no Minister of the Crown has ever conducted himself more ably, and, I believe, more honourably, than the noble Duke at the head of the Admiralty. But really that is not the question before us. The question

  1301
  is, not as to the conduct of the Admiralty, but whether, having regard to the perfect freedom of election and electors, any undue and improper influence has been exercised over the electors of the borough of Devon-port under the guise of the Speaker's warrant, which need not have been taken into the dockyard, but might have been served on them in another place. In my opinion there was very great impropriety, in the first instance, in the solicitors making the application which they did. They knew they could serve the warrants without such application by going down to the dockyards, and the whole object in their minds in getting the authority of the Admiralty was to exercise an improper influence over the men. With regard to the other part of the question, which the Solicitor General did not advert to, I believe I am right in saying there is nothing which the courts of justice are more anxious to set their faces against than that those who are liable to be criminated in any way whatever should be bullied into statements by means of an inquisitorial examination which may afterwards in any way tend to their prejudice. These witnesses, or supposed witnesses, were first of all brought together, as I understand the statement of my right hon. Friend the Member for Droitwich, and one witness was examined and cross-examined in the most hostile manner as to his conduct at the late election. The witness gave a denial; but the gentleman who had cross-examined him did not hesitate to direct the other witnesses—all having been in the first instance brought together—to go out from that place. They were then brought in one by one, so that even they could not bear witness to their fellow-workmen as to whether improper treatment had been dealt out towards them I say again, the question is not one affecting the Admiralty, but it is a question affecting the independence of elections and of electors; and I think that the explanation which the noble Lord was invited to give cannot and ought not to be considered satisfactory by this House, and I hope that such proceedings will not occur again.
  MR. HORSMAN: There are two questions arising out of this discussion as to which I cannot, from the explanation which we have received, arrive at a distinct understanding, and with respect to which I hope to hear something further from my noble Friend the Secretary to the Admiralty. There is, in the first place, the question of the facilities given by the Admiralty for serv-
  1302
  ing the Speaker's warrant, and then that of the facilities afforded for taking evidence in the dockyards. As far as I can gather from the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Droitwich (Sir John Pakington), he seemed to me to convey tlre idea that the Government had authorized the giving facilities in the former, and that they had also sanctioned or afterwards approved of their being given in the latter instance. Now, I want to know whether that is or is not the case. So far as we can gather from the Admiralty telegram, they directed the authorities at Devonport to give facilities for serving the Speaker's warrant. It appears that those authorities afterwards afforded facilities for taking evidence in the dockyards. I should like to be informed whether the Admiralty sanctioned that course, whether they were aware of its having been taken, and whether they approved or disapproved it?
  COLONEL NORTH: I regret that the Government should appear to have sanctioned in any way interference with those voters. The real ground of complaint is not that they were collected together, but that they were subjected to cross-examination; and I should be glad, Mr. Speaker, if you would be good enough to inform me whether your warrant did justify anything beyond the mere service on the persons to whom it is addressed.
  MR. SPEAKER: The Speaker's warrant is simply a warrant commanding attendance before an Election Committee; and the only reason for applying to the Speaker for his warrant is, that until the Committees are appointed there is no Chairman with authority to issue his warrant to summon witnesses before them. Application for the purpose is, therefore, made to the Speaker until the Committees are appointed, and he issues his warrant requiring the attendance before them of witnesses. If it be agreeable to the House, I will read the form of the warrant. It is as follows:—
  "Whereas a petition of, complaining of an undue election and return for the of has been presented to the House of Commons, the matter of which petition is to be tried by a Select Committee to be appointed under the 'Elections Petitions Act, 1848;' these are, therefore, to re quire you, to be and appear before the said Select Committee at such time or times as shall be notified to you by the parties, or either of them, the said petition, or their or either of their agents or agent; and to receive and obey such further order as the said Select Committee to be appointed to try the matter of the said petition shall make concerning the same. As you will

  1303
  answer the' contrary at your peril.—Given under my hand, the day of, 186."
  LORD CLARENCE PAGET: In reply to my right hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Horsman), who asks whether the Admiralty gave any authority in the present instance beyond that which relates to the serving of the Speaker's warrant, I have to state that the only authority given by them had reference to the service of that warrant, and that they knew nothing whatsoever of any further transaction until my right hon. Friend opposite (Sir John Pakington) laid the circumstances of the case before them this evening.
  MR. HORSMAN: Then I understand 'the noble Lord to tell us that, until he heard the speech of my right hon. Friend opposite, he was not aware that evidence had been taken in the dockyards, and that the Admiralty, therefore, had no opportunity of expressing an opinion on the subject.
  LORD CLARENCE PAGET: That is exactly what I wish to convey.
  LORD HOTHAM: Although this question has in all probability been discussed sufficiently to enable every hon. Member to make up his mind upon it, yet I would ask? permission of the House to say a few words before the discussion closes. Shortly after the meeting of Parliament, during the time when Lord Derby held the post of First; Minister to the Crown, serious imputations were made by Sir Benjamin Hall (then Member for Marylebone) upon the conduct of the Board of Admiralty then presided over by the Duke of Northumberland—in reference to the elections which had just taken place, and pointing to the interference of Government officers in the dockyards, and also to improper appointments which had taken place in the dockyards, upon—as was stated at; the time—political grounds. A Committee was appointed upon the subject, and it was my misfortune to be a Member of that Committee. I say it was my misfortune, because the inquiry was a long and intricate one, and because it became the duty of the Committee to report unfavourably on the proceedings of the then Board. Inasmuch as Lord Seymour, now Duke of Somerset, was the Chairman of that Committee, my attention has been especially awakened at hearing imputations cast upon the Board of which he is now the head. With reference to the important part of this discussion—which, no doubt, is that relating to the examination of witnesses in the dockyard, and with reference to the
  1304
  permission asked of the Duke of Somerset to afford facilities for the serving of the warrants in the dockyard—recollecting, as I so well do, the feeling displayed by the Duke of Somerset throughout the inquiry to which I have just alluded, and recollecting the straightforward course he pursued during the continuance of that inquiry, I cannot bring myself to believe that if he had known that permission was unnecessary for the serving of the Speaker's warrants in the dockyard, and if he could have foreseen the possible use that might have been made of that permission, he would have listened to the application for one single moment. The noble Lord (Lord Clarence Paget), at the end of his speech, asked whether this discussion did not prove the necessity of providing that the men in the dockyards should not have votes. It did not need this discussion to prove that; for one of the recommendations of Lord Seymour's Committee was the disfranchisement of the Government men in the dockyards, and, therefore, during the time that the Duke of Somerset has been in office he has had the opportunity, if so disposed, at any rate to propose to his Colleagues in the Cabinet to carry into effect the measure which that Committee recommended. With reference to the examination of men in the dockyard, no justification, I think, can possibly be put forward for that. I know very well, and so does every one else, even if he be a Member of this House for the first time, what is the construction put upon such interference, and especially in the dockyards. Believing as I do that the Duke of Somerset has not changed his opinion upon the subject of interference in the Government dockyards, I can only say I shall be greatly surprised if, after what has taken place in respect to the examination of these men in the dockyard, if the noble Lord is not instructed on a future day to come down and declare on the part of the First Lord of the Admiralty not only that this has been done without his knowledge, but that it meets with his most serious and entire disapproval.
  LORD ROBERT MONTAGU: There are one or two points to which I desire to call the attention of the House arising out of the speech of the noble Lord opposite (Lord Clarence Paget). The agents have the opportunity of gathering all the evidence in the first instance, before they apply for the Speaker's warrants; because I suppose each warrant is addressed to a particular person by name. They must

  1305
  therefore know the quality of the evidence and what direction it will take beforehand; and if it be adverse to their case, they do not apply for a warrant. The Solicitor General has said it would be difficult to serve men at home when they live in lodgings; but I must remind the hon. and learned Gentleman that if they lived in lodgings they would have no votes, and therefore there would be no warrants to serve. It is as easy to serve the warrants at the men's houses as at the dockyard—what object then could there be in assembling a number of men together, to the number of fifty at once, unless it was for the purpose of "coaching" them up in their evidence? In the letter from Admiral Symonds, which the noble Lord has read, an observation is made in favour of disfranchising the dockyard men. May I ask the noble Lord why the Admiral chooses this occasion to advocate that they should be disfranchised if there has been no illicit influence exercised over them, and they have given their votes fairly and honestly. Did not the Admiral make that suggestion because he knew that the men were especially open to illicit influence, that it had been exercised, and that it might be exercised again? Let me remind the noble Lord that this has not occurred at a time when a strong Government appears before the House; but it is when a Government is tottering to its fall that it endeavours to snatch from every one else that power which itself has abused.
  CAPTAIN VIVIAN: The charge against the Admiralty is, that permission was given to serve the Speaker's warrant in the dockyard, and that the opportunity was taken to examine the witnesses. I cannot conceive that any reproach can be directed against the Admiralty in this matter, although there may be some blame attaching to the agent for having exceeded the powers given him. That blame, however, rests with him, and does not extend to any Members of the Government. With regard to the serving of the warrants in the dockyard, I presume that hon. Gentlemen whose seats in the House are menaced do not sit idly by and allow them to be lost without taking the opportunity of defending them, but I suppose they have the same privileges afforded to them as are afforded on the other side. I should like to know what would be the opinion of hon. Gentlemen opposite if they, having asked for permission to serve the Speaker's warrant on men
  1306
  employed in the dockyards, had been refused by the Admiralty. I apprehend that in that case there would have been a still more grave charge brought against the Government. And I think such a charge would have been much more just than that which has been brought this evening.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: In common with the greater portion of the House, I have felt considerable difficulty in ascertaining the real nature of the facts in this matter. The Government have heard now for the first time the statement of the right hon. Baronet (Sir John Pakington), and I have no doubt that the right hon. Gentleman made it most conscientiously; but it would have been a great advantage to us, and would have saved the time of the House, if we had been in a position to admit or deny with precision, or to qualify in any way, that which has fallen from the right hon. Baronet. [Sir JOHN PAKINGTON: The noble Lord has admitted it.] I assure him that my noble Friend, not being in a position to deny the statement he has made, has cautiously and properly abstained from denying it; but my noble Friend by no means affirms or admits it, otherwise than by not being in a condition to question it, without having other information to give the House. I have no option but to follow the same course, and to assume the right hon. Gentleman to have been accurately informed—which may or may not be the case, but if not, it is not his fault. There is, then, but little room for difference of opinion. If we take the sole and single act which the Admiralty has done in this case, I think the severest judge would admit that no considerable blame could be ascribed to that Board for desiring that every facility should be afforded for serving the Speaker's warrant. That is a document of authority, and it is directed to a large number of persons in a public establishment. The parties armed with the warrant appeal to the Admiralty for facilities to serve it; and I think it was the duty of a public department, primâ facie, to give those facilities. But it is plain that if there were any covert intention on the part of the Admiralty, and if the intention was to give facilities for more than serving the warrant, such an intention would have been exceptionable, but there is no proof of its having been entertained. I do not think the right hon. Gentleman intended to make that imputa-

  1307
  tion; but I will take his statement as implying that the facilities given were not confined to facilities for serving the warrant. I conceive that personal service was probably necessary, and I believe that the service might obviously be accomplished without interruption to the work in the dockyard; and that the whole of the officers of the establishment studiously kept themselves away, so that there might be no appearance of intervention whatever; yet the fact of the gathering together of these men within the walls of a public establishment, and ostensibly under the authority of the directions there given, was a proceeding which savoured somewhat of influence, and consequently it is one with regard to which we, always assuming the precise accuracy of the statement, do not hesitate to say that we regret and censure. This is all we are able to say on the subject, except this—that my noble Friend near me will make careful inquiry into the circumstances. If he finds he is not able materially to alter the statements made by the right hon. Baronet the Member for Droitwich, the strictest directions will be given to prevent the recurrence of any such proceedings; and if, on the other hand, he finds that the right hon. Gentleman has been misled, it probably will be only justice to the parties that he should make it known on the first convenient opportunity.
  MR. DISRAELI: I do not think that the right hon. Gentleman has any just cause of complaint against my right hon. Friend (Sir John Pakington) for the manner in which he has brought this question before the House. Certainly not on the ground of want of sufficient opportunity on the part of the Admiralty for obtaining the information which was required. What is the case? My right hon. Friend, four days ago, gave private notice to the noble Lord the Secretary to the Admiralty of his intention to make the statement he has brought before us. Surely that was sufficient notice in these days of railroads and electric telegraphy—and we have seen that the Admiralty know how to work a telegraph. And then there was also the public Notice given in the usual form in the printed paper. I, therefore, do not clearly understand what is the purport of the observations of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. For I put this question—if transactions of the character now before us occur, how are they ever to be made known to the House or the country unless the course pursued by my right
  1308
  hon. Friend is followed? A complaint of a grievance is placed before a Member of this House; what is his duty under the circumstances? He makes those inquiries which guard him against making any misrepresentation to the House; he looks into the matter; he convinces himself that the complaint is just; he makes himself master of the facts that he may place them before the House; he gives ample notice to the Minister whose conduct is impugned, or whose Department is brought into question, in order that, with a general knowledge of the matters to be brought forward, he may have the opportunity of obtaining the information required; and after due notice the matter is brought before the House of Commons. I want to know in what other manner than that which has been pursued by my right hon. Friend the present case could have been brought before the consideration of Parliament. Then what is the use of the osbervations—the somewhat querulous observations—of the Chancellor of the Exchequer? Does the House approve the conduct pursued in the Dockyard of Devon-port with regard to these men who are voters? Do they approve the dockyard men who are voters being assembled in the manner which has been described? I do not agree that the Speaker's warrant should have been served upon these men as it has been served. I think the proper answer of the Admiralty to these election petition-mongers should have been, "If you want to serve the Speaker's warrant we leave you to take that course which the law of the country prescribes, and which your own discretion must guide you in pursuing." That should have been the answer of the Admiralty. But I ask the House this question—Do they approve the conduct pursued in the Dockyard of Devon-port with respect to the workmen who were voters? I take it for granted they do not. What was that conduct? It is not the act of insulated indiscretion described by the Solicitor General, who informed us that he was not present early in the debate—a piece of information that was quite superfluous—it was not an act of insulated indiscretion on the part of an attorney's clerk in a moment of excitement asking a question which he was not justified in doing of any single voter. Why, this examination was a prolonged examination ! The average time occupied in the examination of each voter was from one hour and a half to two hours. ["No!"] There was at least such a waste of time that the Se-

  1309
  cretary to the Admiralty felt it his duty to write to inquire what loss would be occasioned to the public service by this proceeding. But, says the Solicitor General, there may have been a question asked which I do not mean to say was at all justifiable. Why, the examinations were going on for three days. These examinations did not consist of merely a single inquiry. This prolonged inquiry was going on for three days in the dockyard, with the cognizance, with the sanction, and by the authority of the Admiral Sperintendent. The Admiral Superintendent by his letter tells us candidly that in all he was doing, in securing to those agents of the petition-mongers this opportunity of fishing for evidence, he was obeying the orders and acting according to the instructions he received from the Admiralty. Well, but, says the innocent Admiralty, we never heard of this matter till it was brought before the House of Commons by the right hon. Member for Droitwich. But they have heard of it now for some time, and have they disapproved the conduct of the Admiral Superintendent? The conduct of the Admiral Superintendent, according to their own views, was extremely blamable; have they censured the conduct of the Admiral Superintendent? It is impossible not to feel that no answer whatever has been given to the matters brought under the consideration of the House. No man of the world after the discussion which has taken place can for a moment be mistaken as to the real character of this transaction. No one can doubt that your warrant, Sir, was used to fish up evidence for an election petition. I see by the arrangements made to hear the election petitions that the petition against the return for the borough of Devonport could not, by any possibility, be brought on till after Easter. There was no hurry, therefore, to serve the Speaker's warrant in order to obtain the presence of witnesses. And who is the petitioner in this case? It is impossible to shut our eyes to the charactor and status of the petitioner. I remember the gentleman who is the petitioner—a very respectable gentleman. He was a Member for some time of this House. He was made counsel for the Admiralty. He retired from that honourable post to become permanent Secretary to the Admiralty. He is the petitioner for the borough of Devonport. Certainly, therefore, it cannot be said that he lacks experience or opportunity to avail himself in the most
  1310
  efficacious way of the mode in which the object of his honourable ambition may be attained. Well, I say, these are circumstances of very grave suspicion. I think no man can deny that the Speaker's warrant has been used in a colourable manner, and for a purpose that has not been avowed; and when these matters are brought before us, which no one defends, which oven the Chancellor of the Exchequer apologizes for—when these irregularities, and more than irregularities, occur, what is the natural question? The natural question that arises is—Who is responsible? Is it to be tolerated that the head of a Department should get up and say, "All that occurred we highly disapprove, but we are perfectly innocent?" What, then, is to become of the responsibility of those who administer the affairs of the country? When a transaction of this kind has been, I will not say proved, but acknowledged, confessed, not even defended or denied by the Government, the next question is to ask who is responsible? No one will deny that the person responsible is the chief of the Department. This matter requires more inquiry than it has yet received. I am very glad to hear from the Chancellor of the Exchequer that we are to have some further inquiry; but I do not think the matter ought to end by the Government merely saying they are not prepared to defend their conduct, which they confess is liable to blame. ["No, no !"] Not liable to blame! Then, you vindicate the conduct of the Admiral Superintendent? Not liable to bame! Then you vindicate—you are proud of your singular indiscretion? You go into partnership with the agents for the petitioner, and give them every facility. I say that wants further inquiry. I am glad the Chancellor of the Exchequer has promised further inquiry. But that further inquiry should not terminate, I think, in merely furthering fresh instructions to the authorities at Devonport, saying that the Government regret they have been placed in an indefensible position, and they beg for the future that affairs may be managed with more discretion.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL: I should not desire to prolong this discussion at all were it not for the manner in which the right hon. Gentleman who has just addressed the House referred to the notice which he supposes the Government to have had of the particular statements, or their effect, made this evening by the

  1311
  right hon. Baronet the Member for Droitwich (Sir John Pakington). Now, I cannot but think that this mode of bringing forward a subject of this kind is, to say the least, not that which is most advisable to adopt, if it is intended to give the Government full opportunity of ascertaining the actual facts of the case and dealing with them as they may require. The House would suppose, from what has fallen from the right hon. Baronet, that the right hon. Gentleman had communicated to my noble Friend the Secretary of the Admiralty the substance of the statements he intended to make. Such is not the fact. What took place was this. The right hon. Gentleman on Monday put into the hands of my noble Friend a mere copy of the Notice which is upon the Order of the House to-night—"to call the attention of the Government to certain statements"—What statements? Until we knew the substance of the statements to be made ["Oh, oh!"] how could we know what the statements were? Hon. Gentlemen on the other side seem to be able to understand what statements would be made before they hear them. ["Oh, oh!"] At all events, on the part of the Government I disclaim any such knowledge. The language of the Notice is—
  "Certain statements as to the manner in which dockyard workmen who are voters for the borough of Devonport have been examined in the dockyard with reference to their intended evidence before the Election Committee for that borough, and to ask for explanation."
  That is good notice of the subject of the statements, but not of their particular nature. That was all the notice given to my noble Friend. The noble Lord did all he could under the circumstances. I take upon myself to say that the Admiralty were perfectly justified in pursuing the course they adopted in giving facilities for the service of the Speaker's warrant. It was necessary that the warrant should be personally served if it were intended to be of use; and, under the circumstances, I do not hesitate to say that the course adopted by the Admiralty was a proper one. The application was one which it was right for the Admiralty to grant without reference to the side by which it was made. The thing to be done was merely to serve a legal document upon persons who were bound to obey it, in the most convenient manner, and in the place where they were most likely to be found; and to that the Admiralty had properly offered no objection. Then, when you come to look at the Notice given to the
  1312
  Government by the right hon. Baronet, you will find that it does not state the particular matters which he intended going into—it did not explain in what manner the men were said to have been examined. Upon the receipt of the notice the noble Lord without loss of time at once wrote for information, and he received, as quickly as possible, by post, an answer, in which the Admiral stated—and we may therefore assume that this was all that he was able to state—that he had caused the people to be assembled at the hour mentioned in order that they might be served with the warrant issued by the Speaker. In that letter the gallant Admiral said—
  "I send you copies of the orders under which I have acted, also of the applications made to and approved by me in obedience to the orders which contained the same words, 'On workmen in the yard.' I therefore ordered that the people sought and applied for should assemble at the hour requested, in a quiet part of the yard, instead of their being sought separately at their work, when they saw the parties applying by Speaker's warrant; thus giving them 'every facility,' and were perfectly uninterfered with by their own officers. You have everything I can think of."
  Now, I entirely agree that in the exercise of what I have no doubt was an honest discretion the Admiral Superintendent erred. I think it would have been better had the men been seen separately. Assuming that the information received by the right hon. Baronet is correct, no doubt a serious error was committed in so assembling the men, as an opportunity was given which was grossly abused, and which enabled that to be done which beyond all question should not have been done. But the House will see that this letter gives no information as the examination of the men; and the only conclusion I can come to is that the gallant Admiral was himself ignorant of the advantage that had been taken of the facilities which he, acting upon the instruction he had received, had given to the agent of the petitioner. Of course, I say this on the assumption that the statement of the right hon. Gentleman is correct. I must, however, say that there is some inconvenience in a statement of this character—which may be perfectly justifiable of itself—being made without its being reduced to the form of a petition to the House, or, at all events, to such a shape as would enable those who were affected by it to have notice of all its details. I believe I have shown that the Government is not responsible for anything—I mean that I know of nothing in the mere

  1313
  granting of facilities for the service of this warrant which should render the Admiralty liable to censure; while I admit that an improper advantage may have been taken of the facilities given, which (if the statement made is correct) were grossly abused by the agent of the petitioner.
  LORD JOHN MANNERS: I think the hon. and learned Gentleman who last addressed us would have done better had he left the case of the Government in the hands of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, for certainly his arguments have done nothing to mitigate the opinion the House must have formed of this transaction. The hon. and learned Member said that the right hon. Baronet (Sir John Pakington) did not give the Government a sufficiently detailed notice as to the subjects on which he required explanation. But every Gentleman who reads the Notice which was put into the hands of the noble Lord will see that it contains every information it is possible to give. The hon. and learned Gentleman further says neither did the letter from the Admiral convey any information to the noble Lord that any man had been examined in the dockyard, and that therefore the Government could not be aware that any such examination had taken place. But I say that it is stated in the Notice of Motion given by the right hon. Baronet that such an examination did take place, and that, therefore, it was the bounden duty of Government to have again communicated with the Admiral Superintendent, and to have asked him for an explanation of this grave charge. But what did the Government do when they became aware of the nature of the right hon. Baronet's Question? Being in possession on Monday night of the Notice of the Question to be put by the right hon. Baronet this evening, the Government do not appear, up to the present moment, to have communicated with any of the authorities of the dockyard upon the subject of this most serious charge; and now, when the debate is about to close, the Attorney General gets up and says it was impossible for Government to have been aware of the Question to be put to them from the Notice given them in private by the right hon. Baronet. I believe this to be mere special pleading, and I believe the House and the country will form a similar opinion on the subject. We are now told that the matter will be inquired into further. I hope that the further inquiry will be prosecuted in an impartial and free
  1314
  manner, and that, at any rate, in the long run we shall derive this benefit from it—that gentlemen who may be connected in one way or another with the Admiralty, will no longer be able to turn the Government Dockyards into a kind of political Star Chamber.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERALwished to explain that if he had led the House to suppose that Lord Clarence Paget knew of the telegram before it was sent he was in error. Of course, he now knew that it had been sent.
  MR. SELWYN: I can scarcely think that the Attorney General any more than his Colleague the Solicitor General can have been present throughout this debate, or else he would scarcely have complained of the terms of the Notice given by the right hon. Baronet. The hon. and learned Gentleman says that the noble Duke at the head of the Admiralty had no means of knowing what had taken place. Had the hon. and learned Gentleman been in the House he must have heard the noble Lord the Secretary to the Admiralty state that he had caused inquiries to be made into the subject of the examination of the men, and that he was informed that each examination had lasted more than an hour. The fact is, that the simple service of the warrant signed by the Speaker would not have occupied more than half a minute; and, therefore, when the petitioner's agent wrote to the Admiralty for facilities in serving the warrant, stating that only a very few minutes would be required in the case of each witness, the Admiralty should have foreseen that something else was intended besides the mere service of the warrant. But, notwithstanding the suspicious circumstances under which the application was made, they sent a telegram and a letter to the Admiral Superintendent, directing him to give the facilities asked for. They learn afterwards that the men were each occupied for an hour—and that in the case of fifty workmen—and I want to know how they supposed that hour was occupied. I say the conclusion the Admiralty should have come to upon the receipt of the letter from the petitioner's agent was that something more was intended than appeared upon the face of it. And I go further and ask why, when they heard that something else had been done, they did not institute inquiries in order to find out the real truth of the matter?
  COLONEL PERCY HERBERT: I do not wish to make any attack upon the

  1315
  character of the Duke of Somerset, because I believe that his impartiality is notorious to every Member of the House; but, although we may fully acquit the noble Duke of having done anything further than to give directions for facilitating the service of the warrant, yet I think that he was guilty of a certain amount of indiscretion in not confining his instructions to a direction to the Admiral Superintendent to give a simple opportunity to the petitioner's agent to serve the warrant. It is not to be forgotten that the First Lord of the Admiralty, holding as he does the whole patronage of the navy in his hands, is a very powerful person, and a gallant sailor like Admiral Symonds, accustomed to obey orders, might doubtless, in his zeal, have a little exceeded his orders. I approve the a pologetical tone taken by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and I trust that the discussion will turn out hereafter to have been of benefit to the Admiralty.
  COLONEL KNOX: The hon. and learned Member for Belfast (Sir Hugh Cairns) asked the noble Lord to read one letter only; but had he asked for the other letter, it would have been found that facilities were to be given to the agent for the petitioner alone. If this had been done when the Gentlemen on this side of the House were in power, a Committee of the House would have been appointed for the purpose of inquiring into the matter; and I think that that course ought to have been pursued on the present occasion, because I do not believe that the public generally will be satisfied with a private inquiry instituted by the Admiral, who is himself implicated in these transactions.

CATTLE PLAGUE EXPERIMENTS.

  QUESTION.
  MR. SANDFORDsaid, he rose to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Why the experiments made as to the cure of the Cattle Plague have not been laid upon the table of the House? The country had been told that the "stamping out" process was the only mode of eradicating the cattle disease, This, he thought, showed a very retrogressive tendency on the part of medical science, and especially in its veterinary branch. For the sake of the agricultural interest generally he sincerely hoped that the disease was not so incurable as it was represented to be, because, as they could not prevent importation of foreign cattle, they would always
  1316
  be liable to the recurrence of the disease. For himself, he was one of those who held the opinion that all the pestilences which visited us were more or less amenable to medical treatment, and it was stated in the newspapers that the remedies employed by Mr. Worms had in many instances proved successful. He should very much like to learn the particulars of the experiments made by that gentleman, and it was, he believed, the duty of the Government to lay any information they may obtain on the subject upon the table of the House at the earliest possible moment.
  MR. BARINGsaid, he could assure his hon. Friend that the Government were fully sensible of the importance and interest attaching to the experimental treatment of animals affected with the cattle disease, and their attention was drawn to the subject at the very commencement of the outbreak in this country. As the House was aware, a Royal Commission was appointed for the express purpose, among others, of inquiring into the mode of treatment likely to prove successful in the case of animals affected with the plague, and the Government thought it would be far better to intrust such an inquiry to one authority, instead of committing it to the care of two separate bodies. That Commission had not neglected their duty. On the contrary, they had prepared a scheme of the most exhaustive character, for the purpose of giving to the world the most complete and accurate information with regard to the nature of the disease, the different modes of treatment, contagion, and other matters most interesting to the public and most likely to be attended with advantage on future occasions. The nature of the scheme was most fully described in the second Report of the Royal Commission, which his hon. Friend had probably not yet seen. He would find that not only many eminent veterinary surgeons, but also men of distinction in the medical profession had been engaged in conducting the inquiries, and he would find certain general statements made regarding the result of their labours. The Commissioners stated that no remedy which had hitherto been discovered could be relied upon, that vaccination had not proved a safeguard, and that they purposed giving the public more details with reference to inoculation. The Commissioners, in their third and final Report, promise to give full and complete accounts of the experiments which had been made,

  1317
  and the results of investigations which had been instituted by the medical gentlemen to whom they had been intrusted. Under those circumstances, it would have been impossible for the Government up to the present time to furnish the House with complete information upon the subject. [An hon. MEMBER: When will it be presented to the House?] Of course, the third Report of the Commissioners would be presented as soon as it was made.

MASTERS IN THE ROYAL NAVY.

  OBSERVATIONS.
  SIR LAWRENCE PALK,in bringing under the notice of the House the grievances of which the Masters in the Royal Nary complained, said, that the Masters in the Royal Navy were astonished at the way in which their case was stated to the House on a previous occasion by the noble Lord the Secretary to the Admiralty, and at the earliest opportunity they had drawn up a statement, in which they alleged that the valuable services of the Masters in the navy during late years could not be disputed. They then particularized the grievances under which they laboured, and embodied them in a pamphlet. In that pamphlet they alleged that the Masters did not gain the advantages to which they were entitled, that they were placed in an unfavourable position, and that the recommendations of the Committee of 1862 had never been carried out; and they alleged further, that when the noble Lord the Secretary of the Admiralty stated, as he had upon one occasion, that no memorials had been received from the Masters in the service with regard to their pay, it must be well known that the framing and signing such memorials were contrary to the Queen's Regulations. By the Naval Discipline Act of 1863 any officer was fully authorized to make known to his superior officer any just cause of complaint; but he was not permitted to combine with others for the purpose of obtaining redress. Finding individual remonstrance of no avail the Masters presented a memorial, which would be a sufficient answer to the assertion of the Secretary to the Admiralty, that they had asked for no increase of pay. It prayed that, with regard to relative rank, pay, pensions, and social position, they might be placed on the same footing as medical officers, of whom they had always had precedence since the Order of March, 1808. The noble Lord had also stated
  1318
  that the recommendations of the Committee which inquired into the grievances of Masters in 1862 had been carried into effect; but no assertion could be more incorrect. The title of "Staff Commander" was, as he had said, simply a delusion, conferring no rank, pay, or privileges. When it was granted, Masters expected some privilege, such as an allowance for travelling expenses incurred in surveying, for which £1 a day was allowed to Commanders; but the position of Masters in this respect remained unchanged, so that a Commander when travelling received 10s. a day more than a "Staff Commander," although the latter often discharged lieutenant's and other duties. He could not sit on a court martial; in action his place was by the side of the captain; on an enemy's coast his duties were most hazardous. At the time of the Crimean War, when the crew of a line-of-battle ship were paid off, the captain received the decoration of a Commander of the Bath; the first-lieutenant, the commander, the surgeon, and the captain of marines were all provided for; and the only officer who was neglected was the Master, who retired on 5s. a day. Under all these circumstances, it was not to be wondered at that the number of Masters had been for some years past steadily on the decline. In 1840 there were 140; in 1850, 90; in 1859, 85; in 1860, 74; and in 1861, 76. He did not pretend to say that there was any advantage to the navy in having this class of officers. It was considered a great boon by old officers to have their sons educated at a comparatively small cost and brought up as second-class cadets, to be eventually Masters in the navy. As such they ought, at least, to be dealt with fairly and honourably, and if injustice were committed Parliament was made particeps criminis. He was glad to see the Secretary to the Admiralty in his place; and he would therefore say that, although on several occasions the noble Lord had led the House to believe that it was the earnest wish of the Admiralty to deal fairly, liberally, and generously with the Masters in the navy, they had received the reverse of such treatment. When complaint was made, the noble Lord promised that, if patience were shown, a boon should be conferred; but would the House believe that the Admiralty had withdrawn from the Masters the privilege of being able to enter their sons as second-class cadets? As an instance of the treatment received by Masters in the navy,

  1319
  he would cite the case of a man who became a volunteer of the second-class in 1825, and who, after serving in every clime, and being twice shipwrecked and twice invalided, was assigned Coastguard duties, which required the strength of a man in the prime of life, at the most exposed station on the coast of Cornwall, where he was obliged to walk many miles over slimy rocks, night and day, in all weathers. Having fulfilled these duties six or seven years, he received a letter informing him that he had been placed on the reserve list of Masters, that he would lose no advantages that he then enjoyed, and that he would be retained on Coastguard service; and he thereupon wrote to the Lords of the Admiralty. The Lords of the Admiralty in their reply expressed their regret that his services did not, under their regulations, entitle him to Greenwich out-pay; but, as a favour, he was placed on the 6s. list, and about a month afterwards he was promoted to the rank of Staff Commander, without increase of pay. The memorialist concluded by stating that, at fifty-seven years of age, he found all his prospects destroyed by ill-health, contracted in a service which had brought him no rewards, save a number of highly-commendatory certificates, a rank equal to that of lieutenant-colonel, and a pension of 6s. a day, on which sum he had to endeavour to support himself and his family in the position of a gentleman and an officer in Her Majesty's service. Such was the position in which an officer in that navy of which Englishmen were so justly proud found himself placed. Masters in the navy had rendered to their country many most important services by surveying dangerous coasts, not only for the purposes of war, but, what was still better, for the sake of the safety of the mercantile marine. These officers, who had deserved so well of their country, and who had been treated so badly by that country, worn out, and with starvation staring them in the face, had the consolation of reading every day in the paper accounts of the honours, promotions, and increases of pay which were received by officers who had entered the navy at the same time that they had; reading, perhaps, at the same time the fallacious promises of the Secretary of the Navy, and the unfounded accounts of the great things which had been done for them. He had often heard it stated that the present expenditure of England was excessive; and they knew what enormous
  1320
  sums were spent in building ships which would never be used; and it was a source of great mortification to find that the country was so poor, so mean, or so parsimonious as to neglect in their old age officers who had faithfully served her. He would by one illustration show how unfairly, as compared with other officers, Masters were treated. Under the present regulations the pay of a Staff Commander or Master was £182 10s. per annum, that of a surgeon was £273 15s., and that of a paymaster £249. After ten years' service, the pay of a Staff Commander or Master was £237 5s., that of a surgeon was £328 10s., and that of a paymaster £349 15s.; after twenty years' service the Master or Staff Commander received a salary of £328 a year, the surgeon £401 10s., and the paymaster £600 14s. But the Master was not only paid badly, but he was also debarred from receiving the same honours and rewards as the other officers. When a great service was performed by any of Her Majesty's vessels, every officer on board that vessel could receive a reward except the Master, to whose skill the successful performance of the service may have been in a great measure due. What the Masters asked was really not much, considering the onerous nature of their duties. The Masters said, "If you think the service would be better without us abolish the class; but if, on the contrary, you think we have done our duty, treat us fairly. Do not give us a name which in reality you withhold. If you give us the rank of Staff Commander put us on an equality with the commanders in the navy. If you think our services worth recompensing, give us justice, and let us have a chance of rising in our profession." Taxed as the country might be, it was rich enough to award justice to its public servants, and he trusted, therefore, that the appeal which he now made to the noble Lord the Secretary to the Admiralty would not be made in vain. If, however, the Admiralty continued to deny this class of officers justice, they might fairly appeal to the country and to Parliament to see them righted.
  COLONEL SYKESsaid, he rose to ask Mr. Speaker whether on going into Committee on the first naval Vote Members would be allowed to discuss the Estimates at large?
  MR. SPEAKERsaid, that the question should be addressed to the Chairman of Committee.
  LORD CLARENCE PAGETsaid, that the Chairman of Committee had for many years permitted Members to make a general statement on the Estimates when the first Vote came on for discussion.
  ADMIRAL ERSKINEsaid, he could fully bear out the observations of the hon, Member for Devon (Sir Lawrence Palk) with respect to the value of the services of the Masters in the navy. He had with him a list of nineteen whom he had known, of whom only one ever failed in his duty in any instance, and even he afterwards recovered his character. But it was far from being the case that their services were left unrewarded; the rewards given them were often very ample in degree. Taking the cases of fifteen with whom he was acquainted he found that five had been appointed Masters Attendant of dockyards, receiving pay to the amount of £500 or £600 a year; two were in command of ships, with the pay of commanders; one held a high situation in the compass department at the Admiralty; and one was at the head of a branch establishment in Portsmouth Dockyard; leaving only six with no pay beyond that of their naval rank. It was impossible in the nature of things to give men employed for special duties and general service the same rate of pay. The most difficult duty of Masters was that of pilotage which was not to be learnt in a day, and, in fact, required almost a lifetime. The old Admiralty regulations ordered that, with the view of encouraging Masters to attain excellence as pilots, they should be paid for every port into which they took a ship half the amount that would be paid to a regular pilot. He believed that the hydrographers of the navy, many of whom were among the foremost in setting forth the hardships and advocating the claims of the Masters, were the very persons who virtually deprived them of that advantage; because, at the end of the ship's term of service, when the certificates of pilotage were sent in by the captains, they were thrown together, and very often only a small sum was awarded to the Master instead of the full pilotage to which he was justly entitled. If that question of half pilotage were only looked into by the Secretary to the Admiralty, he would probably find that it would form a considerable addition to the income of the Masters. With respect to the improvement in the pay of the Staff Commanders, to use the rather fantastic denomination given them in the Navy List, he might mention that the Staff Com-
  1322
  manders had not been neglected, for he found that before 1855 the highest amount of pay was 11s. 8d. a day, and Masters of the Fleet 16 s. 6d. In 1860, the highest rate was £1 a day, and Masters of the Fleet £1 6s. He did not mean to say that that was a very high rate of pay for men who had served half their lives in the navy, but still there was no class of naval officers, as far as he was aware, whose pay had been so much increased. In conclusion, he ventured to express a hope that his noble Friend would take the question of pilotage into consideration; and he trusted, also, that the entry of young men for the rank of: Master might be again resumed, and that a system of education which would give those young men a knowledge of pilotage might again be established in the navy.
  MR. SCOURFIELDsaid, he had served on the Admiralty Committee, and had put many questions to the different witnesses in reference to the position of the Masters. On no question, however, did he receive such a diversity of answers. As to the question of pay, he did not wish to offer any opinion, because, from the evidence which was given, he was totally unable to come to any conclusion on the subject.
  Motion, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair," agreed to:—

SUPPLY—NAVY ESTIMATES.
SUPPLY considered in Committee.
(In the Committee.)
(1.) 68,400 Men and Boys (Sea and Coast Guard Services), including 16,400 Royal Marines.
SIR MORTON PETOsaid, that the present Estimates exhibited great similarity to those of last year. As the noble Lord the Secretary to the Admiralty had said, the alteration which had been made in the Navy Estimates was simply a reduction of the personnel to a certain extent, and the substitution of new works recommended by the Committee last year. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer said on Tuesday evening, when the Estimates were introduced, that the Government were not responsible for these additions, but the Committee which had made the recommendations. He did not suppose, however, that the right hon. Gentleman intended to say that the Government disapproved those recommendations, but that the Committee from which they originated were to a certain degree

1323
responsible for their adoption. Having served upon the Committee, he could bear testimony to the fact that there was absolute unanimity as to the necessity of this increased expenditure. One of the most important subjects with regard to our dockyards was the basin capacity, the capacity for docking ships, and the ability to repair vessels with expedition. He need hardly call the attention of the Committee to the fact that if at any time our fleet were damaged in the Channel it would be of the utmost consequence that it should be speedily restored to its original condition; and Admiral Robinson truly remarked that the naval power of the country would be practically increased in proportion to the expedition with which the necessary repairs could be effected. But the Committee had also to take into consideration the position of the Government in regard to the facilities possessed by the Government for the repair of vessels on foreign stations. At the present time we were to a great extent dependent upon foreign Governments. If a vessel in the Mediterranean, for example, stood in need of repairs, we should be indebted to the courtesy of the French Government for enabling us to do so at Toulon or Algiers; and there were many instances of vessels coming all the way from the West Indies to Portsmouth or Devonport to have their bottoms cleaned. There were numberless other points affecting in no small degree the well-being of the navy in regard to the basin and dock accommodation at our arsenals. In many cases the greatest inconvenience had been experienced by the Government in consequence of the want of such accommodation. He wished, however, more particularly to call the attention of the Committee to the future policy of the navy with respect to construction. Now, he took it for granted that all were agreed that two things were absolutely necessary with respect to the administration of naval affairs—first, that the Government should have at their command the greatest talent which the country could afford in regard to design; and secondly, that the Government should also have the greatest facilities for economical construction and repairs in their dockyards, and the best class of control in regard to them. Now, what was the position of the Admiralty at the present time, so far as design was concerned? He would say nothing about Mr. Reed himself, but he must remark that practically the Admiralty were
1324
confined to the efforts of a single mind. That was a position most undesirable and most injurious to the country, and one which operated in many ways to its great disadvantage. In the first place, if the Admiralty only had recourse to the efforts of a single mind, it was not likely that they would have so much talent as might possibly be brought to bear upon the design of our vessels, because there would be a jealousy when a single individual was employed which would not exist if others had an opportunity of showing what they could do for the Government. He was not about to enter at the present moment upon the question at issue between Captain Coles and the Government. He might, however, be allowed to remark that on many occasions during the last few years the question of turret-ships had engaged the attention of successive Committees, and the noble Lord the Secretary to the Admiralty had frequently promised that the system should have a fair trial. It was, however, the general opinion that up to the present time it had practically had no trial at all. It was true, indeed, that Captain Cowper Coles was permitted to cut down the Royal Sovereign and convert her into a turret-ship. Under no circumstances, however, was that vessel qualified for anything beyond harbour service, but in all that she was intended and designed to do she had given unqualified satisfaction. But from that time to this Captain Coles had never been placed in a position to construct a sea-going turret-ship, and bring to bear on her the full force of his invention. He (Sir Morton Peto) was not going to justify the letter which Captain Coles wrote the other day, and which caused his removal from the position he held; but he would say that, considering the irritation to which a man of such talent had been exposed, he was not surprised at his writing the letter. Any man of his talent might have committed the momentary error, and he (Sir Morton Peto) must say that the Government had not shown towards Captain Coles that feeling which the kind heart of the Secretary to the Admiralty might have led them to anticipate. But although Her Majesty's Government had not constructed turret-ships Foreign Powers had done so, and, indeed, it was this class of vessel which our shipyards were supplying to Foreign Governments, to the almost total exclusion of other descriptions of ships of war. He regretted the absence of the hon.

1325
Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Laird), because if he had been present he might have laid before the Committee some particulars respecting the turret-ship which his firm had lately constructed for the Peruvian Government. What had been the result of experience in regard to this description of vessel? He had had an opportunity of inquiring as to what had been the experience of the Danish Government in the late war. The reply to his inquiry was, "Nothing could be better, and if we wanted more vessels we would order them to be constructed on the same principle." Such being the case, the Admiralty ought to give Captain Coles a fair and candid trial. But then the Committee had been told that the Monarch, a turret-ship of 5,000 tons, was to be built. The question, however, was, by whom was it to be built? Was it likely that Mr. Reed would do justice to Captain Coles in this matter and carry out the design as if he had himself been the originator of it? He did not say that Mr. Reed would do anything ungentlemanly, but it was not in human nature that a man should take up the patent of another and give force and expression to all his ideas. During his recent visit to the United States he (Sir Morton Peto) had had an opportunity of inspecting several of their vessels; and though he found that they made mistakes the same as we did, yet a great deal of what he saw was worthy of attention. He had inspected the Monadnock, which was then leaving for the Pacific. She was a vessel of about 3,700 tons, double-turreted, carrying two 15-inch Parrott guns, and about 300 men. She was about twenty-six inches out of the water, had been employed during the whole of the war, and the arrangements for ventilation were admirable. [Lord CLARENCE PAGET: What is her speed?] About 10½ knots. He would admit that she was not a good sea-going vessel; but for harbour defence she was scarcely to be equalled, because she exposed so small a mark to an enemy's guns, while able to inflict great mischief with her own. The noble Lord told the Committee that the difficulty about the broadside-vessels was in not being able to tell what guns would be used in their port-holes. If, however, the turrets were of the size of twenty-six feet the Admiralty would be able to put a gun or two of any size in them, and the difficulty of adjusting the guns to the port-holes would be got rid of. The noble Lord a night or two ago told the Committee that the country was in
1326
possession of some thirty efficient vessels, and might feel at ease on this subject. His (Sir Morton Peto's) conviction, on the other hand, was, that although many of these vessels were worthy of confidence, yet that, as a whole, they might be very much improved upon in future. He was very much struck with the recommendation made by his hon. Friend (Mr. Samuda) that a Committee should be appointed to inquire into the best type of vessels to be built. This would not be taking the affair out of the hands of the Government. The Report of the Committee could not be received by the Admiralty as an instruction, but a great deal of valuable information and evidence might be elicited in regard to the best system of construction. He should like to say a word or two as to the construction of ships in private yards. The noble Lord maintained that he had given the private dockyards an opportunity of seeing what they could do. He (Sir Morton Peto) had no interest in any private yard, but he had visited many of them. The truth was that the private builder was bound to adhere to the drawings laid down, and was allowed no discretion, and when the Government ordered a vessel to be built in a private yard, an inspector was appointed by the Admiralty. He was usually a man in the receipt of £2 or £3 a week, but he had supreme control over the builder. This was not the plan adopted by the Cunard Company, when they ordered one of their steamers of the Napiers or other shipbuilders. When the company gave an order for a vessel, certain conditions were given as to speed and float-age, and the builders were allowed to exercise their own skill and knowledge in turning out the best vessel that could be produced, He had examined the Scotia, in Cunard's yard, and a finer vessel he never saw, and he could speak as to her seagoing qualities also, as he had crossed the Atlantic in her. But in this country all the inspiration was to proceed from one mind, and how, then, could the Admiralty hope to compete with foreign Governments, which freely availed themselves of all the genius, skill, and ability to be found in our private shipbuilding establishments? This was not the plan adopted in the construction of marine engines. The Government had found that it was better to leave the engines in the hands of the builders, making them responsible for certain conditions. It would be a great improvement to open the door to the talent of the country in

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shipbuilding, and to throw the responsibility upon builders and inventors, without subjecting them to the harassing and vexation which poor Captain Coles had had to endure. There was nothing so easy as to learn how not to do a thing, and there was not a single department of the public service which understood this art so well as the Admiralty. He would mention one small matter as a testing point. The first time the noble Lord (Lord Clarence Paget) took his seat upon the Treasury Bench he called his attention to the cost and inconvenience of having two separate Admiralty departments in Somerset House and Whitehall. The noble Lord promised that the subject should receive the most careful consideration; yet the noble Lord would have to go to the Mediterranean without seeing that great reform accomplished. All the promises he had made in successive years had been kept in much the same fashion. He wished to direct attention, not only to the design, but also to the quality of the vessels built. Any hon. Member could visit a Government dockyard and examine the way in which the work was done. He would undertake to say that the work was exceedingly well done, and he did not desire to see it taken from them. Where repairs were required he wanted to see them done without looking for fresh hands; but he thought every one must be struck by the great difference in the amount of work done in the Government dockyards and that done in the private yards; and here there was great room for reform. There was a very marked contrast in this respect between the Government dockyards in this country and those of the United States, and also in the various machines and contrivances adopted in the latter for the saving of labour. He would advise the Government to see if they could not copy something from the other side of the Atlantic, with the view of saving public money. If a scientific Committee such as his hon. Friend the Member for Tavistock recommended, were appointed, they might consider the question of the best size of vessels of war, and whether the building of a vessel of 5,000 tons to carry double turrets was not a great mistake. What the Admiralty wanted was only the tonnage necessary to carry the ordnance, and everything beyond that was mischievous. The more exposed a ship was on account of her size the more likely she was to be injured and to be placed hors de combat by a smaller vessel. [Sir JOHN
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PAKINGTON: Speed?] No doubt speed in a vessel of war was one main element of consideration. In some instances the Government had succeeded in building good ships, but others were failures, and the causes of success and failure were well worthy of examination by a scientific Committee. He should defer any further remarks he had to make until the Votes to which they were applicable were before them; but he hoped he should have from the Government a distinct promise that Captain Coles would have an opportunity of constructing a vessel on his own responsibility, and of doing justice to his name.
MR. FERRANDsaid, that though he had no practical knowledge to lay before the Committee, yet as he represented a large constituency who were interested in naval matters, he wished to make a few remarks on the speech of the noble Lord the Secretary to the Admiralty. The noble Lord had expressed his regret at the absence of several Members who had formerly taken part in the discussions on naval affairs; but he (Mr. Ferrand) must say he had never known greater talent or more practical knowledge displayed in debate than the House had at present the advantage of. The noble Lord had especially regretted the absence of Sir Frederic Smith. He thought that when that hon. and gallant Officer read the remarks of the noble Lord he would look upon them as satirical, for he had heard that gallant officer say that no person had taken such pains to keep him out of the House as the noble Lord had. Three topics had been dwelt upon by the hon. Members who had taken part in this discussion of the Estimates; and no one had contradicted their statements. These were, first, the unjust treatment of Captain Coles. Second, the dismissal of Mr. Lang and others. Third, the state of our iron fleet. He (Mr. Ferrand) was not acquainted with Captain Coles, and should not know him if he met him; but he had taken great interest in the discussions going on for several years with regard to the invention of Captain Coles and his claims on the navy. For ten years Captain Coles had applied for permission to build a turret-ship, and for five of those years he had made his appeal in vain. Impediments of the most extraordinary kind had been thrown in his way. The cause of those impediments had been freely discussed in the public papers. But, while Captain Coles had been denied the privilege of

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building one of those ships for the Government of his own country, he had been employed to build them for foreign Governments, and only a short time ago he received a handsome testimonial from the Grand Duke Constantine, the High Admiral of the Russian Navy, in recognition of the way in which he had executed a commission given him by the Government of Russia. He had observed that Captain Coles had applied to the Admiralty in vain for five years; but at length they were compelled by a Committee of their own selection to promise that a turret-ship should be constructed. Afterwards that promise was broken, and different reasons had been given by the Admiralty, and by the opponents of the Admiralty, for that extraordinary conduct. But he believed the real cause was that stated by the hon. Baronet—namely, the fact of Captain Coles having written a letter in a newspaper, which by the Admiralty was esteemed to be a grave offence. He admitted that the writing of the letter was an indiscreet act on the part of Captain Coles, but he had been cruelly and unjustly treated. But if Captain Coles had been indiscreet in publishing that letter, how happened it that Mr. Reed went down to Greenwich and spoke strongly against the Admiralty. He believed that Mr. Reed was an honourable man, and he had not a word to say against him; but the belief out of doors was that Mr. Reed was the principal cause that Captain Coles had not had fair play from the Admiralty. He would read an extract from the letter which he believed conveyed the sting that gave offence to the Admiralty. The paragraph was as follows:—
"I have the satisfaction of feeling that I have fulfilled all my professions, though under the greatest disadvantage and opposition. I like opposition with fair play; it elucidates the truth; but has this opposition been fair to the country, or have I met with fair play? Give me a hundredth part of the encouragement and assistance Mr. Reed is given, and I think we could turn out a sea-going ship with as much dispatch as the Pallas or Bellerophon, and ensure her being as great a success in her way as the Royal Sovereign has been in her's. While speaking of designing ships, I care not who designs turret-ships so long as the naval architect take the matter up con amore and is competent. The success of those vessels already built is due to the shipbuilders who designed them. I can only wish Mr. Reed may be equally successful in the designs for the Admiralty turret-ship, of which at present I can offer no opinion, not having seen the drawings."
Now, Mr. Reed himself used the columns
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of a great journal. If he did not sign his own name to certain letters in that journal, and if those letters were not written by himself, they were by some person under his guidance and direction. That being the case the Admiralty might have shown some kindness and consideration to Captain Coles in respect of the letter he had published, remembering how unfairly he had been previously treated. And let the House remember that, while the Admiralty were considering their offended dignity, the country was suffering in consequence of the navy not being put in the condition it ought to be, while foreign countries were getting the benefit of Captain Coles' invention. Captain Coles, on being informed of the offence he had given, consulted his friends, and wrote a letter of apology, with which the Admiralty were satisfied. Captain Coles wrote, "If I have overstepped the bounds of fair criticism I regret it, and have to apologize for it." What more could be asked of him? He agreed with the hon. Baronet opposite (Sir Morton Peto), and with the hon. Member for Tavistock (Mr. Samuda), that the country would not be satisfied unless Captain Coles had every power given to him for the building of a turret-ship.
LORD CLARENCE PAGET: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman may not be aware that Captain Coles is reinstated. As soon as Captain Coles gave a proper apology, the Admiralty were very happy to reinstate him.
MR. PERRAND: I am very glad of it. But I wish the noble Lord had stated it the other night, and saved me all this time. [Lord CLARENCE PAGET: I had already spoken.] He was glad of the announcement; but he hoped Mr. Reed had been made to apologise for his speech. With regard to Mr. Lang and Mr. Watts, the country had never been able to understand why those eminent shipbuilders were driven out of the service. One of the most curious things connected with this very mysterious affair was that Mr. Lang, one of the most eminent shipbuilders in the world, was dispensed with, while Mr. Reed, who had never built a gunboat, was brought in. It was a kind of family movement; for a number of Mr. Reed's relatives wore brought into the dockyards with him. With regard to Mr. Reed, all he could say was that he had notoriously and—without offence—he might say disgracefully failed to redeem his promise to the Admiralty and to the country in regard to his ships. Mr.

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Reed's failures had cost the country a million of money, while Mr. Lang had been obliged to employ his great abilities in the service of the hon. Member for Tavistock (Mr. Samuda). He was delighted to hear the noble Lord assure them the other night that the country possessed a fleet of thirty iron-clad ships; but in answer to a home question by the right hon. Baronet (Sir John Pakington), the noble Lord was forced to admit that they were not all sea-going ships. With regard to the speech of the hon. Member for Tavistock, he must say that he had never heard a more practical or a more convincing speech than that which he made the other night on this question. That speech would have an immense effect on the country, not only on account of the person who delivered it, but from the fact that he had secured the services of so eminent a shipbuilder as Mr. Lang. He trusted before this debate closed the noble Lord would feel it to be his duty to grapple with the questions of the hon. Member, and to answer them. He was sorry that he did not hear from the noble Lord the other night a single word as to the claims of the artificers and labourers in Her Majesty's dockyards. Those claims had been pressed upon the House by a large number of Members sitting on both sides. That question was not a party one, but it deeply affected the well-being of a great body of men employed in Her Majesty's service. Their claims had never been shown to be unjust or unreasonable. A short time ago the Lords of the Admiralty received deputations from the artificers and workmen at the different dockyards, and at those interviews their Lordships asked the important question, Whether any amalgamated society existed in those yards? The answer of the men did them great credit, and well deserved the attention of the Committee. "No," they said, "we are a disciplined body of men, at your Lordships' service by day or by night." They could be called upon at any hour to obey the orders of their superior officers. If, for instance, a fire broke out in the dockyard in the middle of the night every man of them would know his duty, and would be found at his proper station. Again, if war arose and any of the dockyards were attacked, these men would be found serving the guns and fighting along with the rest of Her Majesty's forces. He ventured to submit that a body of men of such importance had a right to have their claims fairly considered. The reply from the
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Lords of the Admiralty to their claims was as follows:—
"My Lords have ascertained from private establishments what the rate of wages is, and what is the nature of their engagements, and have thus been enabled to compare their position with that of the artificers and labourers in the dockyards."
But if their Lordships thus placed the artificers in the dockyards on a footing equal to that of the men employed in private yards, why should not those men amalgamate and have strikes for wages? They should remember that these men might be kept loyal to their yards and to the country by the concession of certain privileges, which cost the country but little, and were of great importance to them. The circular went on—
"After a full examination of the subject, my Lords have come to the conclusion that they would not be justified in recommending to Parliament a general increase of wages as prayed by the memorialists."
What did this mean? Did they think that any of them had fair claims, or did they refuse to every class any increase what ever? This question would be raised when the Vote was moved for on Artificers, and he hoped the noble Lord would bear it in mind. He (Mr. Ferrand) moved for a Return the other night, which was granted by the order of the House. The noble Lord politely let him know that it would not be opposed; but he now wished to know when it would be laid upon the table. [Lord CLARENCE PAGET: It has been laid upon the table.] When the Vote for Artificers and Workmen came before the Committee it was his intention to enter more particularly into that subject.
MR. HANBURY TRACYsaid, it was a general opinion throughout the navy that what they now wanted, for the safety of our commerce, were fast sea-going cruisers and fast despatch-boats. The sea-going cruisers should be able to go at the rate of thirteen or fourteen knots an hour, and be capable of carrying a large supply of coals. If, in the case of the Amazon class of vessels constructed in the Royal dockyards, it was found impossible to obtain vessels of the requisite rate of speed, they ought to try to obtain them elsewhere, and adopt the sensible plan followed by the great steamship companies. The despatch-boats should be capable of going by the measured mile not less than fifteen or sixteen knots an hour; and if the great shipbuilding firms were invited to tender for that class of vessels, they would he able to turn them

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out of their yards, provided only the Admiralty left them unfettered to construct them on their own responsibility. As to our iron-clad fleet, looking at it as a whole, and comparing it with those of foreign countries, we had a fine and efficient ironclad navy, equal to cope with any squadron which might be brought against it. The Admiralty ought not to be blamed because the Research, the Terror, and several others were not as good sea-going ships as might be wished; and it was only fair to the Admiralty to say that, on the whole, they ought rather to be congratulated on the result they had achieved in that respect. But he thought the time had arrived when they should stay their hands and not build any more ironclads for the present, but rather test by experiments the comparative merits of different systems. It was to be hoped that the Committee recommended by the hon. Member for Tavistock (Mr. Samuda) would be granted, as it might be able to collect much valuable information, and, probably, also to save the country a very large sum of money. It was not the intention of that hon. Member's proposal in any way to fetter the Admiralty, or to relieve them from the responsibility of carrying out the details; but that, after fully investigating the different systems, the Committee should lay down the broad line upon which the Admiralty should proceed in regard to the construction of their vessels. The number of boys voted last year was 7,000, of whom 2,700 were to be kept in the training-ships, but last December there were only 6,726 boys, now 274 short of the proper complement, and also 40 less than the proper complement of Coastguard boys. For the future manning of the fleet, much dependence must be placed upon the number of boys reared up in the various training ships, and he hoped the noble Lord would explain how it was that the complement had become short, and if there was any difficulty in obtaining boys. The number of writers in the navy, which at present was only eleven, ought also to be increased, as great advantage had been derived in the army, and in the public offices from the employment of writers. A sum of £525 was asked for prizes for shooting in the Royal Marines. The principle of awarding these prizes should be extended to the navy, and a prize or badge, similar to that given in the army, should he awarded to all seamen who became "marksmen." He congratulated
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the noble Lord upon having at last introduced the savings bank system into the navy. Hitherto nothing had been done to encourage thrift among sailors, and if a ship were lost the seamen were not recouped for any loss they sustained. A few days before the Bombay was destroyed by fire, a petty officer placed £30 in the hands of the paymaster, thinking it would be safe, and he had never received a farthing of it since. It would be wise for the Admiralty, in addition to savings banks, to bring forward some measure for enabling officers and men to insure their clothes. By such means many of the grievances and complaints which were constantly arising would be prevented.
MR. GRAVESsaid, he had listened with great interest to the statement of the noble Lord in introducing the Estimates, and was especially gratified by the announcement that the minimum in the reduction of the personnel of the navy had been reached. Many thought we had already gone too far in this direction, and it was therefore a matter of congratulation to find that the reduction was to go no further. During the last four years we had suffered a loss in our able seamen to the extent of 10,000 men, and from the best inquiries he could make he believed there were not at this moment more than 23,000 able seamen in the service. Looking at the character of the ships of the present day, the mode of their construction, and the scientific and mechanical appliances resorted to in almost every department, it was more than ever essential that we should have the services of skilled artizans of the highest intelligence in the shape of seamen. Such men were not to be found in the merchant service except with rare exceptions, and they could only be obtained by means of the training system, which had been introduced into the navy mainly through the efforts of the noble Lord. The noble Lord might rest satisfied that no portion of the Estimates would be less grudged than that which was intended to be applied to the education of the youth of the country in making them skilled and intelligent seamen. He had taken great interest in this question, and he hoped on gome future and not distant occasion to bring before the House the whole question of the position of our seamen, with the view of obtaining an extension to the merchant service of the benefits now conferred upon the Royal Navy in the training of boys. He had no desire to find

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fault, and was prepared to make great allowance for the Admiralty; but connected as he was with the great mercantile interests of Liverpool—the second commercial port of the Empire—it was not unnatural that he should ask what steps had been taken to provide for the protection of our commerce? Two years ago the announcement made by the noble Lord that the Admiralty were about to provide a swift and speedy class of vessels for the protection of that commerce was received with satisfaction. We were then awakening to the startling fact that two small but fleet vessels had literally cleared from the ocean the flag of one of the greatest commercial nations in the world, paralysing her commerce and annihilating her shipping. The noble Lord in 1864 stated that the Admiralty was about to build a new class of ship, not armourplated, but capable of doing as much service for her owners in the shape of cruising as the Alabama had done for hers. In 1865, as the right hon. Member for Droitwich (Sir John Paking-ton) had already reminded the House, they were told, when the Estimates were brought under their notice, that swift ships, not armourplated, would be built, and which would act as the police of the seas. Two of those ships were being constructed, and it was proposed to build four more, indeed, he believed they were far advanced in building at this moment. They were to be all of wood, and much of the character of the famous Alabama. On Tuesday evening, too, the noble Lord stated that they proposed to build two large vessels of the Amazon class, not armour-plated, but having four guns, and capable of going a speed of thirteen knots. That, he said, would be in addition to the two Amazons already built and the four others in course of building. But what were the facts as to speed? At the end of two years the first of that class of vessels was launched and tried, and he was assured that the utmost speed it had attained was a little over twelve knots. [Lord CLARENCE PAGET: Twelve and a half knots.] And he believed that was without stores. [Lord CLARENCE PAGET: No, with everything included.] Now what does this mean? It was well known that twelve and a half knots under the most favorable circumstances as the measured mile, meant under eleven when the ship was cruising in sea-service trim. That, in his opinion, was anything but satisfactory. What they wanted was a class of swift handy vessels
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of moderate size, capable of remaining at sea on a cruise of twelve months; capable of maintaining an average speed of twelve knots under canvas—for canvas should be the normal condition of such vessels, for under canvas the Alabama took nearly every one of her prizes—and capable at the same time of using steam upon occasions of necessity and when greater speed was required. Now let us look what others are doing. The ships of the Americans had been alluded to by the hon. Member for Bristol (Sir Morton Peto), and he would supplement those allusions by some information he had received in common with other hon. Members, from a report made by Mr. Donald M'Kay, who had said—
"There is now in progress of construction the Chattanooga, of 3,000 tons, building for the Department by outside parties; also the Idaho, of similar tonnage, and by other outside parties; while the Department is itself constructing the Madawaska, Wampanoag, Neshaming, Ammonoosuc, and Pompanoosuc. These vessels are of wood, about 3,000 tons, and intended to have a speed of sixteen knots an hour. They will carry immense batteries, be full rigged, and will doubtless prove the fastest and most formidable ocean cruisers ever built by any Power."
LORD CLARENCE PAGET: They are not armour-clad.
MR. GRAVES: He believed they were not. Indeed, he was speaking altogether of unarmour-clad vessels; but with these facts before them he thought it most undesirable that the Admiralty should go on building ships of the Amazon class, without first ascertaining with undoubted certainty whether they could go at a greater speed than eleven knots. If they continued to build those ships of low speed, while other countries were arranging for the protection of their commerce by building ships of much greater speed, they would find the commerce of England unprotected in some future hour of need. It appeared to him that the Admiralty ought to treat the House with candour, and tell them whether the first of this much-boasted class of vessels was a failure or not. If it was true that the Amazon class of vessels was useless for the purpose it was designed to answer, he would recommend that not a shilling more be expended upon them, but that conditions as regards size, displacement, power, and speed should be declared, and the private shipbuilders of the country be invited to submit their designs and tenders for fast vessels such as he had described to the inspection of the Admiralty. It was not his intention to enter into the turret-ship dis-

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cussion, feeling that he was incompetent to deal with a question which required the highest professional skill—he had his own views about it, but would not trouble the Committee with them, but with the design of the ships his experience warranted him in offering his opinions on this point. Returning again to the promises of the noble Lord, he remarked that in 1864 he spoke of some ship of the Pallas class, which, if she succeeded, he said, was to be one of the most remarkable ships that the country had ever produced, and which was to go at the rate of fourteen knots. Such were the noble Lords words. Two months previously a high authority in connection with naval construction at the Admiralty stated somewhat boastingly at a public meeting at Greenwich with the utmost confidence that "the Admiralty was building a craft from which neither the Alabama nor the Florida could hope to escape." Well, that was the Pallas that was to be. He would now speak of the Pallas that really was. He was informed that the speed of the Pallas was only twelve and a half knots, and this, bear in mind, as the measured mile trial. It appeared that she was under commission for many months; that she was now undergoing a variety of repairs and manipulations, especially in respect of her bow. When she went to sea she drove the water before her like a wall, instead of passing it under her to rise naturally as is the case in all other vessels having the slightest pretention to scientific design. So that there could be no doubt that the result of this experiment was wholly unequal to our anticipations. Then, again, take the Research, he had been informed by naval officers of authority who knew her thoroughly that she was one of the greatest failures in our navy—slow and a bad sea boat, having on one occasion washed the captain out of his box. He believed she had been under orders to go to the Mediterranean, but after her trial trip with the squadron in the Channel those orders were countermanded, and she has been laying up since in the harbour of Portsmouth or Plymouth. But, setting aside the judgment passed upon these vessels, he would inquire why it was some of the ships were not sent to sea, instead of being kept idle in harbour. Why were they not sent round the Horn, where events of considerable magnitude were occurring? The Spaniards had an iron-clad there, the Americans another, and three others had gone. What better test could a vessel be put to
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than by such a voyage as that? And if a ship in the course of such a voyage were found wanting, it was high time the system upon which it was built should be abandoned for some other. This was the only true way of testing the matter, and he believed that in no other way could the issue now raised be settled to the satisfaction of the country. He had little faith in such vessels as the Monarch, which he believed would be found quite useless for blockading purposes, or for taking up a position in crowded roadsteads. And, besides, such large vessels had other serious disadvantages; for as the speed of a fleet was measured by its slowest ship, so the smartness in handling a fleet was estimated by the largest and longest vessel. His reflection upon the whole question led him to express the hope that the Admiralty would not lay down any more vessels without first ascertaining with more certainty the speed which the plan they built on would give, and that they would also try whether a ship of smaller tonnage could not carry the same armour and be more effective. He trusted that after the Votes had passed the Committee the Admiralty or the Government would come forward and ungrudgingly accede to the appointment of the Committee that had been suggested, which would have the opportunity of testing what statements were true and what were erroneous; and if, in the course of its inquiry, it should he proved that hon. Members had made inaccurate statements or imbibed false prejudices, or that there was an erroneous opinion existing in this country about our ironclads, no one would be more delighted than he should be to withdraw everything he had said against the vessels he had been alluding to.
LORD CLARENCE PAGET: The reason why I interpose at this moment is for the purpose of answering the many Questions that have been put to me. [Mr. CORKY: We shall put many more presently.] I took the liberty the other night of very humbly yet earnestly advising that we should confine our observations to the general condition of the navy, and defer discussion concerning the construction of our vessels till we came to the Vote on this subject, which really interests many Members of this House. But I am bound to say that we have rather transgressed the usages of the Committee in going into the Vote at once. My right hon. Friend the Member for Droitwich (Sir John Pakington) was the first Gentleman who took so unusual a course. I will

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now proceed to answer some of the Questions put to me.
My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Antrim (Admiral Seymour), and the hon. Baronet the Member for Devonshire (Sir Lawrence Palk), have brought the case of a very important class of officers before the Committee—namely, that of the Masters. Respecting them, I have so often stated how far we may go that I have very little now to say; but I must protest against the charge of the hon. Baronet the Member for Devonshire, that I have broken my promise to that excellent class of officers. On the contrary, over and over again I have stated within the hearing of the hon. Baronet that, notwithstanding the representations which have been at various times made, I did not think there was any class of officers in the navy which had met with more consideration during the last few years than they. What is it that the Masters want? Committees have made inquiries of every sort, and the Masters have had opportunities of giving evidence before those Committees, particularly that on Naval Retirement; but the members of that Committee will bear me out in saying none of them have been able to tell us exactly what they want. Some said they wanted more pay, others that they wanted to be put in their proper position along with the combatant officers of the navy, and others asked for better retirement. With regard to their pay and their retirement, improvements have been made in both; but as to their rank, they are asking for what is not compatible with the discipline of the navy. The Masters want to go, pari passu, according to the date of their commissions, with the corresponding rank of combatant officers, and when on board their ships to take military command accordingly. To make the matter intelligible to civilians who are not conversant with either naval or military affairs, I would ask what would be their feelings if the Sovereign, by her prerogative, were to say all Viscounts are to rank with Earls according to the dates of their titles? The effect of carrying out such a proposal in the navy would be to put many of the Masters above lieutenants, who before were above them; so that, whilst they were lifting up the Masters, they would be lowering the rank of the other officers; consequently it would be impossible to put the Masters on a footing with the combatant rank of officers without committing an injustice to the other classes of the service,
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and without injuring the discipline. This is the reason why we could not accede to the requests of the Masters in reference to their rank. The Admiralty has ever been desirous of improving the condition of the Masters; they have shown it by giving them Staff Commanders and Staff Captains' rank; and among other concessions that have been made to them, they have received the addition of the Greenwich Hospital pension, the want of which was one of the grievances they brought before the Committee. If I could hold out further hopes as to anything else desired by the Masters, respecting whose merits we ail agree, I should be glad. The result to which we have arrived is, that, upon the whole, it would be better to allow the class to die out. We propose to appoint lieutenants, who would do the work quite as well as the Masters; whom, however, I would not at all disparage, for, like my hon. and gallant Friend, many a time have I had to thank my stars for having a good Master. We are driven to this arrangement, by which the Masters themselves will be the chief sufferers. Those persons who may have desired that their sons should be brought up in this class, because of the expenditure required being smaller than that necessary in other classes, will also suffer a great loss. I believe, however, under the extremely difficult circumstances of the case, brought about, I am bound to say, by the Masters themselves, the lieutenants will replace the Masters with advantage to the service.
I was exceedingly pleased to hear the remarks which fell from my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomery (Mr. Han-bury Tracy) concerning my statement the other night respecting the encouragement which should be given to our sailors to contract habits of thrift by establishing savings banks on board ship. If they had an opportunity of investing their money, I believe that much money now squandered would be saved. I hope my hon. Friend will follow up what he has so well begun. I have taken a careful note of many of the suggestions that have been made on this subject. I have to thank both my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomery (Mr. Hanbury Tracy) and my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool (Mr. Graves), and express my great satisfaction at finding that we have in the new Parliament so many Gentlemen who are taking a deep interest in the important subjects connected with the navy. The hon. Member

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for Liverpool told us that he was going to bring forward a proposal with the view of establishing a system for training boys for the merchant service. There cannot be any measure which, in my opinion, will be more advantageous to this country than the establishment of such systems at all our great mercantile ports; and I think the example set by the Royal Navy might be imitated with benefit.
With regard to the question of shipbuilding, in which we are all very much interested, I must start with a protest against the interpretation my right hon. Friend the Member for Droitwich put upon a passage in the speech with which I introduced the Navy Estimates last year. I am quite sure my right hon. Friend would not have knowingly conveyed an erroneous impression. He told the House that I promised to build a turret-ship last year. I think I was sufficiently guarded in my expressions; but I will quote the words I used on the occasion I refer to. They were these—
"The first proposal we have to make is that, if possible, we should endeavour to construct a ship upon the turret principle which shall be a real sea-going vessel. We have never yet succeeded in getting one of these vessels which can be deemed a thorough sea-going ship.
I should like, before I read further, to make one remark with regard to sea-going ships. A sailor would undertake, if you only give him sufficient time, to take almost any ship around Cape Horn; but what we mean by a sea-going ship is a cruising ship, which can remain months at sea blockading. I went on to say—
"I do not deny that Captain Coles will have considerable difficulties to overcome in constructing a thorough sea-going ship on the turret principle. Everybody knows that a sea-going ship for cruising must have masts and rigging—we know that the turrets must be placed in the centre line of the ship—and therefore, in order to get a clear range for the guns from the centre of the ship you must have as few obstructions as possible at her extremities, because those obstructions interfere with the firing of the guns. That is one of the difficulties which Captain Coles has to contend with, but which I feel confident myself that he will be able to surmount. He has been directed by the Admiralty to prepare drawings, he has had the assistance of draughtsmen from the Admiralty, and he has been furnished with the lines of such of our ships as he might desire to have, with every other assistance that we can afford him, in order that he may be enabled to design a thorough sea-going turret-ship."—[3 Hansard, clxxvii. 1158.]
Now, I would ask the Committee whether that was a promise to build a turret-ship?
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We have every desire—as we always have had—to construct such a vessel, and I trust we have now got the necessary drawings. Captain Coles was directed to prepare drawings of a turret ship, and he did prepare them; but I regret that he took the Pallas with one turret as his type. When he brought the drawings to the Admiralty we thought it advisable that there should be a careful inquiry into the subject; and it is, I contend, most unjust to find fault with the Admiralty, and to say we are prejudiced against the system, because of the course which we deemed it to be our duty to take. I have been, I declare, and I can answer also for my Colleagues, as anxious as any man that a proper turret-ship should be constructed, and when we got the drawings from Captain Coles we submitted them to a Committee, one of whose members was Admiral Lord Lauderdale, a nobleman eminently qualified to deal with the subject. There were also on the Committee Admiral Yelverton, second in command of the Mediterranean fleet, and other captains of armour-ships. I will not now enter into the details of the inquiry. Suffice it to say that they condemned the plan, although they were, like ourselves, extremely anxious that some plan for the construction of a sea-going turret-ship should be carried into effect. I shall, I may add, be happy to lay upon the table their Report, for which the hon. Member for Tyrone (Mr. Corry) is about to move. The evidence which Mr. Scott Russell and other eminent builders gave was very valuable, and I think it will be admitted, under all the circumstances of the case, that the Admiralty acted wisely in not constructing that turret-ship. We were most anxious that such a ship should be built, and to obtain the advice of Captain Coles; but it must be recollected that he was not, and did not pretend to be, a shipbuilder. Then, unfortunately, a difficulty arose in the matter. Captain Coles wrote intemperate letters to the newspapers besides a pamphlet which was most unfair towards the Admiralty. He has expressed his regret that he did so. I trust, therefore, that good may come out of evil, and that he may see it is incompatible with the position of an officer who may be in daily confidential communication with a public Department to find fault when it suits his purpose with those under whom he is working. I am, I may add, bound in justice to Mr. Reed to tell the Committee that I conscientiously believe there was not one

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of us more anxious than he for the adoption of any plan which he thought seemed to promise success.
Having gone now through the state of matters connected with Captain Cowper Coles and the building of turret-ships, I would wish to say a few words in answer to some remarks which fell from the right hon. Gentleman opposite as to Mr. Watts. My right hon. Friend has said the Admiralty had discharged their cleverest men. [Sir JOHN PAKINGTON: I named Mr. Lang.] The Admiralty Constructors disapproved Captain Coles' proposal in 1859, and again in 1861. But in spite of their opinion, the Admiralty undertook to construct the Prince Albert turret-ship in 1861.
I will now, with the permission of the Committee, briefly refer to the able speech which was made the other night by the hon. Member for Tavistock (Mr. Samuda). I, in common with the House at large, took great interest in his first address on this all-important subject; but he made some remarks to which I feel called upon to take exception. He told the House that the public had a right to complain of the Admiralty for their dilatory conduct in constructing the Prince Albert; but how stands the case? Why, the firm of Samuda were the contractors for building that vessel. They undertook to have her ready for the Admiralty on a certain day. They were, however, nineteen months behind their time. The simple reason, then, why the Prince Albert was not at sea at least eighteen months earlier is that the Messrs. Samuda did not carry out their contract. I have here no less then eighteen letters of remonstrance from the Admiralty to the contractors, complaining of their serious neglect of their engagements, and I cannot help thinking it is scarcely fair for the hon. Member to come down to this House and charge the Admiralty with dilatoriness in not having sent the Prince Albert to sea up to the present time. I am anxious to hear what explanation he has to give upon that point, and how it is he can defend the conduct of his firm, on whom we were very near being obliged to inflict a penalty for not constructing another vessel, the Tamar, within the period of their contract. When the hon. Gentleman finds fault with the Admiralty for not sending the Prince Albert to sea, he ought in common fairness to tell us who is the cause of the delay. As to the hon. Gentleman's remarks generally, I look upon them as extremely
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valuable. I, myself, have always been very desirous that in constructing a new class of ships we should have the advantage of having the subject carefully investigated by a Committee. I am fully alive to the great benefit likely to be derived from such an inquiry, as I have over and over again stated in this House. The Committee to which I have already alluded—presided over by Lord Lauderdale—have succeeded in obtaining a mass of the most useful information from the eminent civilians who gave evidence before them. At the present moment a question of great importance agitates us—I mean the question of whole versus partial plating. The hon. Member for Tavistock disapproves the system of building ships partially unprotected—expresses the pleasure with which he saw the Admiralty a few years ago resort to the system of completely armouring their ships—thus making both ends safe from attack—and his regret at finding that they were reverting to the old system of partial plating. Now, there can be no second opinion as to the importance of plating ships all round—if plated all round, they are undoubtedly better protected from shot; but, then, if you have thick plating all round, with the heavy guns of the present day, you must have also enormous tonnage. We are told that the French are adopting this system, but the fact is that they have given up plating all round. In the days of the Warrior and Black Prince the centre-box principle was adopted. Mr. Reed did not invent that; it was invented by the right hon. Baronet opposite (Sir John Pakington), and consisted in merely plating the centre of the ship. The difference now is that we plate not merely the centre, but carry armour-plating right round the water-line, which is the most vital part of a vessel. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Tavistock thinks, like many others, that he can build turret-ships better than the Admiralty. The hon. Gentleman told the Committee that he could build turret-ships much smaller than we are building them, and he placed before the Admiralty a plan for a turret-ship. Our officers went very carefully into the matter, and it was found that, first of all, he said that he would build the vessel principally of steel. That, no doubt, would make the ship much lighter; but we find that where the rivets join we cannot at present trust to steel. He consequently allowed 300 tons too little on this score. He proposed two turrets of

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240 ions, though Captain Coles requires 400 tons for two turrets; and the hon. Gentleman did not know what we needed in regard to weight of equipment, as to which he was short by 145 tons in his calculation. He produced a ship which was, unfortunately, several hundreds of tons short of displacement, and we could not adopt it. In other points the hon. Gentleman was short of our requirements, All these little turret-ships which are being built have not got free-board sufficient; they are not enough out of the water for sea-going ships. Take the case of the unfortunate London. That vessel went down because she shipped vast seas over her deck and down into the engine-room. She had a free-board of 8 feet 6 inches to a length of 267 feet The hon. Gentleman's ship was 9 feet out of water with a length of 280 feet, so that it was nearly in the same proportion as the London. Then there are persons who advocate the construction of vessels of the Scorpion and Wyvern class. Now these would, no doubt, be very effective ships under certain circumstances; but they could not be depended upon for cruising, and if the Admiralty had committed our sailors to such craft they would have been met with a cry of reprobation from the whole country. The Bellerophon and other ships of the same class, with very little greater length, are about 14 feet out of the water, and I believe that with a much less amount of free-hoard, they would not he safe cruising vessels. The Monarch, too, would have the same height above the water. Now with regard to strength. The test of the strength of a vessel of war was determined by her power of resisting shot; and the ship of the hon. Gentleman would have a maximum resisting power of 444 pounds, and a minimum resisting power of 397 pounds per square foot. Now, the Hercules, which is the largest of our armour ships, has a maximum resisting power of 734 pounds, and a minimum of 405 pounds, and the Monarch will have a maximum of 504, and a minimum of 407 pounds. Then there is the important question of speed to be taken into consideration. We find that we can handle heavy guns, but if we put these heavy guns in ships we find we cannot get speed, with all the requirements I have mentioned, unless we go to a very high tonnage. I implore the Committee not to place implicit faith in what appears in newspapers about the speed of our ships. The speed by
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the measured mile is greater than when the ship goes to sea, but that is the case with all vessels, and all this is a matter of comparison. The tests adopted by the Admiralty are more severe than those of mercantile firms. Our tests are six times backwards and forwards; then we take the mean, and arrive at a fair calculation of the speed of the ship at the measured mile. It is, however, impossible to make perfectly exact calculations in reference to the matter of speed. I will tell my right hon. Friend a curious fact. The Warrior is his ship. That ship was built on the same lines as the Black Prince, and the difference in speed never can be perfectly accounted for. What will turn out to be the exact speed of a vessel appears a secret. With respect to the Bellerophon and Pallas, I beg hon. Gentlemen not to condemn those ships for want of speed, because very extraordinary facts came to light in these cases. As has been experienced in the French and other navies, this remarkable result was experienced—that while the ships gave a certain speed their engines gave a less, thus showing that the engines were not doing their fair work. The engineers are endeavouring to ascertain the cause of this. First of all we have changed the screws, and it is quite certain that in the case of the Bellerophon the results have improved to a very considerable extent. With regard to the Bellerophon and the Pallas, I hope the Committee will hold their hand and not condemn them at once on the score of speed. The Amazon has certainly fallen short of what we expected in her speed about half a knot; but that is all; but will any Gentleman show me any ship of her tonnage that goes as fast as the Amazon? [An hon. MEMBER: The Alabama.'] She is somewhat smaller than the Alabama; but did the Alabama go faster? No, she could not. Nothing in the world is more desirable than speed; but in order to attain great speed we must have a large tonnage. Then, for our police of the seas we are obliged to have small vessels. These vessels would be indeed like our brigs in the last European war; but I never heard these brigs condemned because they did not go as fast as frigates. We require also vessels that can carry troops, commodious vessels to carry stores for the fleet, and you cannot expect these vessels to have any great rate of speed. I have left many points untouched to which I wished to

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advert; but I feel that I have already detained the Committee too long, and I must conclude by thanking them for the attention with which they have listened to me.
MR. CORRYsaid, he had observed that, as a general rule, the preliminary debate on the Estimates was the only occasion on which any question was fully discussed; and, therefore, he could not adopt the recommendation of his noble Friend by deferring the remarks he wished to make on the policy of the Admiralty in respect of the construction of ships of war to a future day, when the shipbuilding Votes would be considered. But before adverting to that important subject, he wished to make a few remarks in reference to the Vote No. 1, which provided for the wages of Seamen and Marines. There was no part of his noble Friend's statement on Monday night which he had heard with greater satisfaction than that in which he informed the Committee that the Admiralty had abandoned the intention which they entertained last year of reducing the strength of the Coastguard on shore; He considered that intention so objectionable that he had ventured to call the special attention of the House to the subject shortly before the close of the last Session of Parliament; and he, therefore had derived great satisfaction from the announcement of his noble Friend that a small increase was to be made in the numbers of the force, and that it would be permanently maintained at those increased numbers. But whatever satisfaction he derived from that statement was more than counterbalanced by the reduction shown in the Estimates of 600 Marines, in addition to the 1,000 reduced last year. He must say that he thought this policy most objectionable. His noble Friend had given no explanation as to the cause of this reduction, and he was not surprised at his reticence, because there was no witness examined before the Royal Commission on Manning the Navy in 1859 who had given more emphatic testimony in favour of increasing the number of the Royal Marines. His noble Friend stated in his evidence that in his opinion—for which he gave excellent reasons—the Marines ought to be maintained at 21,000 men; and they were now reduced to 16,400. The late Sir James Graham, whom no one could accuse of having entertained extravagant views on naval questions, gave similar evidance. The Marines, he said, ought to be increased to 20,000
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men, and should never be reduced below that number even in time of peace. The policy which had been followed during the last two years of reducing that invaluable force was a most mistaken policy, and he (Mr. Corry) felt it his duty to protest against it in the strongest manner. With regard to the construction of ships, he would first advert to the statement of his noble Friend on Monday night, that, in the last eleven years, £48,000,000 had been spent on the personnel, and £47,000,000 on the matériel of the navy, whereas, this year, the amount estimated for the personnel was £4,170,000, and for matériel, £2,500,000; and that the cause of this reduction in the cost of matériel, as compared with that of personnel, was that the fleet was now in a very fair condition as regards the wants of the country. No doubt he meant it to be inferred that the re-construction of the fleet, so far as armour-clads were concerned, was nearly complete. But he (Mr. Corry) thought his noble Friend had arrived at that conclusion at a very unfortunate time, for we were only just embarking on the great experiment of building sea-going turret-ships, and if that experiment succeeded, it would lead to a re-construction of the navy—the extent of which it was impossible to foresee. But, independently of that consideration, they had been told: that our armour-plated fleet consisted of thirty-one vessels of all sices; and they had all read in leading articles, and heard it stated in Parliament and elsewhere, that wooden ships had become absolutely useless for purposes of war, and that the navy of England should now be counted only by the number of the armour-clad vessels it comprised. If that be so, he asked could any man of common sense attempt to maintain that a fleet of thirty-one ships would suffice for the protection of the British Empire, and of British interests in every quarter of the globe? Such an idea was quite preposterous; but, while he thought that a large addition to the number of our armour-plated ships would be necessary, he could not agree with the hon. Member for Tavistock (Mr. Samuda) that provision ought to have been made for building five or six turret-ships in these Estimates. In the present state of uncertainty as to the principle on which they should be built, he did not think they ought to embark largely in the construction of ships during the present year. But what was the cause of this uncertainty? It was to be traced solely to the supineness of the Admiralty in testing the

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turret principle as applied to sea-going ships, and lie must say that he thought the conduct of the Admiralty in this respect was such as to admit of no justification. His noble Friend said they were anxious to build turret-ships. If so, they had shown their anxiety in a very strange manner. In these days of competition between armour and artillery—when one year they had a target that resisted the most powerful gun, and the next year a gun that smashed the most powerful target, and when the most experienced officers, amongst others Captain Sherard Osborn, who had conducted the experiments on board the Royal Sovereign, maintained that there was hardly any limit to the weight of the gun that might be worked on the turret principle—it was the bounden duty of the Admiralty to take measures to solve the problem, without loss of time, whether the turret could be adapted to sea-going ships. But what had they done in this respect? Nothing—absolutely nothing, and at this moment, after the loss of four precious years, they were only talking of building their first sea-going vessel. The story of the turret was a melancholy story, and, as some hon. Gentlemen might not be acquainted with it, he might be allowed shortly to state what had passed on the subject. So long ago as September, 1860, models and drawings were submitted to the Admiralty by Captain Cowper Coles, showing the adaptation of the cupola to sea-going vessels, but no design of any particular ship was sent in at that time, and he (Mr. Corry) adverted to the circumstance merely to show that the attention of the Admiralty had been directed to the subject nearly six years ago. But early in 1861, Captain Cowper Coles was requested to send in a memorandum of the requirements of a sea-going cupola-ship, and on this memorandum a design was prepared (not by Captain Cowper Coles, who did not pretend to be a naval architect, but by a draughtsman in the Controller's Department) for a vessel to have two cupolas, each carrying two Armstrong breech-loading 100-pounders, the most powerful guns at that time used in the navy. This design was sent in early in 1862, but it was never carried out, and Captain Coles had never been told why it had been abandoned: But his noble Friend stated in this House last year that the reason was that it did not provide sufficient flotation for the weights to be carried. Now he (Mr. Corry) could
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say from experience, that if the Admiralty had been in earnest they would not have been deterred by such an objection, because nothing was easier than to alter a design so as to obtain increased displacement. When he was at the Admiralty under the Government of the late Sir Robert Peel several experimental ships were built after drawings sent in by private shipbuilders, and as these gentlemen had not had much experience in ships of war, it sometimes happened that the proposed flotation was found to be insufficient. But the Admiralty did not reject the designs upon that ground if they were considered in other respects to be good ones. On the contrary, they put the constructor into communication with the Surveyor of the Navy, as he was then called, and requested that such alterations should be made as would remedy the defective displacement; and if the present Board of Admiralty had been really anxious to try the experiment of a turret-ship, the difficulty as to flotation could very easily have been overcome. Nothing, however, was done in 1862, and here he (Mr. Corry) would observe that an event occurred early in that year which might have opened the eyes of the most drowsy Board of Admiralty as to the necessity of testing the turret principle with the least practicable delay. In March, 1862, a broadside armour-plated ship for the first time appeared in action, attacked single-handed a large squadron of the most heavily armed ships of the American navy, and, having sunk two of them, would infallibly have destroyed the remainder, if a deus ex machinâ had not appeared in the shape of a turret-ship—the Monitor—which engaged her formidable antagonist, the Merrimac, and succeeded in driving her away. It was quite true that the Monitor was not a sea-going ship, but she proved the great power of the turret principle, and from that moment it became the bounden duty of the Government not to lose a single hour in ascertaining whether that principle was or was not sound, and whether or not it could be applied to sea-going vessels.
LORD CLARENCE PAGET: The Monitor was not a sea-going ship.
MR. CORRYhad just stated that he was aware she was not, but he thought that was no excuse for the remissness of the Admiralty. Well, as he had said, nothing was done in 1862, but in February, 1863, Captain Coles urged upon the

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Admiralty the importance of constructing at all events one sea-going turret-ship; and the result was that Mr. Barnaby, a very able constructor in the Controller's Department, was placed in communication with him, and a design was prepared for a ship with tripod masts, with two turrets, and to carry four 300-pounders. That design, however, shared the common lot. Nothing more was done; and when Captain Coles, who was naturally anxious to know why it was rejected, made inquiries at the Admiralty on the subject, he was told, with more dignity, he (Mr. Corry) thought, than wisdom, that such information was never given the inventors. The greater part of the following year, 1864, was passed by the Admiralty in a state of tranquil repose, as far as the turret was concerned; but, towards the end of the year, Captain Coles again raised the question, and requested the assistance of a competent draughtsman, and to be furnished with the drawings of the Pallas, in order that a design might be prepared for a turret-ship of the same class. After some hesitation this request was granted, and in April last year drawings were sent in for a ship with one turret to carry two 600-pounders. That design was referred to the Committee presided over by Lord Lauderdale, and the Report, although it did not recommend it for adoption, bore strong testimony to the distinctive advantages of the turret system of armament. The design was rejected chiefly on the ground that it provided for one turret only.
LORD CLARENCE PAGET: There are other reasons for the rejection of the design.
MR. CORRY: On former occasions Captain Coles had proposed two turrets, but being limited to the size of the Pallas, he found it would be impossible to provide for them in this design.
LORD CLARENCE PAGET: Captain Coles has not been restricted to a certain tonnage.
MR. CORRYwas merely giving the reason assigned by Captain Coles for not having proposed two turrets in the design of 1865. At length they had been told that a sea-going turret-ship was to be built—the Monarch— of 5,100 tons. But by whom was she to be built? Why, by Mr. Reed, the avowed enemy of the turret system.
LORD CLARENCE PAGET: Mr. Reed is not an enemy of the turret system.
MR. CORRYdid not mean to use the
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word in an offensive sense, but, at all events, Mr. Reed was the advocate of a totally opposite system of his own. That was very much like requiring an allopathic doctor to treat a patient upon homoeopathic principles, an experiment which would not be likely to produce a very satisfactory result. With respect to the ships which had recently been built, he (Mr. Corry) thought it was much to be deplored that the Admiralty had not treated Mr. Reed with something like the same degree of caution and reserve that they had used towards Captain Coles. Doubtless, Mr. Reed was a gentleman of great ability and of high education; but, unfortunately, when appointed to his present office by the Admiralty he had had no practical experience in shipbuilding, and he was afraid he was now acquiring it in a manner somewhat costly to the nation. Some years since the noble Lord told them that Mr. Reed came to the office and said, "You are building ships of an enormous tonnage and at an enormous cost. I am sure I can build a vessel very much smaller, very much handier, and very much cheaper." Mr. Reed appeared to have said nothing about speed, but the noble Lord supplied the omission, for he went on to say, "the Pallas will have great speed. We believe, indeed, she will be the fastest ship in the navy. She will be supplied with a limited armament." Speed, in short, was the great object, and, to this, power of fighting was to be subordinated. But the result was that the Pallas attained a speed of only about 12½ knots an hour.
LORD CLARENCE PAGET: The trials of the ship were not concluded.
MR. CORRYinquired why those trials had not been concluded? Because, forsooth, she was being continually altered in the hope of getting a little more speed out of her. The same promise had been held out in the case of the Bellerophon with nearly a similar result. The fact was that many of the old wooden ships which had been converted into armour ships were faster than the new vessels built expressly for speed. Of the earlier ships the Warrior was more than a knot and a half an hour faster than the Pallas, and the Agincourt had reached a speed of nearly 15½ knots an hour.
LORD CLARENCE PAGET: The Agincourt was loaded when she took her trial.
MR. CORRYsaid, a man need not be a conjuror to turn out a short ship and a

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cheap ship if she was also a slow ship, and the late excellent and experienced chief constructor, Mr. Watts, would have had no difficulty in making the Warrior and the Agincourt shorter and cheaper ships if those objects had been sought at the sacrifice of speed. It must also be remembered that Mr. Reed had had the advantage of having in his ships engines worked with superheated steam, which had not been introduced into the service at the time when the engines for the Warrior and Agincourt and the other older armour-clad ships were ordered. Before the introduction of superheated steam it was thought a good performance if engines worked up to 4½ times their nominal power, whereas they now work up to six times their nominal power, and this advantage ought to give an additional speed of one knot in the case of such vessels as he was speaking of. In other words the speed of the Pallas, with engines on the same principle as those of the Warrior, would be one knot less than it is, and the speed of the Warrior, with engines on the same principle as those of the Pallas, would be one knot more than it is. There was hardly a ship designed during the last three years which had not undergone extensive alteration. He had by him a list which he believed to be correct; but before referring to it, he would quote a passage from a speech made by the noble Lord the Secretary to the Admiralty in 1859. The noble Lord said on that occasion—
"He wished to speak of the reckless alterations of new ships; almost every ship was altered; there was scarcely one that had not undergone some frightful operation some time or other. Take the case of a three-decker, the Howe, 121 guns. She was laid down only last year or the winter before, but the dockyard people were now pulling her down to put a new bow upon her….Another case was that of the Immortalité, a 51-gun frigate, now being built at Pembroke. That unfortunate ship had gone through a great deal of trouble. She was first of all lengthened amidships. Last year, orders went down from the Admiralty to lengthen her five feet by the bow….The result was, as might naturally be supposed, that either the First Lord himself, with his fine nautical eye, or some other member of the Admiralty Board, saw upon visiting her that she was not fit to go to sea, and ordered her to be pulled down again, and lengthened fifteen feet. Such instances of official blundering would be amusing if they were not so costly."—[3 Hansard, cliii. 46.]
Now, referring to the list to which he had alluded, he found that the Pallas had had her bow altered once, and he believed twice. The noble Lord informed the House two years ago that great things were to be expected from "a remarkable peculiarity"
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in her bow, but it was found to throw up such a sea as to flood the deck through the hawse-holes, and it was absolutely necessary to alter its form. Masses of solid timber had been bolted on outside the armour-plating at the water-line, but he was informed that the wave was nearly as bad as before, when it was so terrific as to excite upon one occasion the fears of a pilot to such an extent as to cause him instinctively to exclaim "Breakers ahead!" An upper deck had also been put on the Pallas forward and aft, connecting the square box with the stem and the stern, and she was now in dock having a Griffiths' two-bladed screw substituted, in the hope of coaxing a little more speed out of her, for the original four-bladed screw with which she had been fitted. The Bellerophon's bow had been altered upon the same principle, and an additional deck had also been put on, not only for the safety of the ship, but also for the accommodation of the crew, a small point which appeared in the first instance to have been overlooked. The screw of this vessel had also been changed. The Lord Warden was at the present time in dock undergoing alterations similar to those of the Pallas and the Bellerophon. The Research was either now in or going into dock at Sheerness, for the purpose of receiving a continuous upper deck like the Pallas. Her sides had also been altered, and fixed iron bulwarks, giving the appearance of the sponsors of a paddle-wheel steamer, had been substituted for the swing gates with which she was originally fitted, for the purpose of enabling the guns in the square box to be trained forward and aft. The Danae, a sister ship to the Amazon, and still on the stocks at Portsmouth, was having her bow altered from that originally designed, in order to obviate the defects which were found to exist in the bow of the Amazon. In short, he believed there was not one of the ships commenced within the last two or three years which had not undergone extensive alterations, and he trusted that when his noble Friend the Secretary of the Admiralty again made a speech from the Opposition side of the House, similar to that which he made in 1859, he would bear in mind what a deal of trouble the Pallas and her consorts had gone through, and would show a little fellow-feeling for the failings and imperfection of naval constructors and Boards of Admiralty.
Before sitting down he desired to call the attention of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer to a point of

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great importance if only in a financial point of view. His noble Friend had stated that the Admiralty could not undertake to construct an armour-plated turret-ship for seagoing purposes of less than 5,100 tons, but his hon. Friend the Member for Tavistock (Mr. Samuda) had stated that he would undertake to build such a ship, with every accommodation, with a tonnage of only 3,500 tons.
ADMIRAL ERSKINE: At what speed?
MR. SAMUDA: The speed of our fastest frigates—fourteen or fifteen knots.
MR. CORRYsaid, that he held in his hand a letter from his hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Laird), who was unfortunately prevented from attending the House through indisposition, in which he also expressed the opinion that a seagoing turret-ship could be built of 3,500 tons, to carry four 600-pounders with great speed, and with ample accommodation for her crew; and his hon. Friend maintained, moreover, that a ship carrying such an armament would be more powerful than any vessel afloat. Mr. Oliver Lang, who had been referred to by the right hon. Baronet the Member for Droitwich as one of the most distinguished naval architects in Europe, and Mr. Watts, the late chief Constructor of the Navy, a gentleman of great experience and ability, both entertained the same opinion. [Lord CLARENCE PAGET: What thickness of armour?] The hon. Member for Tavistock had mentioned six inches. Moreover, Captain Coels objected to a ship of such large tonnage as 5,100, and maintained that such a vessel would not test his principle in the least degree, and that, if failure should ensue, he could not be held responsible for it. He would suggest to the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer to consider whether, having heard the opinion of all these eminent and experienced men, it would not be worth while, as a mere matter of finance and economy, to try the experiment of building the smaller vessel, and he believed the Budget would show an ample margin for the purpose. Let the Admiralty by all means build a ship of 5,100 tons at the same time if they pleased, but it would tend to a great saving of future expenditure if it could be shown that efficient sea-going turret-ships could be constructed on a much smaller scale than was contemplated by the Admiralty. If the Government did not consent to the trial of the experiment, he should certainly, if his hon. Friend the Member for Tavistock
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brought such a Motion forward, vote for referring the whole subject to a Select Committee.
MR. SAMUDAsaid, he had listened attentively to the criticisms which the noble Lord the Secretary of the Admiralty had bestowed upon the observations made by him upon a previous occasion; but before he replied to them he would say a few words upon the remarks, more personal in their nature, which had fallen from the noble Lord with respect to some contracts in which he had been engaged. It would be in the remembrance of the House that with reference to the Prince Albert he (Mr. Samuda) had expressed his deep regret that though the vessel had been out of the hands of the contractors for twelve months the Government had not during that period given her a trial—or if they had given her a trial they had done so only while the Navy Estimates had been before the House. Although he had listened very attentively to the remarks of the noble Lord, he had heard no answer to that charge. A counter-charge, indeed, appeared to be made, and it assumed this form: "If the Admiralty have done wrong, you have done wrong also." He could not, however, regard that as a sufficient answer. The noble Lord said that the ship was contracted for by Messrs. Samuda, Brothers, the firm of which he was a member, in 1861. He felt quite sure that the noble Lord meant in 1862, and that the noble Lord would be willing to correct the error. The noble Lord said that the completion of the vessel was delayed, because Samuda, Brothers, deceived the Admiralty in carrying out the contract. These were hard words; but what were the facts? When the order was given to his firm to build the vessel in April, 1862, it was intended that the vessel should be constructed with 5½-inch armour-plates and with 10-inch teak backing,; but, more than three months afterwards, a fresh order was given that the ship should be built with 4½-inch armour-plates and 18-inch backing. As this involved the undoing of all that had been done, was it fair that it should have been kept from the House when the firm was charged with having deceived the Admiralty? Further, during the process of construction the Admiralty required a great number of alterations and additions, each of which was described in writing, the statement being accompanied by a note asking for an estimate before the alteration was made. Therefore, that which was finally delivered to the Admiralty was a very different thing from that which the firm originally

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contracted to supply; and for these alterations the Admiralty had paid no less than between £8,000 and £10,000. The construction of the vessels prolonged by these alterations, was completed towards the end of 1864. Notice of the fact was given to the Admiralty, who, after the usual delay for surveys, at the end of January or early in February, accepted the vessel as satisfactory in every respect, and paid the balance of the contract. From that day to within a fortnight of the present time, that vessel had not been tried. He hoped the Committee would think this explanation sufficient to vindicate him and his firm from the charge of having caused delay by deception. He had shown that including the three or four months lost at the beginning, and the delay caused by doing the work almost over again, the vessel was completed in two years and eight months. But compare that with the case of the Bellerophon, the plans of which, according to a speech of the noble Lord, were approved by the Admiralty on the 23rd of July, 1863, and which Was not ready yet, and might not be before July of the present year. Already, therefore, the Bellerophon had been longer on hand than the Prince Albert, notwithstanding that the builders of the former vessel had all the resources of a Government yard at command, and notwithstanding the greatest possible exertion and the prosecution of the construction night and day. He had been appealed to by the hon. Member for Bristol (Sir Morton Peto) as to the course followed by the Admiralty towards a private builder to whom they had given an order. There was so much inspection and direction, and so many substitutions, with drawings for the smallest matters, that it would be no disparagement to a private firm to be five years instead of two in the execution of a contract, because the work could advance only at such a speed as the Admiralty would permit. Under such circumstances, the statement which had been made was unjust, and if the word were Parliamentary, he might designate it as garbled. With reference to the vessel he had suggested to the Admiralty, the first complaint made by the noble Lord was that there was great deficiency in the displacement. What he (Mr. Samuda) gave would be allowable, because he introduced steel instead of iron. But the noble Lord objected that steel was bad at the connection of the plates, and that the Admiralty dare not try it. Was the noble Lord aware that steel had been very largely wed in the sides
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of the Bellerophon, the last iron vessel built in the Government Dockyard? How was this, if steel could not be used in a cupola ship? The noble Lord said they (Messrs. Samuda) did not know what equipment was required by the Admiralty, and that the equipment allowed for, in stores, provision, shot, shell, &c, was less than that required by 140 tons; but the allowance was based upon a detailed statement furnished by the Admiralty some years ago, when several private builders were applied to to design the first iron-clad vessel. He understood, however, that the suggestion of insufficient equipment was to be accounted for by the fact that the Government proposed to double the usual requirements of ammunition on the ground that while in port-hole ships the calculation was based on the fact that the guns could be fired on one side only, in the turret-ship the gun revolved and could be fired from both aides; the weight of the equipment in the former, therefore, was double that in the latter. If the weight could be carried, he had no objection to allow for it; but was it fair, under these circumstances, to criticize as deficient the equipment of the ship he had suggested? Then as to strength, which the noble Lord would have the Committee believe was quite insufficient, the thickness of armour in the suggested vessel of 3,500 tons was generally six inches, the same as in the Bellerophon, whose backing, however, was considerably less than that suggested. The weight of the armour was 440 lb. per square foot in one case, and 453 lb. in the other, the slight difference being caused by his using steel behind the armour, while iron was used in the Bellerophon. The armour, therefore, was the same, with this important difference however, that the vessel he suggested was to be covered from end to end, and the Bellerophon was not: something like a little more than one-third of her entire length was covered—about 128 feet out of 300 feet. [Lord CLARENCE PAGET was understood to say that there were two shields—one at each end, and that one-third of the hall was armour-plated.] He (Mr. Samuda) had been told that there was no protection at her stern. At any rate, whether she had one-third or one-half of her entire length plated, she had a portion totally unarmed, and, as he had before observed, liable to destruction from artillery of any sort The noble Lord had said that vessels of the cupola class required to be 14 feet oat of water; but he (Mr. Samuda) denied that they did require that height. All that was ne-

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cessary was to give the ship a sufficient amount of height from the water to make her a really good sea-going ship, and at the same time to give her a sufficient amount of accommodation inside for the officers and crew who had to sail in her. Now, with regard to the amount of accommodation for officers and crew, he could inform the Committee—having gone with great care into that as into the whole matter—that the amount of superficial measurement allowed in the 3,500 tons turret-ship was greater by nearly 20 per cent for each officer and man on board than that which was given by the Admiralty in their own seagoing ships. If he took the cabin accommodation given in the Belvidera, which was one of the 50-gun sea-going frigates, there was 16 feet per man allowed. In the cupola-ship there was 19½ feet. If he took the cabin accommodation in the iron-plated frigates Defence and the Resistance, there was 18 feet per man, against 19½ in the cupola ship. He felt it was scarcely fair to the Committee or to himself to enter into details so as to follow, to the extent that was almost necessary, many of the allegations which had been made by the noble Lord; but they implied, if correct, such an amount of ignorance on his part that he would consider himself perfectly incapable of making any suggestion at all if he had fallen into such grievous errors as the noble Lord had attributed to him. Again, the noble Lord referred to the weight of the cupolas, and said, "You have only given her 250 tons; whereas clearly 500 are required." But would the noble Lord inform the Committee of the weight of the cupolas which were put into the Prince Albert? They were plated with a much smaller proportion of iron than he (Mr. Samuda) proposed. But the difference was easily described. The weight of the cupolas was 90 to 100 tons, and they were plated with 4½-inch plates. Did the Committee see anything extraordinary in suggesting 150 tons for those cupolas which were to be plated with 6-inch iron generally with an additional 5-inch plate only in the vicinity of the guns? If ever there was a case made out for investigation it appeared to him that this was one. When they found such men as the hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Laird), and, as the hon. Member for Tyrone (Mr. Corry) had stated, that Mr. Laing and Mr. Watts agreed as to the possibility and probability of producing such a result as he had indicated, it would be a perfect waste of public money to press forward this large
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class of ships, which would have the effect of leaving the cupola system improperly developed for a number of years. The whole advantage of the cupola system was entirely thrown overboard if the principle laid down by the Admiralty was admitted. The idea of a cupola ship was this—to be able to put in a small hull very powerful and heavy artillery. The Committee would recollect that the country had been instructed for the last three years by the Admiralty that in the Warrior and vessels of her type they had made a great mistake, and the proposal of the present Constructor of the Navy was to do with 4,000 tons instead of 6,000 like his predecessors. But now it was proposed in designing a cupola ship to go beyond 4,000 tons, and to lay down a vessel of 5,000 tons, in which case, as he had said, the cupola system would be made to bear all the disadvantages of size that were indispensable to the port-hole system—and one of its advantages would be entirely ignored.
MR. LIDDELLsaid, he wished to address one or two remarks to the Committee, before the discussion closed, on a totally different subject, which he would be precluded from referring to upon any specific Vote. His noble Friend told them in his opening speech that they would be surprised if they knew the continually increasing demand upon the Admiralty for greater assistance made by various officers in different parts of the world, and he referred especially to China and Japan. He (Mr. Liddell) heard that statement with great apprehension, and took this opportunity of expressing an earnest hope that those calls for assistance would not be attended to. He had referred to the last published shipping lists from those parts of the world, and the Committee would perhaps be startled when he told them that our fleet on those coasts on the 15th of January, numbered forty-six vessels of war. The Committee would see that this was a question that they really had now under consideration—the question of the national expenditure—and the simple point he wished to put to the Government was—Was that gigantic fleet necessary in those seas? We had treaties of peace and of commerce with the countries on whose shores the fleet was stationed. A considerable lapse of years had taken place since those treaties were signed, and he presumed the treaties included the usual stipulation that security would be afforded to the subjects of nations trading with those countries under those treaties—security to life and to property.

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It was a natural question, therefore, to ask whether a fleet of forty-six armed vessels was necessary to give security to life and property in countries with which we had peaceful relations. He supposed he should be told that this fleet was necessary to put down piracy, which was very rife in those seas; but in maintaining that extravagantly large fleet—and he used the word "extravagantly" in a double sense—were we not encouraging those countries to fail in that which they were bound to do—namely, to maintain the police of their own coasts? It was a question of policy whether this country ought to go on expending such a large amount of the taxation of this country in doing that for Japan and China which they ought to do for themselves, or at least in great part, and which they were bound by treaty to do. While he complained of the extravagance which kept such a large fleet in these seas, he must draw attention to two remarkable instances in which the lives and property of British subjects had been imperilled by the total absence of any ships of war. He alluded to Jamaica and Chili. When the Chilian blockade was declared on the 29th of September, our only war vessels in those seas were at Vancouver's Island and Callao, far away from any of the Chilian ports. The Spanish fleet left Callao on the 17th September, with the avowed purpose of blockading Valparaiso and other ports; but Commodore Harvey with the Leander remained at anchor at that place, leaving British interests wholly unprotected, while the Admiral of the station was absent at Vancouver's Island. Again, in Jamaica, Governor Eyre stated that in October there was not, unfortunately, any British ship of war at hand, and he had to charter a French vessel to convey troops to Morant Bay, where they arrived just in time to save the settlement; and at Port Antonio the principal inhabitants, to preserve themselves, had taken refuge, not on board an English man-of-war, but on board an American ship. If these were isolated stations, far removed from English communication, he might have said less on the subject; but Valparaiso and Jamaica were each what might be called centres of stations, and he thought that some of the vessels now employed in guarding Japanese and Chinese commerce would have been more advantageously occupied in protecting British lives and property at these two places.
MR. SEELYsaid, he rose to repeat his former complaints of the manner in which the Admiralty accounts were presented to
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Parliament. He believed it was quite possible to produce an account by which any Member might ascertain almost at a glance what each dockyard cost, and the amount of work produced for the money. The accounts of the various dockyards were, it was true, contained in the Estimates, but there was no one account by perusing which Members could understand what proportion the expense of building a ship at one dockyard bore to the expense of building one at another. There should be such an account by which the difference of expense between building ships at public and private dockyards could also be shown. There was another question on which he wished to offer a few remarks. Certain statements with reference to the Admiralty accounts which he had made during last year had been contradicted in a pamphlet drawn up by the Accountant General, and issued in last June by the authority of the Lords of the Admiralty. It would occupy the House too long if he entered into any statement on the subject; but he asked the noble Lord (Lord Clarence Paget) to allow the persons who drew up the Admiralty report to confer with his (Mr. Seely's) secretary, who had drawn up the statement which he had made. If they could not come to an agreement on the points in dispute, the question could then be referred to a professional accountant named by any Gentleman on the Treasury Bench. He also asked the noble Lord if the Admiralty continued to pay to Messrs. Brown, Lennox, &c Co. for anchors the same rate that they paid last year?
COLONEL SYKESsaid, he fully agreed with the hon. Member for Northumberland (Mr. Liddell) in the remarks which he had made with reference to the large squadron maintained on the coasts of China and Japan. He found from a list which he held in his hand that the fleet on the Chinese and Japanese coasts consisted of forty-seven vessels, forty-four of which were armed steamers. He believed that no hon. Gentleman present understood what the meaning was of keeping up such an immense and costly naval establishment in that part of the world. The Chinese Government was not hostile—at least not openly hostile—to England; moreover, it had not any fleet for hostile demonstrations; and as to Japan, on a recent occasion three English ships of war, assisted by two or three foreign vessels, succeeded in enforcing the execution of a treaty signed by the Emperor of that country, the discovery having at last been

1363
made that the Emperor of Japan combined in his person the offices of spiritual and secular Emperor. The coast of China was about 2,000 miles in extent, and was throughout its whole extent infested by pirates, and if there was any justification at all for keeping forty-seven vessels of war in China it was to put down piracy; but the English ships of war could not pursue the pirates' junks into the shallow creeks, and they were therefore almost entirely useless in checking piracy, and some thirty of these vessels might quite as well be elsewhere. Besides, it should be remembered that these pirates principally confined themselves to attacking vessels belonging to their own countrymen, and rarely molested an English ship. Some time since an English man-of-war did succeed in capturing a pirate vessel and brought the crew into Amoy, and the captain delivered them over to the Chinese mandarins. Some of the crew managed to obtain money to bribe the authorities, and the result was that the men who had bribed the mandarins escaped all punishment, and the mandarins put to death all who were penniless. It would appear from this that the effect of keeping up an English fleet on the Chinese coast was only to put money into the pockets of the mandarins. The House had now been for two nights engaged in discussing, not the Estimates themselves, but matters which were not in the Estimates at all. They had discussed the rival merits of Captain Coles and Mr. Reed, of turret and broadside ships, but they bad not yet touched on the matters really contained in the Estimates; and now, when they were about to consider the Estimates themselves, the hon. Member for Tavistock (Mr. Samuda) told them that the figures were unintelligible and only calculated to confuse and embarrass the Committee. No doubt a good deal remained to be done; but in justice to the noble Lord (Lord Clarence Paget) he must admit that his Lordship had shown the greatest anxiety to afford the House for the last three Sessions increasing information annually. In 1859–60 the Naval Estimates comprised 104 pages, with two Appendices. In 1865–6, 131 pages, with 13 appendices, and the present Estimates had 201 pages and 22 appendices. Some of the pages might be omitted, but in the appendices for the first time, there was a Return of the number of ships of war we had afloat; and there was also a table which, however, had been previously given, of the number
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of ships in commission. But there was not any information as to the number of officers and crew, or the cost of each vessel. He held in his hand a tiny octavo paper, in which all that information was given in respect to the French navy, so that every Frenchman who could read and write was in a position to ascertain the number of ships afloat, how they were manned, and how much each ship cost annually. The adoption of the French condensed tabular information would render the English Estimates less bulky. To return to the present Estimates. Vote 2 related to victuals and clothing. Now, ought not the two items to be separated, and a Return made of the number of persons for whom victuals were required, for what number of days, and the cost of each ration? A similar remark might be made with regard to the clothing, for at present it was impossible to ascertain what was the cost of each suit. Now, all these particulars were most clearly and distinctly given in the French Budget. From the want of a general abstract of the number of persons, military and civil, to be paid for from the Estimates, the House is in ignorance of the total number employed, and even in each Vote the number could not be read off at a glance; for instance, it would puzzle his noble Friend to state what number of persons were included in the Vote headed "Admiralty." He could tell his noble Friend, because he had taken the trouble to add up the various figures and denominations, but a clerk at the Admiralty might just as well save a Member of that House the trouble. It was just the same with regard to every other department of the navy. The number of persons were not procurable, though he admitted that a great improvement had taken place in reference to the way in which the amounts to be voted for the different departments was shown. The adoption of the French system of tabulating and classifying would save hon. Gentlemen a great deal of labour, and his noble Friend considerable trouble and vexation. His noble Friend had said that there was no prospect of a diminution of the Navy Estimates. That was unhappily true. It was made to appear that this year there would be a saving of £4,071; but this was not the fact, for it happened that in the net accounts the extra receipts, which were £157,591 last year, had this year gone down to £149,163, so that, in reality, the present Estimates were £4,357 more than they had been last year, and why was

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there no prospect of the Estimates being reduced? The House had sanctioned the building of leviathan ships of war, which cost half a million each, and before the Government and the Admiralty were satisfied that such vessels were the best kind of ships to be had, the House was induced to grant sums of money for constructing docks to put them in. Exclusive of the money that would be granted this year for these extensions, £2,710,150 would be required to complete the works. Under these circumstances, therefore, the Estimates, instead of decreasing, must necessarily increase every year, and he did not see how the Chancellor of the Exchequer could reduce taxation with such a drawback upon his means.
LORD ELCHOsaid, he wished to put a Question of which he had given his noble Friend private notice. It referred to a matter affecting the character and discipline of the navy, or at least of the crew of one of Her Majesty's Ships. In The Morning Star newspaper of the 15th of February last, under the head of "More Facts from Jamaica," there had appeared in large type a letter occupying two columns and a half, signed by a gentleman whose name he was unable to pronounce, but who, he believed, was the paid secretary of the Anti-Slavery Society. The concluding paragraph of that gentleman's letter was as follows:—
"It is greatly to be apprehended, Sir,"(the letter was addressed to the Editor of The Star) "that with every succeeding mail we shall receive evidence of atrocities committed that will make the stoutest heart sick. Twelve of the crew of the Wolverine are accused by an eye-witness of having perpetrated, during two days, upon the person of a Mrs. Henderson, a Methodist class-leader, a series of the foulest outrages; but the witness's tongue was sealed."
Now, he ventured to think that this accusation against twelve of the crew of Her Majesty's ship Wolverine seriously affected the character and discipline of the crew, and he would, therefore, ask his noble Friend, If any knowledge of the so-called fact from Jamaica, as related in The Star, had come to the Admiralty; and whether it was not the opinion of his noble Friend that it was desirable, for the sake of the navy, and for the sake of the character of the crew of the Wolverine, that this letter should be sent to Jamaica to be inquired into by the Commission there sitting? His own feeling was that this was a matter which should be inquired into with a view that, if true, due and proper
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punishment should be awarded to these men: if untrue, that those who wrote and those who published stories such as this—affecting the character and discipline of sailors of Her Majesty's fleet—should be held up to well-merited and just reprobation.
LORD CLARENCE PAGETsaid, he wished to correct a statement which he had made, and which perhaps might be misunderstood, as to the position of the Masters. He had stated that Masters could not rank with lieutenants, with regard to the date of seniority. That statement, however, had reference to military rank. A lieutenant, therefore, was not allowed to be put under a Master on the quarter-deck, even though the Master should be of a higher seniority than the lieutenant. The Masters ranked according to the seniority of their commission, but they held no military rank on deck. The hon. Member for Lincoln (Mr. Seely) had asked whether his secretary could be permitted to go to the Admiralty in order to correct certain misapprehensions respecting the accounts of the Accountant General of the Navy. The hon. Gentleman had been of great service to the Admiralty, and he should be extremely glad to go into the matter with him. His hon. Friend the Member for Northumberland (Mr. Liddell) seemed to be of opinion that the increased forces at distant stations were not available when they were wanted, and had asked how it was that when the Spanish squadron went from Callao to blockade Valparaiso our ships were not there. Now, the fact was that that was no longer our head-quarters, and undoubtedly we had not ships always at that spot; but that circumstance was only an illustration of what he had mentioned the other evening—namely, that we were constantly pressed for additional ships. With regard to China, the hon. Gentleman seemed to think that we ought not to keep so large a force on that coast, but that the Chinese themselves ought to put down the pirates. Now, unless his memory failed him, he remembered having heard the hon. Gentleman loudly exclaim against the Government for assisting the Chinese in establishing a navy for themselves. [Mr. LIDDELL: An English navy.] One of the great arguments had been that if they had no efficient navy, we should be obliged to keep these large forces on the Chinese coast. With regard to the continued employment of Brown, Lennox, and Co. by the Admiralty—[Mr. SEELY: On

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the same terms?]—he would give his hon. Friend more information at another time. He had now only to answer the question just put by his noble Friend (Lord Elcho). He had read with indignation the imputations to which his noble Friend had referred upon the sailors who had been employed on the coast of Jamaica. They were charged with conduct unworthy of any seamen in Her Majesty's fleet, and he could not but think that the story was a base falsehood. The Admiralty had received no information of the kind, but he would take care that full inquiry was made into the facts. If it should appear that such a thing had occurred, the perpetrators should be brought to condign punishment, but if this should turn out to be a false and wicked accusation, then he trusted that the authors of it would meet with public reprobation.
Vote agreed to.
(2.) £2,862,704, Wages.
(3.) £1,235,188, Victuals and Clothing.
(4.) £274,119, Salaries and Expenses, Coast Guard Service, &c.
MAJOR WALKERwished to say a few words on one item of this Vote—the sum of £29,575 for the Royal Naval Coast Volunteers. When this force was first established it was intended to fill up a gap in the naval service, which was then at a low ebb. It was intended for the twofold purpose of providing sea-going ships for the protection of the coast, and for manning the sea-coast defences. Both these objects were now better met—the first by the Royal Naval Reserve, and the next by the Militia and Volunteer artillery.
LORD CLARENCE PAGETsaid, that the force of the Royal Naval Coast Volunteers was diminishing of itself without the interference of the Admiralty. They were men engaged in the coasting trade and boating, and their wires did not like the recent extensions of the area over which they might be called upon to serve. They were many of them fine men, and he, for one, remarked the diminution in their number with regret.
MR. CORRYasked why the Admiralty had reduced the number of Marines on shore by 600 men?
LORD CLARENCE PAGETsaid, that the number of Marines was the same as last year, but the proportion of Marines at sea to those on shore was a matter of a somewhat technical nature, affecting the
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Marines as a sea-going corps. If they were kept too long on shore they lost their sea-legs.
MR. CORRYwished to know the result of reducing the standard of height.
LORD CLARENCE PAGETsaid, he had not heard of any difficulty of getting Marines since the standard had been reduced. Some of the recruits had been three or four years without going to sea, and the alteration of the number of men on the reserve would give these young men an opportunity of seeing service.
Vote agreed to.
(5.) £63,958, Salaries, Scientific Departments.
(6.) £85,624, Victualling Yards and Transport Establishments.
(7.) £57,368, Medical Establishments.
(8.) £15,550, Marine Divisions.
MR. HANBURY TRACYwished for some information regarding the Marine barracks at Deal.
LORD CLARENCE PAGETsaid, it was a recruiting barrack for the Marines. They were first taken down to that healthy place, and then they went to the Chatham division. Deal was, in fact, the nursery of recruits for the Chatham division, and the authorities were anxious to have a similar recruiting place in the West of England for the Portsmouth and Plymouth divisions.
Vote agreed to.
(9.) £75,664, Medicines, Medical Stores, &c.
(10.) £20,605, Martial Law and Law Charges.
(11.) £105,800, Divers Miscellaneous Services.
(12.) £528,904, Military Pensions and Allowances.
(13.) £213,837, Civil Pensions and Allowances.
(14.) £402,788, Freight of Ships.
House resumed.
Resolutions to be reported To-morrow;
Committee to sit again To-morrow.

EXCHEQUER AND AUDIT DEPARTMENTS BILL— [Bill, 3.]
(The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Childers.)
EXCHEQUER AND AUDIT DEPARTMENTS BILL— [Bill, 3.]

  SECOND READING.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
  MR. THOMSON HANKEYsaid, that though this Bill was one of great importance no explanation had been given at its introduction; and though he understood the Bill was to be referred to the Committee which had been appointed respecting the Public Accounts, he thought its principle ought to be known to the House before it went into Committee. The Bill was practically an abolition of all control of that House over the issues by Votes of Supply. He was not going to object to its principle, but it was a very important one. The Committee on Public Money which sat several years ago discussed very fully the nature of the control exercised by the Comptroller of the Exchequer over the public issues of all money from the Exchequer. After a Vote by Parliament an application was necessary to be made to the Comptroller of the Exchequer, and his sanction was given if he ascertained that the Vote was in accordance with the Act of Parliament. This was the check which the present Bill would abolish. He perceived that the Chancellor of the Exchequer dissented from this statement. He admitted that the opinion of the Committee on Public Money appeared to have been that the check was of no very practical importance. Still it had had the sanction of Parliament from time to time, and the Comptroller of the Exchequer had been supposed to hold an office of great importance. This Bill was to unite the office of Comptroller with that of Auditor. Now, the duties of the Comptroller and those of the Auditor were two sorts of duties which had always appeared to him, and had, he thought, appeared to the Committee, to be very different the one from the other. The Chancellor of the Exchequer dissented from his statement that such was the opinion of the Committee; but the Committee never had recommended that they should be united and discharged by one officer. It might be wise to abolish the office of Comptroller and make the real check that of the Auditor. It was true that while there had been a control over the issues there had been none over the expenditure. No issue could be obtained without Parliamentary authority; but the moment the issue took place Parliamentary control ceased. The recommendation of the Committee was that the Audit Office should be made a more important one, and that it should be made so efficient that, early in the following year after the various Votes of Supply were passed, every Mem-
  1370
  ber of Parliament might have a document before him signed by the Auditor—the Auditor being appointed by the Crown—which would contain a complete account of the expenditure. The Committee attached less importance to the control of the issues which was exercised by the Comptroller. The control of the Comptroller of the Exchequer was to be exercised before the money was issued, and the object of the Audit was to see whether the money, after being issued, had been properly spent. It was not a very intelligible principle to vest these two functions in the same person. It would be better ostensibly to abolish the office of Comptroller of the Exchequer altogether. A Bill of that importance ought not to pass a second reading merely pro formâ, without discussion.
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTEsaid, he quite agreed with the hon. Member that it would be wrong and even indecent to read a Bill of such cardinal importance a second time without some discussion. It related to a matter which really lay at the root of the functions of the House of Commons—namely, the granting of money; and it appeared materially to alter the principles on which Parliament had proceeded. They were not, however, in a satisfactory position then to discuss the subject. The question was one with which comparatively few Members of the House were acquainted, and even those few could not speak authoritatively on the merits of the measure till they had had an opportunity of looking more closely at its clauses, and examining officers outside of the House as to the operation it might be expected to have. They might talk very easily as to the matter of principle, and say it was a question whether they would have two checks or one—whether they would have the principle of control, and the principle of audit, or whether they would trust mainly to the latter. But if they were to substitute the principle of audit for the principle of control, they must show that by their regulations they made the principle of audit thoroughly effective; and for that purpose it would be necessary to examine those Gentlemen who were practically concerned, as representing the Audit Office and other Departments of the State, as to the exact effect of some of these clauses. That was just one of those questions upon which they were bound in duty not to trust the Government, but rather, if he might say so, to distrust it. He did not intend to speak disrespectfully of Government, for he thought it was a very

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  good and safe rule to trust Government on most questions on which the Government were probably well informed, and the House imperfectly informed; but when they were granting the public money they were bound to require, and to insist on, and to see that they got a security that the money granted by the House for the public service should be spent in the manner which the House intended it should be. As to the control of the Comptroller of the Exchequer, whatever it might have been formerly, it had of late been merely a nominal control; because, although it was necessary that the Treasury or other Departments which applied for the issue of money should apply for it in such form and for such purpose as the House had voted it, and the Comptroller would not otherwise allow it to go out of the Exchequer, he afterwards entirely lost sight of it, and: it was in the power of the Treasury, for anything he could do to prevent it, to spend the money on any other service. Then the Comptroller became useless, and even mischievous, because he caused Parliament and the country to shut their eyes to a danger that was real, and prevented their turning their attention to what was a real security—namely, an efficient system of audit. True, they might have made the power of the Comptroller a real living power, capable of preventing the expenditure of any money except in the way directed by Parliament; but then they must have much hampered the action of the Executive, and kept up a number of separate balances in the hands of separate paymasters; which would have been the reverse of an economical proceeding. Most people would agree that it was desirable to keep the balance as low as possible, and to have one balance instead of a large number. Undoubtedly, the system of audit had not been as thoroughly elaborated as it might and ought to have been, and the great merit of the present measure was that it did at least attempt to make that system fully efficient. The proposal to send the Bill to a Select Committee was a very wise and proper one, because the Committee would be able to satisfy itself by the evidence of the officers of the Audit and other Departments whether such proper provision had been made as to the mode of keeping accounts, the way in which the audit was to be conducted, and the thorough independence of the auditors, as would really accomplish the end in view. It ought to be clearly understood, when the Bill went be-
  1372
  fore the Committee, that the Committee were to be free, and the House free also, to adopt or reject it as they thought best, after the examination to which it would be subjected. The Bill was to be referred, he believed, to the Committee on Public Accounts; but the House ought to understand what were the functions of that Committee, and that it was not a Committee to which every question of finance was to be referred. The Committee of Public Accounts was appointed as the organ of the House for a very special and rather uninteresting purpose, and the House ought to take care not to withdraw the attention of its members from their special duty, that of revising the audit of public accounts. There were two kinds of audit. First the administrative audit, conducted by the officers of the Audit Board under the directions of the Treasury, in order to see whether the money had been expended in accordance with the directions of the Treasury. The auditors examined into and reported to the Treasury upon the expenditure of money, and the Treasury took note of any irregularity that might have occurred in regard to that expenditure. Next, there was the Appropriation Audit, which was performed, not for the Treasury, but for that House. It was with reference to the latter that the Committee of Public Accounts was appointed, and it was their function to examine every year the audited accounts of the previous year's expenditure. He had had the honour of sitting upon the Committee since its appointment and during the six years of its existence; and he confessed that the members of it found it more agreeable and interesting to devote their attention to questions of general principle than to the dry work of looking into the details of the accounts. He hoped the House would be cautious how it supplied them with matter more attractive than their proper business. He thought that they ought to thank the Government for having framed so efficient a Bill, which would, in his opinion, effect a great improvement in the mode of auditing the accounts, and would establish a simple and more effective system.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, he agreed with almost everything that had been stated by his hon. Friend opposite (Sir Stafford Northcote). The Bill, no doubt, was a very useful one, and it was incumbent on the House to see it thoroughly carried out. When the House voted money it parted with it for certain

  1373
  uses, and it then passed under the control of the financial department of the Treasury, and was distributed among various organs of the State all over the world. The accounts were then made out and sent permanently to the Board of Audit; but the last portion of the circle remained incomplete until the Committee of Public Accounts had done its duty. It was not till then that it could fairly be said that the office of the House, as the real authoritative steward of public monies, had been discharged. It was with no wish to press their opinion on the House that the Government had come to the conclusion that this Bill had better be referred to the Committee of Public Accounts; and if the House thought it ought to be referred to another Committee, the Government would gladly give way. His hon. Friend (Mr. Thomson Hankey) objected to the two offices of the previous control and the final audit being conferred on the same person. No doubt, the functions were perfectly distinct in themselves, but they did not occupy the full time of a public officer, and no advantage could be gained by separating them. It was impossible to make the previous control of the accounts absolutely efficient. If all the money were paid in London, it might be done; but the expenditure was distributed all over the world, and it was physically impossible to make the Exchequer control that which in theory it ought to be. He agreed with his hon. Friend that that which was intended for a good purpose would become a mischievous purpose if it went out to the world that the public had a security for the laying out of the money which really did not exist. The Government were not entirely spontaneous and independent agents in the introduction of this Bill; but the Bill was of great importance, because it embodied a final decision that the theory of the law was to be made to conform to the established and recognized practice, instead of the practice being made to conform to the theory. For a long series of years that the practice under the law had not been in conformity with the law was a matter of perfect notoriety. If the Members of the Committee to whom the Bill was referred should come to the conclusion that it was not well suited for its objects, they would properly decline to consider themselves bound by the step which it was now proposed to take.
  SIR GEORGE BOWYERsaid, he took great interest in the question, having
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  really been the originator of the Public Monies' Committee. Reference to the Parliamentary proceedings of the period when the matter was before discussed would show that high authorities, such as Lord Grenville, Lord Lyndhurst, and Lord Monteagle, attached great importance to the powers exercised by the Comptroller of the Exchequer over the issue of public monies. Recent proceedings in Prussia also showed the constitutional importance of control over the issue. As he understood the question which arose in Prussia, it was that their House of Commons refused to vote the supply for the army. The Crown, however, on the plea that it felt bound to provide for that branch of the Administration, expended the money. If a control over the issues had existed, that course would not have been pursued by the Crown. And the fact that the Comptroller had no power over the items after they had left him did not detract from the constitutional importance of the office as a control over the issue of public money. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer had said the Comptroller of the Exchequer had not enough to do, and that, therefore, as his time was not fully occupied, it was undesirable to keep up his office separately. He did not concur with that view of the matter. If a public officer's time were not fully occupied, that was no reason for jumbling his duties with those of some one else. They might as well have said if the Commander-in-Chief was not fully occupied, that he should also take office as Archbishop of Canterbury. He noticed that all through the Bill the functions of receipt and issue and the functions of the Audit were confounded together, when they were actually very different portions of the administration. In the whole system the great difficulty which had struck the Committee on Public Monies was this. There was a control over the issue, but when the money was issued there was no control at all; so that' between the issue and the audit the Treasury could do just as they please with the money. The control over the issue was a constitutional control; and the control by the Audit an administrative control. But the Audit Department was by no means effectual. The accounts of the Secretary of State were not audited by it. The Board of Audit was subject to the Treasury, whereas it should, in his opinion, be superior to it in the matter of account, just as the Chamber of Accounts in France was. The French Chamber of Accounts

  1375
  had jurisdiction over all accountants; it had power to summon them to account and to produce vouchers and papers, and to examine them on oath, and to hear and determine all questions of account and to enforce its orders by fine and imprisonment. It was the Supreme Court of accounts. The Board of Audit in this country should have similar powers. The French Chamber of Accounts was most perfect in its machinery; and he believed the Board of Audit would never work effectually until it was endowed with a constitution somewhat similar, and was possessed of the powers he had described. The Board of Audit ought not to be at the mercy of the different Departments, but to have the power of acting judicially, and making orders upon the accountants to appear for examination, and produce such vouchers as might be deemed necessary for the rendering of the accounts. Till that should be done the House would not have a complete audit.
  MR. CHILDERSsaid, he did not think the hon. and learned Member could have read the Bill, which provided that accountants should transmit their accounts, together with the authorities and vouchers relating thereto, to the office of the Commissioners, in such form, and for such periods, and under such regulations as the Commissioners might prescribe. The Bill would extend the audit to all branches of the public service, and effectually prevent the intentions of Parliament being contravened.
  Bill read a second time, and committed to the Committee of Public Accounts.

  PUBLIC OFFICES (SITE) BILL.
  Select Committee on Public Offices (Site) Bill nominated:—Mr. COWPER, Lord JOHN MANNERS, Mr. BAILLIE COCHRANE, Captain GROSVENOR, and three Members to be nominated by the Committee of Selection: Power to send for persons, papers, and records; Three to be the quorum.

  ENTAIL (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. HENRY BAILLIE, Bill to amend the Law of Entail in Scotland, ordered to be brought in by Mr. HENRI BAILLIE, Mr. EDWARD CRAUFURD, and Sir WILLIAM STIRLING-MAXWELL.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 45.1
  House adjourned at a quarter after One o'clock.

MINUTES.
Several Lords took the Oath.
SELECT COMMITTEES—On Standing Orders, The Earl of Belmore added in the room of the late Earl of Donoughmore; on Cattle Plague (27), The Marquess of Bath added.

THE CATTLE PLAGUE—SLAUGHTER OF CATTLE.

  PETITION. OBSERVATIONS.
  THE DUKE OF BUCCLEUCHsaid, he had to present a Petition signed by cattle salesmen of Edinburgh, and by several other persons interested in the importation of cattle, praying for the Amendment of the Cattle Plague Bill. The petitioners referring to the Cattle Diseases Act passed the other day, which stated that no animals imported by sea to any port of Great Britain should be removed from that place alive except -by sea, said that in a clause in the Bill now before their Lordships' House there was power reserved that animals imported into London, Leith, Bristol, and Liverpool might be removed to certain slaughterhouses under licence of the local

  1273
  authority. In reference to the port of Granton, however, there was no provision, and the petitioners prayed Granton, to which nearly all the trade of Edinburgh in foreign cattle came, might be included in that clause. He wished also to draw their Lordships' attention to the enormous loss which had been inflicted upon a number of persons in consequence of the operation of the Act which had been passed with such extraordinary haste—with almost as much haste as the Habeas Corpus Suspension Act. The result had been that in the northern part of the island the provisions of the Act were not known before it had come into operation. In consequence of this, numbers of animals which had been sent by sea and also by railway had been intercepted at different points of their journey. In one instance seventy animals were landed at Granton from Orkney, and uninfected districts; and yet they could not be taken to Edinburgh for slaughter, because, having come by sea, the railways were forbidden to carry them, and they could not be driven along the highway. Some of them were conveyed by steam tugs from Granton to Leith, whilst others remained at Granton unhoused, with the greatest difficulty to feed them and with no proper means of slaughter. Their Lordships would recollect that the mere slaughter of animals was not sufficient, because the carcasses must be dressed before they could be legally removed from the place of slaughter. He had received a letter complaining that thirteen loaded cattle trucks had also been stopped on the railway at Carstairs, a station which was in the middle of a moor, where there were no means either of housing or feeding the cattle. If the owners had received timely notice of what was about to be enacted, they might have sent the cattle away and so avoided the heavy loss to which they had been subjected, and no less than 5,000 cattle had been stopped at different places; and all this had happened in consequence of the want of proper notice of the Act coming into operation. The loss consequent upon this state of things was a heavy fine to impose upon the unfortunate owners of the cattle because of the excessive haste with which the measure had been forced through Parliament. In conclusion, he moved that the petition which he had presented should be referred to the Select Committee to which the Cattle Plague Bill had been referred.
  Motion agreed to.
  LORD BERNERSrose to call attention to a communication which he had received that afternoon on the subject of the cattle plague. The writer said he regretted to learn that cows were still imported into London from Holland and smuggled into sheds, and that in many instances they came either from infected districts or passed through infected provinces. He trusted that an immediate inquiry into the subject would be instituted. When it was taken into consideration that already no fewer than a million and a half of cattle had been sacrificed, every one must allow that the strictest measures ought to be taken in order to prevent animals from being brought into the country in the manner he had referred to.
  THE EARL OF LICHFIELDsaid, he understood that the Select Committee which had been appointed to consider the Cattle Plague Bill would meet to-morrow, and he therefore wished to know whether the Government intended to insert any provision in that Bill for the proper treatment of cattle conveyed by railroad and in steamboats. In the despatch of Her Majesty's Consul General at Odessa, dated the 8th of January, there was this passage—
  "It is to be observed that the disease rages more violently in the south of Russia than in the north; that it generally breaks out in autumn, and not during the great frosts. Therefore it seems clear that cold is not only far from being the first cause of it, but has not even any influence over it. It is well remembered that before the year 1816 (when free trade in corn began with England), and when Odessa exported much less grain to foreign countries than now, this disease was very rare, but it appeared always after every campaign in the wars with Turkey. Now, these wars occasioned a great deal of cartage for the commissariat of the army. The waggons used by the commissariat were drawn by bullocks, who were thus forced to make long journeys during the great heats of summer across arid steppes where no pasture or wholesome water could be found, the plague soon seized them, and they rotted and died in great numbers."
  Again, the Consul General observed—
  "This seems to be really the sole cause of this terrible disease, and the waggons returning to their several homes spread it throughout the country."
  The manner in which cattle were treated in steamboats and railway trucks was of itself sufficient to account for the outbreak of disease among the animals. Certainly, it must be well known that when those animals arrived at their destination they were in a conditon which rendered it impossible that they could resist any conta-

  1275
  gion or disease. He bad received from a gentleman a letter containing this statement—
  "A truck containing nine horses was forwarded from Manchester to Stoke yesterday, the horses intended for the knacker's yard at Hanley. On arriving at Stoke four of the animals were dead from suffocation, and the remainder in such a state that Mr. Campbell, the magistrate, ordered them to be killed on the spot. The trucks containing nine horses measured 12ft. 3in. by 9ft."
  Animals in the charge of dealers and others frequently had to travel very long distances in steamers and railway trucks; and he feared that in very many instances the poor beasts were without water or food during the entire journey. He hoped that in the Bill now before their Lordships' House the Government would insert a clause for the proper treatment of the animals on railways and on steamboats. The present system was disgraceful.
  EARL GRANVILLEhoped his noble Friend would excuse him, but as three or four Questions were now asked each evening without notice, it was time to revert to the regular practice of requiring a notice.
  THE EARL OF LICHFIELDobserved, that he had not concluded with a Question, but with a suggestion.
  LORD FEVERSHAMasked the President of the Council when it was likely the Select Committee on the Cattle Plague Bill would report, and when the third reading would be taken?
  EARL GRANVILLEsaid, that though the noble Lord had given him ample notice of his Question, he was quite unable to answer it.

RAILWAYS IN THE METROPOLIS.

  QUESTION.
  THE EARL OF CARNARVON: My Lords, I rise, in pursuance of notice, To inquire of Her Majesty's Government their intentions with regard to the various Bills affecting Railway Communication in the Metropolitan District now before Parliament. And I do so the more readily in consequence of an opinion intimated in another place a few nights ago, which opinion, I would hope, is not a fixed one on the part of the Government. The intimation to which I allude, my Lords, was to the effect that in respect of the Railway Bills for the metropolitan districts promoted in the present Session, there is no necessity for departing from the ordinary course of legislation. I hope that that conclusion is not final. It appears from
  1276
  the Report of the Board of Trade, which was laid on the table some days ago and circulated among your Lordships, that there are no less than thirty-six different Railway Bills affecting the metropolis at present before Parliament. I understand that these schemes involve capital to the amount of very nearly £20,000,000, and I find that these lines run in all directions and at various levels, some above ground, some under ground, some only partially covered, and some running on the level of the street. I may remind the House of the course adopted in 1863 with respect to this class of Bills. When an almost equally large number of railway schemes were launched, and a panic was created at the consequences which those schemes, if allowed to take their course, would involve, your Lordships will remember that a Committee was appointed to consider the whole question, and they agreed to various recommendations. The undoubted purport of these recommendations was to impress on Parliament the necessity of exercising the greatest care and discretion in dealing with railways in the metropolis—and above all, so to deal with them that there should be a uniformity in the system adopted. But, in order to make the matter more clear, the Committee made a special recommendation to the effect that all the Bills for railways in the metropolis before they went to the second reading should be subjected to a preliminary inquiry, and that after the second reading all such Bills having any connection with each other should be submitted to one and the same Committee. But in the following year, 1864, Parliament went beyond the recommendation of the Committee of 1863. A Joint Committee, consisting of five Members of this and five Members of the other House, were appointed, and they drew up a very valuable Report. They disallowed some Bills; they allowed others to follow the ordinary course of legislation; and as to the rest, they laid down certain principles which were not to be departed from, but which, I imagine, would be departed from if the present proposed Bills were allowed to pass as they now stand. I am very much surprised to see that a similar course has not been adopted in the present Session. But, on the contrary, the Board of Trade wind up a statement on the subject of the Metropolitan Bills by saying it is not necessary that the course taken last Session should be followed now,

  1277
  but those Bills may be dealt with in the usual manner. I confess, my Lords, I cannot see any reason for the conclusion at which the Board of Trade have arrived. It appears to me that, on their own showing, there is the most conclusive reason why Parliament should adopt a somewhat similar course to that taken last Session? If any noble Lord will look to the map attached to the Report of the Board, he will see coloured lines representing railways running here and there, and everywhere; different lines intercepting each other at all angles, and crossing each other at all points. I do not know whether those lines are properly marked; but assuming them to be so, one can see at a glance the necessity for great care in dealing with those schemes. The metropolitan schemes sanctioned by Parliament in 1864 included a mileage of forty-five miles, and involved a capital of £12,700,000. The metropolitan schemes now before Parliament, independent of those which have been abandoned, include a mileage of eighty-seven miles, and involve a Capital of £17,600,000 in round numbers. It would appear also, my Lords, that the powers claimed by the promoters of some of those Bills are of a very remarkable character—so remarkable that I venture to bring them under the notice of your Lordships. Power is asked in one case to underpin and strengthen any house within 100 yards of the line without the consent of the parties interested in the premises, which I take it is an application for power to bore under a man's house without giving him any compensation. There is another Bill which asks for compulsory powers to purchase vaults and cellars without being required to purchase the houses to which they are attached. To such an extent is it proposed that power shall extend, that the question of compensation is not to go before a jury, but is to be settled by an arbitrator, appointed by the Board of Trade. I have no doubt that such powers will not be conceded; but I merely mention the circumstance to show how important it is that Parliament should deal with the question as a whole. At the present moment London is in a most indescribably unsatisfactory state. Railway bridges have been thrown across the river just as and where railway companies took a fancy to place them, thereby spoiling past remedy one of the finest river fronts in Europe. Only two years ago, a scheme was proposed for disfiguring the approach to St. Paul's by carrying in the air a huge
  1278
  tubular bridge. Northumberland House and the Savoy Chapel have only escaped destruction recently by the Bill being thrown out in another place. And not only are these railway companies cutting and carving London in all directions, but great injustice is being done to the population as regard their health and comfort. In fact, we are suffering from two opposite causes—the absence of necessary legislation on the one hand, and an excess of legislation conducted in an indiscriminate and haphazard manner on the other. We suffer from an excess of legislation when we sanction conflicting schemes, and we suffer from the total absence of legislation when we allow the suburbs to extend in every direction without making proper and adequate provision for railway access between them and the metropolis. We must remember that every metropolitan railway scheme we sanction displaces a large number of the poorest class of the population. There is a Standing Order of this House which provides that whenever the construction of a railway involves the demolition of any of the lodgings of a given number of the labouring classes at least eight weeks' notice shall be given before the occupants are ejected. That is a very proper and considerate Order; it perhaps would be difficult to carry it much further, but clearly it is an Order which does not meet the full difficulty of the case. If the houses are taken it is exceedingly doubtful whether the tenants, even with eight weeks' notice, can find in the immediate neighbourhood new lodgings for themselves, and if they do succeed they do so only to discover that the price of lodgings has become enormously enhanced. In a calculation which I was observing some time since, and from which I saw no cause to differ, it was argued that taking the wages of a labouring man at thirty-five shillings per week—a very high figure—he had often to pay seven shilings a week for a couple of rooms, which is equivalent to a tax of 20 per cent upon his total earnings. If this be so it is a tax which is almost without parallel in weight. One railway company, of which a Member of your Lordships' House is chairman, has wisely built lodging-houses on land adjoining their railway for the labouring classes. I do not know that it would be wise, or indeed possible, to require all railways to adopt the same course; but these are points which deserve to be considered in connection with the great alterations which are proposed

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  to be made in the metropolis in reference to railway communication, and though there are undoubtedly several modes of procedure, I think they can be best considered by a Joint Committee appointed by both Houses of Parliament. The Board of Trade say they see no reason for departing from the ordinary course of business, and I regret that they have come to that conclusion. But the Government ought not to put aside their duties even though the Board of Trade counsel them to do so. I think the Government ought to take the responsibility of dealing with the question as a whole upon themselves. In 1843 or 1844, when these railway cases first came before Parliament in considerable numbers, Lord Dalhousie, then President of the Board of Trade, drew up, as I have always heard, a scheme, in which he laid down certain broad lines of railway communication through the country. It is much to be regretted that scheme was not carried out. It would have saved a great amount of time, the expenditure of a large amount of capital, enormous litigation, and the misapplication of extensive railway funds; but as it is, time, labour, and money have all been squandered, leaving comparatively little to show for the outlay. No doubt I shall be told that the population of this great town is continually increasing, and that it requires accommodation in accordance with its growing wants. I do not deny that. If it is necessary to have five, ten, twenty, or thirty railroads in London, by all means have them; but let them be considered as a whole by some competent tribunal, which may be able to lay down a scheme complete both as to existing lines and in reference also to the future wants of the community. I shall be glad to hear from Her Majesty's Government what their intentions are with regard to these railway schemes.
  EARL RUSSELL: The noble Earl is under a misapprehension with regard to some points, and especially in reference to the Board of Trade. My right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade has had the question under consideration, and has decided upon introducing a measure into the other House of Parliament, which measure is now nearly prepared. The Bill, although it has not been considered solely with regard to the attainment of the particular objects adverted to by the noble Earl, will, I believe, afford considerable facilities for carrying out those objects. As to the Question of the noble Earl, it is, no
  1280
  doubt, the duty of the Government, and more especially of the Board of Trade, to give an important subject of this nature every consideration in their power. The noble Earl wishes to know whether it is proposed to adopt the plan carried out in 1864, when a great number of Railway Bills which had come before Parliament were referred to a Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament for consideration. But the Board of Trade after considering the matter are of opinion that the Bills presented this year are so few that there is no reason why they should not be dealt with in the usual manner—namely, by a Committee of each House in its turn. The number of Bills at the commencement of the Session, however, was larger than it has since become, because no less than ten of them have been withdrawn, and of those remaining not more than two are expected to cause any difficulty or occupy any large share of your Lordships' time. That being the case, I think my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade exercises a wise discretion in permitting them to be dealt with in the ordinary way. I think this is all I need say in answer to the Question of which the noble Earl has given notice. It will be observed that it deals simply with those Bills touching railway communication in the metropolis; but he has supplemented his observations on that point by others connected with metropolitan railways generally. He has made some remarks respecting the demolition of houses by railway companies, and thus started a very wide question. He has also spoken upon the subject of Private Bill legislation generally. These questions, however, are entirely beside that of which the noble Earl has given notice, and I am not at present prepared to express an opinion upon them. But, at the same time, I should be glad to listen to any suggestions the noble Earl has to throw out respecting these questions, and give them my best consideration.
  LORD REDESDALEsaid, that several of the Railway Bills proposed to be submitted to Parliament had already been withdrawn, and those which remained could well be considered by a single Committee to whom they had been referred; therefore, he did not think in that case any necessity existed for the appointment of a Joint Committee of both Houses to deal with them. But with regard to the question of railway legislation, and the manner in which railway schemes were promoted, it

  1281
  had become Be serious that he thought he should feel himself bound to call their Lordships' attention to the subject. It was a fact that at the present time no capital was fairly found for the promotion of schemes which came before Parliament; and that was, in his opinion, one of the reasons why so many of them broke down before they had passed through many stages, if they did not collapse altogether at the door of the House. The system had now reached such an excess of abuse that he felt Parliament was bound to interfere and say what should be done in the future.
  EARL RUSSELL: I am glad to hear the observations which have fallen from the noble Lord. He is far more competent to bring forward such a question than I am, and I should be glad if he would do so.

SCHOOLMASTERS (IRELAND).

  MOTION FOR A RETURN,
  LORD DUNSANY LORD DUNSANY moved an Address for—
  "Return of all Schoolmasters arrested in Ireland for Ribbonism, Sedition, or connection with the Fenian Conspiracy from 1st January 1860 to the latest Date ascertainable; such Return to specify whether the Person arrested was a Teacher in a National School, Endowed School, or Private School; whether the Patron of such School was a Layman, a Clergyman of the Church of England, or a Roman Catholic Priest; also whether the Schoolmaster arrested was appointed by the Government or by the Patron; and whether educated in a Normal School or elsewhere."
  LORD DUFFERINsaid, the Government would direct the Return to be made, so far, at least, as the particulars referred to by the noble Lord were ascertainable.
  Motion agreed to.
  House adjourned at a quarter before Six o'clock, till To-morrow, half past Ten o'clock.