moved,

"1. That it be an Instruction to the Committee on the Bill that they have power to make provision therein continuing the fund provided by Sections 2 and 5 of the Act 11 Geo. IV., c. 64, and for paying the proceeds thereof to the account to be opened under the Bill."

He could not but express his regret that towards the close of a Session in which there had been so little real work done, the Government should have appointed a morning sitting for the consideration of a Bill so important as that before the House. The Government made and kept a House—with difficulty it was true—but it was composed chiefly of Gentlemen who were its immediate supporters; and it was hardly to be expected that independent Members should attend. Consequently that a Member should speak at such a time was like appealing to the Government, and not to the House itself. The Government in acting as they had had failed in one of their most responsible duties, and had lent themselves to the Corporation of the City, in bringing in a Bill to promote the advantage of that Corporation. He was compelled at this stage to interfere by moving a series of Instructions, which as they related to distinct funds would have to be taken separately and distinctly, though they all were proposed with the single purpose of doing justice between the comparatively small body of the inhabitants of the City and the large and important body of the inhabitants of the Metropolis. The following were the Instructions of which he had given notice:—

"That it be an Instruction to the Committee on the Bill that they have power to make provisions in the Bill for continuing the fund provided by Sections 2 and 5 of the Act 11 Geo. 4, c. 64, and for paying the proceeds thereof to the account to be opened under the Bill. That it be an Instruction to the Committee that they have power to make provision in the Bill for transferring to the Metropolitan Board of Works the lands, tenements, and hereditaments called the Bridge House Estates, now vested in the Mayor, Commonalty, and Citizens of the City of London, subject to any trust affecting the same, and any charges thereon, and for paying the surplus income thereof to the account to be opened under the Bill. That it be an Instruction to the Committee that they have power to make provision in the Bill for transferring to the Metropolitan Board of Works all lands, tenements, and hereditaments now vested in the Mayor, Commonalty, and Citizens of the City of London under any statute for making improvements within the Metropolis (except markets), subject to the trusts affecting the same, and the repayment of any monies raised by the said Corporation under such statutes, and thereby charged on such lands, tenements, and hereditaments, and for transferring to the Metropolitan Board of Works all the powers conferred by such Statutes on the said Corporation. That it be an Instruction to the Committee that they have power to make provision in the Bill for the payment of the metage dues on grain, fruit, wares, or merchandize received by the Mayor, Commonalty, and Citizens of the City of London, to the account to be opened under the Bill. That it be an Instruction to the Committee that they have power to make provision in the Bill for payment by the Conservators of the river Thames of the surplus of the annual income received by them to the account to be opened under the Bill."

Confining his attention for the present to the first, the question it raised was simply whether the House, at the instance of the Government, should make a free gift to the Corporation of the coal dues, instead of retaining them for the purposes to which they had been applied for the last hundred years? It was really quite startling that the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary should have taken the course he had, after the preliminary information he had received. After the great fire the House, out of compassion, consented to a tax being imposed on the coal imported into the City for the purpose of rebuilding the town, then re-erecting its churches, and then embanking the Thames. After the Revolution of 1688, the orphans of the City complained to Parliament that the City had taken possession of their fortunes, in order to keep them till their owners came of age; but that the City had refused to repay the money, alleging that they were hopelessly insolvent in consequence of the civil troubles through which it had gone—though, in truth, it had been caused in no small degree by its revellings. Parliament, therefore, decided that the City should have a fixed sum of £8,000 or £10,000 a year for its expenses, and that the rest of its revenues should be applied to the payment of its debts. The City would not, however, accept that, but, following the example of the East India Company, it bribed the House of Commons from the Speaker down to the clerk; the result was that Parliament agreed that the City should be left in possession of its revenues, and that its debts should be consolidated into permanent annuities, the interest of which should be defrayed out of certain special ways and means, namely, £8,000 out of the Corporation of Revenue, £990 the profits of certain aqueducts, and certain apprentice and other fees. Parliament also granted duties on coal and wine, the whole amounting to a revenue of £20,000 a year. As the City increased the fund became larger than the money required for payment of the interest on the annuities, and since 1767 the fund was converted into a Metropolitan Improvement Fund, but, at first, it was charged by various Acts of Parliament with the cost of peculiar works. When London Bridge was to be pulled down, a new fund of a million was created, and called the London Bridge Approaches Fund. On that occasion, the Corporation had the Act so artfully framed, that they were enabled by it to withdraw the fund to which he was now referring. It soon, however, came to the knowledge of the public that Parliament had been duped; the House of Commons in 1830—not then "a reformed," but what was called a corrupt one—was indignant at the fraud, and the next Session it passed an Act ordering the Corporation to pay back the money. Then, as now, the Corporation had endeavoured to fix the attention of the House and of the public upon the magnitude of the works they had in hand, forgetting that the real question was not one of a great public work, but simply whether the House should make the Corporation a free gift? He denied that the Corporation had any right to the money at all. The fund was given to assist the Corporation when it was insolvent, and the annuities had been redeemed by the growing population of the Metropolis. The inhabitants had therefore, paid the debt, and ought to have the fund. He trusted, therefore, that the House would agree to the first Instruction, the only object of which was to enable the subject to be discussed in Committee.

seconded the Resolution.

said, he would not follow the hon. Gentleman through his historical reminiscences. The City was not much interested in the question, which was merely the carrying out of those great works of improvement which were so much required in the Metropolis. The City was only interested in 4d. out of the 13d. imposed by the Bill, the remaining 9d. having been under the control of Parliament for a great number of years. The City merely collected the money and handed it over, but it had no other interest in the matter.

said, the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets had, according to his wont, addressed to the House a Jeremiad, in which he had represented himself to be the only person that cared for the public good. The great delinquent, according to him, was the Corporation, but the Government, he said, were also very much to blame. It was only on the previous evening that the Government had been blamed for bringing in Bills of importance in preference to Supply, which was this Session in arrear. If he (Sir George Lewis) had placed the present Bill on the Paper for a Government night, he was perfectly certain that he should have been blamed for giving it precedence over Supply. He would appeal to the House whether it was not the usual and convenient course to bring on such Bills at this period of the Session at morning sittings? The Bill was founded upon the Report of a Committee of last Session, which might be taken as a fair embodiment of the sense of the House, and which had recommended that the embankment of the Thames should be carried out with money raised by means of the coal and wine dues. He had never proposed to deal with the London Bridge Approaches Fund—he merely dealt with the duties on coal and wine, which were paid by the whole Metropolis. The hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets might as appropriately move an Instruction that funds should be paid out of the income tax or the spirit duty for the purpose he specified as the one he had proposed. The scheme of the hon. Gentleman was one that might well be considered in connection with a general plan for reforming the Corporation, but it had nothing whatever to do with the Bill before the House. The House knew what the coal duties were, and the very question they had now to consider was simply whether those duties should be appropriated to the embankment of the Thames? He believed that the Bill provided an unexceptionable fund for a work of admitted utility; and he hoped, therefore, that the House would not accept the Instruction, but would proceed to discuss the clauses of the Bill.

said, he willingly bore witness to the zeal and courtesy with which the hon. and learned Gentleman had discharged the duty of Chairman to the Committee over which he presided, and he was not surprised that he objected to the passing of the Bill before that Committee had finished its labours. He agreed, however, with the right hon. Baronet that the Bill would not interfere with the reform of the Corporation. At the same time he (Lord John Manners) thought the House ought not to take the same view of the case that the hon. Member had done; but that they should proceed with the measure before them without any delay. The object of the Bill was to provide a great public improvement, and he hoped, therefore, the House would now go into Committee.

said, without doubt the embankment of the Thames ought at once to be proceeded with, as it was impossible to place the sewerage of the Metropolis on a proper footing without that improvement. He objected, however, to its being carried out by the very objectionable means of a tax levied on coal. He hoped the great improvement would be carried out, and that it would not be limited to one side of the river; but it might be effected in some other way than that proposed by the Bill. The Corporation lent, in years gone by, £700,000 to Charles II., of which he never repaid one farthing, but gave power to the Cor- poration to levy a four penny duty on coal. The £700,000 had been repaid some seventy years ago, but the tax had been continued up to the present day. He should feel it his duty, when they came to that part of the Bill which gave the City power to continue the tax, to move an Amendment to terminate such an arrangement.

said, that there was a debt of £11,500 a year due by the Corporation of the City, which was by Act of Parliament appropriated to purposes of public improvement, and the Bill proposed to get rid of that contribution. He wanted to know upon what principle that item was to be remitted to the City of London? That was the real question with which the Instruction of his hon. Friend dealt, and to which the right hon. Gentleman the Lord Mayor had not made any allusion? There were other sums also which were to be remitted to the Corporation, and though those sums were not very large he saw no reason why the Government should make a present of them to the Corporation. All his hon. Friend proposed was that the items hitherto appropriated to the improvement of the Metropolis should be so appropriated still.

said, that the objections which had been made did not in reality apply to the Bill of the right hon. Gentleman. No case had been made out against the Corporation, and even if there were charges to be investigated the Committee then sitting, and not that House, was the proper place in which to bring them forward. The annual sum of £11,500 had been contributed by the Corporation until the entire debt to which it was appropriated was extinguished, and though it was true that the Corporation had from time to time devoted that sum since the extinction of the debt to certain improvements within the metropolitan district as it was a free will offering it would not be fair to bind the Corporation down to pay any such sum under this Bill. He denied, therefore, that any gratuity was given to the Corporation by this Bill, and hoped that it would without delay be proceeded with in Committee.

said, he felt that he was a sort of hybrid Member, being both a Member of the Corporation, and bound, therefore, to consult its interests; and also the representive of a portion of the Metropolis which was not connected with the City. The necessity for new thoroughfares to relieve the over- grown traffic of the Metropolis must be apparent to every one, and he did not think, therefore, that the coal tax could be more usefully appropriated than to the embankment of the Thames. At the same time he wished that they were not to be wholly confined to that object; for he should like to see Waterloo and Southwark bridges, and also the bridge over Deptford-creek, thrown open to the public. The last would be a great boon to the labouring classes.

said, that the question really was how were the necessary metropolitan improvements to be made? To carry out those improvements they had no alternative but to continue the coal and wine duties. The sum of £11,500 contributed by the London Corporation had, no doubt, been always appropriated to metropolitan improvements, but he did not think the present was a proper occasion on which to deal with the subject. It was one which should be taken up along with the other matters that might be reported upon by the Committee now sitting.

said, he would make but a few remarks on the subject before the House. The Corporation had been spoken of in the course of the present discussion as if they were legislating solely for their own private interest. As a member of the Corporation, he must say that that body had only one object in view, and that was to give every possible facility to those having business to transact in the City without regard to any private interest of their own. The Corporation received a revenue of £5,000 from old Meet Market, and although the constructing of Farringdon Market had proved a failure, no blame was to be attached to the Corporation for such an event. The City had pledged its credit for the cost of constructing the New Cattle Market and new Cannon Street, and in doing so they had expended in the various improvements during the last sixty or seventy years, as had been proved before the Committee, nearly £340,000 more than their receipts. There would still exist, supposing the new improvements were carried out, great demands upon the City, for assuredly, as soon as the Thames embankment was constructed, a new street from thence to the Bank of England would have to be made.

said, that after what had taken place, it would be wrong in him to prolong the discussion, and he should not, therefore, divide the House, although he would, in order to place them on the record, move the following Resolutions:—

said, he wished to move Amendments which would have the effect of abolishing altogether the penny duty which had been levied for the purpose of building the Coal Exchange; and also imposing a tax of 8d. per ton for fifteen years instead of 1s. per ton for ten years. The cost of embanking the Thames would not be more than a million, and a tax of 8d. would produce £100,000 a year.

said, he thought the pressure of the coal dues was not so strong as had been represented. The proposition was to reduce the duty received for metropolitan improvements. The 5d. tax, which would remain after the proposed alteration, would produce about £90,000, while the 9d. produced £160,000. Therefore, the amount of tax applicable to the Thames Embankment would produce £150,000 nett, and if they took away £9,000 a year he feared they would not leave a sufficient sum to defray the probable expense of such a large undertaking. He could not concur in the Amendment.

said, he inferred, from the very fact that the Motion was made by the Member for Durham, that it was intended for the benefit of the coal-owner. He should, therefore, give it his determined opposition.

supported the Amendment.

denied that his right hon. Friend was acting solely on behalf of the coal owners. It was certainly very unfair to retain the penny for the Coal Exchange, which had long since been paid for, and in respect of which a large surplus actually remained in hand.

said, he should support the clause as it stood, and he hoped that the right hon. Gentleman would withdraw his Motion.

defended the proposal contained in the Bill.

said, he would withdraw the Amendment.

said, he proposed to substitute the words "the Lords' Commissioners of the Treasury" for "the Metropolitan Board of Works," his object being to bring the funds under the direct control of the House until it was determined what to do with them.

said, he had no objection to the alteration proposed, which was merely of a formal character. The money would be in the Bank of England, and, if the House wished, the account could stand in the name of the Lords of the Treasury, instead of the Metropolitan Board of Works.

said he proposed to strike out words in the clause, in order to confine the application of the funds to the embankment of the Thames only.

said, general terms were used in the clause, but no special application of the funds could be made without an Act of Parliament.

remarked, that the Thames embankment would not fulfil its object unless a new street was made from Blackfriars to the Bank.

said, he proposed to add at the end of the clause the following words—"And after discharging the sums mentioned in the clause, the said duty of 4d. shall be paid to the account opened by Clause 5."

said, that the Amendment would practically have no effect, but would raise the question whether the 4d. should be considered as the property of the City. He believed the fourpenny duty would not be adequate to the extinction of the debt, keeping down the annual interest, within ten years, and there would be no surplus. [Mr. AYRTON: There would.] His calculation was not consistent with that hypothesis. But to save time he was willing to accept the Amendment in the following modified form:—"After discharge of said sum and interest, the said duty of 4d. shall be applied by the Corporation of London towards, or in aid of, such public improvement or improvements in or adjacent to the City of London as Parliament shall hereafter sanction."

proposed, that a drawback should be allowed on coal used by the manufacturers of the Metropolis.

said, he could not agree to the proposal.

said, he rose to ask the Under Secretary for War, With what dress and accoutrements the detachment of Guards was marched from Kingston to Guildford on Thursday last, and at what hour it left Kingston and arrived at Guildford; and to move for a Copy of the representation, if any, which was made by the Medical Officer in charge to the Commanding Officer on the probable effect of such a march on the health of the Troops?

said, in answer to the first part of the hon. Baronet's question, he had to state that the dress and accoutrements of the detachment of Guards on their march from Kingston to Guildford on Thursday were such as were used in what is termed "marching order;" that was to say, the weight of the dress and accoutrements altogether amounted to from 45lbs. to 49lbs. He had only further to remark, as to the order in which they marched, that the commanding officer stated that the men were allowed to take off their stocks and unbutton their tunics, if they wished to do so. With respect to the time, they started from Kingston at ten minutes past six in the morning, and reached Guildford at a quarter past two in the afternoon. In reply to the latter part of the question as to whether any representation had been made by the medical officer in charge, he begged to say he had been informed that the assistant surgeon to the detachment made no representation with regard to the march; that the detachment had marched on the preceding day without any serious consequences resulting, and that the medical officer did not think it necessary to make any representation. He would only add that the question of clothing in the army had long occupied the serious attention of the Horse Guards; and that several great improvements conducive to the health and comfort of the soldier had been effected of late years.

said, he rose to move the appointment of a Select Com- mittee to inquire whether a more efficient weapon than the Enfield rifle might not be provided for the use of Her Majesty's forces, without additional cost or serious in convenience to the service? Three or four years ago the noble Lord at the head of the Government mentioned the exertions which had been made by a near relative of his own, when Master General of the Ordnance, to place in the hands of the soldier the most efficient weapon that could be produced. That fact, perhaps, might be some excuse for his having ventured to introduce the subject to the notice of the House. At the time to which he referred a comparison was made of the weapons used by the armies of all the nations of Europe, and the consequence was that there was placed in the hands of our rifle regiments a weapon which was considered to be superior to any other in existence. In 1851 the Minié rifle, the parent of our present arm, was introduced; in 1852 the Duke of Wellington recommended that all our troops should be armed with rifles; and in 1853 the result of the deliberations of a Committee composed of the most eminent authorities, appointed by Viscount Hardinge, was the production of the Enfield musket, which at Inkermann, to quote the able correspondent of The Times "smote the Russians like the hand of the destroying angel." In the year 1854 Viscount Hardinge published a memorandum, the most concise and foreseeing on the subject which had come under his notice, recommending that, before the construction of machinery for the production of rifles, experiments should be tried in order to determine the true principles upon which the barrels ought to be rifled. That noble Lord called to his assistance the greatest mechanician of the age, Mr. Whitworth, who conduct ed a series of experiments in a closed shed, constructed at the expense of the country, 500 yards long, the result of which was Hi at he discovered the true principle of rifling, according to which he constructed the weapon called the Whitworth rifle. Early in 1857 Mr. Whitworth, in the presence of Lord Panmure, experimented with that weapon at Hythe, and with it obtained a figure of merit of 4½ inches, at 500 yards, the best figure previously obtained being 24. After that a Committee of officers was appointed, the Report of which, after being once or twice refused, was produced at the commencement of the present Session. That Report was signed by five out of the seven members, under some sort of protest. The Committee was most unfortunately constituted, four members being Government officials, and three of those being gentlemen who had been engaged in recommending and arranging—for it was really a matter of arrangement—the rifle of 1853. After squabbling for eighteen months they separated without arriving at any conclusion by which the head of a department could be guided. That Report was made on the 1st of January, 1859, but since then, as far as he knew, not a single experiment had been made by the authorities to test the merits of any other rifle than the one which they were engaged in constructing in quantities of 1,000 weekly. They took no steps to ascertain that the weapon which they were placing in the hands of the British soldier was the best that could be procured. The Report bore testimony to the merits of the "Whitworth rifle, but no measures had been taken to settle the questions which the Committee had raised. Having differed among themselves to the extent exhibited by the Report, these gentlemen took the unusual course of signing under protest, detailing at some length the reasons why they did so. General Hutchinson, the president of the Committee, expressed his approval of the Whitworth rifle, and in his draught report entered into the various reasons for the opinion which he entertained. Lieutenant-Colonel Dixon did not discuss the question of the superiority of either weapon, but rather argued down, if he might so express himself, the advantages of the Whitworth rifle. At the same time he was compelled to make admissions in its favour. Though from the experiments there appeared to be no question of the superiority of the Whitworth arm, the Committee adopted the singular course of ordering rifles, on what they called the Enfield model, to be made; but they imported into them all the distinguishing features, with one exception, of the rival weapon. They adopted Mr. Whitworth's ball, the length of his projectile, and the spirality or turn of his groove, and they rejected the polygonal rifling, which was a matter of no importance whatever except as to penetration. Colonel Dixon, the head of the Enfield factory, stated that, "although no extra care was taken with these small bores, the result of their firing in point of accuracy was, at least, as favourable as that shown by the Whit- worth rifle." To Lieutenant-Colonel Gordon very great credit was due for the part he had originally taken in introducing the Enfield rifle in 1853, and he regretted that in this instance he had not adopted a more comprehensive view. His observations were based on a comparison between three and six grooves, a point, as he had stated, really of no consequence in this discussion. Unquestionably the most important member of the Committee was General Hay, who, placed as he was at the head of the musketry instruction in this country, was probably the greatest authority, not only in England, but in any other nation, on the question of rifles and rifle shooting. That gallant General said—

"As the Report contains no general statement of the relative merits of the Whitworth and En-field rifle 577 bore, and as the instructions point to the 'relative efficiency' of the two rifles as one of the main objects of inquiry, I have thought it right to make a concise statement, detailing some of the advantages the Whitworth rifle possesses over the Enfield 577 bore:—1. Great increase of precision and range, which is, comparatively speaking, more marked in windy weather, owing to the great velocity of flight and rotation of its bullet. 2. Much flatter trajectories, which, with reference to judging distances, is of the utmost importance. 3. Great increase in strength and durability of barrel, which is much required. 4. Greater facility for adapting the tube for shells, rendering them most effective even at long ranges. 5. Great increase of penetration (nearly treble) when on special occasions it may be necessary to use the hardened bullets. 6. Shortness of back sight, that used for the Enfield 577 bore at 900 yards being sufficient for the Whitworth at 1,100 yards. 7. Less weight for the soldier to carry, the reduced bore rendering it possible to use the old weight of bullet—namely, 480 grains—with perfect effect, and with a quarter of a drachm less powder."

But the question of the superiority of the Whitworth rifles over the Enfield did not rest on the testimony of those gentlemen, but on much stronger evidence. The National Rifle Association put forth an advertisement, calling for the most perfect rifle that could be invented. All countries were invited to come forward and compete for furnishing the rifle to be used in shooting for the Queen's prize. Among other arms the famous "small-bore Enfield" was used. The result was that after trial the Whitworth was declared to be the best rifle known, and accordingly it was adopted. This year the same advertisement had been put forward, but no one had attempted to call in question the superiority of Mr. Whitworth's rifle, so that it now stood incontestably the finest rifle in the world. The House would remember that when, at the contest for the prizes, Her Majesty was about to fire the first shot, the rifle was mechanically fixed. The shot was fired from the Whitworth rifle, and it not only struck the bull's eye, but was only an inch and a half from the centre. Considering that the shot was calculated beforehand, and that it was fired in the open air and at a distance of 400 yards from the target, it was probably the most marvellous shot that ever came from a rifle. He remembered going down to Wimbledon and seeing the Swiss riflemen who carried off the first prizes in their own country. They were much distressed at the fact of their own rifles having been detained in a foreign custom-house. Those arms arrived the next day; but on going down again he found the Swiss not shooting with their own rifles, but with the Whitworth. They had laid aside their own, and were shooting with the Whitworth at long ranges. At the French rifle meeting, to which the whole world were invited, Mr. Whitworth was present. He had not been in Paris many days when he received an invitation from the Emperor to an interview at St. Cloud. The interview was a long one. The Emperor entered at great length into all the questions connected with the rifling of small arms and great guns. He told Mr. Whitworth that he was in possession of two of his rifles, and that he much desired to see them shot with. Mr. Whitworth immediately telegraphed for the person who was in the habit of shooting with his rifles. A trial was made at Vincennes; and, at from 500 to 700 metres, Mr. Whitworth's beat the best rifles in the French army by two and three to one. After 700 metres the French rifles were withdrawn, and from that point Mr. Whitworth's shot with its usual successful results. Mr. Whitworth received the congratulations of the Emperor of the French; and, when speaking of the matter to him as an Englishman, he contrasted the prompt and practical manner in which the question had been dealt with in France with the way in which he had been badgered and bullied in this country, after having for so many years given up his valuable time to the improvement of those important instruments of warfare. Not only at the contest which had been inaugurated by the Queen, but at the subsequent great trials, all the best shooting was made either by rifles made by Mr. Whitworth himself, or rifles made on his plan of rifling by Mr. Westley Richards. Mr. Ross won the great prize at Wimbledon with a Whitworth; and the Prince Consort's, the Duke of Cambridge's, and the Duke of Wellington's prizes were all won with breech-loading rifles made by Mr. Westley Richards under licence from Mr. Whitworth. The Enfield rifle was completely snuffed out after 600 yards; a high authority told him that he would as soon go out and play at marbles as shoot with an Enfield rifle over 600 yards. Last year Lord Herbert made a statement, in answer to a question put to him on this subject. He did not think that the noble Lord denied the merits of Mr. Whitworth's rifle, but he said that its cost was so great that it was impossible to adopt it as an arm for general use. His Lordship stated its cost to be £10. On the moment, it appeared to him to be contrary to common sense to suppose that a difference in the barrels could cause such a difference between the price of the Enfield and that of Mr. Whitworth's rifle. He put himself in communication with that gentleman, and received the following letter:—

"Fenton's Hotel, July 12th, 1860.

"My dear Sir,—In reply to your letter making inquiries respecting the Whitworth rifles, I beg to inform you that there would be no difficulty in adapting the Enfield machinery to the manufacture of service muskets rifled on my system. Indeed, I offered upwards of two years ago to give my assistance in making the required alterations. The service muskets rifled on my principle would be manufactured at the same cost as the present Enfield, the quality of workmanship and materials being the same. The only change required would be to substitute the form of rifling adopted by me in place of the triple-grooved form. I feel confident the change could be made without difficulty, and, supposing materials, workmanship, and cost to remain the same, it would afford a rifle having, I believe, at least double the efficiency of the rifle now made. I am of opinion, however, that a slight extra expense—say 5s., may be advantageously incurred in making the barrels with greater care; that slightly increased expense would be an economical outlay, as the efficiency of the rifle would be thereby increased in a far greater proportion. Most erroneous conclusions have been drawn from the fact that rifles supplied from my establishment cost £10. It should be remembered that those rifles were manufactured in a newly organized establishment working on a limited scale; that their fittings, materials, workmanship, and finish are all of superior quality; they are, in fact, rifles suited to supply the special demand which exists for them. They are not intended as pattern service muskets, nor can their cost, when manufactured in a private establishment, carried on on a limited scale, be compared with that required to manufacture muskets in such an establishment as Enfield. As a proof of the advantageous application of my system of rifling to the ordinary service barrels, I may refer to the success of Mr. Westley Richards's breechloaders at the trials at Wimbledon. Mr. Richards made his breech-loaders with ordinary service barrels, and rifled them on my principle, under licence, with his ordinary machines. His breechloaders were first in the contest for the Duke of Cambridge's prize, and also in that for the Prince Consort's prize. The highest number of points (24) gained at the long ranges—800, 900, and 1,000 yards—were gained by Mr. Ross with one of my rifles; the second highest number of points (22) gained at the same ranges with a like number of shots, were gained by Lieutenant Lacy, with one of Mr. Richards's breech-loaders, having an ordinary service barrel, rifled under licence on my principle.

"I remain, &c,

"JOSEPH WHIIWOETH.

"Hussey Vivian, Esq., M.P."

That letter put the question of cost beyond a doubt. He had handed that letter to Lord Herbert, and hoped he might be spared the necessity of bringing the matter before the House. He thought that the acknowledged superiority of the Whitworth rifle over the Enfield, and the possibility of manufacturing it at about the same cost, would have induced the Government to adopt the Whitworth rifle. In confirmation of his statement, that the Whitworth rifle could be produced for the same sum as the Enfield, he might mention that he had that morning received an assurance from Mr. Westley Richards, that he had manufactured an ordinary service musket on the Whitworth principle, at a cost not one sixpence greater than that of the ordinary musket. He was further informed that last year twenty muskets were made at Enfield in the ordinary manner, as if they were intended to be rifled on the Enfield system. These rifles were sent to Mr. Whitworth, who finished the boring and rifled them on his principle. Before returning them to the Government he ascertained by experiment that the figure of merit of these twenty rifles averaged 6in. at 500 yards, that of the Enfield ranging from 12 to 20in., thus showing a marked superiority even at this short range. These rifles were returned to the Government, on the 13th September, 1860, but so far as could be ascertained they had never yet been tried. They had now 500,000 rifles on the Enfield plan. Lord Hardinge said that 1,000,000 were required by the country. The British Army was so divided that in no country in the world could anew system be introduced more easily. The machinery at Enfield could be perfectly adapted to the manufacture of Mr. Whitworth's rifle, and if this were done and contracts rearranged in no long space of time 100,000 Whitworth rifles could be issued per an- num. The "life" of an Enfield rifle, the barrel of which was thin and the grooves shallow, did not extend beyond twelve years. Within that period of time, therefore, the Government must renew every musket in their possession. This year there were sums asked for in various Votes, which, added together, made an aggregate of £760,000 for small arms. Would the House of Commons permit the Government to go on spending this sum in producing a rifle confessedly worse than that which could be made for the same money? He trusted that the House would consider him justified in occupying its time with this matter, and that hon. Members would support him in his desire to get the question investigated. He might be told that the House was not a proper tribunal for the consideration of such cases; but there were many hon. Members as well qualified to form an opinion upon the relative merits of the Enfield and Whitworth rifles as any of the officers to whom the matter had formerly been referred. A House of Commons Committee was a painstaking, just, and impartial tribunal, and be should have much greater confidence in its decision than in that of the prejudiced officials to whom the Whitworth rifle was referred. He was informed that three out of seven of the Committee that reported against the Whitworth were the originators of the Enfield rifle. Only two members of the Committee could be said to be wholly unprejudiced and impartial, and they were both in favour of the Whitworth rifle. He said, therefore, that the advisability of continuing to manufacture the Enfield rifle ought to be investigated. He should be sorry that the hon. Under Secretary for War should allow the reputation he had gained by the effective manner in which he had done his work to be tarnished by his refusal of a just demand. The present question could not and should not be allowed to rest, for if his Motion were rejected, he pledged himself to renew it next year. He had only to say that when first he took up the question he had scarcely any personal knowledge of Mr. Whitworth He had no personal interest in the matter, and he had only been induced on public grounds to bring the subject under the consideration of the House.

said, he felt he should be doing an injustice to a distinguished gentleman whom he had the honour to reckon among his constituents if he did not second the Motion. The general opinion in the country, and especially in the district which he represented, was that very scant justice had been done to Mr. Whitworth after the series of experiments which he had carried on for many years to such a successful result, and when the skill, knowledge, and patience that had enabled him to produce a valuable weapon had not been acknowledged by the Government. It was the general opinion that Mr. Whitworth was the most celebrated mechanician of the age, and he had made an ample fortune in carrying to a successful result machinery of the most complicated nature, not only for the manufacture of textile fabrics, but for making the very instruments by which that machinery was constructed. That gentleman's absolute precision in mechanism was now so universally acknowledged that in all the workshops in the world his principles were adopted. It had not been Mr. Whitworth's wish to enter upon the manufacture of these rifles; but, having been applied to by the Government, he gave his skill and energy, and devoted thousands of his money, to carry on experiments which were first originated at the instance of the Government. Mr. Whitworth had no desire to make a fortune by the manufacture of rifles, but he had a desire to bring his skill to bear in producing a weapon which should enable the troops of this country to meet the enemy both at home and abroad with effect. That was the only honour he sought. He should not enter into the details of the question before the House, but it was generally admitted that he had produced a weapon more effective than the one now in use, and at as small an expense. In the hands of a good marksman it was as effective as three or four Enfield rifles, and, therefore, there could be little doubt which ought to be in the hands of the army.

said, that no one in the House could dissent from the terms in which both the hon. Gentlemen the proposer and seconder of the Motion had mentioned Mr. Whitworth. That gentleman's reputation was an European reputation, and nothing that he could say could add to it. Nor could any one suppose that there existed any interested motive either on the part of his hon. Friend or of Mr. Whitworth, for desiring a more extensive use of that gentleman's inventions. He would add—what his hon. Friend seemed not quite so ready to recognize—that there was no disposition on the part of the officers connected with the War Office and at the head of establishments for the manufacture of small arms to throw obstacles in the way of the introduction of improvements. They were not interested in the manufacture of small arms. They could lay no claim to the invention of the rifle manufactured at Enfield, though, no doubt, they had introduced improvements in it, but there was no jealousy on the part of those gentlemen with respect to the introduction of any improvements into the manufacture of small arms. Therefore, he hoped that the House would put away any notion of "prejudiced officials," and any idea that Mr. Whitworth had been "bullied and badgered" in this matter. He was not aware that Mr. Whitworth had made any such charge against any person with whom he had been brought into communication. Since he had belonged to the department with which he was now connected he had seen no representation from Mr. Whitworth to give colour for the language used by his hon. Friend.

explained that he had used the expression simply in reference to the Committee on small arms which he alluded to.

said, that he was glad to hear the explanation, as he had thought the allusion was made to the officers to whom he had referred, and who he was sure had always acted with every courtesy to Mr. Whitworth. As to the speech of his hon. Friend, he would say a few words on two preliminary matters. First, as to the memorandum written by Viscount Hardinge. What was proposed in that memorandum had been actually carried out under the noble Lord's own instructions; and in consequence Mr. Whitworth was allowed permission to erect at the public expense all that apparatus to which his hon. Friend alluded. Those experiments involved not a small cost, but something like £16,000 were spent, and very properly spent, by Mr. Whitworth at the public cost. Therefore, Viscount Hardinge's memorandum was actually carried out. But if his hon. Friend meant that in consequence of that memorandum all measures for the supply of small arms should have been stopped until the result of those experiments had been ascertained, as that did not take place until 1857, the effect would have been that the supply of rifled muskets to the troops in India, would have been very little or none at all. And such a result would certainly not have met the expectations of the House or of the country. Next, with respect to the Report of the Committee, to which his hon. Friend had alluded, he did not think that it was a very great encouragement for the appointment of a Committee of that House, with the view of investigating the same subject, to find that gentlemen of great scientific attainments had arrived at very different conclusions; and when his hon. Friend, in commenting on the constitution of that Committee, objected to certain gentlemen on the Committee as being interested or connected with the manufacture of small arms, he omitted to state that Mr. Whitworth was himself a member of that Committee. [Mr. VIVIAN: I mentioned that circumstance.] There was no unfairness, therefore, at all events, in the constitution of the Committee, though the proceedings disclosed very different opinions on the part of persons qualified to express a judgment on the subject. His hon. Friend was not correct in saying that no further progress had taken place since the Report of the Committee. Owing to circumstances with which Mr. Whitworth was in some degree connected there was a great delay in preparing arms for experiments; but after those delays were got over it was intended to have a trial of a rifle manufactured by Mr. Whitworth from the same metal used at Enfield with a rifle manufactured at Enfield with a new grooving. That trial, he believed, was now actually commenced, rifles having been supplied on both sides, and it was in progress under the supervision of the Ordnance Select Committee. Therefore, there was no indisposition on the part of the Government to continue the experiments with the view of ascertaining if any improvement could be made in the Enfield rifle, and his noble Friend the Secretary of State for War and all persons connected with the War Office were ready to avail themselves to the utmost of the skill and ability possessed by Mr. Whitworth, in order that the most perfect weapon might be placed in the hands of the British troops. He would next say a few words with respect to the propriety of altering the bore of the musket used in Her Majesty's service, for that was the main question under discussion. His hon. Friend very much understated the number of Enfield rifles now in use and store. It was rapidly approaching to the amount of the 1,000,000 mentioned by Lord Hardinge, for more than 800,000 were in the possession of the troops or in store. But if a fresh bore were introduced into the service the effect of that would be to re-arm the whole army, at a cost which might easily be calculated. The new rifles would be more expensive than the Enfield, and could hardly cost less than £4 a piece; and the whole of the existing ammunition, in store would become useless. Therefore, it was desirable that no change of that kind should take place without due consideration and the clearest proof of its necessity. He would not enter into a discussion of the scientific merits of the different systems of rifling; but even the hon. Gentleman admitted that the Enfield rifle was a better weapon than Was in the hands of any other army in the world, and he thought that, putting those two facts together, the House would think Her Majesty's Government were justified in hesitating to make a change before it was clearly proved that a weapon could be introduced superior to the Enfield rifle, not only in range but in the many other no less necessary qualities for use in war. Another reason he had to offer for not consenting to the Motion was that in a matter of so scientific a nature it was impossible for a Committee of the House of Commons to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion. Experiments were necessary, which it would be impossible for a Committee of the Hottse of Commons to superintend. The Government objected to the Motion, not upon the ground that no improvements could be introduced into the weapon in question, but because they believed that those improvements should be most carefully considered, and that a Committee of the House of Commons had neither the power nor the time to enable them to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion upon a matter of that description. He would simply add that he thought the present Ordnance Select Committee was. a tribunal perfectly competent to advise the Secretary of State upon such points, as was evinced by the fact that great satisfaction had been given in those cases reported upon by them; and he would observe that no nation in the world possessed ordnance better adapted to the service than ourselves. That we were in that position was, he had no doubt, partly to be attri- buted to the care and attention which the Ordnance Select Committee had bestowed on all the proposals and inventions which had been brought under their notice, and the House might rest satisfied that the Government would not be found neglectful of any improvements which Mr. Whitworth or any other man might bring forward; while there remained the assurance that all the suggestions which might be made on the subject would be properly weighed by persons who had not only a scientific knowledge of the weapons themselves, but also a practical acquaintance with that which the soldier required for service in the field.

said, that, remembering the improvements in small arms effected between 1851–4 by the late Viscount Hardinge, not without the assistance of a Committee of that House—and recollecting the large sums which the House was called upon to Vote for small arms, he was not surprised that the hon. Gentleman should have brought forward this Motion. In 1850–1 Viscount Hardinge discovered that the French army was armed with a weapon much superior to that which was placed in the hands of the British soldier. He could answer from personal knowledge that when Viscount Hardinge set himself to repair that deficiency, he met with obstacles which would not have been removed but for the assistance of such competent civilians, as Mr. Westley Richards, and the extraneous action of that House. There was an unwillingness on the part of those who were officially charged with the equipment of the army to make changes, which only the interference of that House could overcome. They had to thank the right hon. the present Chancellor of the Exchequer during his former tenure of office for the willingness which he manifested to grant funds for the conducting of these experiments, the practical issue of which was the question now before the House. Having voted the funds with which these experiments had been made by Mr. Whitworth and Mr. Westley Richards, united in a Commission for this purpose, and having, at so much expense to the country, ascertained the results of their experiments, would the House now bring them into practical operation? His belief was that it was idle for the Government or the House to imagine, in an age of progress, that if they did not adopt the improvements which were offered to them other Governments would not do so. From his own personal knowledge he could state that other Governments were attempting to monopolize for themselves the results of the experiments which had been conducted at so much expense by this country. He thought, therefore, that the hon. Gentleman opposite had done the country good service in bringing this question before the House. He did not wish to impugn the conduct of the gentlemen who were officially employed by the Government in this department; but it was impossible that gentlemen specially employed in the manufacture of a particular description of weapon should not become wedded to it; and he had good grounds for believing that the same obstacles were thrown in the way of improvement now, that Viscount Hardinge encountered previous to 1854. The evidence taken before the Small Arms Committee of 1854 proved in contestably the disinclination on the part of officials for change. No doubt, the changing of the bore was a very serious question, for it was most inconvenient that the arms borne by the army should be of different bores. Still he would ask the House to consider how the battles of Alma and of Inkermann were won. It was well known that the troops engaged in them had muskets of different bores in their hands. Some had the old smooth musket, some the rifle which succeeded it, and some had the Enfield rifle, which had since superseded them all. It was clear, therefore, that the difference in the bore did not prevent our soldiers from securing victory. The hon. Under Secretary of War stated that our troops were armed with the best weapon of any army in the. world. He (Mr. Newdegate) rejoiced in sharing that conviction; he wished that that advantage should be continued to our soldiers, and in order to effect this object that the Government should adopt those further improvements which were called into existence at the expense of the country, and which had been tested in a competition against all comers. That House ought not to attempt to dictate but to suggest to the Government whether the Reports of their own official Committees on this matter ought not to be adopted. The hon. Under Secretary for War told them that they had now in store 700,000 or 800,000 muskets of the Enfield pattern. He was glad to hear it, as it proved that the country was for the present safe, but it also showed that they need not stand still, but were in a condition to make improvements in the composition of the musket. The hon. Gentleman who made the Motion spoke of the indisputable excellence of Mr. Whitworth's rifle. He, for one, did not wish to dispute that assertion: but he would remind the Committee that the rifle of Mr. Westley Richards was also produced before the Committee, and he recollected hearing Viscount Hardinge urge on Mr. Westley Richards that he should never consider the improvements complete till the English Army had a breech-loading musket. Now, experiments had proved that Mr. Westley Richards' breech-loading rifle was in several respects superior for military purposes to Mr. Whitworth's musket; and he rejoiced to know that the Government was about to arm the cavalry with a breech-loading carbine of Mr. Westley Richard's pattern; and he hoped that would prove a step towards the realization of Viscount Hardinge's anticipation, and that our whole army would continue to be, as it is now, armed with a weapon superior to that of every other army in the world.

said, he had never before heard so many remarks with so little foundation. In the first place, it was argued that there was an opposition to the Whitworth rifle on the part of the officials, which only showed the profound ignorance of those who made that charge of the way in which those things were managed. If any inventor had a new idea he sent it to the War Office, and it was submitted to be tested by the Ordnance Select Committee or by a Special Committee. If their report was favourable, then the Secretary of State directed the departments to manufacture so and so, and it was done. It was nothing to the department whether they manufactured Mr. Whitworth's rifle, or Mr. Westley Richards' rifle, or the Enfield, or any other rifle. In 1852 those improvements were commenced which resulted in equipping our army with the best weapon in the world. The whole small arm trade of this country was called upon to submit improvements on the arm then in use. A Committee of General Officers was appointed at the Ordnance Office to maturely consider their proposals, and a sub-committee was appointed which went to Enfield to try experiments, because there happened to be a range there. The result of that Committee's Report was that the present pattern arm was adopted; and it was called the Enfield pattern, not because it originated there, but because the experiments of the sub-committee had been carried on at Enfield. It was then the question was raised how far the bore of the musket could be reduced without endangering its efficiency in the field, and it was reduced from 7·02 to 5·77. The hon. Member for Warwickshire said that the French musket was superior to ours in 1854.

I beg pardon—I meant to say 1853.

Well, the next question was as to the accuracy of fire at long range; and it was said that in that respect the Whitworth rifle was superior. But when his experiments were made a clear and broad principle was laid down, that all arms should be tried under equal and similar circumstances—in other words, that there should be no reduction from the size of the Enfield bore. Now, Mr. Whitworth, who was eminent for his mechanical skill, could not produce better shooting than the Enfield rifle without reducing the bore. He departed, therefore, from the rules laid down and did reduce his bore to 4.5. He (Captain Jervis) objected, therefore, to the question being put whether they ought to adopt the Enfield or the Whitworth rifle. The real question was whether they would reduce the bore or not? and if they determined on reduction, then they ought to do as they did before—they ought to call in the whole trade to the competition and see whether, with a reduced bore, a better weapon could not be produced than even Mr. Whitworth's? But, then, that House was not the place to decide the experiment. The arming of the troops was one of the prerogatives of the Crown, and it was almost absurd to suggest that a Parliamentary Committee should constitute themselves a tribunal for deciding what arm should be given to the service. Such a Committee could not sit in the lobby to take evidence. The experiments must be conducted at Shoeburyness, and they would necessarily extend over a considerable period of time. He might, for instance, take the question on which there was great objection to Mr. Whitworth's rifle—that of fouling. It would require more than a few weeks to decide that point alone. The experiments ought to be tried during the great heat of summer, and some muskets ought to be sent out to be tried in India. He would only say, in conclusion, that there was no hostility to Mr. Whitworth on the part of those engaged in previous inquiries. Their great and, indeed, only anxiety was to see that the best arm was supplied to the troops, and there was not the slightest foundation for the statement that they subjected Mr. Whitworth to a severe badgering.

said, he wished to correct the hon. Member for Warwickshire on one or two points. In the first place, it was not correct to say that the British army in the Crimea had muskets of different descriptions. In the second place, so far was the Committee of that House which sat in 1853 from being of any advantage to the adoption of any improvements, that he could state considerable delay in the adoption of those improvements was caused by them. He agreed with the hon. Member for Glamorgan that they ought to take immediate steps to ascertain the relative merits of the Whitworth and Enfield rifles as quickly as possible, but he doubted whether a Committee of the House of Commons could render any assistance in the investigation of that subject. The hon. Under Secretary for War had omitted to state why the Government had not exerted themselves more during the last two or three years. Much valuable time had been lost; but if the House could obtain a pledge from the Government that they would take the matter into their serious consideration, and that they would cause experiments to be made without unnecessary delay, he for one would be satisfied with that assurance. Something had been said about the inconvenience of having two bores in the service. Let the Government ascertain, in the first instance, which was the best weapon, and then the difficulty as to the bores would soon and easily be overcome.

stated that experiments were either then in progress, or Would be commenced in a few days.

said, he hoped that the Government would endeavour to have the experiments for ascertaining the comparative merits of the two rifles prosecuted without delay. He had not the slightest doubt as to the superiority of the Whitworth rifle over the ordinary Enfield. Experiments had been made at Hythe for the purpose of ascertaining which was the best weapon to be used in the competition for Her Majesty's prize at Wimbledon. The result snowed that the best Enfield gave a mean deviation at 500 yards of 12 inches, and the best Whit worth a mean deviation of 31 inches. The average deviation of the best Enfield at 500 yards was 17 inches, and of the best Whitworth 6 inches. In point of accuracy every one would admit the superiority of the Whitworth rifle. The only question was whether there ought to be a different bore? His impression was that the division commanded by Sir George Cathcart in the Crimea was armed with Brown Bess. With regard to bore, there had been an impression among sportsmen that a large bore was best to kill deer with; but now not a single deerstalker went to the Highlands with a large bore rifle, because it was found that the small bore killed equally well. The question of destructive results depended on the weight of the ball multiplied by the velocity; and the velocity with the small bore was much greater than with the larger bore. He had heard it stated that during the late war in Italy the Austrian soldiers were armed with rifles of smaller bore than those used by the French, and it was noted that the Austrian soldiers recovered more quickly from their wounds than the French soldiers. The opinion of General Hay was that there was no fear of fouling as regards the small bore rifles; and his impression was that the small bore rifle would be by far the best military weapon. General Hay had been on the Committee, but was not satisfied with the manner in which the experiments had been conducted. Not that the members had any personal interest, but naturally people had a prejudice in favour of what they were engaged in. He, therefore, thought it desirable that some independent inquiry should be instituted, such as might be conducted by Members of that House, not to make experiments at Shoeburyness, but to examine General Hay and other scientific witnesses, and to bring common sense to bear on the question. Mr. Whitworth, it should be remembered, was not a gun-maker, he was what might be called the prince of toolmakers; and the great good he accomplished was that for the first time scientific principles were brought to bear on riflemaking. Gunmakers were not educated scientifically; from apprentices they became workmen, foremen, and masters, but they generally proceeded on the traditions of their trade, not on scientific principles. Mr. Whitworth had applied to riflemaking the best mechanical science, and Viscount Hardinge, to whom they owed much, had shown his wisdom and prescience by applying to Mr. Whitworth upon the subject. Mr. Whitworth had eon-ducted the most extensive experiments; for instance, as to the form of the ball, he had 500 shapes, and so with regard to the length of the barrel, the different modes of rifling and spirality. The Whitworth rifle had a much more rapid spiral, and at long range was infinitely superior to the Enfield. Were they to increase the spiral of the present Enfield rifle they would get much better shooting, without increasing the fouling or in any way breaking the guage. Talking of prejudice and interest, he had stated that Mr. Whitworth was not a gunmaker—he was an outsider. When he was brought in by the Government to tell the best principles on which rifles should be made there naturally arose a feeling of prejudice against him; and he repeated the Government ought in these matters to be guided by the opinion of General Hay, who had to try all the rifles, who knew where every one came from, and who registered every shot fired at Hythe. That register was open to inspection, and the results showed that Mr. Whitworth had hitherto been most successful. Her Majesty had been, graciously pleased to give the National Rifle Association a prize for £200. The association thought for the honour of England that prize should be shot for at the longest possible range and with the best possible description of rifle. If they had had reason to think that the Enfield could have shot accurately at 1,000 yards, unquestionably they would have recommended the Enfield rifle, being the arm with which the majority of the Volunteers were armed, but the tabular results showed that with the Enfield they could not have extreme accuracy at a longer range than 600 yards. They had, therefore, been obliged to get some other weapon; and while all gunmakers were invited to try their rifles at Hythe, the only persons who tried last year were connected with the Birmingham gun trade, with rifles of the same bore as Mr. Whitworth's, but on the Enfield system and with their own projectiles. The results were hollow in favour of the Whitworth rifle. This year no competitor appeared, and again the Queen's prize would be shot for with the Whitworth rifle. As regards precision and accuracy, the question did not admit of dispute, and to show what had been done by Mr. Whitworth it might be stated that in 1853 the mean deviation of rifles by the crack gunmakers at 500 yards was 35 inches, while in 183 7 Mr. Whitworth had constructed a rifle which, when fired before Lord Panmure at the same distance, gave a mean deviation of only 4½ inches. He could not help thinking they might find Members of that House wholly unprejudiced, and quite capable, whether as military men or sportsmen, to give a fair and impartial decision on that most important subject.

said, he could not but express his disappointment at the Government being unwilling to accede to the Motion. What had made Lancashire and Yorkshire celebrated was the great improvements in machinery made by machinery, and not by hand, and in that part of the country Mr. Whitworth had taken a high position. If they appointed a Committee of Members of that House, they would be able to examine into all the improvements made in small arms which would be brought before them from all parts of the world. He for one should have more satisfaction in voting the Supplies if he felt such an assurance as an inquiry before a Select Committee might give that the public money was spent in providing the army with the best possible weapon that could be obtained.

Sir, I wish to say only one word in order to assure the House that I am not at all insensible to the great importance of furnishing the army with the best possible weapon. In fact, the great improvements of the last few years may be appealed to as a sufficient proof that the attention of the Government has been directed to that, as well as to other similar objects. But what was stated by my hon. Friend the Under Secretary of State is quite true, that this is an inquiry which more properly belongs to a department of the Government than to a Committee of the House of Commons. I think, with all deference, that of late we have rather had a tendency to assume to this House the executive functions of the Administration. This is hardly a duty which a Select Committee can satisfactorily or usefully perform. It is evident, for reasons into which it not necessary to enter, that it is not a function which Members of this House can with equal advantage discharge. In the first place, an inquiry of this kind does not turn upon reasoning based simply on matters adduced in the examination of other people, but it is requisite that those who are to form a judment and make a report should be able themselves to verify the statements and opinions given by the different witnesses whom they may call; and it is quite clear that it is impossible for a Committee of the House of Commons to do that with the facility with which it can be accomplished by the Executive. There is no reason to think that the War Department, or those who act under its direction, feel any prejudice or interest in the matter, or have any other motive to guide them in coming to a decision than a real desire to arrive at the truth, and to ascertain not only which would be the best weapon, but, moreover, whether the superiority of a given weapon over another is so great as to counterbalance the additional expense and other inconveniences which might result from a general change of armament throughout the service? This matter had, I think, better be left in the hands of the Government, who, I can assure the House, are now pursuing the very inquiry which my noble Friend suggested ought to be the object of the Committee—namely, a comparison of the rifles made on Mr. "Whitworth's principle and those made on the Enfield principle. I repeat, that it will be the duty of the Government—a duty which they will sedulously perform—to ascertain with the greatest possible accuracy what is the best weapon, and when that has been discovered, also to ascertain whether the degree of superiority in the weapon deemed the best is such as to make it worth while to effect a change in the equipment of the whole army?

briefly replied. The issue of the discussion was so far satisfactory that if the Government gave an assurance to the House that the question should be fully and impartially investigated, and that at the beginning of next Session the result of that investigation should be laid on the table of the Houses he should not now press his Motion to a division. He wished further to say that he had had no intention whatever to impute any personal interest to the officer, who composed the Committee on the Whitworth and Enfield rifles. All he meant was that, under the circumstances, for which they certainly were not individually responsible, they could not bring a perfectly judicial mind to bear on the inquiry.

said, he was glad to hear the hon. Gentleman had withdrawn the implied accusation of partiality against the officers who had formed the Members of the Committee. Those officers were men of the highest character, who had done their duty faithfully and to the best of their power; and there was no ground whatever for impugning their impartiality.

in the Chair.

remarked that much had been said by a Member of Her Majesty's Government of the great expense which they were incurring, and the Committee would do well to consider the Vote before them, inasmuch as one item for the erection of buildings of a more permanent character at Aldershot, which involved a very large expenditure. It could not be said that the parsimony of Parliament had ever interfered with military expenditure; on the contrary, it seemed to be an established dogma in the House that whatever lavish expenditure the Minister called for on the army should be granted sub silentio. We were surrounded by "the pride, pomp, and circumstance of war" on every side—cast-iron forts on the shoals at Spithead, Volunteers camps at Shorncliffe, Colchester, and the Curragh; and, lastly, this monument of extravagance, the camp at Aldershot. The original Vote for Aldershot was asked for in February, 1854, on the express understanding that it was to be a camp where certain bodies of troops should be assembled for periodical exercise in the summer months. But it had since been converted into a permanent barrack. He had no wish now to go into the policy of bringing a large body of troops together during the whole year, though he believed it had a tendency to demoralize the men, and certainly not to improve the morals of the neighbourhood. The original sum contemplated for the purchase of land was £100,000, and in 1854 the Government announced that they had purchased 7,000 acres, at an expenditure of £156,000,. or about £20 an acre—a capital bargain, as it was said to be; though he held it to be the dearest purchase the Government ever made. The first mistake in that unhappy business was the selection of the site. Part of it was a swamp, which had to be drained with great difficulty and great expense. Then there was no supply of water to be got. The Royal Engineers were set to work, and a pretty mess they made of it. They dug holes in all directions only to fill them up again. He was sorry not see the hon. and gallant Member for Chatham (Sir Frederic Smith) in his place, for he knew something about the business. But it was not very strange that he was not there, seeing how impossible it was for anybody to know when o the Army Estimates were likely to come on. Then Mr. Simpson, a civil engineer, was set to work, and at an expense of £26,568 he succeeded in getting water two miles off. People in the Metropolis had to pay pretty heavily for water rates, but £26,000 for getting water two miles off was a nice nut for the financial reformers to crack—if any there were either in the House or out of it. Then the ground was so bad that the camp had to be gravelled at an expense of £12,800, an expense which was entirely owing to the improper selection of a site. Then came the most extraordinary business of all—the erection of the temporary huts. In the Estimates of 1854–5 there was a sum of £175,000 taken for the erection of temporary buildings or huts. In the return which he had moved for it was said that no special estimate was made of the cost of the huts, because it was not determined how many men would have to be provided for, but, however, £175,000 was the sum taken. The sum was granted, of course, and then the matter was forgotten; but he hoped that the return he had moved for would have the effect of inducing hon. Members to look more narrowly into such matters, and to follow up their history. The huts were found to be not only bad in design, but infamous in construction. They were neither watertight nor airtight. The Government then entered into a contract to cover the huts with patent felt at an expense of £14,000; but then even they were found not to be watertight, and another contract was entered into to tar them over. Certainly those who had constructed them ought not only to be tarred, but feathered; at any rate, they had feathered their nests well. The whole expense of erecting these huts for Aldershot and other stations had been £796,100—at Aldershot alone they had cost £496,000—and yet they were now in a state of utter rottenness and decay. He should very much like to hear what the Government intended to do with these huts now. After the construction of the huts it was determined to erect permanent barracks for 6,000 men at an expense of £250,000; but then the wise engineers employed, instead of selecting a site which would have allowed room for expansion, went to the very verge of the boundary of the 7,000 acres, and fixed on a site in a hollow, which was very difficult to drain, and which formed a very bad site altogether. Then they found they had omitted a hospital, and, there being no suit able site, they were obliged to give £2,000 for a couple of acres to build one upon; whereas, if the land had been purchased in the first instance, it might have been bought for £20 an acre. And now, through building these permanent barracks on the very verge of the boundary, a town had sprung up on the private property adjoining, which contained every element of demoralization. Great as was the reputation of this country for blundering, there had never been such a succession of blunders made as in the Aldershot business. The public had now got what many people imagined a very splendid site, and a very splendid pile of barracks. But he was informed, by persons competent to form an opinion, that the barracks, though constructed on an expensive system, were very defective. He believed that in May they were nearly burnt down, owing to the flues being made of half brick, and many of them resting on wood. At all events, he could say that the authorities had been in a great hurry to provide the barracks with fire escapes. Then the cooking houses were stuck right under the barracks, and expensive lifts were made—on the model, he supposed, of those at the Carlton and Reform, in order to send up the men's dinners. These lifts had never been used at all. It had been found also that the cooking houses were in the wrong place; they ought to have been detached, instead of being so placed as to roast the soldiers in summer as well as in winter. But this was not all. When the Aldershot Camp was first established iron stoves were provided for 20,000 men. What happened? They were condemned, and were sold as old iron. Captain Grant, a very able Artillery officer, then set up a most effective cooking apparatus for 50,000 men, which had beta in use for six years. He had since been informed that Captain Grant's apparatus was to be knocked on the head, and a new office had now been created—the office of Instructor of Military Cookery. Mr. Warrener had superseded Captain Grant, and had set up a cooking apparatus as an experiment—an expensive one, no doubt, as most of these experiments were. Next, there was a system of ventilating barrack grates. Three thousand of these were put up, costing £3 10s. a piece. They were, of course, admirable for every purpose except that for which they were intended, and fifty tons of them had been sold for old iron. It was necessary to put up others in their place, and altogether that experiment had cost not less than £25,000. It would be curious to know the total cost of the barrack stores which had been applied for and condemned at Aldershot. The Vote, which commenced as a temporary encampment, and amounted to £100,000, had swollen to £1,500,000; and he thought he had stated enough to show that it was time to put a stop to such a system. If the blundering at Aldershot had occurred in the sister country, the thing would have been stamped for ever; but, happening in England, he supposed it would only be pointed to as an instance of the solid good sense of John Bull. He hoped that if there was any solid sense in John Bull, and if there was any regard for the public purse in that House, that Aldershot would be looked upon as an example to be shunned, and that the House would not, year after year, be content to vote enormous sums without being persuaded that they got value for their money, and that they were not paying through the nose for that very expensive article—a standing army.

said, the hon. and gallant Member had brought the subject forward with great fairness and great accuracy, and he wished, in addition, to call attention to a statement made two or three years ago by the Commander-in-Chief with regard to barracks. His Royal Highness stated that he constantly visited different barracks in this country and always found that many things were wanted, but as he did not hold the purse-strings of the nation he could only represent the facts to the Government; that he had represented this accordingly, but he was met by the answer that, though the improvements suggested might be all very well and desirable, the Government had no money. That statement of the Commander-in-Chief was denied in "another place," very much to the surprise of officers of high rank in the service. There was no doubt that many of the improvements introduced into the army had been at the cost of barrack accomodation. Libraries and reading-rooms, for instance, had been formed out of what would otherwise have afforded barrack room; and the men had been crowded into their apartments in order to meet the feeling of the age. The hon. and gallant Member had referred to the manner in which repairs were done in barracks, and the enormous expense attending the minor details of such repairs. The difficulties officers had to contend with as to barrack repairs was illustrated by a case that occurred in London, and which was of such a nature that he could not believe it till he went to the barracks and ascertained that it was true. Some of the stoves in the Regents' Park Barracks were out of order, and an order was made that they should be repaired. They were taken out of their places for the purpose, repaired, and brought back. When they were brought back, and shown to the quartermaster, he approved of them and directed that they should be refixed. But it appeared that the word, "refix" was not in the order, and it took from the 26th of November to the 6th of December to get that defect in the order supplied; and in the meantime the stoves not being refixed they could have no fires, and great inconvenience was experienced. If such a thing could occur in the heart of London, in the barracks of the Guards, what might not happen in distant colonies? In 1855 he had himself brought forward a proposal for putting up an apparatus for drying soldiers' clothing at Aldershot. The Reports of the Barrack Committee and Sanitary Commissioners showed that much of the disease in the army was caused by the soldiers having no means of drying their clothes. An apparatus had been invented by Mr. Huthnance, fully carrying out the recommendations of these bodies. That invention he brought under the notice of the Secretary for War; it-was ordered to be reported on, and the Report was against the apparatus. He found on inquiry that the officer who reported against it did not even see it. He then requested that an officer should be sent to Chipping Norton, where the apparatus was at work, to report on it again. That report was most favourable to it, but no notice was taken of the invention till General Peel became Secretary for War. He ordered it to be put up at Aldershot, and General Knollys spoke very favourably of it. As the cost of the apparatus itself was only £40, he was surprised to find the whole cost of the drying-room put down at £394; of this sum it appeared £40 was paid for the apparatus, and £30 for the expenses of the inventor for attendance at different times. The remainder of the sum, £324, was the cost of building the drying-room, though it was only 19ft. 7½in. long, and 16ft. wide, and 13ft. high, a bare room, not even plastered, but whitewashed. From the difficulties he had to contend with about this apparatus, any one might have supposed he was himself the inventor of it, or had some percentage or profit on the transaction. The apparatus was afterwards put up in a drying-room in the Tower, and anything so scandalously done he had never seen. On asking the inventor how he could have allowed it, he explained that every suggestion he made was overruled by the clerk of the works. At the Kingston-on-Thames "Workhouse the improved drying-room he had referred to was to be seen in operation. It dried 3,400 articles a-week, the cost of the coal from the Monday morning to the Saturday night being only 4s. 5d., and the whole outlay for the building and apparatus £110. The Laundry Establishment at Chatham was said to have cost £900, but he believed that £1,800 was nearer the mark, and yet the hot closet was capable of drying only 192 shirts in 8 hours, with a consumption of 15 bushels of coal. The improved drying-room dried 308 shirts in 2½ hours, with a consumption of 70lb. of coal in the 24 hours. It was utterly impossible that the Report which had been laid on the Table could be correct, and he trusted that the Government would consent to a thorough investigation of the subject.

said, he trusted that the very useful improvements which the hon. and gallant Member (Colonel North) had described would be introduced into the military service. With reference to the observations of his hon. Friend the Member for Liskeard, he maintained that the purchase of land at Aldershot was a very cheap bargain. It had been bought at the rate of £20 an acre. It was true that a further outlay was afterwards necessary for drainage and other improvements; but he (Mr. Monsell) believed that if the land had been in a condition which would not have required that outlay it would have been idle to expect that it could have been purchased for the very moderate sum of £20 an acre; and he felt persuaded that if the troops were removed and the land put to sale it would bring a much larger price than the whole outlay for the purchase of land, and drainage, and other works. No doubt, it was originally intended for a camp; but it was very fortunate that it was capable of being used as barracks when the necessity arose. Since the peace of 1815 it had unfortunately been the habit to dispose of many of the buildings which during the great war had been used for the accommodation of troops; and on the breaking out of the Crimean war, when the army was increased and the militia embodied, it was found that we had an enormous number of men unprovided with proper barracks. The military authorities deemed it advisable to erect a large number of huts at Aldershot, the Curragh of Kildare, Shorncliffe, Colchester, and other places. The first were erected at Aldershot, those which were erected at Shorncliffe were better, and those at the Curragh were best of all. Those at Aldershot wore erected under great pressure, and it was absolutely necessary to erect them quickly. He agreed with his hon. Friend that the barracks should not have been erected in the corner of the land. He certainly never could understand the expediency of that, but the highest military authorities were of opinion that that should be the site of the building. With that single exception he believed those barracks were very successful, and that they had been erected at a smaller cost per man than any barracks that had been erected elsewhere. The first intention of Lord Hardinge was to have barracks built according to the Belgian system, but in deference to other military authorities first-class barracks were substituted. That accounted for the difference between the first estimate and the actual expenditure.

said, that as one of the officers who had been first stationed at Aldershot, he could bear his testimony to the pressure which was made to get the huts up, and he believed that was the cause of their inefficiency, as they were consequently commenced during a frost, and had no brick foundations. With regard to the permanent barracks, they were most admirably constructed, and were altogether most efficient. If barracks were more costly than formerly, it was in consequence of the recommendation of the Select Committee that greater space should be given to the men, and especially to the married soldiers. His object in rising, however, was to call attention to an item in the Vote of £50,000 for sanitary purposes. It was very well to have a sanitary commission for one year, but he thought the House would hardly sanction the perpetuation of it. There was one item included in that £50,000 which he hoped even financial reformers would assist him in dividing the Committee upon. He alluded to an allowance of three guineas a day to a civilian medical officer. Now, seeing that they were paying over £62,000 a year for a medical staff at home, it was hardly necessary to appoint a civil medical officer to such a post. Under these circumstances, he should move the reduction of the £50,000 by £1,150, the amount of the salary of the civil officer.

said, that the hon. and gallant Member for Chatham had nothing to do with the design of the huts at Aldershot, which were most miserable erections. They were totally unfit for soldiers or any other persons to live in, as the ventilation was two or three feet below the heads of the occupants, consequently they had to breathe a deleterious atmosphere. The great mistake that was made at Aldershot was the omission to construct the camp on a permanent and comprehensive plan. But he was bound to say that the Aldershot barracks were the best and cost the least of any that he was acquainted with. He did not think the cost of gravelling and draining and preparing the ground at all extravagant.

said, that as the reduction of an item in the Vote had been moved the debate must be confined to that question until it was disposed of.

said, he hoped that the hon. and gallant Gentleman would withdraw his Amendment, at least, until the Under Secretary for War had replied to the statement of the hon. Member for Liskeard.

said, he had no objection to withdraw his Amendment, on the understanding that he should have an opportunity of renewing it, when he should certainly take the sense of the Committee upon the question to which it had reference.

said, he was willing to admit that he had the honour of entering the House as a financial reformer, and he considered himself an independent Member; but when the present, or any other Government proposed anything which might be necessary for the defence of the country, they should have his warm support; while, on the other hand, he should most unquestionably oppose anything like extravagant expenditure. It appeared to him that no answer had been given to the speech of the hon. Member for Liskeard, who stated that many mistakes had been made in the construction of the Aldershot barracks; and that gave rise to the serious inquiry whether civil or military engineers should be employed in the construction of such barracks for the future? He believed that the corps of Royal Engineers, ably and excellently officered as it was, had been obliged to call in a civil engineer, Mr. Simpson, to aid in finding that indispensable requisite—water. If that were so, the gravest question arose for the future whether such operations were to be carried out solely by the corps of Royal Engineers, or whether civil engineers ought to be also employed so as to create a kind of mixed commission. At present, they were to look the fact in the face, that an establishment for £25,000 men had cost the country £1,500,000. If the Committee were prepared for such an expenditure it was useless to say anything. Financial reformers would never be wanting in granting ample means for the public service; all they required was, that the funds entrusted to the Executive should be faithfully, honestly, and judiciously administered; but they did not like a wasteful expenditure of that money which was so often and so cheerfully contributed by the country. He had, therefore, risen to protest against this costly expenditure. He thought that when experiments were to be made they should be carried out upon a moderate system, rather than upon that costly and excessive scale upon which they had, hitherto, been conducted.

said, he wished to call the attention of the hon. Under Secretary for War to the imperfect mode in which the lighting of the barracks was carried out in many places, and especially at Waterford.

said, there was a great deal of complaint about the expense in- curred at Aldershot which he thought to be very unfounded. He knew that the cost per head of erecting one of the cheapest asylums for lunatics—that in Hampshire, was £150, while the cost for providing accommodation for the soldier in the same county was only £60 per head.

complained that while money had been expended on barracks sufficient to provide every soldier in the British army with a comfortable cottage, the accommodation was still described by medical men as insufficient, and in many instances disgraceful. He should like to hear some explanation of the item of £60,000 for the purchase of lands and erecting rifle-range huts at Gravesend.

said, he would move the reduction of the Tote by £7,000, part of the sum of £40,000 for stabling of a more permanent character in the Camp at Aldershot. A great deal had been said about the improvements in barracks and about the sanitary arrangements in the new buildings erected for troops, but his quarters as an ensign twenty-five years ago were as comfortable as those which he enjoyed at the present time. As to Aldershot he looked upon that camp as one of the greatest sinks of corruption and iniquity. It was quite melancholy to think of it. He spoke from an experience of twelve months in that camp, where he said that it was perfectly horrible to witness the scenes which went on, owing to so many troops being quartered in the camp, and to their having nothing but riot and debauchery for amusement. Hon. Gentlemen who had not had personal experience of it might judge of its state from the paragraphs which from time to time appeared in the newspapers, They showed that every crime short of murder was committed there. It had a very bad effect on the condition of a soldier who had served ten or fifteen years in the colonies to send him to one of these monstrous camps, in which there was nothing but idleness and debauchery. He did not mean to say that the principle of forming camps was a bad one. On the contrary, he thought it would be a great advantage to the army to collect troops for two or three months in camp every summer to learn the arts of actual warfare; but the camp at Aldershot had been turned into an enormous barrack, in which the soldiers had nothing to do. Everything was brought to them as regularly as if they were in a barrack, and they learned nothing whatever. Hon. Members might hear great accounts of what was done at Aldershot; but he could assure them that it Was a great sham. In respect of drill the fact was by taking raw recruits to one of those camps they interfered with their discipline and prevented them from acquiring that steadiness which was so essential to a soldier. He ventured to say that a young recruit was deteriorated after spending some time there. Another argument in favour of those camps was that they would teach our generals. There was a great outcry against our generals during the Crimean war. A more heartless calumny was never uttered than that made use of against those officers at that time; but if our generals wanted teaching were they taught at Aldershot? One officer was kept there for a very long time. General Knollys, for instance, had commanded for a very considerable time. Again, the General officer who commanded the camp lived eight miles from it, the adjutant-general five, and the quartermaster-general four. What was the consequence? Why, if an orderly went to the camp at night he did not know what officer to go to. Again, why should a brigadier be placed there for five years? Every officer commanding a regiment ought to have the chance of commanding a brigade sometimes, and every brigadier ought to have his chance of commanding a division. The General in command and the other superior officers were sufficient in the discharge of their duties. What he complained of was the system of turning those camps into permanent quarters of large masses of men; and as he looked upon the stabling as of a permanent character, he now moved the reduction of the Vote by the sum of £7,000.

said, there was a good deal of truth in what his hon. and gallant Friend had advanced, although his statements were, he thought, somewhat exaggerated. He would admit that Aldershot might have been made of greater advantage as a place of instruction, and that the arrangements might have been better. At the same time it must be recollected that it had grown by degrees, and its utility was still being gradually developed. In the first place, the General in command lived several miles from the camp. It would have been better if the Government had provided a residence for the General in the immediate proximity of the camp; but, as they had not done so, it could not be expected that an officer who held such a command for five years would live in a small hut. Still, when his hon. and learned Friend said that an orderly arriving at ten o'clock at night did not know to whom to deliver a message, he must have forgotten that there was at all times a general of the week, to whom all reports were made in the absence of the General commanding, and whose business it was not to leave the camp during the evening. He considered that the country was not aware of how much they owed to that General (General Knollys), who had at first no ordinary difficulty to encounter, and whose time had been over occupied by an enormous correspondence, consequent upon the anomalous position of the War Department and the Horse Guards. In regard to drill he must say that, of his own experience, Aldershot was of immense advantage to the army. Before the camp at Chobham was established there was hardly a brigade ever found together, except at Dublin. He had heard, indeed, old officers say that they were unable to command a brigade for want of experience. He agreed that it would have been better if there had been more opportunities of interchanging commands. He would also admit that the camp might be made too much of a permanent camp, and that it was a disadvantage to keep the whole force all the winter in such a place. It was an advantage to the men when they first arrived, and an improvement both to officers and men in regard to drill, but after a Certain time the advantage was lost, and the place became irksome. Opportunities are given for instruction there which are not to be found elsewhere, and there cannot be a doubt that gradually it will become more and more of service to the country. If it were possible during the winter months to quarter the greater part of the men in other directions it would be better. On the whole, however, as a camp of military instruction, Aldershot had been of great service both to officers and men, but particularly to officers, in respect to the regiments being quartered together in brigades. The men gained, too, in being taken away from sentry and night duty and in living in a healthy situation. The Government, however, had made a great mistake in permitting the erection, within 100 yards of the but barracks, of a line of houses of a description to which he need not more particularly allude, over which the Government had no control, and which exercised a demoralizing effect on the troops. He could not agree with the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Monsell) that £20 an acre was very cheap for common land of that description.

intimated to the hon. and gallant Member for Limerick that though the Estimate for Stabling was £40,000, the Vote now asked for was only £7,000; so that his Amendment, if carried, would have the effect of disallowing the whole of the Vote for the present year.

said, he was glad to find that his hon. and gallant Friend (General Lindsay) had endorsed everything he had said about Aldershot. He objected to the camp being made of a permanent character, and he, therefore, moved the omission of the whole of the sum proposed to be voted for this year.

denied that he endorsed the statement of the gallant Member for Limerick who gave no credit at all, and who had exaggerated every defect.

said, that having himself been at Aldershot, he could bear the strongest testimony to the need of better accommodation for horses. "When he was there the horses all had sore throats, and the discomfort could not be described. He was astonished, therefore, at hearing his hon. and gallant Friend object to the Vote of £7,000, for no money could be better laid out than in improving the stabling at Aldershot.

said, he was glad the Committee had heard the testimony of two officers who had been at Aldershot. He trusted that after the discussion which had taken place they were not now of opinion that there had been, as was alleged, any misrepresentation from the beginning, or that the House had expected to Vote £100,000 and no more. [Mr. BERNAL OSBORNE: Hear!] If the House had been asked merely to buy land for a site upon which to build the barracks there would have been no reason for asking for so large a sum. He would ask the Committee whether the mere demand for such a sum for the purchase of land did not involve an additional outlay for huts and other expenses which were necessary for a camp of exercise? It had been said that the whole thing had been entered upon without opposition or criticism. But there had been constant discussions on the sub- ject. He could himself recollect an Amendment moved by Captain Vivian, who he regretted was not now a Member of the House, which raised the very same point with that debated that night, as to the permanence of the camp. The question had been thoroughly discussed, and among those who voted against the reduction of the Vote moved by Captain Vernon was the hon. and gallant Member for Liskeard (Mr. Bernal Osborne). With respect to the suggestion that some improvement might be made in respect to the supervision of barrack expenditure, and the employment of civil engineers, he had to state that a Committee had been appointed to consider the question. In reference to the actual Vote, the reduction of which was moved by the hon. and gallant Officer, he believed that there was nothing which would attract the observation of any hon. Member who visited Aldershot more than the state of the cavalry stables; and for the preservation of the horses in the south camp, all of which probably would be burnt in the event of a fire breaking out, it was essential that some improvement should be made in them. The £7,000 was to be applied to the erection of permanent stables for the horses of a battery of Horse Artillery, and the remainder of the whole sum required would stand over for subsequent consideration, none of it being expended without the previous consent of the House of Commons. The cost of the permanent barracks at Aldershot was, as the Committee had been informed by the hon. Member for Coventry, less than the cost of other barracks. With regard to the grates mentioned by the hon. and gallant Member for Liskeard, he did not believe that any ventilating grates had been introduced into Aldershot at all, and certainly doubted the accuracy of the statement that grates had been introduced and afterwards sold for old iron. The drying machinery introduced at Aldershot and Chatham had been alluded to by the hon. and gallant Member for Oxfordshire (Colonel North), and the Committee might rest satisfied that every attention would be given to the introduction of the very best drying apparatus into the different camps and barracks. He would also make inquiries as to the adoption of gas in barracks.

said, that he should support the Motion for the reduction of the Vote, because the permanent barracks at Aldershot were growing to such a mag- nitude that the Committee ought to know where the expenditure was to stop. He did not believe that any benefit would be derived from this Vote for the increase of the cavalry barracks, for they were at present sufficiently extensive, and he strongly deprecated spending any more money on the permanent barracks. With regard to the new barracks in London, in Portland Street, he wished to ask a question—

said, he must request the hon. and gallant Member to confine his observations to Aldershot.

said, of course he would bow to the Chair; but he wanted to know how the authorities were going to deal with the huts at Aldershot? They were in a state to require repairs or rebuilding, and he wished to know whether the Government had come to the determination of doing one or the other? Were they going to make them permanent, or merely to repair them? His question also applied to the barracks at Colchester and other places.

This discussion has, I think, taken a much wider range than the Vote under our consideration justifies. We have been debating whether it was originally expedient to buy a large tract of land for the purpose of assembling these troops to be instructed in general movements; whether it was right to have erected permanent works on that land; whether we ought to use huts in lieu of barracks; whether the command at Aldershot should be confined to one officer, or whether a number of officers in succession should be so employed? Now these are, no doubt, very proper subjects for discussion. They are all questions of great interest; but then I would humbly submit that they do not exactly belong to the Vote which is now under our consideration. That Vote is the moderate sum of £7,000 for the purpose of providing stabling for barracks which are already built. The argument of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Liskeard (Mr. B. Osborne) and some hon. Gentlemen who followed would, if acted upon, naturally lead us to break up the whole thing, to sell the land, and have no encampment at Aldershot at all. He would have us pull down the huts and, I suppose, convert them into firewood; in short, he would have the establishment altogether discontinued. Now, if he were to make that proposal in direct terms there would be a practical question for our consideration; but that is not the point at issue, and I trust, therefore, the Committee will waive these general expressions of opinion to which we have been listening, and Vote the sum which we believe to be necessary—and which a gallant Officer on the other side of the House, who has had some experience at Aldershot, states to be necessary—in order to render the works at pre-Bent there available for the purposes for which they were intended. So far as the general question is concerned, I must say I am somewhat astonished that the hon. and gallant Member for Liskeard, or any other hon. Gentleman possessing military knowledge, should appear to doubt the advantage of having an extensive piece of ground like that at Aldershot for the purpose of military instruction. The scheme of having such an encampment was taken from the practice adopted by the French Government, who used to have a camp at Boulogne, and who, when they found what We had done in the same direction, bought a much larger extent of ground at Chalons; the expense of the camp there being much greater than that which we incurred. It is, however, contended that the barracks at Aldershot are a source of demoralization, owing to the population which has sprung up in the neighbourhood, and that we ought to buy up everything in its vicinity with the view of preventing such a state of things. But what, let me ask, is the condition of barracks elsewhere? Are we to purchase up all the ground in the neighbourhood of Portsmouth and Plymouth and other towns attached to which there are barracks, with the view of driving away that particular description of population to which allusion has been made? Are we to have barracks nowhere except in perfect solitudes, so that the men might be cut off from all communication of that character? Why, Sir, it has been strongly objected to Aldershot in the course of this long discussion that it was not near a town, and that there was not, as a consequence, due provision made for what is called amusement for the men. These arguments, it will be at once seen, destroy one another, while the charge made against Aldershot on the score of morality applies with infinitely greater force to those barracks which are situated in large and populous towns. With respect to the expense of the ground purchased there, I would simply ask whether if we had proposed to buy 9,000 acres of enclosed land we should have made a more economical outlay? What I should like to know would be the cost of those 9,000 acres, on which it would have become necessary to throw down all the fences, to destroy all the cultivation, for the purpose of reducing it to an open space on which military manœuvres might be executed? Why, it is obvious that land of that description would have cost a much larger sum than we paid for Aldershot, and I maintain that the purchase of the land there was, after all, a very economical arrangement. The expediency of having an encampment of this kind, however, for the purposes of military instruction, does not bear upon the Vote under our notice, and I trust the House will not hesitate to Vote the sum of £7,000 for which we ask, and which is required in order to render the barracks at Aldershot available for the objects for which they are intended.

said, he wished to ask one question of the hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary for War. A case had been brought before him of the horses of the Blues having been put into stables at Aldershot last year which had been previously occupied by horses afflicted with that horrible disease the glanders. It was impossible to conceive anything more absurd than such an arrangement, and he wished to know whether the Vote would have any tendency to prevent a repetition of such conduct?

said, the Vote would certainly have such an effect as it would provide increased accommodation for the horses there.

Before we go to a division I may be allowed to question the doctrine which has just been laid down, that in discussing a Vote such as that before us we are not entitled to enter into the general subject of the expediency of maintaining the encampment at Aldershot as a permanent establishment. On a former occasion, when I took up that subject, I was told that it was not the proper time to do so, and now that we are dealing with a Vote in connection with it I am met with a similar objection. I am not surprised to find that the noble Lord at the head of the Government is partial to Aldershot, because it is his own child, and he acknowledged himself to be its father in 1857, on the occasion of the Motion made by Captain Vivian. Now, the Under Secretary for War has twitted me with voting in the majority on that occasion in obedience to my commander; but I was at the time a subordinate Member of the Government, and the hon. Gentleman should bear in mind that

"Sufferance is the badge of all our tribe."

I would remind the hon. Gentleman, however, that I never voted in favour of the permanent system at Aldershot—nay, more, that I was always opposed to it. But to return to the noble Lord at the head of the Government, I find that on June 5, 1857, when Captain Vivian moved the reduction of the sum to be expended for permanent barracks from £100,000 to £50,000, he spoke as follows:—

"I thought, Sir, I had explained that permanent barracks are to be built at Aldershot for 4,000 infantry, 1,500 cavalry, and a few batteries of artillery, and that it is not intended to build barracks for a larger number of men than that. Troops are to be be collected together there in a larger number during the spring and summer months for the purposes of exercise; but it is not intended to make it a winter camp." [3 Hansard, cxlv. 1264.]

Now, that is the very thing which I have been urging on the Committee. I do not object to troops being collected at Aldershot during the summer months. What I am opposed to is the policy of making it a permanent barrack, and there is not, I contend, a single position which I have laid down to-night which has been contravened, although my statements have been nibbled at by the noble Lord and the hon. Under Secretary for War. An hon. Member from the sister country, who represents the cavalry, told us that if the Government had not brought forward this Vote he would have insisted upon it, because his horses had very sore throats.

The hon. Gentleman has misrepresented and misquoted every word I said.

I certainly understood the hon. Member to say that his horses had sore throats, and that, therefore, he thought the Vote a proper one. If the hon. Member can read, he may see on referring to the Estimates that the sum of £7,000 is intended to provide permanent stables for artillery horses; it has nothing whatever to do with officers' horses. I am so satisfied that it is bad policy to make permanent encampments that I hope the Committee will be asked to divide against the Vote.

The hon. and gallant Gentleman has said that I denied his right to discuss the general ques- tion of Aldershot, and maintained that he ought to confine himself to the stables. I said exactly the contrary. I admitted that it was competent for him or anybody else to discuss the general question, but added that the Vote before us related merely to the stables. The hon. and gallant Gentleman, I must say, has excited my deepest compassion. He has most pathetically described the extreme sufferings he endured when he was in office, and was called upon to assent to the Vote for Aldershot. It is a lamentable thing that he should have undergone so much pain; but, on the other hand, it is some consolation to know that in his present position he has fully indemnified himself for his former privations. The free expression of opinion in which he has indulged this evening can he compared with nothing but the thawing of Baron Munchausen's horn, when all those notes, whether harmonious or discordant, which had been frozen up so long at last found vent into the open air, and either astonished or delighted the audience by whom they were heard. I hope the hon. Gentleman will not suppose that I have been merely nibbling at his argument, or that I have not contradicted anything he has said. I contradict every opinion he has uttered, and challenge him to prove his statements.

It has been my misfortune to-night to fall foul of two Irish Gentlemen—the hon. Member opposite and the noble Lord who has just sat down. I think, however, it is a little unfair in the noble Lord to fire off at my expense the old jest about Baron Munchausen's horn, which, for the benefit of younger Members of the House, I may state I heard him six years ago apply to another Member. We have a much more serious matter before us than the venerable joke which the noble Lord has revived. Is the House of Commons prepared to sanction the expenditure of somewhere about £1,500,000 upon the camp at Aldershot? The noble Lord says he contradicts everything I have said, but I have quoted a passage from Hansard which cannot be disputed. In 1857 the noble Lord stated that it was not intended to make a permanent encampment at Aldershot; but now, availing himself of his acquaintance with the pages of our most ancient jester, he wants the Committee to give its assent to a different policy.

The hon. Gentleman has quoted from Hansard the amount of permanent barrack accommodation which I stated in 1857 was intended to be established at Aldershot. I believe he will find the amount of permanent barrack accommodation which actually exists at the present moment does not exceed that which I stated in 1857.

said, he apprehended that the £7,000 now asked for was only the first instalment of a much larger sum.

stated that the permanent barracks had got plenty of good stabling attached to them. He would divide the Committee against the Vote.

said, he wished some explanation of the proposed Vote of £10,000 for Colchester Barracks. The total estimate had been £60,000, including the purchase of land. £35,000 had been previously voted, leaving £25,000 to be voted in subsequent years. But now, after having spent £33,000, the £27,000 was increased to £60,000. He understood that part was for cavalry barracks. But they already had cavalry barracks at Norwich and Ipswich, and he supposed it was the intention of the authorities to remove them to Colchester. If they did that, what did they propose to do with the barracks at Norwich and Ipswich? If he was rightly informed, they could not sell these latter, because they could not give a good title to the land, and, therefore, they would be obliged to retain them. He wished also to ask whether the sum of £60,000 was the whole sum which they would be called upon to vote for barracks at Colohester? for it was rumoured that it was only part of a great scheme to spend something like £200,000. He thought the Estimates ought to show in the first column what was really the total sum to be spent.

said, he agreed with the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down that there was a vast increase on the Vote without any reason assigned. He thought the Under Secretary for War was bound to tell the Committee why such an increase had taken place. He also wished to know what they wanted with an enormous establishment at Gravesend, costing £60,000, while they had Chatham within seven or eight miles, where there were ample means of teaching soldiers to fire ball cartridge? 'With regard to Colchester he thought the increase was quite uncalled for. The Government were wasting money in the erection of barracks. He had been at Dovor on the previous day and had seen the barracks erecting there, which were to cost £29,000, and accommodate only thirty officers—nearly £1,000 for each officer. The buildings were of a magnificent external character, with cut stone, but not a jot was added by them to the comfort of the officers. Such extravagant expenditure ought to be discouraged.

said, that with reference to Colchester the Estimates were perfectly clear. The Committee was asked to vote £16,000, part of £60,000 for the erection of cavalry barracks. The reason of these being erected was that the lease of the barracks at Norwich would fall in in a few years, and those at Ipswich were in a very bad state. He had no information of any such extensive plan respecting the camp at Colchester as that alluded to by the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Childers). With respect to the purchase of land at Gravesend, that was only for the completion of a service which had already been approved, and part of the cost of which had been previously voted. The addition to the Estimate for Woolwich Hospital was to supply accommodation for an increased number of patients.

asked for an explanation of the proposed Vote of £20,000 for the purchase of the Euston Hotel, Fleetwood, for rifle ranges and butts. £20,000 had already been granted for that purpose, and, besides the Vote now asked for, a further demand of £20,000 would be required to complete the work, making £60,000 in all. That was an enormous sum, and to raise the question he would move that £10,000 be deducted from the Vote.

said, he did not think the hon. Under Secretary for War's explanation respecting Woolwich Hospital at all satisfactory. The outlay upon that establishment was objected to last year, when a distinct assurance was given that the expense would not exceed £120,000. Instead of that, however, the Estimate had now risen to £200,000. Again, with respect to the construction of the barracks at the Royal Military Academy, there had been a distinct understanding when the works commenced that there should be a separate room for every cadet; but up to that time, as he was informed, two, and even three, cadets had to live in the same room, without having any place to retire to for studying.

said, he wished to call attention to the item of £15,000 for increasing the Royal Military College at Sandhurst, so as to accommodate 500 cadets. That was the first instalment of a scheme for entirely changing the mode of preparing officers for the army. Every young gentleman, it appeared, before entering the service, was to be required to pass a year at the Military College in acquiring the rudiments of his profession. All monopolies were highly objectionable, but a monopoly of education such as that proposed was, perhaps, the most objectionable of all. A special training like that would, he believed, not be advantageous to the army. It would be better if every officer entering the service were required to possess a liberal education, wherever that education might have been obtained. What security was there that an establishment for 500 cadets would be conducted in such a manner as to afford the education it professed to provide, and at the same time to keep up the high tone which had hitherto distinguished the British officer?

said, the object of purchasing the Euston Hotel at Fleetwood was to afford the means of instruction in rifle shooting in the north of England, instead of requiring officers to travel from distant parts of the country to the establishment at Hythe.

said, he wished to bring under the notice of the Committee the subject of Captain Grant's cooking kitchens, which were now established in all the larger barracks and encampments. Before 1855 the cooking system in the army was very indifferent, but in that year Captain Grant was directed by Viscount Hardinge to investigate the subject, the result of which was the establishment of a new system of cooking at Aldershot. Captain Grant had not only originally established the present system by which great economy and increased efficiency had been obtained, but it was found so successful at Aldershot, that it was in consequence of that success established at Shorncliffe, the Curragh, Colchester, Woolwich, and other places; he, therefore, has the merit of having established the first improvements, and he is deserving of consideration for his success, and it is not fair now to turn round upon him and say that others had subsequently improved upon him, but he ought to have credit for the five years conduct of a system which has been proved to be so advantageous to the service. Under the old system the consumption of fuel was about 3⅞lb. per man per day, but Captain Grant's improvement reduced it to about 5lb. per man per week, thus effecting a great saving of expense, as well as an addition to the comforts of the soldiers. When this subject was brought forward last year the noble Lord the Secretary for War observed that Captain Grant's system was only one of many that had been submitted to the Government, but, although others had lately been brought under notice, yet, as before stated, Captain Grant was the original inventor. The noble Lord also objected that Captain Grant's system was not original, that it had been tried and had not succeeded at the London Tavern; but subsequent inquiries led him (General Lindsay) to believe that that was a mistake; and, even if it were so, he has the merit of having applied it to soldiers. Other objections had been raised which for the most part had been got rid of by recent improvements by him, and the fact remained that Captain Grant had introduced a system which for a long time had been the only system of cooking in use at large camps. He thought that officer had a right to expect sympathy and encouragement from the Government, but, instead of that, those whose business it was to carry out the details had rather acted in opposition to him. Captain Grant had received £500 as compensation for his outlay, but not as a recognition of the merits of his invention. That sum was far less than he had expended, he having paid upwards of £750 out of his own pocket. One of Captain Grant's kitchens has been altered to carry out a system under the countenance of the War Department—and without reference to Captain Grant—the alterations have already cost £700. It is small encouragement to gentlemen to improve systems for the Army when they find themselves neglected, and treated without deference. I trust the Government will consider this question with reference to some compensation to Captain Grant, both for his success and for his exertions.

observed that a very important question had been raised as to providing a special military education for officers. It was impossible to enter into that subject that night, and he should, therefore, move that the Chairman report Progress.

said, that the Committee would have an opportunity hereafter of discussing that question, and he trusted, therefore, the noble Lord would not persist in his Motion.

said, he hoped that the noble Lord at the head of the Government would agree to report Progress.

said, he hoped the Committee would allow them to go on with the Vote, which they had been engaged upon since nine o'clock. If they were to go on reporting Progress in that manner he did not know when the Session would he over.

said, he should move the omission of the item of £15,000 for increasing the Royal Military College at Sandhurst to hold 500 cadets.

explained that under the new system which was proposed officers previous to joining the army would have to go to a military college for a year, for the purpose of learning the theory and practice of their profession. The plan would not come into operation until the beginning of 1863. Further details would be given, and, therefore, he thought there was no reason for refusing the Vote. His noble Friend the Secretary for State had been in communication with the authorities of Oxford and Cambridge Universities, with regard to a suggestion that the universities should also be used for the purpose of military education.

said, the £15,000 would enable the present building to be extended, but would not provide the whole accommodation necessary for 500 cadets.

remarked that the Committee should have some data as to the system which the Government proposed. When they knew what the system was it would be time enough to vote money to enlarge the building.

suggested that the hon. Under Secretary should make some explanatory statement.

said, they were asked to proceed, and yet the Government had not made up their mind as to the principle they intended to adopt. Why should Parliament grant buildings that might not be required? He thought the Vote ought to be postponed.

said, that the plan had been explained in the evidence given by His Royal Highness, Commanding-in-Chief, before the Committee on military organization. He was anxious to get rid of all patronage connected with his office, and it was proposed that after the 1st of January, 1863, all direct admissions to the army should cease, with the exception of those given, to non-commissioned officers. All officers before entering the army would have to go through a course of one year at Sandhurst, passing a qualifying examination on going in, and another examination on leaving. The latter would include drill and military exercises. The present system would continue until January, 1863. With the exception of the commissions guaranteed by Act of Parliament to the sons of persons who have served in India, all commissions without purchase would be competed for by the cadets at Sandhurst.

said, he wished to know in what manner candidates would be admitted to Sandhurst?

said, the names would be put down on a list as at present, and each candidate would take his turn.

said, the matter was one of such importance that he must press his Amendment for the omission of the item.

moved that the Committee report Progress.

said, he thought that as no information had been laid before the Committee as to the system which was to be adopted, it would be better to postpone the item for the pre sent.

said, he also advocated postponement, as the item really belonged to the Educational Vote, which came next.

said, that if hon. Gentlemen would withdraw their opposition to the Vote, he would undertake that no expense should be incurred on account of it until the House had had an opportunity of giving an opinion on the scheme of education proposed.

said, he would move the reduction of the Vote by the sum of £1,150, paid to the Sanitary Commissioners.

said, Dr. Sutherland was the highest authority upon these questions, and the improvements which, under his superintendence, had been effected in the sanitary arrangements of barracks had tended materially to reduce the mortality in the army. The appointment was not a permanent one, and in the bourse of another year or so his employment would probably cease.

said, that as he believed that in the present state of the Committee reduction was not to be hoped for, he should move that the Chairman report Progress.

said, he was sure the Committee would feel that nothing was more important than the preservation of the health of the army. Putting it on the lowest grounds, there was nothing so uneconomical and so prodigal as carelessness on this point. But in reality it stood on higher ground, because if men were enlisted for the service of the country the Government was bound to take due care of their lives. When a large number of persons were crowded together in barracks, pr in camp, there was until lately much ignorance as to the principles on which the preservation, of health depended. Dr. Sutherland was the first to examine into these principles. He had rendered invaluable service in the Crimea, as well as in the different hospitals and barracks of this country, and no money could be better laid out in guarding the health of the soldier from the influences to which it was subjected.

said, the noble Lord had not convinced him that when so large a sum was paid to medical officers in the army, some of those gentlemen could not be employed to discharge the duties performed in this instance by a civilian.

said, that a sum of money had been awarded to Captain Grant as remuneration, but he was not satisfied with it; since that time the question had not been raised. If an application were again made it would be fully considered. He could not undertake to say that Captain Grant should be paid out of the saving his kitchen had effected, there being differences of opinion as to its economy. There was no disposition to depreciate Captain Grant's services.

said, that Captain Grant's kitchen had been of great service in the North West London Reformatory, and a large district school at Southwell. What he complained of was that some sinister influence was at work to prevent his plans being properly carried out. It was a great evil that, rightly or wrongly, the opinion was universal that the State was a hard taskmaster but a bad paymaster; and that a man could not expend his time and talents in a less profitable service than that of his country.

said, there never was a more successful improvement introduced into the army than Captain Grant's kitchen. It was both healthy and economical. Captain Grant had expended £700 out of his own pocket, and he had received £500.