I have to apologize to the House for alluding to a matter personal to myself, and I will do so in a very few words. I have likewise to apologize for having spoken with regard to this affair on Friday night, when the noble Lord to whom I am about to allude was absent. I was informed on Friday last by several hon. Gentlemen whom I met in the street that a very personal attack had been made upon my public character by the noble Lord the Member for Huntingdon (Lord R. Montagu). I went home and read the paragraph in the paper, which certainly appeared to me to require some answer. There was not only an attack on the Lord Lieutenant of the county of Kent (Viscount Sydney), but an attack upon me in my public capacity as Secretary to the Admiralty. I thought it my duty, at the request of the Lord Lieutenant, to come down to the House on Friday, at four o'clock. Unfortunately, the noble Lord was not in his place; but I thought it my duty to contradict the statement of that paragraph with reference to the appointment of Mr. Budden to a captaincy of Volunteers, and I will therefore say nothing more about it now. But, on the same occasion, I am given to understand that the noble Lord expressed to the House that I had, holding an official public appointment, attended political meetings at Chatham with a veiw to induce the electors of Chatham to vote for a brother-in-law of mine, Mr. Otway. I was informed by several Gentlemen that that was the tone and tenor of the noble Lord's observations. If the noble Lord has been misunderstood, I shall be extremely glad to hear it. I was also informed that on an occasion when I went to Chatham the noble Lord had stated as a fact that I had taken a special train to go down to Chatham, apparently hinting that I had charged that special train to the Government account. Now, I wish to state in a very few words what did take place. In the month, I think, of November last, I was invited by the High Constable of Chatham to meet a large party of naval and military officers at dinner, amongst whom was my gallant Friend the Member for Chatham. I took a return ticket and went down to Chatham and attended the dinner, and a very good dinner it was. It fell to my lot, being the senior naval officer present, to have to return thanks for the navy. And I did return thanks for the navy. I expatiated on the agreeable nature of the company; that there were no politics, happily, to be introduced at the meeting; and I likewise congratulated them upon the fact that some day or other Chatham would be the finest arsenal in the world. Now, that was the whole of the speech. My gallant Friend the Member for Chatham returned thanks on that occasion for the army, and did me the honour to pay me a higher compliment than I deserved. The evening wore on, and that part of the company who had to return to London were about to leave to take the latest train, when the worthy and munificent High Constable informed us that a special train had been placed at our disposal; and we gratefully availed ourselves of the offer. I went down with Sir Henry Drummond Wolff and Mr. Otway, and returned with them to London. No politics were introduced, and that was the only occasion of my visiting Chatham. Now, I appeal to the House whether, under the circumstances, I deserve to be under the censure which the noble Lord has been pleased to throw upon me.

The noble Lord has defended himself, or attempted to defend himself, certainly without rancour, that which, if he will permit me to say so, he committed with a great deal of rashness. I think, however, that on this occasion he has left unanswered many points to which I alluded, and by doing so has admitted their correctness. I had expected and hoped that he would have endeavoured to clear himself from the suspicion of unconstitutional conduct, yet he appeared entirely to let the case rest upon what I did or did not assert about Lord Sydney, and what I might have said, or might not have said, concerning himself. It appears to me, that that is not at all the question. The question for the House is, whether the noble Lord did or did not act in a legal and constitutional manner? What does it matter to the country, whose business we are here to transact, whether I said certain things of him or of the Lord Lieutenant of the county? The country will not care one farthing what was said by a Member who has not been three years in the House, who never held any office, and whose individual opinion is of no account either in the country or in the House. The question about which the country will care, and to which, therefore, he ought to have directed his attention is, whether as a Member of this House, he did or did not act in a legal and constitutional manner? I appeal to the hon. and gallant Member for Chatham whether what I said was or was not correct; and I further ask him to support me now if I am right, and to correct me if I am wrong. But the noble Lord trotted very lightly over the main assertions of my speech, like a man walking barefooted over sharp flints, as if he did not care to bear upon them, for fear of committing himself one way or the other. First, with regard to Lord Sydney, what I said was this—and I carefully guarded myself—that application had been made to him by Mr. Budden, (who became afterwards High Constable of Chatham), for a captaincy of Volunteers, and that Lord Sydney had refused the application on the ground that Mr. Budden was a canteen-keeper. I see by the reports in the papers, that I was understood to use the word "costermonger;" and as the reporters are remarkably accurate, I suppose I did so; but then all I can say is, that it was a lapsus linguœ. However, that did not apply to Lord Sydney. He refused the captaincy; the dinner was given to the noble Lord opposite, and after that Mr. Budden received the captaincy. I merely stated the facts. I drew no inference. I never, for one moment, said that those facts were connected together. These are the words: —"The Lord Lieutenant, he was informed, refused, observing that the person in question was a mere costermonger."

The noble Lord is not in order in reading extracts from a report of a debate in this House. I am very sorry to interfere in a matter which appears to be of the nature of a personal explanation; but the explanation of a single point which the noble Lord may think due to himself, does not afford him the opportunity of entering into a general statement.

Then I will put myself in order by ending with a Motion. The noble Lord may attack me in the House, that I do not care about; but what I do care about, and what the noble Lord does not appear to care about, is whether he has acted legally and constitutionally, or not? That is the point on which I want the House to judge between us. The noble Lord seems to feel that there is some secret link of association which will connect those two facts together in the mind of every person. Unless he thought there was a connection between the dinner at Chatham and the Lord Lieutenant giving Mr. Budden the office that he desired, why should he have come down to the House and, as it were, raised this tempest in a tumbler? But it is clear that he was conscious that there was some influence used. I do not say the noble Lord himself applied to the Lord Lieutenant—but I say that the Lord Lieutenant was naturally anxious to oblige his brother-in-law. I never said that Mr. Budden was not a respectable individual. I am quite aware that he is so; but he had this disadvantage in the noble Lord's eyes: he was a most strenuous supporter of the Conservative Member for Chatham; and when any one sees those civilities done to another party, he naturally supposes that the object is to detach the individual from the side he had served so long. The noble Lord says I asserted that he went on several occasions to Chatham on political matters. I did not understand that he took his inspiration from a newspaper. I saw only two newspapers, in neither of which I was reported to have used the words which he puts into my mouth. He has been misinformed. I merely said he went down to the dinner. What I said with regard to the special train was that the noble Lord did return by a special train, and that I wondered how it was paid for. I did not assert that it had been charged to the Government account. Although I did ask whether, after all these uncalled for civilities to Conservative electors, it had been taken out of the Civil Contingencies; but this I said by way of joke, without any intention of imputing to the noble Lord any dishonourable conduct. The noble Lord has passed over the most important part of the charge I made against him—that he went to Chatham and promised the electors that Chatham should become "the greatest naval arsenal in the world." [Lord CLARENCE PAGET: No!] I hold the report of his speech in my hand. The statement is not, as the noble Lord alleged, that "some day or other" such would be the case:— it was a positive promise, that "Chatham should become one of the most important naval stations in the world;" that "Chatham was about to possess one of the most important naval arsenals;" that "the basin accommodation at Chatham would be made to surpass all that was to be found in Cherbourg, or in any of the ports of France." Was he not then making a promise to Chatham that it was to have the greatest arsenal in the world, and basin accommodation that should surpass that at Cherbourg? Was not that promising that the House should expend millions of money at Chatham? Would our forefathers have allowed even a King or Queen to promise a large expenditure of public money on any dockyard? Would the House sanction such lavish promises and vows to be made in their name? Would they permit the little engrossers of delegated power to do that which our fore- fathers would not have suffered in the prerogatives of Royal authority? Of course, the noble Lord was received with cheers at Chatham; and of course warmly welcomed when he made such a promise of the expenditure of public money to their town. He said our navy was never in a better condition for entering into war with the French. The hon. Member for Rochdale (Mr. Cobden) is not here, or he would, I have no doubt, have taken up the cudgels on that point. What right has the noble Lord to go down to Chatham and make irritating remarks concerning the French nation? It may be said that this was only a little indiscretion; but if so, it is only another instance of what we heard so much of last year, and which was known as Ministerial mud-larking. This House has always been most jealous that a Minister should not use his patronage to turn the votes of electors; and yet I appeal to the House whether those words of the noble Lord were not calculated to buy over the electors of Chatham to his side? It may be said that an election was not imminent; but I ask whether every hon. Member of this House did not then entertain the expectation of a general election at an early period of the present Session? And it was then that the noble Lord went down to Chatham and made those promises to the electors. I will not detain the House further, but this I say, that the noble Lord has not defended himself on the only point upon which he was open to attack—namely, that he acted unconstitutionally and illegally; and I think it is the duty of some of the noble Lord's Colleagues to defend him, if he can be defended, on that point. I move the adjournment of the House.

said, that having been referred to by both the noble Lords, he wished to say a few words. With respect to the appointment of Mr. Budden to a captaincy of Volunteers, he desired to state his belief that Mr. Budden was one of the most charitable and respectable men in the county of Kent. He contributed a large sum towards the Volunteer movement, and entered the 9th company of the East Kent Volunteers as a private— the corps, in fact, owed its existence to him; and he became so popular in the corps that they recommended him to the Lord Lieutenant for a captaincy. The noble Lord the Secretary to the Admiralty was in error on one point. He said that Mr. Budden occupied a more important position when appointed to the captaincy than when the application to appoint him was refused. This was the reverse of the fact. Mr. Budden had twice before served the office of High Constable of Chatham. It was when he first served the office that his name was brought before Lord Sydney, who then refused to make him a captain of Volunteers. He did not know why Lord Sydney refused, but he certainly thought that he was wrong in that refusal. Mr. Budden was elected High Constable of Chatham for the third time, and it was on his going out of office that he gave the usual dinner to the court-leet, at which the noble Lord the Secretary to the Admiralty was present. It was a week or a fortnight after he had gone out of office that Mr. Budden was appointed to the captaincy of a Volunteer company. It was for people to draw their own inferences as to the motive. With regard to the dinner, it was the practice of the High Constables to give one on going out of office. When he (Sir F. Smith) happened to be of the High Contable's way of thinking in politics, he was invited to be present; when otherwise, he was not invited. A few hours before the dinner he was told he was to have the pleasure of meeting the noble Lord the Secretary to the Admiralty. He was astonished at the announcement. He was happy to meet that noble Lord anywhere—except, perhaps, at Chatham, and in the company of his (Sir F. Smith's) late, and probably his future, opponent for the representation of the Borough. He dared to say, if the invitation came again the noble Lord would not accept it, for there was not one person at the dinner who did not believe that his presence was a political move. On the late occasion the noble Lord, he was quite sure, accepted the invitation sent to him in his usual off-hand good-natured way, and without thinking much of the consequences. And what were those consequences? The consequences were these:—There was hardly a man in that meeting, who was an elector of Chatham, who did not believe that the presence of the noble Lord arose out of political motives. The noble Lord had his brother-in-law by his side, who was likely to be a future candidate for the suffrages of the constituency, and as Secretary of the Admiralty, the noble Lord held the patronage of the dockyard. Under the circumstances the inference was inevitable. The noble Lord came in company with his brother-in-law (Mr. OtWay), and they all knew that the Secretary to the Admiralty had the patronage of the dockyards. However, the noble Lord's presence at such a meeting was not of much importance; for the constituency of Chatham was so pure that it would resist all entreaties, even when coming in the honeyed language of the noble Lord. [Laughter.] He would prove that the constituency were pure. He had sat three times for Chatham, and his brother once. They had carried on terrific contests three times against the Government and once with the Government, and he could not lay his hand on the name of a single man who had changed from one side to the other in consequence of the influence of the Government. If that did not bespeak the purity of electors, he did not know what did: they were all to a man true to their colours. When, therefore, it was proposed to deprive the electors of Chatham of their franchise, as was once contemplated by the Government of the day, he thought that a great injustice would have been done to them by such a measure. He thought the House might forget the noble Lord's escapade—for himself, he confessed he wished the noble Lord had not attended the dinner, for he could not help thinking that in that case the noble Lord's brother-in-law would come into the field at the next election with a much better grace. He thanked the House for listening to these remarks. He trusted that the Secretary to the Admiralty would forget the matter, as he should, but he hoped the noble Lord would not go to Chatham again.

said, he wished to ask the hon. Member for Wexford, If, in consequence of the Irish Assizes at present commencing necessitating the absence of several Irish Members, he will postpone his Motion from Wednesday next to a later period?

said, it was not his intention to consent to any postponement. If he postponed this Bill, there was no open day again till Easter Wednesday, which also happened to be All Fools' Day. If he were to postpone it, therefore, it would be virtually throwing it over. He would, however, press it through on Wednesday, take the report on Thursday, and the third reading, if possible, on Friday. He was anxious to save from poachers on the lower waters some portion of this year's salmon.

said, in the debate upon the Resolutions on which the Bill was founded, he took occasion to state how much he regretted that the accounts upon which the Resolutions were based were not before the House. He still regretted that that information was not supplied, because he held it to be a sound principle that, whenever a grant of money out of the Consolidated Fund was proposed, it was the duty of the Government to enable every Member of that House to understand why they were called upon to vote the money required. It was a singular mode of transacting business that in the account of the proceedings of that House, upon the same night, a Vote for the expenditure of a considerable sum out of the Consolidated Fund should stand No. 40, and the information on the subject, which was placed on the table in about an hour after, should stand as No. 52. This was an awkward position in which to place Members; for whether the Vote was right or wrong, they were called upon to sanction it, without being able to explain to their constituents the reason for doing so. On a former night he took the liberty of saying that, on his marriage, Frederick Prince of Wales had £50,000 a year out of the Civil List of George II. This was perfectly true—he found that in the 10 Geo. II. the 8th section enacted, that as His Majesty had determined to grant that sum out of the Civil List to the Prince of Wales, the annuity should be free of land tax and other charges. Thus they knew as a fact that the original allowance of Frederick Prince of Wales was £50,000 a year, and not £100,000, though it was true that at a later period the allowance was increased. Since the present proposition was made, they had had the opportunity of reading the evidence on which it was founded, and it was obvious, whether £40,000, £50,000, or £60,000 were voted out of the Consolidated Fund, everything depended on the state of the revenues during the minority of the Prince of Wales. Having looked at the document presented to the House, he felt bound to say that he had never read one more creditable or more honourable to all concerned. The trustees had certainly most faithfully performed their duty; and the result showed, not as stated by the noble Viscount at, the head of the Government, a net revenue of £60,000, but of something more, though perhaps not to any great extent; for he should be prepared to show that the revenue of the Duchy was £50,000 a year at present, with an accumulation of £600,000. However, the broad question was, whether the proposition submitted to the House was a reasonable one, and he had suspected from the first that it would prove to be so; and now, having considered the document which he had referred to, he came to the conclusion that the proposition was fair and reasonable. It was therefore with great pleasure that he gave his cordial assent to the Bill, and he expressed a hope that the Prince of Wales and Princess of Wales would long live to enjoy the income assigned to them.

said, that in the statement of the revenues of the Duchy he could not find that the accumulated fund of £600,000 was accounted for.

stated, that after the expenses of managing the Duchy property were defrayed, and the public burdens imposed by Parliament and other necessary deductions were discharged, it had been the duty and the practice of the Council of His Royal Highness to pay over whatever surplus remained partly to the Prince's Treasurer, and partly to Trustees, who had from time to time invested the sums so paid over in the public funds. They then became part of His Royal Highness' Privy Purse, and the Council of the Duchy had nothing further to do with them. On the 9th of November, when the Prince attained his majority, the accumulation amounted to £593,000 in Three per Cents, the cash value of which was at that time £547,750. The monies paid to the Trustees having passed beyond the control of the Council of the Duchy, they considered that it was not within their province, even if they had possessed the necessary information for the purpose, to take cognizance of the disposal of monies so paid over, or investments made for the benefit of the Prince, and which properly belonged to his Privy Purse, when making a report to Her Majesty which had exclusive reference to the administration of the affairs of the Duchy of Cornwall.

said, he had the highest opinion of the character and moral qualities of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, but he felt—and he thought that the House and the country would also feel—that handing over to the Prince the uncontrolled command of the enormous sum arising from accumulations was not expedient or wise.

observed, with respect to the marriage treaty, that it was remarkable for the omission of the word "Protestant" in describing the future Princess of Wales. He felt more confidence in saying that this matter deserved the attention of the House, inasmuch as on the occasion of the marriage of Her Majesty a like omission occurred, which induced the Duke of Wellington to point out in the House of Lords the importance of adhering to a description which was connected with the foundation of the constitution and of the dynasty, and to move an Amendment to the Address to the Queen, which resulted in the word "Protestant" being inserted. [3 Hansard, li. 14.] On the present occasion he had been saved the pain of interrupting the general harmony, because the House had received a statement from the noble Lord at the head of the Government, which was satisfactory to himself. But he had now to notice another difference between the marriage treaty of the Prince and Princess of Wales and the marriage treaty of the Queen and the late Prince Consort. The third article of the latter treaty provided that the sons and daughters of the marriage should be brought up according to the laws of Great Britain and Ireland, and that expression meant plainly enough that they were to be brought up in the Protestant religion. In the marriage contract of the Prince of Wales a similar clause was omitted. Why was it omitted? He was anxious that the silence of the House on this subject should not lead to the supposition that they were indifferent to the preservation of such an important landmark of the Constitution, or were prepared to dispense with any of those Protestant guarantees provided by the Bill of Rights.

said, he wished to know whether the allowances would be paid to the Prince and Princess of Wales without any deductions on account of income tax?

said, he thought the House might be misled by a remark of the hon. Member for Lambeth. It was a mistake to imagine that the Prince of Wales would enjoy a large revenue from the accumulations over and above the £100,000 a year which he would derive from the ordinary revenue of the Duchy and the grant of the House. The £60,000, which was stated as the Prince's present income, was partly made up by returns from the accumulated fund. Indeed, even making allowance for those returns, he did not see how the amount was obtained; and his own impression, therefore, was that the proposition of the Government was rather under the mark. It must be remembered that the Prince's outfit would have to be paid for out of the accumulations, and would not cost much less than £200,000. His Royal Highness had to furnish Marlborough House, and to provide all those things which became the dignity of his position.

said, it was quite open to the hon. Member, if he thought the Prince of Wales hardly used, to propose an increase of the Vote; but there was another way of looking at the matter, and that was to consider the £40,000 of public money. He held that the accumulations ought to be settled on the Duchy; and hon. Members would say, if a similar case occurred in private life, that it would be an unwise thing to give the heir the accumulations instead of settling them on the estate. He still maintained, as on the former occasion, that on the death of the eldest son of the Crown the Duchy of Cornwall reverted to the Crown for life, and did not pass to the next surviving son.

When my hon. Friend the Member for Tavistock (Sir John Trelawny) rose, I was in hopes he was going to qualify the very strong statement he made the other evening. I feel bound to take notice of that statement, not because it involved a personal reference to myself, but because it would be a breach of duty on the part of the Government if they had neglected to inform themselves of the facts of the case. I think the hon. Member delivered himself with a confidence which the state of the case does not justify. I am far from undertaking to give the House a full explanation of the law with regard to the inheritance of the Duchy of Cornwall; but it appears to me, according to the information which I have been able to procure, that this is a question much more difficult to pronounce upon than my hon. Friend imagines. One thing, however, is quite clear, and that is that my hon. Friend is wrong in the very positive assertion which he made the other night, and has now repeated, that on every occasion when the Duke of Cornwall, being the eldest son of the King, dies, the Duchy and the revenues of the Duchy revert to the Crown. It is not at all difficult to confute that allegation; but I will not undertake to explain everything which has happened with regard to the succession and non-succession to the Duchy. The various cases do not seem to me to hang together on any very consistent principle; but no conclusion can be drawn from the facts at all agreeing with the statement of my hon. Friend. Thus much, however, is clear—on the death of Arthur, the eldest son of Henry VII., in the October following a Commission was issued under the Great Seal, not to determine, but to examine the question; and that Commission found that Henry (afterwards Henry VIII.), the second-begotten son of the King, was Duke of Cornwall. [SIR JOHN TRELAWNY: Look at the charter of the Duchy. The charter of the Duchy is not the supreme authority in the case. The succession is regulated by an Act passed in the reign of Henry V., and also by the course of practice at different periods of our history. The charter itself came under examination at a more recent period than the case I have already cited. On the death of Prince Henry, eldest son of James I., the charter was judicially considered, and the authorities of that day in the Privy Council again came to a conclusion opposite to that of my hon. Friend. The decision is thus given in Collins's Proceedings —

"In 1613 the question became the occasion of solemn inquiry before the King, and Lords, and others of the Privy Council, the Master of the Rolls, and the King's Counsel, when it was resolved that the words of limitation possessed the more extended meaning filius primogenitus existens, and that upon the decease of Henry, Prince of Wales and Duke of Cornwall, Charles, Duke of York, had, both by reason and precedence, become entitled to the honour, style, and dignity of Duke of Cornwall, which he had and enjoyed accordingly."

There, at any rate, are two distinct precedents, and others might be given. I will not now go into the cases of Prince George (afterwards George II.), or of Prince George (afterwards George III.), eldest son of Frederick, Prince of Wales. I think I have said enough to show that the hon. Baronet was not justified in his very strong and positive statement.

said, that he had been at great pains to examine the question, and the celebrated decision of Lord Tenterden supported the view he took.

— Sir, I wish to say a word or two as to the accumulations of the Duchy. As has been stated by my hon. Friend, the total value of the accumulations was £540,000 in money. Of that amount £220,000 has been spent in the purchase of the Norfolk estate, the produce of which is nominally £7,000, but effectively only about £5,000. The cost of the outfit of His Royal Highness is estimated at £100,000. It is calculated that the enlargement of the house at Sandringham, in order to render it suitable to the dignity of the Prince, will involve an outlay of £60,000. Thus we have £380,000 disposed of. Then there are, as is well known, a great number of farms belonging to the Duchy which have been let for "lives," and which are from time to time falling out of lease. The buildings and other appointments upon these farms require considerable repairs, the expense of which will probably amount to from £100,000 to £120,000. These items, therefore, go a good way to absorb the accumulations; and although the money spent in agricultural improvements may render the estates more valuable, there will be no immediate return, and the income will always be liable to certain fluctuations. Therefore my hon. Friend will see that the accumulation of £540,000 will give very little addition to the ordinary revenue of the Duchy. The difference between the ordinary revenue of the Duchy, £46,000, and the £60,000 which is the present income of the Prince of Wales is made up of the rents of the Sandringham estate and some other details. My hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Mr. Whalley), being the guardian of certain interests, has raised a question as to the treaty of marriage, which it is quite right should be properly attended to. I can assure him that the omission in the treaty, which he has noticed, does not involve any neglect of that fundamental principle of the British constitution, that the Sovereign and the Royal family must be of the Protestant religion. The treaty of the marriage of the Prince of Wales was founded precisely on that which was made on the marriage of Prince George, afterwards George IV., and as there was no mention in the latter of the article alluded to, it was not deemed necessary to insert it in the present treaty. It was in the marriage treaty of the Queen, but I think the hon. Member will admit that there is a leading principle distinguishing that case from this. A husband has a certain degree of domestic control over the education of his children, and where he is a foreigner it may be quite right that there should be a special article upon that subject. Where, however, the husband is the Prince of Wales, it has not been thought necessary to insert such a condition. But the hon. Member may be assured that there is not the smallest chance of the children of the approaching marriage—I hope there will be many—being educated in any other way than in conformity with the laws of the country and the principles of the Protestant faith. I have only to add, in conclusion, that the incomes of all the Royal family, without any exception, are subject to the income tax.

, in calling attention to the state of the transport service, with the view of inquiring why it was that the recommendations of the Transport Committee of 1860–1 had not been carried into effect, stated that the Committee in question unanimously resolved to recommend that some important changes should be made in the mode in which it was conducted, and recommended its consolidation. That service now, and for several years, had been conducted by various Departments—the Admiralty had one portion, the India Board another, the Emigration Board another, and occasionally the War Office and the Commissariat each another. The consequence was that these different Government Departments were continually bidding against each other in the open market, and thus they had five Departments doing the work which a single Board would effect on much more economical terms. The changes which the Committee recommended were for the consolidation of this branch of the service, and to ensure more direct responsibility; for if a complaint was made now, the Admiralty referred the party to the War Office, who sent him to the India Board, who, very probably, referred him back to the Admiralty. The state of things was now just what it was at the commencement of the Crimean war. There had been no change since that time; and if we were unfortunate enough to be involved in a great war with such another Power as Russia, there would be the same confusion as in 1854. What was the use of this House appointing a Committee if their recommendations were not attended to? The Committee in question sat two Sessions, and unanimously agreed that certain changes should be made; yet three years had elapsed and beyond some slight alterations no changes had been effected. He hoped to hear from the noble Lord that some arrangements had been made for carrying out the recommendations of the Select Committee; or, if that had not been done, the House should know why those recommendations had been allowed to lie dormant for the last three years. He was glad to find that there was a reduction in the Navy Estimates of £1,000,000, but he must say that he should have been still more gratified if there had been a reduction of another million.

said, that if his hon. and gallant Friend (Lord Clarence Paget) gave good reasons for this reduction, he should join the hon. Member for Sunder -land (Mr. Lindsay) in rejoicing at it; but he must say, that as far as he knew the state of things which existed at present in foreign countries, he could see no reason for rejoicing in the proposed reduction. What had been the course of things in that House for years upon this subject, and which he was afraid was likely to continue for many years to come? It had been acknowledged, for many years, that the naval defences of this country were inadequate, and that the introduction of a new description of vessels must necessitate a great additional expenditure on the navy. The country had submitted to this additional outlay for the sake of the security of the country. And what now happened? It seemed of necessity that there should be alternations of hot and cold fits over the House in reference to the expenditure for the navy; the cold fit seemed now to be coming on, and there was to be a reduction in the Estimates. Now, what was the reason for these reduced Estimates? He did not attach much importance to what he heard out of doors, but still he would mention that he had heard two reasons suggested for the reduction. In the first place, it was said that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who was not much disposed to encourage expenditure for objects of this kind, had insisted upon large reductions in the Army and Navy Estimates; and then, further, there was the rumour that the Government were apprehensive of a certain coalition, which, if it had ever been possible, could only have been entered into in disregard of the interests of the country. If this reason had had any influence in reducing the Estimates, he must venture to think that the Government had been under a misapprehension of the risk likely to arise from such a source. He did not think that the House would have supported any such combination for attacking the Government upon the ground that they were laying out too much money for the defence of the country, and he believed that they would have followed a more prudent and popular course if they had maintained the naval expenditure at its present rate—always assuming that that rate was necessary to efficiency. If, however, good grounds could be shown for making the reduction, he should be glad to hear that it had been found possible to make it. Now, what would be the effect of this reduction? Why, the same thing that had happened over and over again before—that having laid out large sums of money to put our naval defences in a state of efficiency, all at once the cold fit comes upon the House, and suddenly, apparently without rhyme or reason, large reductions are made. And the result of this was, that upon the occurrence of any feeling of panic in the country, or upon some sudden emergency happening, the Government were compelled, in order to replace that which they had lost by reduction, to spend five times as much money as it would have cost to keep the navy in a state of efficiency. Work that had to be done in a hurry was always badly as well as expensively done. This was strikingly illustrated by what happened after the great reduction in the Navy Estimates in 1835. Every shilling of reduction on that occasion ultimately cost the country many pounds. Seeing the enormous expense of what was miscalled economy, he contended that they had a right to have clear and explicit reasons for reduction before they could say that it was justified by the circumstances. Another matter to which he wished to refer was this. He found that there were to be no further contracts for the construction of large iron-sheathed ships, though he did not mean to say that those which were now in course of construction were not to be completed. Now, a great deal of time was required for the construction of ships of this kind and if an emergency should arise; which rendered a large number of such ships necessary, the work would be done in a much more expensive and at the same time in a much worse manner than if done at leisure. He had no doubt he should be told that there was no necessity for building iron-sheathed ships, because we had as many of that class as the French had; but that seemed to him to be a very unsound and dangerous argument, for this country was not in a proper position of defence when it was merely on an equality with France. In considering naval matters they of course always had in their minds the contingency of a war with France, for that was the next greatest naval Power; but it should be borne in mind that a war with France would have the effect of bringing this country into a state of war with other countries. In the event of a war with France the Northern States of America would, if they had a man or a dollar left, instantly go to war with us; and he therefore ventured to think that it was a dangerous argument to say that we did not want more iron-sheathed ships because we had as many as France had. He hoped he might be allowed to say a few words in reference to the French navy. He found that there was a great deal going on in the French dockyards which was never adverted to in that House. He wished to tell the House that there was a particular class of vessels building in the French dockyards in great numbers. They were building these vessels—he did not say with any present intention of going to war with this country, and, indeed, he believed that that was not the present intention of the French Emperor, whose object he thought was to keep at peace with us—but this impression was no ground why we should not look closely into their means of aggression in the event of war happening. He had taken the trouble to ascertain the facts from an authentic source, and he found that they were constructing in the French dockyards a large number of cavalry transports of very great tonnage and horse power, admirably fitted up for carrying between 300 and 400 horses each and a certain number of troops in addition. There would be, at the end of this year, forty-four of these vessels complete and ready for sea, and he had it upon the authority of the officials in the French dockyards, that they hoped in a very short time to have one of these vessels named after every Department in France. He should like to know for what possible purpose the French Government could deem it necessary to go to the enormous expense of building this particular class of vessels, except for the purpose of being able to act efficiently in the event of circumstances compelling them to go to war with this country. Could anybody suggest any other country into which France could ever want to send a large force of cavalry by means of such vessels. Not certainly to Mexico; nor could they want them to convey cavalry into Italy or across the Rhine; and he should like to know what the impression of the Government was as to what could be the intention of the French Government? It seemed they could only be utilized in an invasion of England. There was another point which he should wish to call attention to. He had had an opportunity, during last summer, of inquiring as to the number of workmen and artificers employed in the French dockyards; and he might mention that they made no secret of the matter—everything was perfectly straightforward and open, and every one was quite ready to tell you all you wished to know. He found that the artificers and labourers in the whole of our dockyards were 10,700 odd, and altogether, perhaps, there might be 12,000 or 13,000 persons employed; whilst in the two dockyards of Brest and Roche-fort alone there were 11,000—there were Cherbourg, L'Orient, and Toulon besides. No doubt it would be said that the French were not exceeding us in their expenditure in their dockyards, because their navy did not cost as much as ours; but when this was said, hon. Gentlemen never adverted to the fact that the cost of labour in this country was somewhat more than double what it was in France, the exact proportion being this — that in France the cost was 2–5ths of what it was in this country. They had, therefore, in two out of five or six dockyards in France, nearly as many workmen as there were in the whole of our dockyards; and he was bound to say that there was more actual work done in France, with the same number of men, than in England. Another thing which must be borne in mind was that the French required but few vessels, compared with what we required for colonial purposes. He wished to avert to one other point. The hon. Member for Sunderland (Mr. Lindsay) had told them that Committees of that House were useless; and the most glaring example of their inutility was the Committee appointed to inquire into the system pur- sued by the Board of Admiralty. He contended, that so long as the present constitution of the Board of Admiralty continued, it was impossible—even whilst giving the Board credit for its best intentions—that a wise, judicious, and economical expenditure could ever be established. Well, then, what do they do? They usually went contrary to the practice adopted in every other Department of business, which was to select for the head of the Department a person most likely to know something about it. After having elected some gentleman to preside at the head of the Admiralty, without reference to the knowledge and ability necessary for the efficient discharge of the duties, they then appointed a certain number of naval Lords who had virtually the direction of the Board without its responsibility. The responsibility really rested with the First Lord, who might be a person utterly unacquainted with the details of the Department. That distinguished functionary was compelled, for the first year or two of his official existence, to lean for support and advice upon the professional men who were in his confidence. What happened next? Just as this high official was becoming somewhat acquainted with the details of his Department a change took place in the arrangements of the Government, and he was turned out of office, to be replaced by another distinguished politician, equally ignorant of the duties of his vocation, and compelled to place himself under the direction and advice of others in order to learn his business. Now, so long as the Board of Admiralty was made a political job office it would be impossible to have any one continuous or consistent system of expenditure or any continuous system of control over it. Even under the present system, with the First Lord fully acquainted with all the details of his office, thoroughly competent to discharge its duties with the greatest efficiency, and assisted by Lords possessed of the necessary knowledge and ability, the Board was liable to the contingency of being changed in a short time. Under such circumstances, the principle invariably acted upon by the succeeding Board was to upset the system of its predecessor, and to adopt a different system altogether. The dockyard authorities, whose extravagance demanded some supervision, were always too glad to encourage this change of officers, in order to save themselves from that supervision which they so much dreaded. So long as such a system lasted, it was impossible to establish any efficient or effective investigation into those sources of extravagance which were constantly at work in all our dockyards. A Committee sat upon this subject some few years ago. He dissented from the Motion for the appointment of such Committee, believing that it would prove utterly useless. The result proved the truth of his prediction. The Committee was composed almost exclusively of officials and ex-officials; so that, in fact, it became a body of men who were sitting in judgment upon their own conduct. It was impossible that such a Committee could arrive at any useful conclusion. He had ventured to say that it would prove a broad farce, and would do nothing. Well, that Committee sat throughout the Session and did nothing. When the House met in the following year, the gallant Officer who had moved for the Committee was so convinced of the utter absurdity of such a Committee that he declined to move for its re-appointment. He (Mr. Bentinck) sincerely hoped that no hon. Member would ever move for its re-appointment. He should, however, like to see a Committee of men appointed who would be competent to deal with the subject—not men who would be compelled by circumstances to prejudge the question. He contended that no officials or ex-officials were competent to sit as members of such a Committee. Until the House was willing and determined to appoint a Committee fairly constituted, and resolved to investigate the subject thoroughly, it was utterly useless to propose any modifications of the system under which the Board of Admiralty acted; and whilst the present system continued, the annual discussions that took place in that House on the subject of economy in the public expenditure would be entirely and utterly fruitless.

called attention to the fact that a British Vice Consul was commissioned last year for Abbeokuta, in Western Africa; that on his arrival, and presenting his credentials to the native authorities, he was peremptorily refused permission to remain in that capacity, and was compelled to return to England; and asked the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Whether he could explain the cause of this rejection of a British representative, and whether any steps had been taken by the Foreign Office in consequence? Abbeokuta was about eighty miles from Lagos, and was a place of considerable consequence in relation to the slave trade. Last year a Mr. Taylor had been appointed Vice Consul there. On his arrival he caused a communication to be made to the King of Abbeokuta announcing his arrival and his office. The King, in the presence of his chiefs, ultimately gave him an audience. Mr. Taylor was first asked whether he was a merchant, and then whether he was a missionary. Having replied in the negative, to both of these queries, he proceeded to explain the objects of his presence in that place—namely, to facilitate friendly relations with the King, and to encourage the commerce of the country. The King then informed him that he could not receive him in the capacity of consul. Mr. Taylor, having returned to his residence, received an intimation, that unless he quitted the place before night, the roof of his house would be burnt over his head. He thereupon immediately returned to England. Now, several reasons were alleged for this conduct on the part of the African King. One was that he was incensed at the conduct pursued by certain British officials in respect to his mode of dealing with his chiefs. It was stated that two of his wives had escaped from his court, and taken refuge at Lagos. The ladies being pursued by some of his chiefs, they were arrested at Lagos, brought up prisoners before the court there, and were sentenced by the authorities of Lagos to three months' confinement and hard labour. Remonstrances against this treatment, it was alleged, were made; but without success. This was said to be one cause for the irritation of the King towards this country. It was also said that the King was indignant at our sending a consul into his dominions without any previous intimation on our part that we were about to take such a step. The position of Abbeokuta, in the centre of a great cotton district, made it a matter of the greatest importance to us to have a representative stationed there. The place had a wall around it eighteen miles in extent, and contained a population of 150,000. The hon. and learned Gentleman concluded by putting the Question.

, in answer to the hon. and gallant Member for Chatham (Sir F. Smith), said, that there was no objection to produce any correspondence which the Admiralty might possess on the utility of the Ionian Islands. He had been unable to find anything of interest on that subject; but if the hon. and gallant Gentleman would himself call at the Admiralty, he could look at the papers; or if he would give him the dates, search should be made for them. His hon. Friend (Mr. Lindsay) asked why the recommendations of the Transport Committee had not been carried out? The transport service of the Admiralty was admirably organized, and they would willingly undertake the transport both of the Indian and Colonial Departments. But the Indian Department objected, and the Colonial Office also gave reasons (which were laid on the table of the House last year) against the emigration branch coming under the Admiralty. The hon. Member for West Norfolk (Mr. Bentinck) had re-opened the question of the composition of the Admiralty. He did not think that was a matter which could be advantageously discussed on the present occasion. The hon. Member complained that the members of the Board were constantly changing. Well, the present members of the Board did not desire any changes. They were perfectly willing to remain at their posts, so that he quite agreed with the hon. Member on this point. He also alluded to the reductions made in the navy this year, which he said resembled the reductions in 1835. [Mr. BENTINCK: No.] If the hon. Member would allow him to make his statement in Committee on the Naval Estimates he should, he hoped, succeed in convincing him and the House that the Estimates, had been reduced without any injury to the efficiency of the navy. The hon. Member said the Government proposed very large Estimates one year, and that then, if a cry for economy arose, they suddenly reduced them below the proper point. The course of the Government, however, had been very fair and uniform. The year 1860–1 was a year of reconstruction, and saw the Navy Estimates at their climax—£12,836,100. Next year they were reduced to £12,640,588. In 1862–3 they were again reduced to £11,794,305; and now the Government proposed to re- duce them to £10,736,000. These successive reductions had been gradual, and had been attained without injury to the navy. The hon. Member had also alluded to the French transport service. The Admiralty were, of course, aware that the French were building very magnificent transport ships, for cavalry as well as infantry. But the hon. Member for West Norfolk talked as if the Admiralty could stop the building of these vessels. They had no power to interfere. The French Government thought it necessary to possess these transport ships, and it was only just to remember that they had not the facilities which the Government of this country possessed in our mercantile marine. The French had a large colony in Algiers, and they required, from time to time, to transport large bodies of troops to that country. Then the hon. Member told the House to look at the French dockyards, and charged the Admiralty with reducing the strength of the dockyards to 10,000 or 13,000 men. The fact was, the Admiralty were employing 16,600 men in the dockyards and factories. They were also having large works executed by contract; so that they employed altogether more men than the hon. Gentleman supposed. He would, however, reserve his full explanation for his official statement.

, in answer to the hon. Member for Southampton (Mr. D. Seymour), said, he could not pretend to say what were the true motives which had actuated the King of Abbeokuta in declining the presence of a British Vice Consul. The motives alleged were first, that we had not given him the assistance which we ought to have done in his war with the King of Dahomey; and, secondly, that Mr. Taylor's arrival had not been announced in a proper manner. In point of fact, however, the head men of the tribe had requested Mr. Taylor to be sent, and it was therefore foolish to say that the Abbeokutans had not received due intimation of his arrival. He (Mr. Layard), however, believed that the true reason that had influenced the King in his conduct to Mr. Taylor was, that he had not been behaving well of late, and we had been obliged to give him a little good advice. The Abbeokutans had been carrying on a very unnecessary war with a friendly tribe, and had mixed themselves up with the slave trade, and had also plundered a considerable amount of property belonging to Dr. Bakie, who was stationed on the Niger. The chiefs were very angry with us for remonstrating with them on these subjects and demanding reparation; they declared they would not have any Englishman living amongst them except in the capacity of a merchant or of a missionary; they had those two classes of persons established in the country, and they did not want a third. They had treated Mr. Taylor in a very unbecoming manner; but the Government had no fault whatever to find with that gentleman. The Government had informed the Abbeokutans that they must apologize for their treatment of Mr. Taylor, and make reparation not only for the pillage to which he had already referred, but for the robbery and murder of certain British and Lagos traders committed since Mr. Taylor's expulsion. With respect to the two wives, he feared he had no satisfactory answer to give the hon. and learned Member. He had better apply to the Colonial Office.

said, he had made inquiries as to any wish or attempt on the part of the missionaries to interfere, and found it quite a mistake. He was convinced it could be shown that Mr. Townsend was not unwilling, but was anxious, that a Consul should be appointed, and he had hoped to hear that the Government had made arrangements to secure the presence of a Consul in that place.

Sir, if I were to state to the Committee, that I was in a position to propose to them a considerable reduction of the Navy Estimates, without being able at the same time to show them that the reduction would be carried into effect without interfering with the efficiency of the service, I do not think I should be making a statement which would furnish a subject for congratulation to the House or to the country. If, however, I can show you, that owing to the great generosity of Parliament, we have been enabled to make enormous exertions during the last few years, and to place the navy, both as regards personnel and matériel, on a satisfactory footing, then I may, I trust, be allowed to possess a fair claim to congratulate the Committee on the prospect of our maintaining it in that position, while we effect a great reduction in our outlay for the purpose. That the navy was never in a more efficient state than at the present moment, both so far as the seamen are concerned and so far as relates to our progress in the construction of that class of ships which has lately come into vogue, I can, I think, notwithstanding the suspicions of my hon. Friend the Member for West Norfolk (Mr. Bentinck), without difficulty prove. I may add that during the debates which may take place on the subject I shall, if possible, refrain from alluding to other Powers at all, for I have found that comparisons between our naval resources and those of foreign nations produce somewhat of ill-feeling. I therefore deem it desirable that we should confine ourselves as much as possible to our own affairs. Now, Sir, the total Vote which I have to propose to the Committee for the naval service for the year 1863–4 amounts to £10,736,032, the Estimate for 1862–3 having been £11,794,305, showing a decrease of £1,058,273 in the Estimate for the present as compared with that for the last year. This decrease will be found to pervade the whole of the Estimates with a few exceptions, the only real increase which occurs under any head this year being in the Vote for the transport service—a Vote over which, as the Committee are aware, the Admiralty has no control, inasmuch as the instructions on which it depends emanate from the War Office, and we are bound to carry them into effect. The cause of the increase in the present instance is mainly due to the removal of troops in large numbers to distant stations. There are, for instance, two regiments to be sent to New Zealand and others to be brought back, the cost of which proceedings is no less than £61,576, exclusive of the cost of the sustenance of the men. This will give the Committee an idea of the expense of removing men to our distant stations. In most of the other Votes there is a decrease. In Vote No. 1—that which has reference to the Wages of the Seamen—there is an apparent decrease, but not a real one. I have seen it, indeed, stated in some of the public journals that we were about to reduce the pay of the sailor; but that is not the fact. We propose the same Vote for seamen as before, but I have taken certain liberties in framing these Estimates, which I shall now explain. The effect of the change which I have made will, I think, be found to be advantageous, and I will briefly state in what it consists. First of all, there is connected with each Vote an explanatory statement, which is a mere matter of account, and which I have removed to an Appendix at the end of the Estimates. From Vote No. 1, also, I have transferred certain items which appertain to the Victualling Vote (No. 2), and which relate mainly to bedding, clothes, and a variety of matters of that nature, which, in my opinion, ought years ago to have been so transferred. If, therefore, the Committee will follow me, they will see that so far from there being any decrease in Vote No. 1 it is in reality the same, and that we simply transfer a certain sum to Vote No. 2. Taking the two Votes together, however — that for the victualling and the pay—you will observe that there is on the two a decrease of £101,277. This decrease is due principally to the fact that almost every article supplied to the seamen in the shape of provisions is much cheaper at the present time than was formerly the case. There is, indeed, one article—vinegar—which is rather dearer than formerly; but as it is not much drunk in the navy, its increased cost is not a matter of very much importance; while, the price of all the other articles having been reduced, we have been enabled to effect a considerable reduction under this head. The next Vote on which there is any important decrease is that for Artificers; and if my hon. Friend the Member for Norfolk would have the goodness to attend to me for a moment, he would, I have no doubt, be disposed to lament the cause of reduction as much as I do. It is due to the great decrease in the manufacture of sails—canvas, to the regret of all lovers of sailing, has given way to coals. In Vote No. 10, for Naval Stores, there is a decrease of £410,133, of which the greater part is for timber; and I may state that this reduction has not been forced upon us by any pressure of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but arises from the circumstance that we have at last got a stock of timber worthy of the country, there being no less than 112,000 loads of old timber on our hands at this moment—a position which I do not believe we were ever in before. In the Controller's Department we ask for a less sum this year by £300,380 for steam machinery; because the engines already ordered are in a very advanced state, and there is at present no very pressing demand for steam-engines. Upon "Ships building by Contract" we ask for a considerably less sum than last year; and, moreover, we do not propose any new construction of iron ships in the coming year; but at a later period I will explain what we are doing in that respect. The next Vote upon which there is a decrease is upon Vote 11, for New Works. I see the hon. Member for Portsmouth (Sir James Elphinstone) in his place, and I confess I expect some complaint from him with regard to what I am now about to mention. The fact is, that in deference to the opinion of this House, the Admiralty have seriously thought whether they ought or ought not to construct a large basin at Portsmouth. It would undoubtedly cost a very large sum of money; and before I or whoever may occupy my position asks a Vote for this purpose, it would be requisite to lay before the House full and detailed plans, showing the whole cost of the works. We had intended to propose it this year, and to insert the sum in this year's Estimates. I must take upon myself some part of the blame—though it must be shared by the Law Officers of the Admiralty—that it is not inserted; but the fact is, we found at the eleventh hour that it was necessary to pass a private Act of Parliament in order to enable us to commence the works, though I had supposed that as the property belonged to the Admiralty, we might at once have proposed a sum to the House; but when we discovered our mistake, it was too late to comply with the Standing Orders, and therefore the amount we intended to ask was erased from the Estimates. But, Sir, we proceed vigorously at Chatham. The noble Lord (Lord Robert Montagu) will, I hope, now give me credit for great anxiety in pushing forward the works at Chatham, and accordingly we shall do as much work there during the next year as we possibly can. We therefore propose to take for the works at Chatham as large a sum as we can expend. We likewise propose to take a considerable sum for the new long dock at Malta, in addition to the dockyard. The Maltese authorities have been in communication with the Imperial Government, and they have proposed to contribute a portion of the expenses for the works which we intend to construct at the head of the great harbour. I will be ready by-and-by to give further explanations on this subject. But, Sir, there is a public work which the Admiralty has not ceased to desire, inasmuch as it is one which will be absolutely necessary at some future time. If, in the event of war, you mean to have your naval business conducted with vigour and despatch, it will be necessary to have the Admiralty offices amalgamated and brought under one roof. That matter has been under the consideration of Her Majesty's Government. We volunteered to go to Somerset House; but we found that the alterations necessary would cost a great deal, and there were other important reasons to be urged against such a step; and I am sorry to say we do not as yet ask for any sum for that purpose, important as the measure is. Now, Sir, having given a general sketch of the principal items of decrease in the Naval Estimates for the coming year, the Committee will permit me to give some account of the numerous details of various branches. And, first of all, with regard to the construction of ships. Sir, I have laid upon the table of the House the usual annual Return of the number of steamships afloat and building; and as the Return is rather a long one, I will not, unless it be desired, go through its details, but will shortly state we have now under construction and at sea, twenty-one armour-plated vessels. I will endeavour to show how soon the ships under construction will be ready for sea, and the progress we intend to make in the further construction of iron-cased ships. The House is aware that we have at this moment at sea the Warrior, the Black Prince, the Defence, and the Resistance. They have been tried under various circumstances, and I am happy to assure the Committee that the reports concerning them are very satisfactory. They are all good sea-boats. One of them, which I remember, was very much criticised last year—the smaller one—the Resistance, has proved herself the fastest of the whole under canvas. Now, smaller ships have various advantages over larger ones; and in saying this I do not mean to detract from the merits of the Warrior, the child of my right hon. Friend (Sir J. Pakington). I believe the hon. Member for Tyne-mouth (Mr. Lindsay) has seen the Warrior at Lisbon, and can give a very good account of her. [Mr. LINDSAY: Hear, Hear!]

What is the speed of the Resistance?

— Her speed under steam is 11½ knots an hour; but the trials that have been made have been principally with a view to try their going in a circle their action with respect to pitching and rolling, and their general sailing qualities. Those ships have just returned from their cruise to Lisbon. The Royal Oak will probably be ready for sea in May, and the Prince Consort in June. Both these vessels are wooden line-of-battle ships converted into armour-plated, and about 4,000 tons. The Hector, an iron ship of intermediate size between the Warrior and the Resistance class, will be ready for sea in July. I do not say that all these ships will be commissioned as soon as they are completed; my object is to show when they will be ready. The Caledonia, another of the wooden line-of-battle ship converted, will be ready in September. And now we come to a novel class of ship concerning which it is desirable that I should say a few words. The House will remember that for some time it was supposed that no ship would be able to carry armour-plates so as to attain high speed unless one of a very large tonnage. It was, however, undoubtedly most desirable that we should have vessels of somewhat less tonnage, and less costly, but still able to bear armour-plates. Mr. Reed, now about to be Chief Constructor of the Navy, was employed by the Admiralty to carry out the construction of ships of this class, and he was ordered to build three—the Enter- prise, the Research, and the Favourite. The Enterprise is to have a wooden bottom—that is to enable her to go to distant stations, but she will carry very heavy guns and will be entirely armour-plated in the middle and along her water-line. [Sir JOHN PAKINGTON: Is she in armour?] The armour is entire in the middle, and along the water-line—hut the extremities are of plate-iron and an iron-skin. She is also to be sheathed with Muntz-metal. These three ships are very much of the same nature. The Enterprise will be ready by October, the Research in February, 1864, and the Favourite in June, 1864. The Enterprise is a vessel of 990 tons, and the other two, the Research and the favourite, are respectively of 1,253 and 2,186 tons. The Royal Sovereign, turret ship, converted from a three-decker, will be ready in November. The statement with regard to the preparation of ships must always be a matter of uncertainty. We have some admirable constructors of armour-plates all over the country; but questions of difficulty are apt to arise, and it is better that we should delay our ships than, that we should go on and plate them with insufficient armour. While upon armour-plates let me pay honour where honour is due. We can get good plates, both hammered and rolled, but we find that the rolled are more uniform, and Mr. Brown, a gentleman distinguished by great zeal, and conducting important works at Sheffield, has been most successful in producing plates. I may likewise mention that Mr. Beale, of Parkgate, has been successful, and I hope will be yet more so. These are makers of rolled plates, which, on the whole, have been more successful than the other kind. I am likewise bound to give the Thames Iron Company credit for hammered plates; but lately, as I have mentioned, the hammered plates have been considered less successful. Another point of interest is the annealing, or gradually cooling, process. We tried annealing, and in some cases were successful and in others we failed. We actually took the same plate, and cutting it in two, annealed one-half, leaving the other half unannealed; but the effect in respect to both was very much the same, so completely are we in a state of uncertainty as to the result of different processes. We are, however, in good hopes that we shall succeed in having a regular supply of plates without any de- fect. I have already stated that by the end of the year we shall have altogether, including the ships at sea as well as those under construction, nine large armour-plated ships and one smaller one ready for sea. In the spring of next year we shall have a great development again. We shall then have the Ocean, one of the wooden line-of-battle ships, armour-plated; the Valiant, sister to the Hector, an intermediate class between the Warrior and Resistance, built wholly of iron; the Prince Albert, of iron, the second ship on the turret principle, in which Captain Coles is to mount six guns; and the Achilles, building at Chatham. We hope they will be afloat and sea-ready almost by April in next year, and also the Achilles, sister to the Warrior, and the Royal Alfred, and the Zealous, wooden ships like the Royal Oak. Then, as to small ships, we shall have two—the Favourite and the Research, to which I have already alluded—making in all eighteen armour-plated ships ready for sea by April in next year. Under these circumstances I hope the hon. Member for Norfolk will admit that we are making progress in preparing ships for launching. Then come the three leviathan ships of upwards of 6,600 tons each—namely, the Agincourt, the Minotaur, and the Northumberland. When these ships will be ready I cannot pretend to say, as that matter depends on the contractors. I believe that they are making great exertions to get the vessels ready, but, of course, it is not in my power to state when they will be finished. I will now state what we propose to do with respect to further construction of the armour-plated fleet. We propose to prepare frames for five more large wooden armour-plated frigates. Having now a large stock of timber, it is really a matter of economy that we should construct these vessels in our own dockyards. This leads to the great question of wood versus iron. Undoubtedly, when we come to ships of very large tonnage, iron has the advantage over wood. Wooden vessels are subject to great vibration when put to high speed, and time damages them and causes them to decay. Wooden vessels cannot be said to be lasting; but the Committee should remember that ours, after all, are not worse than other nations', and they are building wooden ships; and therefore it is advisable, that having a good stock of timber on hand, we should construct a certain number more of these ships. Hon. Gentlemen— mercantile gentlemen—will, I know, say, build them of iron; but these hon. Gentlemen should remember, that until some one will devise the means of keeping their bottoms clean, they are not so useful as wooden ships, as long as the latter last. The Controller of the Navy will tell you, that if you are to have iron ships, you ought almost to have one dock for every ship. We are covering our iron ships' bottoms with paint and composition of every description, and there is actually a trial being made to enamel them. We are endeavouring to get over the difficulty arising from the fouling of the bottoms in every possible way, feeling that as long as that mischief exists, we must think that for many purposes wooden vessels are superior to iron. As an argument in favour of iron vessels, I may say that Admiral Robinson, the Controller of the Navy, has gone very carefully into the average cost to the country of maintaining a wooden fleet, and he has come to the conclusion that for every man that you vote for your navy you must put down £10 for the mere wages of artificers to keep the ships in repair. Thus, supposing you have 76,000 men, the wages of artificers for keeping the ships in repair would amount to £760,000 a year. I do not mean to say whether this calculation is right or wrong, but hon. Gentlemen have the power to judge of these matters for themselves, because there is annually laid on the table of the House a detail of the cost of every ship in the navy. I still avoid stating exactly what is to be the armament of any ship, because I do not think any one could give a proper opinion as to what will be the armament. Great experiments are going on. Mr. Whitworth says that he can make a gun capable of sending a projectile through anything; while others assert that he cannot. But we have this consolation in regard to all the ships we are building, that they can carry thicker plates, if necessary. Before I quit this subject of ships, I wish to say, speaking entirely on my own responsibility, that I believe an invention is coming out which, if successful, will produce a great reform in the masting of vessels. Captain Coles, who is well known as a very clever and ingenious officer, has invented a system of masting which will altogether do away with rigging. This system consists in having an iron cylinder for the mast, supported by two other cylinders, which in fact represent the rigging. If this invention succeeds, it will get rid of the difficulty of falling rigging fouling the screw. This has not been tried yet. I think I have now made the Committee acquainted, as well as I am able, with the progress of our shipbuilding operations. There are a certain number of small ships likewise building which are really not of surpassing interest at the present day in comparison with the armour-plated ships. Having dealt with this part of the subject—the outside skin as I may call it— I now come to the pith and marrow and bone of the navy—namely, the seamen. We take this year a Vote for the same number of officers, seamen, marines, and boys as we took last year—namely, 76,000. There is, in fact, a small increase, because the civilians—a class of men in the coast guard service of the Customhouse, left as a legacy by the Custom-house to the Admiralty—are fast disappearing, and as they disappear their places are supplied by seamen in the coast guard. Their number was last year 1,150. This year it is only 1,000; so that there is really this small increase of 150 seamen. The men are distributed as follows:—I should, perhaps, weary the House if I told them what are the ships at every station. I will, therefore, content myself with giving the numbers in the Channel fleet and on the Mediterranean, North American, and Indian stations. In the Channel we have one ship of the line, the Revenge, four of these iron-plated frigates, and one other vessel—that is, six ships. They carry 187 guns and are manned by 3,146 men. In the Mediterranean we have 6 ships of the line, 5 frigates and corvettes, and 15 other vessels. These 26 ships carry 706 guns, and are manned by 8,524 men. On the North American and West Indian station we have 1 ship of the line, 8 frigates and corvettes, and 22 other vessels. These 31 ships carry 543 guns and are manned by 6,573 men. On the East India and China stations, where we have charged ourselves with the extra duties of the Indian navy, which existed up to last year, and which, therefore, has necessitated an increase, we have 4 frigates and corvettes, and 29 other vessels. These 33 ships carry 234 guns, and are manned by 3,528 men. On distant stations we have 14 frigates and corvettes, and 40 other vessels. These 54 ships carry 587 guns, and are manned by 8,566 men. The result of the whole is, that we have 150 ships in commission, carrying 2,257 guns and manned by 30,337 men. In addition we have various services, ships ordered home and on surveying service, taking 14,648 men. We have reserves of seamen, and I know my right hon. Friend (Sir John Pakington) attaches great interest to the number of reserves in home ports. Within the last few weeks we have told off a line-of-battle ship's crew for the Royal Oak, and they are ready to go on board as soon as they are wanted. The present number of reserves is 3,000. The supernumerary warrant officers, kroomen, &c., number 4,000. We have boys under training, independent of those in the fleet, to the number of 2,050. We have 11,000 marines on shore. The coast guard afloat, including tenders and blockships, number 4,652, and the coast guard ashore 4,000. The grand total is 73,687 men on the 23rd of February, irrespective of civilians, showing that we are some few hundred short of our Vote, principally marines and boys, and, of course, we are taking steps to complete the full number. Such, then, is the state of the personnel, and I may give the Committee the assurance that nothing can be more satisfactory or more contented than the condition of the seamen of the fleet. We have not yet got rid of the bounty men—that class who fill up the Return from, which the hon. Member for Lambeth (Mr. Williams) has just quoted; but so important does the Admiralty think it, that in order to clear them off as soon as possible, they have brought home several ships and paid them off, with the view of getting rid of those men. The Return is for 1861—Every Gentleman must be sorry that it should be necessary to resort to flogging. Discipline requires that we should have the power, but it is our earnest desire to keep down the punishment as much as possible, and I hope next year the Return may be more satisfactory. The popularity of the service may be seen from this fact:—My right hon. Friend (Sir John Pakington) will recollect that at the commencement of the continuous-service system there was considerable difficulty in inducing the men to enter for continuous service. Our present position is that more than three-fourths are continuous service men: this gives us great facility in manning the ships; because the men who have come home, after a tour of leave join fresh ships. There is yet another test of the improvement of the fleet. The Committee will remember that three years ago it was determined to put the men in two classes, and that men in the first class should not be liable to flogging. Of the whole number 87 per cent of the men in the fleet belong to the first class by their own good conduct, leaving only 13 per cent in the second class. The Admiralty have used great endeavours to organize barracks for seamen. We are going to commence barracks at Portsmouth, if the Committee will agree to the Vote I am about to propose. We have not progressed so rapidly at Plymouth as might be wished, because we found that the site was not central enough. We have transferred that site to the War Office, who have given us a site near the north end of the dockyard, with which, in consequence of the changes in the fortifications, they are able to dispense. We propose to begin at Devonport and also to lay the foundations of barracks at Portsmouth. Before I quit the subject of punishment, let me advert to the boys. The system is developing itself with great success, and we principally owe the good conduct of the men to the ships having been manned by those who were our own boys. Sir Frederick Grey has bestowed much care and attention on this subject, and he assures me, that to the best of his belief, in the course of a short time our navy may be filled up entirely by our own boys, with the exception of 600 or 700 men, who will be required to be introduced from other sources. The reason we have been able to reduce punishment is because you have generously given us the means by which these changes have been made. You have expended large sums in the education of these boys, and you are now beginning to reap the reward of your great expenditure for the benefit of the navy. There are other subjects connected with the fleet to which I will allude. We are trying various methods of ventilation, and we believe that when the ships are properly ventilated there will be a decrease in the sick lists. Lastly comes the question of cooking. I last year mentioned that there was a desire to introduce the system of baking soft bread. Strange to say, we found that it was rather objected to, and the men preferred biscuit. But we attribute it not to any dislike of soft bread, but because they can get their savings of biscuit, which they cannot of bread. We are trying a new cooking apparatus, by which we hope to be able to give not only soft bread, but roast meat as a change for the meat which is now habitually boiled. I now turn to the subject of the Naval Reserve. That great body of merchant seamen, which has now become a national institution, has largely increased in number during the last year. The House may remember that that year the number enrolled was 10,000. We have now nearly 15,000 drilled and perfectly ready to serve their country. Of these 7,000 are at home and can be called out at any moment. It is impossible for me to speak too highly of this valuable force. We have also established a body of officers of the Naval Reserve. Of the 400 officers which Parliament empowered us to engage we have already 91, which in a single year is a considerable number to obtain. Then we have the Naval Coast Volunteers, a very fine body of men, whom we think we may still improve. At present we have no power to take these men beyond one hundred leagues from their own shores. It appears to us very desirable, that in the event of our requiring the services of this force, we should not be confined to employing them within so limited a distance. We believe that by a little more care in the selection of recruits we may be able to induce seafaring men to join the force on the understanding that a more extended use is to be made of their services should necessity require them. Accordingly, it will be my duty to introduce a Bill for the purpose of reorganizing that force. A body of pensioners and riggers completes the sum of our naval forces. I have now, Sir, I think, shown to the Committee, that while the Government haveendeavoured to enforce a strict economy, they have done so without making any reduction in the number of our forces. I sincerely hope that whatever the Committee may do, they will at least not compel the Government to curtail the number of this magnificent body of men. There are several minor items with which I need not now trouble the Committee, but about which hon. Members may perhaps desire information when we come to the particular Votes. For instance there is a small increase, which I have no doubt will be cheerfully conceded, in the pay of colonels of marines. We also propose to reorganize the establishment of clerks in the dock- yards. At present each dockyard has its own special staff, but we desire to mass them together, so that we may be able to command the services of each clerk at any station we choose. In that way we hope to secure both greater economy and efficiency. We are also desirous of making a small increase in the establishment of the Controller of the Navy, the business of which has quite outgrown the staff. I hope I have satisfied the Committee by what I have said that in reducing the expenditure the Government have not in any way sacrificed the interests of the navy. In consequence of the great sums which Parliament has granted to the Admiralty in past years, we have been enabled to make an important addition to the fleet, to furnish our dockyards with ample stores, and to reorganize our magnificent forces. Mr. Massey, I beg to move to resolve—

"That 76,000 Men and Boys be employed for the Sea and Coast Guard Services, for the Year ending the 31st day of March 1863, including 18,000 Marines.

— I have listened with much attention to the very able statement of my noble Friend the Secretary of the Admiralty, and I am happy to say that I have heard nothing in that statement to render it necessary for me to trouble the Committee with more than a few observations. I am still more happy to say that I find nothing in the Estimates, any more than in the speech of my noble Friend, which requires me to make serious objections to any portion of the proposals of the Government. A very strong and natural desire has prevailed, on the part both of Parliament and the country, that the enormous amount which the Navy Estimates had reached during the last few years should be reduced as far as was compatible with the interests of the service. It is therefore very satisfactory to learn that the Government have made the Estimates for this year less by a million than those of the year before. And I am bound to say, that I think my noble Friend is justified in claiming for the Government credit for effecting that reduction without encroaching on the efficiency of the navy. Those points to which the advocates of a strong navy attach most importance are the maintenance of an adequate number of men and progress in the building of that new class of vessels the value of which is every year becoming more ap- parent. I am afraid that those opinions are not shared by all the Gentlemen on both sides of the Committee; but I feel bound to express my own satisfaction that the Government has not proposed any reduction in the number of men. That has been a wise and prudent resolve. Irrespective of the extent of the force we are asked to vote, every one must have heard, with unqualified gratification, the statements of my noble Friend as to the improved character of the men. I listened with some anxiety to what my noble Friend had to say on the subject of flogging. There can be no doubt that there is a general desire that the discipline of the navy should be maintained without resort to that mode of punishment. I trust that the disuse of corporal punishment may be brought about by the improved character of the seamen, and that the Admiralty will take care not to make any changes calculated to impair the discipline of the service. I have had reason to observe that whatever the power of the navy may have been, its discipline was not quite what we could have desired; and therefore I had the more satisfaction in hearing what the noble Lord said, and I hope that the discipline of the navy will improve with its increased comforts. I also heard, with great satisfaction, of the great increase of continuous-service men. My noble Friend has adverted to the anxiety I have felt bound to express in former years that an end might be put to those discreditable scenes, of which we had recently seen too many, when ships lay in the roadsteads for weeks and months waiting for men to fill up their crews. I am glad to know that what I have so long urged is at length accomplished, and that we have now a Reserve of seamen, who may be draughted to any ship which requires a crew. I am only sorry that we have not had a more satisfactory statement as to the accommodation provided for the Reserve. I fear that the greater part of them are scattered about in hulks and elsewhere. My noble Friend himself acknowledges the importance of barracks, and I regret that the Government did not see fit to take a larger Vote for barracks this year. [Lord CLARENCE PAGET: That is because we can only go on with the foundations at first.] I trust, however, that no feeling of economy will induce the Government to delay the progress of the works. Looking to the importance of a permanent Reserve, I hope that no mere wish, to cut down a Vote has led the Government to propose a smaller sum for this item, and that no time really will he lost in the completion of these barracks. Another important item to which I look is the progress of our ships; and here again I am happy to say that I regard the statement of the noble Lord as perfectly satisfactory. I was glad to hear from him that there are no less than twenty-one armour-covered vessels now in progress, and that by the end of the year ten will be launched and ready for commission. I feel some doubts with regard to the success of all the different classes of these ships; but, looking to the fact that this new class of men-of-war is yet in its infancy, and that we have not yet considered the best mode of constructing them, considerable latitude ought certainly to be left to the Government in trying those experiments without which we cannot hope to arrive at any successful result, I doubt very much whether the advantages possessed by that larger class of ships—the Minotaur, the Northumberland, and the Agincourt —which the present Admiralty are building, covered entirely with armour from one end to the other, and larger by 500 or 600 tons than the Warrior and the Black Prince, may not be purchased too dearly, and whether they will be really found to be good sea-going ships in heavy weather. The cupola ships must be regarded as a matter of experiment, and I am not disposed to blame the Admiralty for trying them. So with regard, too, to the new class of ships, of which no one I suppose has heard anything until to-night, which have been recommended by the new Constructor of the Navy, Mr. Reed. I cannot mention Mr. Reed's name without expressing my regret at the unusual course which the Admiralty have taken in placing a gentleman entirely unconnected with the Admiralty in such a high position over the heads of an establishment which, undoubtedly, contains within itself some persons of great ability and skill. I should be sorry to say a word which would do injustice to Mr. Reed, for it happens that he is secretary to the Institute of Naval Architects, of which I have the honour to be president. I have seen much of him during the last few years, and know more of him personally than of any of the dockyard officials. All the intercourse I have had with him has given me a high opinion of his character and his gene- ral abilities. Therefore I do not wish to speak with the slightest disrespect of him. But, on the other hand, looking at the proved ability and tried skill of Mr. Oliver Lang, who possesses the union of great constructive ability and high scientific acquirements, as has been proved by his designs for some of the finest ships in the navy, with all my respect for Mr. Reed, I cannot but feel some regret at the unusual course of placing him over the heads of gentlemen who possess skill and ability equal to his own. Looking at the other parts of the Estimates, I now come to the extension of the dockyard at Chatham. I beg to say that I entirely approve of what the Admiralty are doing at Chatham; whether I approve of what my noble Friend has been saying at Chatham is quite another thing. He may have said a good deal—perhaps more than was quite discreet—but I am now adverting to what he has been doing, and not to what he has been saying; and I should not be doing my duty if I did not express my approval of what appears to be the desire of the Government to make that a more important arsenal. I myself, when in office, always expressed my intention of proposing a considerable sum of money in making Chatham our chief naval arsenal. I am sorry, however, not to see a larger sum than £20,000 down in the Estimates for this purpose for the current year, and I hope my noble Friend will be able to say that the Government mean to press forward the works at Chatham Dockyard as fast as possible. The only other point to which I wish to refer was touched upon in the last part of my noble Friend's speech—I mean the improved ventilation of our men of war. Last year I think the noble Lord said, a Committee had been appointed by the Admiralty to consider what was the best mode of improving the ventilation in our ships of war. I am afraid I must infer from what the noble Lord said, either that the Committee has not reported, or that they have reported in such a manner as not to enable the Admiralty to act in the matter. This is a very pressing matter. I received a communication lately describing the dreadful sufferings of the men on board a ship of war on the West India station from yellow fever during the year 1861, and a great part of these is to be attributed to defective ventilation. The crews of the Firebrand, the Spiteful, the Jason, and the Racer, were at- tacked with yellow fever in 1861, and my information is that no less than 334 cases, or one-half of the whole of the crews, were attacked by this malady. I am sorry, therefore, that some more satisfactory mode of ventilating our ships has not been devised. In closing these observations I can only express my satisfaction in being enabled to address myself in such a tone to the statements and remarks of my noble Friend.

regretted to have heard from the hon. Member for Norfolk another homily on the danger of invasion from France. Hon. Members on the other side were always warning the country against danger from that quarter, and the hon. and gallant Member for Chatham (Sir F. Smith) to-night had argued that our fleet ought to be large enough to cope not only with France, but with the combined navies of France, Russia, Austria, and Turkey. All these ideas sprang from a foolish panic, which our Statesmen had rather encouraged than checked, and which had been continued under the delusive belief that our neighbours were acquiring a vast maritime superiority over us. He did not share in any such apprehensions, though he would not be backward to maintain the necessary defences of the country. No doubt, we ought always to have a force larger than that of any other Power, but, at the same time, it was wise policy to husband our resources in time of peace, so that they might be the more readily and easily expanded when danger really threatened our shores. He therefore objected to an establishment of 76,000 men in time of peace, believing that such an establishment was rather suited to a time of war; but he did not intend to move any reduction in the number of men, for this reason —that a careful examination of the Estimates had convinced him that the Government were, to a certain extent, in earnest in their desire to bring about a real and substantial saving. He hoped, however, that the hon. Member for Halifax (Mr. Stansfeld), and those who agreed with him, would not consider their work of last year finished. It had often been said out of doors that a large reduction in stores meant a large increase in the following year, and that the Government could raise or lower the Estimate according to the pressure placed upon them; and that we had consequently no security against an increase of the Estimates to their old figure next year. That was true; but those who advocated retrenchment should bear in mind that for several years past, they had been finding fault with the large sums asked for stores, that the Government had reduced them, and that until the Government gave them some reason to doubt their sincerity they had no right to do so. From a recent Return he found that the Government had suspended the building of no fewer than twenty-nine ships, which he regarded as a step in the right direction; and he was also glad to find that the Government were not building any large number of one particular class of vessels. In this age of invention, when new models succeeded one another with such rapidity, it was prudent not to rush into great expenditure on ships of any particular class, but rather to keep pace with the time, building one or two vessels upon each of the plans recommended by scientific men, and thus avoiding the serious blunder which so many successive Boards of Admiralty had committed — the blunder of getting together a large number of vessels of a class which soon became altogether unserviceable. We had fifty-six wooden screw line-of-battle ships, of which the right hon. Member for Droitwich (Sir J. Pakington) ordered too many; and although he did good service when he ordered the Warrior, still it would be injudicious to build fifteen or twenty of that class. If in any respect our navy was defective, it was in the lighter and less expensive class of frigates—vessels of about 1,500 tons, like the Alabama, the speed of which would be a greater advantage than the enormous armaments of our heavier and most costly ships. The exploits of such flimsy boats as the Nashville and the Sumter might convince us that of late years we had attached too little importance to celerity of movement. He was sorry to observe that only a very paltry reduction was to be made in the wages of the home establishments, and he wanted to know whether the Government really intended to keep up the expenditure in our dockyards at the same high figure as before. As a financial reformer he was glad to see the increase which had taken place in the Naval Reserves, because he believed that no money could be better spent than the £130,000 which was voted for that department of the service. There could be no doubt that upon the Naval Reserves we must depend in the end for the security of the empire. He hoped, in conclusion, that the Government would continue in future years the policy of retrenchment which they had begun.

said, he was glad indeed that the country had experienced the panic which had been alluded to, because, if it had not been for the panic, we should not have been in our present state of preparation. He would support the noble Lord in asking for 76,000 men, because we must remember that we had now to provide for the naval service of the whole of India, and he should be very much mistaken if the Government did not find the demand both for men and money such as to make us regret that we had not retained the Indian navy on its old footing. It was satisfactory to find that the Government had at last resolved to take the transport service into their own hands, instead of going into the market and chartering ships at enormous prices whenever they wanted to convey troops from one place to another. [Lord CLARENCE PAGET: The Government are still chartering ships.] He was sorry to hear it, because he was entirely at variance with the Government as to the expediency of chartering ships. He had often recommended that the number of transports should be increased; and he held in his hand a remarkable document bearing on the question. A copy of it had been sent to the Admiralty, and he trusted that it would soon be laid on the table of the House. It was the balance-sheet of the Himalaya during the four years she was in commission; her performances were recorded; her repairs and all other expenses were charged against her in a proper business-like manner; the statement was compared with the most favourable specimen of the ships chartered from private persons, and the result was greatly in favour of the Himalaya. The best thing the Government could do, would be to build six Himalayas on the model of that ship, which had proved to be a most extraordinary transport. One vessel was undergoing alteration in order to be converted into a transport, and he would be glad to hear something about her. With respect to the iron ships that were being built, he could not help thinking that we had commenced building too many classes before we understood what was the right thing. We ought to wait for the results of experiments not yet completed. It appeared that the ships that were at sea answered admirably in many respects; but anybody who under- stood the theory of stowage must know that the iron-plating placed in the upper part of a ship counteracting the heavy weights plunged into the hold, the coalage and machinery, must in a great measure render a ship easier in her motion. But what he could not understand was the rigging of our vessels. Perhaps the noble Lord would inform them who was the inventor of it. The equilibrium of the Warrior was destroyed by placing great weights at her extremities, whereas she ought to be rigged with four masts, and the anchors ought to be brought further aft. Such vessels ought to be fitted upon the double screw principle, so as to facilitate their movement in an emergency; for a vessel on a lee shore that could not be turned round in less than twenty minutes was in a perilous position. It was stated that Mr. Reed, a gentleman who had acted as secretary to a debating society, had been appointed over the heads of such officers as Mr. Abethell, Mr. Oliver Lang, and Mr. Moody. In explanation of this appointment it was said that these meritorious officers were getting old. Why, Mr. Oliver Lang was not much older than the noble Lord the Secretary to the Admiralty, and Mr. Moody was in the prime of life. It would seem that Mr. Reed had been appointed in consequence of his possessing certain knowledge which every shipbuilder in any of the docks possessed in common with that gentleman; but he certainly could not be considered as an inventor of the highest class, for every one who understood the commonest principles of stowage must know the objections to iron ships with wooden bottoms. With regard to the docks at Portsmouth, he could not help thinking it was rather a lame excuse of his noble Friend that the forms of the House could not be complied with in time to introduce a Bill for their construction. Had the noble Lord got the plans of those docks ready? Were they in a state in which a Committee could judge of them? If so, what were the forms of the House that would prevent the noble Lord from bringing in a Bill at once, as was done in the case of the Chatham docks late last Session? He believed that the Chatham docks were necessary for the North Sea fleet; but as for the idea of Chatham ever being our principal arsenal, the thing was an absurdity. With regard to the barracks, were they designed in relation to the great scheme of a navy yard at Ports- mouth; or were they begun at a haphazard, as everything had been from time immemorial at Portsmouth? They ought to know whether the barracks were part of a great scheme, or whether their erection would involve loss in the future. The Committee which recommended the Reserve also recommended that naval schools should be established in all the outports. He could say with authority that these outports were desirous of having these schools, and their establishment would effect a great saving. The House would be surprised at the figures showing the difference between boys drafted into the navy from Sunderland, Shields, Greenock, Aberdeen, or Bristol, and those educated on board school ships. With regard to the Naval Reserve, it now only remained for the Government to be extremely cautious respecting the men they admitted into it. At first, no doubt, men were admitted who did not come up to the proper standard, and these men could not be got rid of. But now they were in a position safely to test the merits of every man before admission. He would certainly give the preference to men engaged in the coasting trade, because the more easily they could be laid hold of, the more effectual would the force always be. The ventilation of the ships had an important bearing on the health of the navy, and he could not help thinking that the ventilation of ships, and the proper construction of the smaller class of ships for tropical climates, had not been sufficiently attended to. The awning supplied to ships for the rivers of China and tropical climates was neither sufficient nor properly fitted to enable a crew to berth on deck. When he was in the Company's service, they had awnings of such a description that in the monsoons they were able to berth a certain portion of the men on the upper deck, and they enjoyed better health than those on board men-of-war. He saw a practical illustration of the extreme want of ventilation at Aberdeen last year. He went on board the man-of-war that was lying there. The temperature on the upper deck was 56 degrees. On the lower deck he found the thermometer at 72, close to where a man was lying in his hammock; and he was informed that at night, while the temperature on the upper deck was 50 degrees, it was 78 on the lower. With respect to corporal punishment, that varied with the character of the crew. He had known a ship's company whom it was believed nothing but the cat would keep in order, and he had known a crew among whom it was not necessary to take the cat out of the bag once in six months. The navy was now coining to the proper point with regard to punishment. As soon as summary dismissal from the service, with disgrace, was the recognised punishment for grave offences, the sooner would flogging be got rid of. He was glad to learn that corporal punishment was diminishing, and hoped it might one day expire altogether.

congratulated his noble Friend upon the courtesy and ability with which he had submitted the Estimates to the Committee, but could not accord his unqualified satisfaction at the reduction proposed, and particularly the transfer of 1,000 seamen from immediate service afloat to the coastguard.

— They are only put temporarily into the coastguard ships, and might come back the next day.

But meanwhile they lost their sea-legs. He could only express the hope that economy would not be purchased at too dear a price. We must never, for any consideration whatever, nor under any pressure, forget the all-important fact that our extensive commerce and remote and widely-scattered dependencies owed their safety wholly to the unimpaired condition and power of our navy. In the wars maintained by us within a century, all foreign Powers combined to dispute the sovereignty of the seas with our fleet, and he need not add without success. But at this hour, equally with that period, upon the superiority of our navy to all other maritime Powers, singly or allied, depended the safety of this country; for the navy was the palladium of our liberties, at once our honour and defence, with which stood or fell the reputation and the independence of the collective empire in the eyes and estimation of Europe and the world.

— There are not two opinions in this Committee with reference to those patriotic maxims which the hon. and gallant Admiral has just put forth with his wonted emphasis. There is no one in this House who is not of opinion that England should maintain a navy superior to any other navy in the world. But there is no one in the world who denies our legitimate right to maintain such a navy, and there is therefore no necessity for our making it a ground of antagonism to, or of triumph over, other countries. From our insular position, we, having no communication with the rest of the world except by sea, are entitled to have a larger fleet than other countries, in order to guard our commerce, which is larger than that of any other maritime State. No one disputes our legitimate right to that position. But the efficiency and the strength of a navy does not necessarily, in our days, depend upon the number of men that may be voted for it. Put 100,000 sailors — the very best in the world—on board ships that now belong to our navy, and there is not a nautical authority here or elsewhere who will deny that a score of iron clad vessels which may be now in existence on the other side of the Atlantic, with not one-twentieth the number of sailors on board of them, would destroy the whole of this fleet, crews and all. It is no longer a question of mere brute force and of numbers; it is a question of science, of skill—in fact, of intellect. Therefore, if I take exception to the vote of 76,000 men for our navy this year, I am not to be accused on that account of being unpatriotic, or of being disposed to maintain a less force than other countries. I object to the number of 76,000 men for this reason—I defy you to employ these men in ships in which they can be of use to the country. 76,000 is the number you employed in the Crimean war; it is a war establishment. The Americans, who are this year carry-on a war, and have 2,500 miles of coast to blockade, employ 26,000 seamen. Their Naval Estimates are under £13,000,000, while we are going to vote £11,000,000 and 76,000 men. What are you going to do with all these sailors? A very large number must, undoubtedly, be employed in those big wooden line-of-battle ships which have, unhappily, been built by the precipitation of the right hon. Gentleman (Sir J. Pakington) and by the gross inconsistency of my noble Friend the Secretary of the Admiralty. I say gross inconsistency, because six years ago the noble Lord told us in this House that the day for line-of-battle ships was gone by. "The fate of empires," said the noble Lord—I will use his own words—"will not in future depend on line-of-battle ships; they are not suited to the modern mode of warfare." Other very high nautical authorities have preached the same doctrine. I heard the late Admiral Napier declare, a short time before his death, that a line-of-battle ship struck with one of your modern percussion shells, would have a hole in her side large enough, as he said, to drive a wheelbarrow through. What said the hon. and gallant Officer the Member for Harwich (Captain Jervis)? In my own heaving he said that a wooden line-of-battle ship, hit by these modern percussion shells, would be nothing but a slaughterhouse. Now, I ask any nautical man, "Would you, if you were at war with America to-morrow, send one of your wooden line-of-battle ships, with 700 or 800 men on board, and with 30 or 40 tons of gunpowder under their feet, to meet a vessel like the Monitor?" You know you would not. I heard the hon. Baronet the Member for Finsbury (Sir Morton Peto) once declare his opinion that the Minister who should send a wooden line-of-battle ship to encounter these modern shell guns would deserve to be impeached. I do not presume to speak my own opinion on these matters; all the merit I claim is for being docile enough to learn from those who know better than I can. I take the authority of the ablest nautical men. Admiral Halsted also tells us, from experiment, that nine rounds from these modern shell guns will ignite a wooden vessel into a mass of flames wholly inextinguishable. If this be the case, these great wooden line-of-battle ships and frigates are useless for the purposes of war, and you have 20,000 or 30,000 seamen now floating about in vessels which you would not use in time of war. Well, I challenge any naval officer in this House to get up and say that one of these line-of-battle ships would be opposed to an ironclad gunboat in the present day; and if he does, I will bow to his authority. But if he does not, I hold that you are mis-spending a vast amount of money in maintaining these seventy-four line-of-battle ships, including coastguard vessels, which would be utterly useless in time of war, and your large wooden frigates may also be classed in the same category. Is it not absurd, then, to be manning these vessels, or a large proportion of them, under the delusive idea that you thereby increase your strength? You are really doing quite the reverse. I will tell you what you are doing—you are running your expenditure up to a point winch makes your people clamour for a reduction, and you are straining the elasticity of those finances which you should husband for war. Surely it would be much wiser to have 20,000 fewer sailors than to keep them floating about in vessels which all your naval authorities admit would never again be fit for warfare. I say, then, that you do not show me, that if we vote these 76,000 seamen, you are going to make a good use of them, and therefore I object to the number of the men. And, observe, in objecting to the number of the men, I am objecting to your whole naval expenditure; because my hon. Friend the Member for Montrose (Mr. Baxter) must have been a very inattentive listener to what occurs in this House if he does not know that it is a maxim, derived from the oldest authorities — and I have heard it over and over again from men like the late Sir James Graham, than whom I am aware of no higher authority—it is a recognised maxim, that when you have voted the number of men, you have practically voted the expenditure of the navy in all its departments, for the expenditure of all those departments depends upon the number of your men. We have the same thing laid down in the Report of the Committee of this House. Then, what is the meaning of this reduction which is proposed? I was rather surprised at my hon. Friend the Member for Montrose making so many concessions about the reduction of a million in stores. But if you do not reduce the number of your men, your present reduction in stores means only that you will buy more stores next year. There cannot be a doubt of that. My hon. Friend said the noble Lord the Secretary of the Admiralty was apologetic in his tone; but my hon. Friend himself was too apologetic for the Government in his remarks. This is really no permanent reduction. Nay, more, I do not believe you can keep 70,000 men afloat in vessels fit for any useful purpose for anything like £10,500,000 of money; and I will tell you why. There is a principle in the progress of our armaments which hon. Members must take into account—and that is, that your vessels are constantly increasing in price and value. A line-of-battle ship which used to cost £100,000, now costs you, with iron armour, £350,000. Why are you spending this extra money for each ship? Certainly to make her more effective. But, surely, if you make her more effective, you do not want the same number of men to give you the same force. In the navy, as in private enterprise, all these improvements should economize labour by machinery. If you lay out this vast capital in expensive ships, you need fewer men, because you cannot and do not require to keep the same number of ships afloat. Why, if one of these iron-clad gunboats can go in among your great wooden vessels like a lion among a flock of sheep, that implies that you gain an enormously increased force by their construction. The same thing applies to frigates. If you build them in the same way, you do not want so many of them, nor so many sailors; and yet you will be stronger at sea; for I say your present preparation is weakness not strength. That point is illustrated in a table which I have in my hand. The Agincourt has been referred to. She is of 6,021 tons, and throws a broadside of 1,322 lb. weight —that is, three times the broadside, and nearly three times the tonnage of the Victory, in which Nelson won the battle of Trafalgar. But, instead of requiring 1,200 men, like the Victory, the Agincourt requires only 704; thus showing that as you increase your investment of capital in these expensive vessels, you require fewer men to work them, and yet they are stronger—three times stronger if you put wood against iron. Do not, therefore, run away with the fallacy that you must always keep these 76,000 men afloat in ships. I tell you, if you are to float 76,000 men in ships that you would think of sending out were you at war with America to-morrow, you must spend, not ten, but twenty millions of money. We have seen how rapid the transitions are from one description of ship to another. It is the same in everything. It is only just within the last few years that men of genius, the mechanicians of the age, have been directing their attention to the new armaments. It is only lately, or since the Crimean war—when all the great Powers set to work as if to prepare them for the coming hostilities—that your Armstrongs, Whitworths, and Fairbairns were drawn from civil life to devote themselves to the invention of these armaments and implements of destruction. You have only begun this, and yet how rapidly you have been going on. I will give an illustration of this which nautical men will understand. I sat upon the Committee on the Navy in 1848. We examined Sir Thomas Hastings, who told us he had no doubt whatever that to add a screw to a line-of-battle ship would make it a much less effective man-of-war. That is what was stated only fifteen years ago by Sir Thomas Hastings, the head of our gunnery establishment, and he was backed by other naval officers. What has since happened? Your sailing vessels have wholly disappeared. Well, I say our Governments have acted with something like madness—their conduct seems little short of sheer insanity—for they rushed into the building of wooden line-of-battle ships after they knew of the success of iron-clad vessels. You are now saddled with seventy-four of these wooden line-of-battle ships, and I defy you to produce any naval authority that would send them against a single iron-clad gunboat. Surely that ought to make us a little cautious about what we shall do for the future, and about what we are doing now. Is it possible, with these rapid transitions, that we can afford, rich though we are, to go upon a grand scale into all these novelties? With our stock of useless line-of-battle ships on our hands, can we now rush into building iron-clad vessels to the same extent and in the same way? Well, it seems to me, that that is just what we are going to do. We see now before us something like twenty of these iron-clad broadside port vessels—I say broadside port, because I am going to mention another class in a moment. Are we sure that ten years hence they will not share the same fate as these screw wooden line-of-battle ships? What says Captain Cowper Coles? My noble Friend has quoted him as an authority in these matters, and I believe from what I have heard of him—I can only presume to judge from what gentlemen of his own profession think of him—that he is deserving of the highest consideration from all who, like myself, have no technical knowledge of these matters. He leads us to expect that he is going to supersede these broadside vessels by his turret ships; and bear in mind that the Americans are hardly building anything except these turret or cupola ships, which they produce at the rate of about one every fortnight. Captain Coles, in a little tract, which I dare say has been sent to other Members as well as to myself, shows us what is the superiority of his cupola vessels over the broadside ships. His views are very startling, and, if correct, there can be no doubt we are running the greatest risk in constructing these broadside iron-clad vessels. He has given us a table showing in parallel columns the comparative number of men, draught of water, tonnage, and expense of ships throwing the same weight of metal on the broadside port system and the shield system. The Agin-court, of which we have heard so much, has a draught of 26 ft. 2 in., carries 704 men, throws 1,322 lb. weight of broadside, has a tonnage of 6,021 tons, and cost £385,342. Parallel to that vessel Captain Coles puts his turret ship, which only draws 22 ft. of water, carries 200 men, throws the same weight of broadside (1,322 lb.), has a tonnage of 3,272 tons, and cost only £203,518, thus yielding a saving of two thirds of the number of men and nearly one-half the first outlay in money. But that is not all. Captain Coles tells us that these turret ships can throw a ball weighing 300 lb. or 400 lb., whereas a broadside port vessel can only throw a shot of 110 lb. He says that in America they are now mounting 15-inch cannon, firing solid shots of 450 lb. on all the iron-clad Monitors; and surely it does not require us to be sailors to know what chance a vessel throwing only 110 lb. shot would have against such an overpowering armament. That is Captain Coles's case; and if the facts and data which he supplies can be relied on, the conclusion to me seems irresistible that turret ships will as surely supersede the broadside vessel with ports as screw line-of-battle ships superseded the old-fashioned sailing vessels. In these turret ships there are no open ports through which shells can glide and men be hurt; and one advantage in connection with them is that you will not want so many sailors. They will stand hammering for half a day without losing scarcely a man, whereas, in wooden vessels, every action was attended with some loss. Do not let it be said that I am travelling ultra, crepidam. Let any one give better authorities than I do, and I will bow to authority. But do not let it be said that we are incapable of using the facts and figures which we have in our possession—and that is all I pretend to do—do not let us go hand over head, turning a deaf ear to argument. My noble Friend let out a secret a little while ago; I should not have dreamt of attributing motives to him if he had not corroborated my suspicions. But I never could understand why it was that the Admiralty was buying such an enormous quantity of timber — why they should lay up a store of 112,000 loads, their former average consumption yearly not being a third of that amount. A friend told me last year, "That is all done by the people in the dockyard; the political officials at the head of the Department know nothing about it." At this moment they are filling the dockyards with timber; they are filling the quays also. They are so full that I believe the Port Admirals can hardly walk about. And this very superabundance of timber is then urged as a reason why they should build iron-clads in the dockyards, instead of having wholly iron vessels built by contract. I have no faith in the Admiralty. I have not the least faith in them. On that subject, and perhaps it is the only one on which I do coincide with him in opinion, I agree entirely with the hon. Member for Norfolk (Mr. Bentinck). The Admiralty have always been doing the wrong thing, or doing the right thing at the wrong time. They come forward each year with Estimates, and tell us everything is perfection. We heard to-night that the men are in an admirable state of discipline, that the Admiralty have got an admirable fleet, that they have got their dockyards full of timber, and that they only want to build some enormous docks in order that they may set work to spend twice as much money as ever. Now, who recommends you to clothe wood in iron? Does not such a course seem absurd? You would not veneer pasteboard with marble, and yet it seems just as rational to put iron upon wood. While you had old screw line-of-battle ships which you wanted to use up and disguise, there might be some excuse for taking off a couple of decks and covering the rest with iron; but if the House will listen to authority, and not to the Admiralty, it will stop building any more wooden vessels to be afterwards clothed with iron. What says Sir William Armstrong; what says Mr. Fairbairn; what does Sir Morton Peto say? These are men who, from their professional pursuits, know what the result of placing iron upon wood will be; and they have all emphatically declared that not a vessel ought to be constructed of wood, cased with iron, because you are thereby putting a harder and more rigid substance on a softer and more flexible one, and the foundation will give way. If the Admiralty will suspend the building of monster broadside ships until they have allowed Captain Coles to try his experiment with turret ships, we shall be better able to judge of their relative merits. Why cannot they allow his ship to be finished? It was in 1861 that he tried his experiments and satisfied the Admiralty with his plan. There is a vessel now in Portsmouth dockyard which is being converted into a turret ship, and I predict it will not be finished till next March twelve months, though the noble Lord says it will be ready in October or November next. I believe anything which the noble Lord tells me, but the Admiralty I never believe at all. Why not wait and see what comes of this contest between the cupola and the broadside? If you build your ships entirely of iron five or six inches thick—and that is the substance of all I have to say—the better opinion is that they will be practically indestructible, and, wanting only a few coats of paint, they will be as durable as Southwark Bridge or the Chain Pier at Brighton. Build them entirely of iron— build as few as you can—and your ships will be more secure, while the machinery supplied to them will enable them to be worked with fewer men, and in the end, instead of increasing the Navy Estimates, we shall be able to diminish them. I warn the Committee against supposing that it will always be necessary to keep up a force of 76,000 men and boys in order to be strong at sea. I am not about to move any reduction of men. I have been in this House twenty-two years nearly, and I have never known an Estimate altered once it had been brought in. The late Mr. Hume, who preceded me, told me that for forty years he had never known Estimates altered after they had been brought forward. But, mind you, when we refuse the income tax, as we did in 1848, the Government took back the Estimates, and managed before the end of the year very much to reduce them. And my respected Friend the late Mr. Hume told me that about 1816 or 1817, when the income tax was likewise refused, the Government took back the Estimates and reduced them enormously. And therefore, if my hon. Friends who seem inclined to take some steps in this matter, want to get a reduction of the Estimates, it must be by letting the Government know that there are some men connected with manufacturing and industrial interests whose business and function it ought to be to see that this waste of public money does not take place, who are determined that if the noble Lord at the head of the Government does not reduce the expenditure, somebody else for whom we will not be responsible may be called on to undertake the task. Let the Government know beforehand the fate which will attend extraordinary Estimates, and depend upon it they will no longer be produced. I thank you for hearing me; and, holding the opinions which I have just expressed, I do not intend to trouble you with a Vote.

said, there were one or two points as to which he should be glad to have some further explanation from the noble Lord the Secretary of the Admiralty. An item of £4,000,000 appeared in the Estimates for dockyard purposes, including salaries and various charges, such as timber, iron, and coal, but no details were given how the money was spent; how much for repairs, how much for new ships. If these items were given, the House would have an opportunity of seeing what they got for their money at the end of the year. From the statement made that night by the noble Lord, it would appear that the Surveyor of the Navy estimated the cost of repairs of ships of the navy at £760,000. If the expenditure under that head were very largely increased, it would still leave between £2,000,000 and £3,000,000 for the construction of new vessels. Putting down the cost of the iron-cased ships at £70 a ton, £2,000,000 sterling ought to produce 30,000 tons of shipping. But nothing like this amount was obtained for the money, and it was therefore desirable that on this point the House should have some information. He quite agreed with the opinion which had just been expressed with regard to Captain Coles' cupola ship. He had considered that question very fully, and believed that they would create a great revolution in naval architecture. For this reason he regretted extremely that the first ship of this class the Admiralty had undertaken to build was not to be ready until October. Everything that it was possible to do should be done to expedite its progress, as the result of the experiments might be to alter entirely the construction of our ships; and he had no doubt iron armour-plates could have been had in abundance, and if the work had been pushed on as it ought to have been, the vessel might have been ready. We could only carry our improved ordnance in cupola ships, not in broadside ships. We therefore could not go on in our old-fashioned way; we must adapt our ships to the requirements of the age. The heaviest guns could be easily worked by machinery in the cupola ships. He was glad to hear the noble Lord speak so highly of Captain Coles' invention of tripod masts. He had seen the plans, and, believing them to be excellent, he hoped they would be adopted. They ought not to go on building ships that would shake to pieces in a few years. In the case of the old wooden vessels that had been lengthened, the guns had to be taken away fore and aft, and it was not to be expected that they would be stronger for having 1,000 tons of iron hanging at their sides. He wanted to see the Royal Sovereign and Royal Oak tried. He would say, let the Black Prince and Warrior be docked and examined, to test their condition; do not commission the other ships, but transfer to them the captains and crews of the Warrior and Black Prince, and, if they stood as well as the iron ships, he would admit he had been mistaken. As to the comparative wear and tear of iron and wooden vessels there could be no contest. He thought they had better spend a million in docks for these large ships than spend a million for wooden ships that would not stand wear and tear at all. He was glad to corroborate the views of the hon. Member opposite, and he hoped the Admiralty would get Mr. Reed's first vessel, the Enterprise, and Captain Coles' Royal Sovereign, ready as speedily as possible, to enable them to determine whether their plans were good before they were called on to spend large sums of money in similar structures.

said, that the Vote for men, instead of being reduced, was greatly augmented, because the Royal Naval Reserve was increased by 7,000 or 8,000 over last year. If science was good for anything, its application should lessen the number of men required in our ships. As to the Warrior, she would cope with half a dozen line-of-battle ships. Her complement was 650 men; whereas the complement of six line-of-battle ships would be 5,000 or 6,000 men; so that they were actually voting a far greater number of men than they had efficient ships to put them in. They were told that they had 112,000 loads of timber in the dockyards: the annual consumption, when they were building wooden ships, was 30,000 loads; so that the stock on hand was enough to last four or five years, according to the old average; now, however, they were going to discontinue the building of wooden ships. The hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Laird), than whom no man could speak with better authority on the subject said, that wooden ships coated with iron were not efficient, that was the opinion of every person who was competent to form one on the subject. In 1855 it was evident that the days of wooden ships were at an end. In 1856 he (Mr. Lindsay) brought forward a Motion, to the effect that the building of wooden ships should be discontinued; but since that time they had spent about eleven millions sterling in wooden ships —a dead loss to the country. The question to consider was, whether the turret ships were sea-going vessels, and would they be as efficient as the Warrior, and they knew that turret vessels in America were only used for blockading purposes, and were utterly unfit to cross the Atlantic. Under these circumstances he would sell a large portion of the timber in stock, which would realize a good price; and if it were still considered advisable to case wooden ships with iron plates, he would cut down some of the useless line-of-battle ships, and coat them with armour. The question it was very important to consider was, would the turret ships be as good sea-ships as the Warrior class? He had visited the iron fleet in the Tagus, and had put various questions to Captain Cochrane as to the sea-going qualities of his ship; in reply to which that gallant officer stated that he had been in the Warrior in some very heavy gales, and he never was in an easier or safer ship. He would encounter any weather in her. As to the efficiency of the ship in resisting shot, he put this question, "Suppose an extreme case—that we were unfortunately involved in war with America—New York stood on a peninsula; suppose a battery at three several points, that outside of all you bad to encounter one Monitor, then two Monitors, and that you must run the gauntlet through them to get into the open water, and to command the town of New York; would you, under those circumstances, and looking to the risk of getting out again — would you run the Warrior through the gauntlet?" Captain Cochrane replied, that considering the object to be one of great importance, he should not hesitate to do so. The only thing which he would fear would be a chance shot to injure her rudder, which was not adequately protected, but the chance was a remote one. Captain Wainwright, of the Black Prince gave a similar reply, and Captains Phillimore and Chamberlain, commanding respectively the Defence and the Resistance, said also they should have no hesitation, if their vessels had the same speed as the Warrior and Black Prince. The conclusion, therefore, was, that so far as our knowledge at present extended those ships were practically invulnerable. With respect to the discipline of the crews, he had been struck by a marked improvement. Captain Cochrane, who had not flogged any man on board his vessel, said, in reply to a question, that he did not think it would be prudent to abolish the power of flogging. Having taken pains to ascertain the feeling of the seamen, he had found (strange to say) that the great majority of the good seamen did not desire to see that power abolished. A Russian captain had told him that flogging in their navy was controlled by Government regulations, but it was found that among their crews the flogging was administered by the men to those whom they thought to be deserving of it, and the practice was winked at by the officers. The noble Lord had said that by April next we should have eighteen iron-cased ships ready, but he did not state the amount of tonnage. Would the noble Lord also tell the Committee what our neighbours were doing, and what number of ships and the amount of tonnage the French would have in April next?

said, the hon. Member for Rochdale (Mr. Cobden) was good enough to express his surprise that there was some one point on which they could agree. His (Mr. Bentinck's) surprise was quite equal to that of the hon. Member; and he might further add that it was very improbable that such a coincidence would ever occur again. The speech of his noble and galland Friend the Secretary for the Admiralty had been described as apologetic; but if it had been really so, he (Mr. Bentinck) should not have felt it necessary to address the House. His noble and gallant Friend took exception to his having made use of this opportunity to go into the question of the constitution of the Board of Admiralty, and said it ought to have been passed over on this occasion. But he believed the constitution of that Board was the turning point of the whole question; and if they were to be precluded from going into that subject, which was the cause of their large expenditure, there was no need to discuss the Navy Estimates at all. There was another point. At the commencement of his speech the noble Lord took credit for not entering into any comparison of the strength of British and foreign navies; but if this were so, upon what did he rest his case? What ground had he for asking for a single shilling unless he was prepared to say that it was required for the defence of the country; and how could he say that unless he considered the state of foreign navies? He (Mr. Bentinck) contended that the whole case rested upon a comparison between the naval forces of this and other countries. It seemed to him, with all due deference, that the remarks of the hon. Member for Montrose (Mr. Baxter) were very peculiar and somewhat illogical. He himself had not the good fortune to be a gentleman of extremely Liberal opinions, and perhaps he did not therefore quite understand how these matters affected persons with such opinions, and therefore possibly he did not quite understand the hon. Gentleman's argument. The hon. Gentleman objected to the great number of men required for the navy; and having said this, he went on to admit that we ought to have, not only a sufficient force, but a force larger than that of any other country in the world—which was all that he (Mr. Bentinck) had been contending for. He went on to say that the time had come for effecting a great saving in our Naval Estimates; but how, in the name of all that was marvellous — unless, indeed, we reconstructed the Admiralty—could we combine these two things? He could not understand the hon. Member for Montrose and the hon. Member for Rochdale saying that it was right to Vote these Estimates, and then going on to add that the Estimates were enormous.

said, the hon. Member for Rochdale having made some very striking observations on the subject of turret ships, he wished to assure him, and the House, that the Admiralty were anxious to get on with those ships as fast as possible. But it must be borne in, mind, that the iron plates for these ships had to go through the proper testing process, and many had been rejected, being of indifferent quality and tending to delay the construction. It was true, that the hon. Member for Birkenhead's two talented sons were building a turret ship, which would, perhaps, be finished before that of the Admiralty. But, was he prepared to have the plates previously tested by firing 68 lb. shot at them? Or would be let him have a shot at her when she was finished? The hon. Member for Rochdale was a great admirer of the turret ships, and he had spoken as Captain Coles spoke of the amount of broadside to which the turrets were equal, but both of these gentlemen forgot that ships in naval battles were often engaged on both sides at the same time, and on such occasions the turrets would, of course, be at a disadvantage as compared with broadsides. His hon. Friend asked, why they went on building wooden ships? They could not dispense with the use of wood, for these iron-plated vessels had a backing of eighteen inches of wood. The only way of avoiding the great concussion which shot would produce on an iron vessel was by giving it a wooden backing, or cushion. It was said that the timber would rot. No doubt it would. But they were trying a French plan, for preventing that, by charring the wood. The hon. Member for Birkenhead said, "You never tell us what is the cost of the ships, and we have no means of getting at that fact." His hon. Friend was mistaken in that respect, for there was laid annually on the table a statement of the cost of every ship in the navy; and if hon. Members studied that statement, they would make themselves acquainted with such matters. That account was prepared by the Accountant General of the Navy, and it was one on which the House could rely, not only for the cost of every ship, but of every article made in the dockyards. The hon. Member asked, why they did not try Captain Coles' tripod masts? His answer was, why did not some of the merchant princes try them? They would be equally useful in the merchant service as in the navy if successful. Why should the country pay for the trial of every new invention? Let the merchant service try them, and if found successful, the Government would be happy to adopt them in the navy. The hon. Member for Rochdale, said that by using the armour-plated ships they would be relieved of the expense of maintaining a large mass of men. But the necessity for the large mass of men was not occasioned by the line of-battle ships, but by the numerous little vessels which were employed as cruisers all over the world. Twenty line-of-battle ships required only 500 blue jackets each, or 10,000 men, which was a small number out of the whole amount of men in the navy. He hoped the eloquence of the hon. Member would not induce the House to agree to any reduction of the number of the men.

said, that there were two classes of iron vessels—one where the frame was of timber, and the other where, as in the Warrior, the frame was of iron, but required a backing of wood. Now, his noble Friend said that he wanted 112,000 loads of timber. He applied to a ship-builder for information as to how many loads of timber would be required for the construction of a ship like the Warrior. And the answer he received was, that 400 loads would be sufficient for backing the Warrior with timber, but that 6,000 would be required if the Warrior was to be built entirely of timber. But the backing of the battery was of teak, and teak did not require to be seasoned. Therefore his noble Friend did not give a sufficient justification for his keeping in store 112,000 loads of timber, and he hoped it would be sold.

feared that the Admiralty were not using sufficient despatch in the construction of the turret ship, and recommended that all the plates which were ready for use, should be applied to that vessel, instead of some of them being diverted to other ships. They ought to know what these turret ships would do, because, if successful, they ought to build more of them, and save the expense of building an inferior description of ships. With regard to the appointment of Mr. Reed as chief Constructor of the Navy. Mr. Reed had never been in the School of Naval architecture. He had merely been an apprentice in the dockyards, and served a year and a half at Sheerness. Having left that yard—and there was a rule that no one who voluntarily discharged himself from a naval yard should be employed again— he had become editor of the Mechanics' Magazine. He had never built a ship in his life, and was now building a ship which was only an experiment, and might be a failure. There was in this no reason why he should be placed over men who had built some of the fastest and finest ships in the navy, and he hoped that his appointment was not so far settled that the matter might not be reconsidered.

, in moving the second reading of the Tobacco Duties Bill, said, that the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets (Mr. Ayrton) having given notice of a Motion for referring the subject to a Select Committee—which Motion it would be his duty to oppose—he did not intend to make a speech on the merits on the present occasion. He would therefore simply advert to one or two Amendments which it would be his duty hereafter to move in Committee. Since he moved the Resolution on which the introduction of the Bill was founded, he had had an opportunity of communicating with the various parties interested; and the result was that he had been convinced of the general soundness of its provisions and the correctness of rates of duty imposed. One Amendment was of a verbal character, and another was in the nature of an adjustment of duty with regard to one particular class of commodity introduced under this Bill. The first Amendment, of a verbal character, related to the importation of Cavendish tobacco. The intention of the Government was that, so far as the material employed for the manufacture of Cavendish tobacco, the holders of British and foreign tobacco were to be placed on the same footing. The question was, whether the powers of the Bill as it stood at the present moment enabled the Government to enforce as to foreign Cavendish the same restrictions as in the case of British Cavendish. The Government believed they had this power; but there ought to be no doubt on so important a point, and he should propose in Committee to apply the same restraint as to the manufacture of foreign Cavendish which was applied in the present Bill in respect to British Cavendish—namely, to prevent the importation of foreign Cavendish tobacco containing the leaves of plants other than the tobacco plant. That Amendment would in the third clause. The other alteration related to that portion of the trade carried on in the sister island. It had been shown to be requisite to introduce some small adjustment in the rate of duty in regard to the manufacture of Irish snuff. The rate proposed for snuff was 3s. 9d. per lb., and that was an ample rate of duty to counteract the direct and indirect consequences of the Customs law, not only as affected snuff of British manufacture, but snuff in general. But with regard to the snuff manufactured in Ireland it was a peculiar and technical preparation, being what was called "high-dried" or "high-toasted snuff," and its manufacture required a larger portion of duty-paid material. A change would be proposed in Committee, although not an important one, with regard to this article. He mentioned these points because the proposed Amendment tended to raise a discussion which he wished to anticipate. He should content himself with moving that the Bill be now read a second time, and reserve his remarks on the Bill until after the speech of the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets.

What will be amount of the change in Irish snuff?

I will lay the particulars on the table to-morrow.

said, it was rather late (a quarter past one o'clock) to begin a discussion of this kind. He thought that the Bill had been introduced under a great misapprehension of the facts connected with the question. The subject was by no means a new one. The duty on tobacco was, indeed, one of the oldest levied, inasmuch as it had formed the subject of fiscal legislation ever since the reign of Charles II., and from that time to the present every sort of change had been made in the tobacco laws, and investigations had been conducted by Committees and Commissions of Excise and Customs. When the law was settled on its present basis, some discontent was felt by the trade. A Select Committee was obtained by Mr. Hume. A Resolution was proposed in that Committee, by Dr. Bowring, to the effect, that in order to prevent smuggling and adulteration, and to guard the public revenue, it was desirable that a considerable reduction should be made from the then existing high rate of duty; but the Government of the day (the late Sir Robert Peel's), which was represented in the Committee by the then Chancellor of the Exchequer) opposed the Motion, and carried an Amendment which stated that no such reduction could be effected without causing so large a loss to revenue as to involve the most serious financial consequences. The result was that the tobacco duties were left in the position in which they then stood, and under that system the trade had continued to work up to the present time. But, before he proceeded further, he was anxious to point out some of the peculiarities by which the trader in that commodity was surrounded. It was a manufacture which, at its very outset, was met by the most extraordinary restrictions, the growth of tobacco having been prohibited from the time of Charles II. most rigorously in this country. The law which enforced that prohibition had at one time been relaxed in favour of Ireland, and the growth of tobacco had begun to extend in that country considerably, when it was stopped by the law being placed on the same footing as in England. No one, he might add, was at liberty to deal with tobacco, when imported, except under particular regulations. The manufacturer was allowed to mix nothing with it but water, which he might use for the purpose of moistening it; nor, having once imported it, was he allowed to export it, except on certain conditions. There was, besides, an infinite variety of other restrictions, to the breach of every one of which a severe penalty was attached, so that the dealer in tobacco required to be constantly on his guard. Now, it was said that the duty on it was originally imposed for the purpose of protecting the English manufacturer, and that the object of the Bill before the House was to modify the present system. Those who took that view, however, laboured, he thought, under a misapprehension; for it so happened, that at the period when protection was looked upon as a useful system, there was no differential duty at all between manufactured and unmanufactured tobacco, it being only in modern times that it had been found necessary to make a distinction between the two, and it was quite clear that the imposition of the differential duty was entirely for the sake of revenue. A great misapprehension, he might also observe, prevailed with respect to the duty on cigars; the only cigars, he believed, ever imported under the existing law, with some trifling exceptions, being of two kinds, the Havannah and the Manilla, of which the former was quite an exotic commodity, of very limited growth, while the latter was a Royal monopoly of a limited character, selling at a factitious price. The Havannah cigars, he might add, varied in value from 10s. to 30s. per pound, the average being 13s., and the duty was 9s. per pound, while the Manilla paid the same duty, the average value being 7s. per pound. That could scarcely be regarded as an oppressive rate by the rich, when it was taken into account that the poorer classes paid a duty of 3s. 2d. on tobacco, the average price of which was 8d. per pound. Since the present rates of duty were established, a very large manufacture of cigars had sprung up in this country, furnishing employment for some 4,000 workmen, besides a considerable number of masters. He might also observe that the number of real Havannahs was exceedingly small, the great mass of cigars consumed in this country being really manufactured here. While the demand for Havannahs was far greater than the number which could be manufactured for consumption, a Royal monopoly raised the price of the Manilla; so that no change of duty could materially influence the sale of these two classes. But it was not only against the operation of the revenue laws that the English manufacturer had to contend; the difficulties of his trade were increased by the caprices of those who bought cigars, who valued them by their size and not by their weight, and required that the outer leaf should be without blemish; that they should possess a delicate flavour, and that they should burn to a white ash. The manufacturer must buy a large bale of tobacco, which he must take at a venture, for he does not know until he works it what it will make, and to find leaves without blemish is difficult. Then the stalk and other hard parts which are not suited for the manufacture of cigars must be left out, and yet duty had been paid on all those; while the amount to which he was able to indemnify himself by selling the waste to the manufacturers of snuff was growing less and less, because the demand for snuff was diminishing day by day. Under those circumstances, the House would understand how keen the competition was under which the trade carried on their business. In point of fact, so small were the profits and so difficult of realization that he had heard of persons who, misled by statements which they had seen in the papers, had engaged in the manufacture and had been obliged to give it up. It was quite clear that the manufacture was carried on as economically as possible. The question which the House had to consider was whether this complicated system of Excise and Customs had attained the object for which it was devised. Had it repressed adulteration and smuggling? All the reports of late years, both of Excise and Customs, showed most conclusively that the manufacture in this country was in a sound and healthy state, and that there was no adulteration in cigars. The revenue officers were in the habit of going into shops and examining the cigars, and they had an infallible test of the genuineness of the cigar, and their evidence, when they said it was unadulterated, was surely worth something. He was speaking now of what was manufactured by licensed traders. Again, the Customhouse was equally satisfied that smuggling had been repressed. Of course it could not be entirely put down, because sailors were accustomed to bring in a pound or a half pound of tobacco, which could be easily twisted into any shape, but they meddled very little with cigars. But the Custom-house authorities warned them against precipitating any change with respect to the laws affecting this trade, for in their last Report they mentioned that when, upon the late remission of the Customs duties, they were disposed to concede to the merchants of this country the liberty of importing boxes and packages, they found boxes of cigars were introduced as boxes of toys. There was another point well worthy of consideration, which was that the revenue had steadily increased for the last thirty years: for the import of tobacco for consumption had increased from 1831 to 1841 360,000 lbs. yearly, from 1841 to 1851, 490,000 lbs. yearly, and from 1851 to 1861, 650,000 lbs. yearly. Up to this time, when there was no competition with the foreign, manufacturer of cigars, it was the interest of the English trader to keep up the weight of his commodity, because diminution of weight was so much dead loss to him when once he had paid the duty. But the effect of this change would he, to make it the interest of foreign manufacturers to make their cigars as light as possible, so that they might get in the largest number at the lowest duty. Such was the extraordinary nature of the tobacco-leaf that it was capable of being increased or diminished in weight 100 per cent—it was just like a sponge—and therefore the manufacturers on the Continent were able to make the cigar extremely light. Before we arrived at the present law there was free trade in manufacturing tobacco. The Chancellor of the Exchequer of that day allowed every one to do what he liked with it. This went on for two years, but at the end of that time every one was so disgusted with the article as manufactured that they begged of his successor to put an end to the system. On the Continent, where they act on principles the reverse of ours, they have a process by which they can take the commonest and cheapest tobacco, steep it in water, and subject it to other treatment so that the coarse parts are extracted, and a tobacco is produced which is mild to smoke and which yields a white ash, and these cigars would be imported at a duty much below that charged on the tobacco necessarily used in cigars made in England. He maintained that this was a subject which should be well examined before so important an amount of revenue as was raised from tobacco was touched. The foreign manufacturers had many advantages over the English; for the former worked the most worthless commodity as compared with the most valuable. In Germany it scarcely mattered to what class of persons the operation of fabricating was intrusted, and a great proportion of the cigars there were of prison manufacture; but in this country the costly commodity, enhanced in value by revenue charges, must be committed to careful hands, or a loss instead of a profit would result to the manufacturer. The effect of the present system was that smuggling and adulteration were put down in this country, because the manufacturers of tobacco were responsible for the genuineness of the article, and for its not being smuggled. When the people were starving, an agitation would arise, and the cry would be, "The rich man has reduced the duty on tobacco to 9s. on what has cost 13s., but the poor man pays 3s. 2d. on what costs 10d." No one would propose to put on a duty, and the Liverpool Reform Association would have a new argument for resistance to the duty on the raw material. The House would do well to inquire into the consequences of this change, to satisfy themselves that no inconvenience and no injury would ensue. It was proposed to allow she manufacture in bond of Cavendish tobacco. Cavendish tobacco was made by steeping it in a little rum, sugar, and water, and every one could make his own Cavendish tobacco if he chose to steep it and press it. There was no necessity for the change. But, as a commercial operation, the Bill was of such a character as was best described by one of the most earnest advocates for the privilege to manufacture Cavendish tobacco in bond, who said the provisions of the Bill for that purpose were the production of a madman. He would not go into the question of snuff, because it excited the people of Ireland, but he had shown how intimately the question of tobacco was mixed up with the manufacture of snuff. After every possible change, the present system, both as to duty and regulations, was found to be the only practical system to protect the revenue against smuggling and the public against adulteration; on both those points the present system was eminently successful. The state of the manufacture had not been properly considered. The only effect would be to give up a number of English workmen and honest people for the benefit of a few persons—princes who kept their prisoners for nothing in manufacturing tobacco, Royal monopolists who prohibited the export of the raw material, and Cuban slave-holders and slave-dealers, who would put in their pocket any difference in price which the diminished duty would yield. If there were those who had absolute faith in the Chancellor of the Exchequer, it must have been rudely shaken by the financial operations of the last three years. The whole philosophy on which the change in the wine duties had been made was entirely erroneous. Instead of very light wines being introduced into this country, the right hon. Gentleman had introduced wine up to 43 and 44 per cent of proof spirit, whereas before they had nothing higher than 33 per cent. They had, therefore, the right to assume the possibility of error on the present occasion; and when the whole body of manufacturers were declaring that there was error, the wise and prudent course was to examine into the whole question. He therefore moved the Amendment of which he had given notice.

said, he was glad to hear the argument that the Bill would benefit the rich and not the poor, because it showed, that although that argument might be carried to the verge of cant, the poor, if unrepresented, were well considered in that House. But he was of opinion that the Bill would benefit the poor, because he had been in colonies where manufactured tobacco was permitted, and it was found more economical, as it could be easier carried, and did not waste so much. As to the English agriculturists not being allowed to grow tobacco, the answer was, that although they could grow tobacco in England, just as they could grow pumpkins and grapes, it was not suited to the soil; no landlord would allow it to be raised, because it was an exhausting crop, and it would never be grown except for the purpose of cheating the Excise. The best cigars were those which were imported, and the reason was that the aroma was preserved by their being manufactured before the leaf was dry. Another argument in favour of the manufacture taking place in the country where the plant was grown was the absence of the temptation by the abundance of the plant to introduce foreign and deleterious substances.

moved that the debate be adjourned.

hoped the House would not accede to that Motion. There was nothing so sacred or peculiar in the character of tobacco that it should be exempted from the ordinary rules of business in that House. The practice was to sit in Committee of Supply until, one o'clock. It was now a quarter past twelve, and there was no reason why the discussion should be checked.

stated that a deputation had just come over from the tobacco trade in Ireland to ask for inquiry, or at least an opportunity of stating their case in regard to this measure. This was one of the few manufactures which Ireland possessed, and had a right to claim the consideration of the House. He would therefore move the adjournment of the House.

, in seconding the Motion, observed, that 20,000 persons in Ireland were interested in this trade, and that one-third of the revenue which the Crown derived from this source of taxation came from that country. To expose the Irish manufacture to wholesale foreign competition would be to ruin it. He urged the right hon. Gentleman not to swamp a native industry when there was no real advantage to be secured in return.

said, he was willing to consent to a Motion for the adjournment of the debate, but he could not agree to refer the subject to a Select Committee, which was, in fact, merely a mode of delaying the Bill and making legislation impossible for the present Session. The deputation from the Irish trade which he had seen had certainly not taken the same course as their representatives in this House. They had argued the details of the subject in a sensible and business-like manner with him, but not a word had they said of referring it to a Select Committee.

repudiated any wish to prevent legislation for this Session. There was ample time for inquiry.

moved, "That the Committee of Public Accounts do consist of the following Members."

moved to suspend the Standing Order relative to this Committee, with the purpose of adding to the Committee the names of Colonel Dunne and Lord Robert Montagu. He complained that no Irish Member had been nominated on the Committee, though the subject had attracted great attention in Ireland during the recess; and an impression prevailed there that ever since the Union the accounts of the United Kingdom had been so juggled that great injustice had been done to Ireland.

hoped that the House would not allow the Standing Order to be disturbed. The hon. and learned Gentleman had divided the House several times on the question last year, and had always been defeated by large majorities. It was clear that the hon. Gentleman was confounding two distinct subjects—taxation and account; and, certainly, there could not be any allegation that injustice had been done to Ireland in the matter of accounts. [Mr. HENNESSY: Most certainly there is.] If that were the case, it was strange that not a single instance had been brought before the Committee during the whole time of its sittings. The question was one which had no local relation, and the members had been selected solely from their presumed acquaintance with the subject.

said, that every word uttered by the Chancellor of the Exchequer showed the necessity of having an Irish Member on the Committee.

said, the people of Ireland were deeply interested in the subject to be considered by the Committee, and therefore it was only fair that one of their representatives should take part in the inquiry.

assured the Chancellor of the Exchequer that there were several important defects in the mode of rendering public accounts in Ireland. He hoped the Amendment would be agreed to.

saw no good reason for altering the constitution of the Committee, which appeared to him to be unobjectionable.

said, he thought this was a case in which the minority ought to exercise their constitutional privilege, even though they might have to keep dividing till four or five o'clock in the morning. The Committee on Public Accounts had made several mistakes with respect to Irish finance. He moved the adjournment of the debate.

appealed to the hon. Gentleman to give way. The minority ought to yield to the majority.

begged to remind the hon. Baronet that his hon. Friend was only exercising his constitutional right. The responsibility must be thrown on the Government of their refusal to put one Irish Member on the Committee. It would only be a graceful and generous thing of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to yield to the unanimous wish of the Irish Members.

insisted, that there was nothing local in the inquiries of the Committee. There was no objection to place an Irishman on the Committee. If there was a vacancy on the Committee, the question would be considered. At present, however, nine gentlemen had sat on the Committee, and it was desirable that they should be reappointed.

would support his hon. Friend in every division which he might think proper to take in the en- deavour to obtain the appointment of an Irish Member upon this Committee.

entertained the same feeling with regard to this appointment, though, as his name had been mentioned in connection with the Committee, he had hitherto neither voted nor spoken on the subject; but he now hoped that his hon. Friend would not persevere in his Motion.

said, there was deep dissatisfaction throughout Ireland at the systematic exclusion of Irish Members from this sort of Committee; and it was suspected there that the Government adopted this course in revenge for the rejection of their candidates upon the hustings in Ireland.

had no doubt that an Irish Member would be found fit to act on the Committee if a vacancy occurred.