asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether it is the intention of the Government to lower the water level of the River Shannon by two feet, as recommended by the Royal Commission on Irish Public Works; and, whether, in connection with the projected drainage works on the Shannon, the Government propose to include the drainage of the Valley of the Brosna; and, if so, will the necessary alterations be made at the regulation weir at the southern extremity of Lough Ennell, on the Upper Brosna, and the river deepened between that point and Ballinagore, in order that the level of the lake may be lowered, and the drainage of an extensive district in the County of Westmeath provided for?

in reply, said, the water level of the River Shannon could not be lowered without legislation, and legislation on the subject was not intended. The Government did not propose to include the drainage of the Valley of the River Brosna in connection with the projected drainage works on the Shannon, the works in contemplation being of a more general character.

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether his attention has been called to the fact that, on the 29th of June, a meeting of the Minster branch of the Isle of Thanet Conservative Association was held in the Malt House, Minster; that a neighbouring innkeeper obtained an occasional licence for the Malt House, which licence, according to law, expired at 10 o'clock; that the "meeting" was what is called a "smoking concert," with drink; that, on a sergeant of police entering the meeting at half-past 10 and informing the chairman that no more drink could be sold, the chairman promptly left the chair, but that a local farmer invited those present to become his guests, and drink was then given away to the company, who remained to a very late hour; and, whether the police will be instructed to prosecute those concerned in such evasion of the law; and, if not, will he state on what grounds?

I have obtained a Report from the Chief Constable on this matter, from which it does not appear that after the sergeant entered the meeting a local farmer invited those present to become his guests, or that drink was given away to the company. The Superintendent of Police states that when he gave orders that no more drink should be sold a large number of gentlemen left the building; but about 30 remained till 12 o'clock. The Chief Constable informs me that a prosecution will be ordered by him as soon as he is in official possession of the facts of the case, and if he finds that an offence against the Licensing Acts has been committed.

asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether, in the year 1875, the teachers of model schools in Ireland were allowed to participate in the sum placed by the Government at the disposal of the National Educational Commissioners for paying results fees to the teachers of National Schools, and in 1878 £4 per annum was added to the salary of each assistant; whether the results fees and this increase of salary were granted on the condition that one-third of the pupils' school fees should be paid into the Treasury, and that this proportion should never be less than £2,000; whether, in consequence of the amalgamation effected by the Commissioners of the different departments in some of the smaller model schools, and the reduction in the number of monitors and pupil teachers in others, the payment to the Treasury for the year ending 31st March, 1887, fell short of the £2,000 by only £160; whether the Commissioners have consequently deducted 20 per cent from the proportion of pupils' fees due to the teachers for the quarter ending 31st March, 1887, and £4 per annum from the salary of each assistant; and whether the Government will interfere to prevent so large an encroachment on the small emoluments of the teachers?

, in reply, said, the statements in the first paragraph of the Question were correct. The school fees payable at the present rate for the last financial year fell short of the £2,000 by £150. This deficiency was owing to the decrease in the number of pupils. The effect, however, financially was favourable instead of unfavourable to the teachers, as the fees were divided among a smaller number.

asked the Secretary of State for War, Whether any, and what, negotiations have recently been drawn up with reference to the practice of officials holding shares, or being otherwise interested, in firms or Companies which contract with the Government; and, whether steps have been, or will be, taken to prevent officers or officials of high position connected with the Ordnance and other Departments from joining such firms or Companies upon their retirement from the service of the Department with which those firms have undertaken contracts?

A regulation has lately been promulgated declaring that any official of the War Department who purchases or holds shares in a firm or Company which contracts with the Department thereby renders himself disqualified for the retention of his appointment. As regards retired officials, I have no control over their proceedings, and no power to interfere with them in any employment they may undertake.

inquired, whether officials could not be made to undertake, on entering the service of the Government, not at any future time to connect themselves with firms which contracted with the Government?

I think it would be unfair that a man who has acquired special knowledge should be debarred from making use of it on his leaving the Service.

asked the Secretary of State for War, Whether, notwithstanding promises to the contrary, the War Department are having manufactured the "Boxer" Martini-Henry cartridge, and no other, at the present time; and, whether large quantities are under order?

(who replied) said: "Rolled" Martini-Henry cartridges are in course of manufacture for practice purposes. No undertaking was given not to manufacture these cartridges. On the contrary, I expressly stated, on the 24thof February last, that there was no reason to stop the making of these cartridges for other than field service, as they were efficient for practice, and their use was distinctly economical. Solid drawn cartridges are manufactured for service in the field.

asked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether the French flag is still flying in Badiboo territory on the bank of the British River Gambia, and whether French officers are exercising any jurisdiction there; and, whether any reply has been received from the French Government to representations made by Her Majesty's Government on the subject; and if it can be communicated to the House without detriment to the Public Service?

Her Majesty's Government were informed that the French flag was hoisted in May last; but no information has been received whether it is still flying. It is believed that no attempt has been made by French officers to exercise jurisdiction. Friendly communications have passed with the French Government on this subject. Both Governments are inquiring as to the facts; and in the present stage of the affair no Papers can be laid on the Table.

asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether he can state if Mr. William Tyrrell, J.P., of Ballinderry, County Kildare, served a summons on Mr. Thomas Ellen, of Cardenstown, County Meath, for trespass of a horse on a farm from which Mr. Killen was evicted, and more recently, on Widow Monroe, of Colehill, for a similar trespass on the same farm; whether the cases were heard by Major Traill, R.M.; whether, notwithstanding the evidence that the farm is unprotected and un-fenced, Major Traill imposed on Killen a fine of 1s. 6d. and 10s. costs, and on Widow Monroe a fine of 1s. 6d. and 20s. costs; whether he can state how the costs in each case were made up; whether Mr. Tyrrell received any of the costs as expenses for driving his own conveyance from his residence to the Court-house, which is only five miles from his dwelling; whether Mr. Tyrrell served both summonses himself; and, whether any person except the duly appointed summons server for the district can legally serve a Petty Sessions summons without an order from a magistrate?

, in reply, said, he was informed that both summonses were served by Mr. Tyrrell, agent for the plaintiff, there being no summons server for the district. Mr. Tyrrell was specially authorized in writing to do so by the magistrates. Killen was fined 1s., with 10s. 6d. costs, and Widow Monroe 1s. 6d. and 20s. costs. No solicitors were employed by either party in either case. He could not say how far Mr. Tyrrell resided from the Court-house, or whether he drove his own vehicle. The casks occupied three days in adjudication. The costs were awarded in each case in accordance with the facts proved.

asked the Under Secretary of State for foreign Affairs, Whether he can state the total cost of the ordinary Diplomatic Service in Egypt and at Constantinople since the time when Sir Henry Drummond Wolff's extraordinary Mission commenced; whether he can further state the total cost of Sir Henry Drummond Wolff's Mission from the period of his appointment to the present date; and, why the ordinary Diplomatic Servants of the Crown were not employed to perform the services with which Sir Henry Drummond Wolff has been entrusted?

The salary of Her Majesty's Ambassador at Constantinople is at the rate of £8,000 a-year, and that of Her Majesty's Agent in Egypt £5,000 a-year. These rates have been paid during Sir Henry Drummond Wolff's Special Mission—namely, from August 7, 1885. The ordinary Diplomatic Junior Staff at the Embassy at Constantinople numbered nine persons, whose salaries ranged from £1,000 to £100 a-year; and in Egypt Sir Evelyn Baring is assisted by four Junior Diplomatic officers, whose salaries range from £420 to £100 a-year. I have twice already stated, in reply to Questions, that the total cost of the Special Mission up to the 30th of June is £27,300 approximately. The reasons why the ordinary Diplomatic servants of the Crown were not employed to perform these services have been frequently stated. The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach) on July 28, 1885, informed the House that Sir Henry Drummond Wolff was specially accredited to His Imperial Majesty the Sultan with reference to the affairs of Egypt. He was thus able, first, to confer with the Porte, with whom he arranged the Convention of October, 1885, then to act with the Turkish Imperial Commissioner in Egypt in examining upon the spot the measures necessary for reforms and future security in that country, and finally to negotiate with the Porte the ulterior Convention with a view to carry out those reforms. It appeared to Her Majesty's Government that advantage would attend the transaction of these affairs by the same individual rather than by Sir Edward Thornton and by Sir Evelyn Baring separately; and, although negotiations had not resulted in the ratification of the Convention, Her Majesty's Government are of opinion that the course pursued was judicious, and that the performance of Sir Henry Drummond Wolff of the duties which have been assigned to him in Egypt and at Constantinople will be found to have been beneficial to the interests of this country.

asked the First Commissioner of Works, Whether he is aware that it is proposed to interfere with the right of the inhabitants of Balham and Tooting to the free use of Tooting Bee Common for the purposes of riding, as enjoyed from time immemorial; whether he is aware it is intended to expend a large amount of the ratepayers' money in making a fixed ride; and, whether he will take steps to prevent such interference with ancient public rights?

(who replied) said: That no recommendation had yet been made for any alteration of the by-laws regarding the free use of Tooting Bee Common for the purpose of horse-riding; but he understood that the Metropolitan Board of Works had now under consideration the expediency of submitting for approval a bye-law to some extent limiting the now unrestricted privileges of riding on the commons. He could assure the hon. Member that he would carefully consider all that was to be said for or against any such proposition before it left his hands.

asked the Postmaster General, What is the annual rent paid by the Ben Nevis Observatory for the telegraph wire to the top of the mountain; and, what is the annual amount received by the Post Office for telegraphic messages despatched from the Observatory?

In reply to the hon. Member, I have to state that the annual rent paid by the Ben Nevis Observatory for the telegraph wire to the top of the mountain is £130; that for the year ended the 30th of June last the number of telegrams despatched from the Observatory was 957, of the value of £31 18s., and that the Society was paid a commission by the Post Office, for dealing with the messages, of £5 19s. 7½d.

asked, whether the sum stated included the receipts for Press telegrams, or was only the amount received for private messages?

said, he understood the sum he had stated covered all the telegrams sent; but if the hon. Gentleman wished it he would make further inquiry.

asked the Secretary of State for War, If he is aware that the Martello Tower at Brighton View, County Dublin, is covered with advertisement placards, to the great annoyance of those living in the locality; whether he will have the advertisements removed; and, if not, if he will state who put up the placards, and with whose permission; what money, if any, was paid for the permission, and to whom; and, to what purpose the money paid will be applied?

I understand that the tenant of two Martello Towers in the neighbourhood of Dublin has placed on each one large and one small advertising placards; but I am advised that there is nothing in the terms of the agreement to restrain the tenant from so advertising. As apart from the rent, no money is paid for permission to advertise.

asked the Lord Advocate, If the Government will consent to the appointment of a Select Committee this Session to consider the question of the valuation of waterworks belonging to Municipal Corporations in Scotland?

Yes, Sir; Her Majesty's Government will consent to the appointment of a Select Committee.

also asked the right hon. and learned Gentleman, whether, in the event of a Select Committee being appointed to consider the question of the valuation of waterworks belonging to Municipal Corporations in Scotland, the Government will extend the inquiry to the valuation of all other descriptions of property which may be affected in their assessments by a change in the valuation of municipal waterworks?

Her Majesty's Government are not prepared to extend the inquiry in the general manner suggested by the hon. Member's Question.

asked the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education, Whether it is correct that a boy named Alfred Middleton, aged eight years, was attending the Old Nichol Street, Bethnal Green, Board School, on Wednesday 13th July, without having had any breakfast, and without having had anything whatever to eat the whole of the preceding day; and, whether there is any agency by which such terrible destitution can be temporarily relieved?

The facts as stated by my hon. Friend are, I regret to say, correct; and from the inquiries I have been able to make it is not, I fear, by any means a solitary case in certain parts of London. The only thing that the officers of the School Board can do is to exercise great caution in enforcing compulsory attendance; and I think it would also be well for them to report all cases of this kind that come to their knowledge to the Poor Law Authorities. Of course, any other measure of relief, such as the extension of the excellent system of penny dinners, must come from voluntary sources.

asked Mr. Attorney General for Ireland, Whether the Chairman of Sub-Commissioners at Ballymoney, in deciding the case as to sub-letting to cottiers, on the 11th instant, made the following remarks:—

"Following the decisions, we must yield to the landlord's objections. The law is now perfectly settled upon the subject, and it has been held, in the case of 'M'Kee v. Massereene,' that where the tenant sub-lets a cottier house and a small portion of land which is part of the holding, without the consent of the landlord, he is not in occupation of the holding within the meaning of Sections 8 and 57 of 'The Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1881.' Such a strict interpretation of the Statute may deprive many tenants in Ulster of the benefit of its remedial provisions, as there are few farms on which cottiers who work occasionally for their landlords were not to be found; but with the consequences that flow from the decision we have nothing whatever to do. I am bound to administer the law as it exists, and this application must be dismissed;"

and, whether the Government will assent to a proper Amendment being inserted in the Irish Land. Law Bill, to obviate the injury to both tenants and labourers by this decision, as applied by the Courts?

I believe the quotation in the Question is correct; but, as I have not the facts of the ease before me, I am unable to express any opinion upon the remarks of the Sub-Commissioners. It is impossible to undertake to accept an Amendment without seeing its terms; but the Government will carefully consider any Amendment having for its object the removal of any hardship arising from judicial decisions, with regard to sub-letting to labourers, not covered by Section 18 of the Act of 1881, consistently, however, with the principle that the number of labourers and size of their holdings must be regulated by the size and character of the holding as in Section 18 of the Act of 1881, and that the Court should have power as in that section to prescribe the rent and terms of letting, so as to insure that the benefits should be enjoyed by and restricted to labourers bonâ fide employed and required for the cultivation of the holding.

asked the right hon. and learned Gentleman, whether, having regard to the numerous decisions read and the suggested Amendments referred to, it would not be better for the Government themselves to draft a proper Amendment?

said, he thought not. It was impossible for the Government to give an undertaking in a matter of that kind. If an Amendment was brought forward it would be very fairly considered.

asked, if the Government approved of the principle laid down in the decision as to the effect of sub-letting, and intended to allow it to remain in force?

said, the proper way to deal with a decision of the Court was by an Amendment of the Bill now before the House.

asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies, What has been the result of the inquiry into the conduct of Mr. L. D. Powles, magistrate at the Bahamas?

Mr. Powles was called upon for an explanation of his conduct; but, having resigned his office, it became unnecessary further to pursue the inquiry.

asked the First Lord of the Admiralty, Whether H.M.S. Cherub, which was sent to the Clyde for the use of the Royal Naval Artillery Volunteers, has been found in such a bad state that she has had to be docked for repairs to her machinery, and has not been available for the service for which she was intended; and, what steps the Admiralty propose to take to enable the Clyde Brigade to get the training and drill on board ship necessary to render that corps efficient?

For a month past the Cherub has been drilling the Clyde Brigade of the Royal Naval Artillery Volunteers at Greenock and Glasgow. Some small repairs, occupying about a week, have recently been carried out, which, however, did not interfere with the harbour gun drill. She is now about to take the brigade on short cruises for their sea training, and enable them to obtain the necessary qualifications to become efficients.

asked the Secretary of State for War, Whether the open space adjoining Chelsea Hospital, and known as Burton's Court, to which the public have hitherto had free access, has lately been leased by the Hospital Authorities to the General Commanding the Home District, and converted into a cricket ground by means of public monies; whether it is the fact that, whenever cricket is played on the ground, thus prepared at the public expense, the public are excluded, admission being granted only to persons who obtain tickets from the Hospital Authorities; and, whether there is any neces- sity for thus depriving the inhabitants of the thickly populated district of Chelsea of the free enjoyment of an open space of 10 acres?

(who replied) said, the open space in question had lately been leased by the Hospital Authorities to the General commanding the Home District, and converted into a cricket ground for the garrison. This had been partly done with public money; but it was usual in all large military garrisons to provide recreation grounds at the public expense. When cricket was being played admission was by ticket only. The public had no right to admission to the grounds; and as extensive grounds existed about the Hospital, the partial closing of Burton's Court was practically no loss to them.

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether it is the intention of the Metropolitan Board of Works to maintain the ornamental gardening in the Parka proposed to be handed over to the Board, and especially whether it is their intention to continue the Sub-Tropical Garden in Battersea Park, which has been for years a striking ornament to the Park, and a source of pleasure and instruction to all who visited, it?

I am informed by the Metropolitan Board of Works that, the Parks in question not having yet been handed over to the Board, the question of the way in which they should be maintained in future has not at present been considered. The hon. Member may, however, rely upon it that the Board will endeavour so to maintain the Parks that there may be no diminution of the pleasure and instruction which they have hitherto afforded to the public.

asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies, If he has ascertained whe- ther the return of Sir John Pope Hennessy as Governor of the Mauritius will, after what has passed, be grateful to the inhabitants of that Island?

, as a matter of Order, asked whether the Question did not raise a matter of opinion?

said, the Question asked was whether the inhabitants of the Mauritius were favourable to his return, and he saw nothing out of Order in that.

asked if it were precluded by the Standing Orders?

said, it might be a question of policy on the part of the Minister whether he had ascertained the feeling of the Colony.

asked the right hon. Gentleman, whether he had not received a Petition, signed by three-fourths of the inhabitants of Mauritius, in favour of Sir John Pope Hennessy's return?

The majority of the inhabitants of Mauritius are Indians, and they may, upon the whole, be said not to have taken much interest in the matter referred to; but there is good reason to believe that a large part of the rest of the population approve the policy of Sir John Pope Hennessy and desire his return. I have received a Petition to that effect signed by 4,267 persons, which was brought over here by a delegate specially appointed for that purpose; and I may add that a majority of the unofficial Members of the Council of Government are in favour of Sir John Pope Hennessy.

asked the First Lord of the Treasury, What is the complement of H.M.S Impérieuse; what number and description of boats does she carry at her davits; and, will any alteration be made in her fittings, so as to admit of her large boats being got into the water in less than half-an-hour, as at present?

The complement of the Impérieuse is 516 officers and men. The boats carried at davits are—one 30 feet steam cutter, two 30 feet cutters, one 27 feet whaler, one 25 feet whaler, one 30 feet galley, and one 32 feet galley. In the change of masts and rig, steam winches have been provided to facilitate the hoisting in and. out of the heavy boats.

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether, the Board of Trade having stated that they have no authority under any Statute to appoint and pay officers to undertake the duty of counting passengers on board steamers at the forthcoming Naval Review, and further allege that it is entirely for the local police authorities to take such steps as they may deem necessary to prevent overcrowding, he will be pleased to call the attention of the various police authorities in Hampshire, Portsmouth, Southampton, and Isle of Wight to this important part of their duty, under Section 319 of "The Merchant Shipping Act, 1854," as set forth by the Board of Trade, seeing that the said police authorities hold exactly an opposite opinion, and thus prevent serious risk and danger to life by such overcrowding; and, whether, if he should not share the opinion of the Board of Trade as to the responsibility of the "police authorities" for enforcement of the law against the overcrowding of steamers, he will be pleased to consult the Law Officers of the Crown upon the subject, and so ascertain who is responsible for thus safeguarding human life on such occasions, and take the necessary steps to guard against the danger?

, in reply, said, that he was advised that the duty of enforcing the law as to the overcrowding of steamers devolved upon the Local Authority, and he had issued a Circular to that effect to the Portsmouth and Southampton officials.

asked that a similar Circular should be sent to all seaports.

asked the First Commissioner of Works, Whether it would be possible to provide at trivial cost additional seats during the summer months in the Mall, and other suitable places under the control of the Crown, for the convenience of the general public, and especially for the comfort of the unfortunate people who, having no home, pass the night in the open air, and for want of room on the crowded seats may be seen lying by dozens on the bare ground?

We take a sum in the Estimates each year for additional seats for the Parks; and this year I hope to be able to put about 40 or 50 new ones in St. James's Park and Kensington Gardens. Some of these will be placed in the Mall.

desired to know to whom the money went for the letting of the seats in the Parks; and whether the right of letting chairs was put up to public competition?

wished Notice to be given of the Question, and said he would ascertain the details.

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether his attention has been called to the reports in the public Press of a discussion at the Metropolitan Board of Works on Friday last, with reference to certain charges made against an official of the architect's department; and, whether, as a Representative of the Metropolitan Board of Works in this House, he is able to promise that a full inquiry will be made into the grave allegations which have attained wide publicity?

Yes, Sir; I have seen a report of the proceedings in question. I am informed by the Metropolitan Board of Works that the Board has, through a Committee, made full inquiry into the allegations made against an official of the Architect's Department, and that the Report presented by the Committee on Friday, the discussion of which was reported in the newspapers, contained the results of the inquiry. I must disclaim the position of Representative of the Metropolitan Board of Works. When Sir James M'Garel-Hogg ceased to be a Member of this House, at his request, and as a matter of courtesy to him, I consented to answer Questions respecting the Board of Works on his behalf; but it will be matter for consideration whether that arrangement should be continued.

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether an Order has been issued by the Chief Commissioner of Metropolitan Police, to the effect that no constable of more than 10 years' service, or over 35 years of age, is to be promoted to the rank of sergeant; and, if so, what is the date of the Order?

Yes, Sir; such an Order was issued by the Chief Commissioner on the 21st of May, 1887; but the Order contains an exception in cases where an officer possesses very special qualifications, or where there are exceptional circumstances which may be taken into consideration.

inquired, whether it was not a fact that in a case recently recommended for promotion several police constables who were specially recommended, and who had served a few months over the 10 years, and who had been specially recommended by their immediate superiors, were rejected by the Central Authority at Scotland Yard?

said, he was not able to answer that.

asked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, What official decided on the proposed allocation of the £50,000 to Ireland; were any Irish Members consulted; if so, who were they; why are the Antrim and Derry Grand Juries to be consulted as to the Bann drainage; why are the recommendations of two Royal Commissions on the subject of the Bann to be disregarded; is he aware that the gravest dissatisfaction prevails as to the inadequacy of the proposed works on the Bann; and, can he hold out any hope that the recommendations of the two Royal Commissions will be followed, or that the local sufferers from flooding will be consulted on the proposed expenditure?

The allocation of the £50,000 has been the work of the Government, acting mainly on the advice of, and in frequent communication with, the Royal Commission. In allocating the money the Government have not disregarded the views of Irish Members, so far as these could be gathered from the Questions, mostly of a polemical character, addressed to them in this House. A direct invitation was given by the Chief Secretary and myself to the political friends of the hon. and learned Member to make any suggestions to the Government on the subject; but it never met with a response. The Grand Juries of Antrim and Derry were consulted because they were the Representative Bodies of the localities that would be affected by the abandonment of the navigation—[Mr. T. M. HEALY: Whom do they represent?]—and because they provide the cost of the maintenance of such navigation. The recommendations of two Royal Commissions have not been disregarded. On the contrary, in consulting the Grand Juries, the Government have precisely followed the recommendations of both Commissions. The works to be undertaken on the Bann this year are also in strict accordance with the recommendations of the Royal Commission. I am not aware of the dissatisfaction alleged by the hon. and learned Member; but I have every reason to believe that the scheme of the Royal Commission, when fully carried out, as it is the intention of the Government to carry it out, will completely relieve the flooded districts.

asked if the Grand Juries of the County Tyrone and Armagh, who were large contributors to the scheme, had been consulted?

said, that, as he understood, the reason why the Grand Juries were consulted was because without their consent the works could not be carried out.

gave Notice that when the Vote for the allocation of the money came on for discussion, he would call attention to the ridiculous and inadequate proposals of the right hon. Gentleman so far as the Bann was concerned, which would involve a complete and gross waste of public money without the smallest benefit to anybody.

asked the Secretary of State for War, Whether the published announcement that the Band of the 3rd Battalion Royal Leicestershire Militia will play at a "Grand Conservative Demonstration" at Husband's Bosworth, on 30th July, is a contravention of the Regulation forbidding military bands to take part in political demonstrations; and, if so, whether he will see that the Regulation is not violated?

Permission for the band of the 3rd Battalion Leicestershire Regiment to play at a Conservative demonstration at Husband's Bosworth was asked for and refused.

asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Whether he has observed the following words in the electoral address of the Marquess of Carmarthen:—

"Immediately after (the last General Election) I took work in the Colonial Office, where I have been ever since, in order to gain an insight into political life;"

whether the Marquess of Carmarthen is paid for his work in the Colonial Office; whether he has passed any preliminary examination; and, whether, if not, it is open to other gentlemen to "take work" at the Colonial Office, in order to "gain an insight into political life?"

In reply to the Question of the hon. Member, which, I must say, has somewhat of an electioneering stamp about it, I have to state that Lord Carmarthen has, in accordance with many numerous precedents, acted as unpaid Assistant Private Secretary to my Predecessor and myself. I may add, for the benefit of the hon. Member, he has done his work very well. There is, of course, as the hon. Member knows very well, no preliminary examination in such cases; and there is not at present room in the Colonial Office for the similar employment of other gentlemen.

asked the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Agriculture, How many outbreaks of pleuro-pneumonia have occurred in England and Scotland during the present year; how many districts have been declared infected; in how many instances have the Privy Council declared a locality to be "an area infected with pleuro-pneumonia," and the extent in square miles of the largest "area" so declared; and, in how many instances have the Privy Council, in opposition to the wishes of the Local Authorities, ordered the compulsory slaughter of healthy cattle which had been in contact with infected cattle?

(who replied) said, 153 outbreaks of pleuro-pneumonia had been reported in England and 224 in Scotland up to July 16; 146 infected places had been declared in England and 226 in Scotland during the above period. The Privy Council had declared three infected areas in England and 12 in Scotland on account of pleuro-pneumonia. The largest area was in Scotland—namely, the County of Lanark, which contained 889 square miles. The Privy Council had not in any case ordered the compulsory slaughter of healthy cattle which had been in contact with infected cattle against the wishes of the Local Authorities.

asked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether it is the intention of the Government to introduce any measure this Session to secure the punishment more effectually than is at present possible of officials guilty of the betrayal of official and confidential information which may have come into their possession while engaged in the Public Service?

There is no doubt that the hands of Her Majesty's Government would be strengthened by legislation such as that proposed by the hon. Member; but it is a question that is surrounded by many practical difficulties, and I am afraid that the time at our disposal is too fully occupied for it to be considered this Session.

asked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether the Government will give any facilities for the discussion of a Bill relating to Metropolitan Fire Brigade Expenses, promoted by the Metropolitan Board of Works, and brought into Parliament in the Session of 1884, the first Session of 1886, and in the present Session?

, in reply, said, he feared it would not be in the power of the Government to grant any facilities for discussing the Bill in question, looking at the other work they had to do.

asked, whether, during the Recess, the Government would consider the desirability of appointing a Royal Commission to inquire into the condition of the Metropolitan Fire Brigade; and, whether it could not be made efficient on its present income?

said, he could not give any undertaking; but the matter would receive the serious consideration of the Government.

asked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether the Government is now prepared to assent to the suggestion that the Land Transfer Bill should be divided; that only that part of it relating to the inheritance of land and the abolition of primogeniture, to which there is no opposition from the Liberal side of the House, should be proceeded with this Session; and that the part relating to registration of titles, which will give rise to much discussion, should be deferred till next Session?

, in reply, said, the Government were exceedingly anxious to pass the Land Transfer Bill as a whole; and they had come to the conclusion that it would not be desirable to take one part out of it, even though that part would not receive any opposition on the other side of the House.

asked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether he is aware that, on the 11th of February last, the right hon. Baronet the Member for West Bristol (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach), then Chief Secretary for Ireland, informed a deputation from Belfast that, if one of the Members for that town introduced a Bill for the reform of the local licensing system, under which two Courts exercise conflicting jurisdictions, the Government would give every assistance and facility towards the passing of such a measure; whether he is aware that the present Chief Secretary for Ireland declared the willingness of the Government to facilitate a Bill for the establishment of Local Courts of Bankruptcy in Ireland, if introduced by a private Member; and, whether, under these circumstances, the Government will aid the passing of the Licences (Belfast) Bill and the Bankruptcy Courts (Ireland) Bill, which stand for second reading?

, in reply, said, he was afraid that, under the circumstances of the present Session, it would not be practicable for the Government at this stage of the Session, and considering the present state of Business, to give any special facilities towards the passing of the measure referred to by the hon. Member. He hoped, however, that the hon. Member might find some opportunity of pressing them forward himself.

said, he would take the earliest opportunity of calling the attention of the House to the way the Government were dealing with their engagements in reference to these two Bills.

I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether he can inform the House if it is true, as reported in the newspapers, that Sir Henry Drummond Wolff has left Constantinople for England?

Yes, Sir. Sir Henry Drummond Wolff left Constantinople about midnight on Friday, and he left Tenedos for Marseilles on the following afternoon.

asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether, having regard to the absence of his hon. Friend the Member for East Mayo (Mr. Dillon), and the interest which he took in the measure, he would postpone the further consideration of the Distressed Unions (Ireland) Bill, which was down on the Paper for to-night, to Thursday night?

, in reply, said, the House was aware that the Government were very anxious to proceed with this Bill as soon as possible; but, having regard to the position of the hon. Member for East Mayo with regard to it, he was not in a position to refuse the request of the hon. Member.

I very much regret that it is my duty to invite the attention of the House for a few minutes to a question of Privilege. I regret very much to observe, unless I am mistaken, that the House is not honoured to-day by the presence of the hon. Member for Mid Cork (Dr. Tanner). But that is no fault of mine, for on Friday evening, when I determined to take the course I have now adopted, I intimated to the hon. Member by a letter, which I have reason to know the hon. Member received, that it was my intention to bring this matter on to-day at 4.30; and, consequently, I naturally anticipated the hon. Member would show to the letter and to the House the courtesy of attending. I will endeavour to state, in as few words as I possibly can, what happened, and to put the House in possession of the facts which have led to my complaint. The House will remember that, after the last Division at the end of the Morning Sitting on Friday, the hon. Member for Mid Cork complained, I believe, that his vote had not been taken in the Division. I myself was not in the House; I was in the "Aye" Lobby finishing a letter. After finishing my letters, I passed through the House with the intention of posting them. On my way through the House I heard reference to the incident that had taken place immediately before in the Lobby; but I had no knowledge, direct or indirect, of that incident, or of what its nature had been, or of what had fallen from the hon. Member for Mid Cork. I went on to the post office, and immediately opposite the post office I met the hon. Member face to face. Thoughtlessly as it may have been, I asked him what had taken place. Well, Sir, the hon. Member answered me in terms which, in my judgment, form ample and sufficient justification for the course which I have ventured to take on this occasion. In order that I might avoid any possible inaccuracy, and in order that my repetition to the Committee of what took place should be as correct as possible, I, very shortly after the occurrence, reduced to writing the words I heard the hon. Member use. I went further than that, in order that I should not trust solely to my own memory. I asked three people who were present, two of them being hon. Members of this House—namely the hon. Member for East Dorset (Mr. Bond) and the hon. Member for the Brentford Division of Middlesex (Mr. Bigwood)—to be good enough to look independently at what I had written down, and to tell me whether my account of the proceedings was accurate or not. They both assured me that it was absolutely accurate. Perhaps the House will agree with me that it is better that I should read the statement I wrote down within a compara- tively short time of the occurrence itself rather than that I should trust to a repetition from my own memory. I met the hon. Member, as I have already told the House, opposite the post office. I had no intention whatever of offering the hon. Member any offence, or of wounding his feelings, or of saying anything that would in any way hurt him.

Why did you not leave him alone?

Order, order!

I addressed him civilly, as I have said. My remark may have been a thoughtless one, but I submit it was hardly one to warrant the remarks of the hon. Member. This is what I wrote down at the time—I said—"Did not something go wrong with you in the Division, Dr. Tanner; what was it?" His answer was—"You are one of the Tories, ain't you?" My reply was, "Yes, certainly." To that he replied, "Then, I wish to God you would not speak to me." [Mr. T. M. HEALY: Hear, hear!] "I have told you d—d Tories before not to speak to me. You have your own d—d lot, talk to them." To which I replied, "I beg your pardon, I was not aware that you did not wish to be spoken to;" to which he replied, "Well, I wish you would keep your d—d tongue in your lips, and not make a d—d fool of yourself." He then went to the centre of the Lobby, where he shouted, "That's a d—d snub for you." It will be for the House to decide whether the hon. Member's description of his language to me is a correct one or not. I desire, Sir, to make no further comment upon what took place; but I beg to assure the House that I addressed the hon. Member solely with the desire to know what had happened. I had no wish to wound his feelings or to irritate him in any way whatever, and I would remind the House that at the time I spoke to the hon. Member I was in complete ignorance of what had taken place within these walls. I have only to add that in bringing this very painful and disagreeable subject before the House I am actuated by no personal motives whatever. My natural inclination was to treat the language of the hon. Member with the contempt which in my opinion such language deserves. [Mr. T. M. HEALY: Why did you not?]. But the incident took place in the presence not only of hon. Members of this House, but of very many strangers; and I felt—whether rightly or wrongly I do not pretend to say—that it was an offence against the House more than against a humble individual like myself. I have nothing else to do but to express my regret, and the great reluctance which I have felt in obtruding myself or these circumstances upon the attention of the House. I have only done so because I believe it to be my duty, and I have nothing to add but to submit the case as I have honestly, faithfully, and I believe truthfully, put it before the House for the consideration and arbitrament of the House.

Move, move!

I am sure the House has heard with infinite regret the statement made by the hon. Member—

Not at all.

If the hon. and learned Member for North Longford (Mr. T. M. Healy) proceeds with such interruptions, the next time I have to speak it will be to present his name to the House.

I am sure, I repeat, the House has heard with infinite regret the statement made by the hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Long). Whatever may be our differences in this House, we are, at least, united in one desire to maintain the order and the decorum of its proceedings, and to visit with severe censure any hon. Member who at any time is guilty of an offence against the House or against any other hon. Member. On former occasions the House has visited with severe censure disorderly conduct on the part of its Members in the Lobby of this House; and whatever opinions may be entertained as to the conduct of hon. Members in the House which you, Sir, would immediately notice, it appears to me that similar conduct in the precincts of the House is, at least, deserving of as severe censure as an offence committed within the House itself. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Devizes has stated that this incident occurred in the presence of strangers and was noticed by strangers, and therefore we have the painful consciousness that strangers are made aware of the inability of hon. Members to restrain their conduct within those bounds which are consistent with the character of Members of Parlia- ment and of gentlemen. It appears to me that my only course, under the circumstances of thecase—the hon. Member for Mid Cork having had ample notice that complaint would be made of his conduct, and not having deemed it his duty to be in his place—is to move the Resolution which follows.

I think, Sir, that from the point of view of chivalry and of fair play, the present proceedings, if carried through successfully, will be scarcely less disgraceful to the House than any conduct which can be imputed to any Member of the House. I will make one observation upon the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury (Mr. W. H. Smith). The right hon. Gentleman said it was necessary to maintain the order and decorum of the proceedings of the House. But, Sir, I think he indulged in rather an extension of the idea of Order in the proceedings of the House when he spoke of anything that may happen in the Lobby in the way of conversation between Members as being subject to an identical rule. It appears the incident related by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Devizes (Mr. Long) occurred after you, Sir, had left the Chair on Friday evening and after the House had risen; and it also appears from the language of my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Cork (Dr. Tanner) that he had repeatedly requested hon. Gentlemen who are Members of the Party opposite not personally to address him. [Laughter] Well, Sir, hon. Members of the House have different degrees of feeling and susceptibilities; and if my hon. Friend desires to be relieved from personal address by Members of the Conservative Party, I think it would be hardly contested he is entitled to that degree of seclusion. I submit that the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Long) would certainly have done more wisely if he had refrained from addressing my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Cork at such a moment. You, Sir, were not in the Chair at the moment my hon. Friend complained on Friday evening that his vote had not been recorded; the complaint was made to the Chairman of Committees. My hon. Friend was in the Lobby at the time of the Division, and through some mischance, the nature of which I do not distinctly understand, my hon. Friend was not allowed to record his vote in that important Division. From his tone it was evident he felt his exclusion from the Division very deeply, and it is also evident from what occurred afterwards that he was very much excited in consequence of his exclusion. I suppose the House will generously and fairly agree with me that the moment at which the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Long) addressed my hon. Friend was a moment at which my hon. Friend was labouring under some excitement of temper; but I do not believe the House will be inclined to take a strict or punitive view of any language which may have been used at that moment by my hon. Friend. Divested of certain expletives, which although they are in common use are not usual, I should hope, within this House or its precincts—divested of its expletives, which have no great weight or significance of their own, the language of my hon. Friend amounted simply to this—that he protested against the personal appeal made to him by the hon. Gentleman; that he informed the hon. Gentleman he had before requested Members of the Tory Party not to speak to him; that he reminded the hon. Gentleman he had friends to whom he could speak if he desired any information upon any of the proceedings of the House; and, finally, he regarded what he said as a snub to the hon. Gentleman. Now, taking out the adjective, the use of which I very much regret, I appeal to the House whether what happened concerned the order and decorum of the House, and whether the hon. Gentleman would not have consulted his own interests best by taking no notice of the matter? I think the House will serve its own interests and its relations with its Members most wisely by taking no notice of the affair. Upon the question of Notice to my hon. Friend, I think everyone will agree with me that a question of Privilege personally affecting an hon. Member ought not to be brought to the notice of the House unless prac- tical and adequate measures have been taken to give the hon. Member an opportunity of attending. [Laughter.] The hon. Gentleman (Mr. Gent-Davis), who smiles in such a superior manner, questions what I lay down. How would he like—the Member for Kennington is it—how would he like it if any hon. Member, in his absence, brought his conduct before the House? How would he like it if the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House, in his absence, moved that, in consequence of his disgraceful conduct, he ought to be expelled for a month. The hon. Gentleman, to the extent of his puny powers, would make the country ring about it. Now, what does the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Long) say? But before I come to what he says, let me ask him if this is not true—that he had no desire whatever to take any notice of the matter if another hon. Member who heard what happened had not thought it beneath him to play the part of a spy between two hon. Members of the House.

Perhaps the hon. Member will allow me a moment. I said nothing of the kind. I said that I had no desire to trouble the House with this as a personal matter, but that I brought it forward as one affecting the House. With reference to the hon. Gentleman's charge of eavesdropping, I do not know what it has relation to; but the Gentlemen who overheard the remark were the three hon. Members who were standing by my side at the time of the occurrence.

I do not refer to anything said by the hon. Gentleman in the course of his speech. The speech of the hon. Gentleman was, I think, conceived in a spirit of good taste; but I think if he had been left to himself this matter would not have come under the notice of the House. Judging from what I have heard of him, either as a politician or as a Member of this House, I believe he would consider it beneath him to punish any Member in respect of such a business as this. What I was endeavouring to elicit is this—whether the hon. Gentleman has taken this action on his own initiative; whether the Motion which has been made to-day is due to the fact that the right hon. and gallant Member for the Isle of Thanet, and Parliamentary Under Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (Colonel King-Har- man), happened to hear of this, and brought it to the notice of the authorities of the House in such a way as to force the hand of the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Long)?

I have had no communication, direct or indirect, with my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for the Isle of Thanet Division of the County of Kent (Colonel King-Harman); and, so far as I know, he was not even aware, except through the ordinary channels open to all other Members of this House, of the action I proposed to take.

The hon. Member can only speak of what he was aware of himself. It is impossible for him to say what other Members may be aware of. How does he know that the other two Members referred to—the hon. Member for the Brentford Division of Middlesex and the hon. Member for East Dorset—may not have brought the matter to the notice of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for the Isle of Thanet?

I never said anything to the right hon. and gallant Member.

There is a third hon. Member to be accounted for. I think it extremely unfortunate this matter has been brought on to-day. We heard the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Colonies (Sir Henry Holland) deprecate a Question on the Paper being asked, because he said it had an electioneering tendency, though he delivered a very electioneering reply himself. I say it is very unfair, upon the eve of important political contests in the country, that an attempt should be made to warp the minds and obscure the judgments of the electors of the country by a very petty and feeble attack upon an Irish Member. Now, has my hon. Friend (Dr. Tanner) received notice? The hon. Gentleman (Mr. Long) has spoken very vaguely upon this point. He has informed the House that he addressed a letter to my hon. Friend on Friday evening. May I ask where that letter was addressed?

The address of the letter is immaterial. The letter was personally delivered by a messenger of this House, who brought it back to me in an envelope. I presume it was returned by the hon. Member himself.

Well, Sir, the conduct of hon. Members below the Gangway opposite goes far to explain at any rate, if it does not justify, the language of my hon. Friend. I certainly think he was perrfectly right, judging from the manner of hon. Gentlemen opposite, in requesting that they should not address him. Now, my hon. Friend had a public engagement in Ireland which it was impossible for him to forego. A convention of the electors of County Cork is to be held in Cork in the course of a day or two. My hon. Friend thought it necessary to leave London for Ireland on Saturday morning in order to attend that convention; and I must say frankly I do not blame him, if, comparing the relative importance of the engagements, he thought it more requisite in him to attend the convention in Cork than to await the pop gun charge of the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Long). I maintain that my hon. Friend, having made a public engagement with his constituents, did what any other Member of this House would have done—he kept that engagement. I lay down the principle, which, I believe, will meet with universal assent—namely, that every Member of this House charged with a Breach of Privilege, and threatened with suspension for a month, is entitled to ask that his action shall not be considered in his absence. I am sure that if any intimation is made by your authority, Sir, to him—my hon. Friend—who, whatever else he is, is not a shirker or a coward, will attend here on whatever day it may suit the pleasure and convenience of the House. That no action may be taken in the absence of my hon. Friend I beg to move the adjournment of the debate.

seconded the Motion.

I do not wish to oppose the Motion for Adjournment without sufficient reason; but I am sure the hon. Gentleman will feel that he has not offered to the House a sufficient reason why the debate should be adjourned. I always regret when it appears necessary to make a charge against any individual. But the hon. Gentleman the Member for West Belfast (Mr. Sexton) has made a statement on behalf of his hon. Friend the Member for Mid Cork (Dr. Tanner), and I must remark, in regard to that statement, that no expression of regret or of apology has been made to the House, or to the hon. Gentleman to whom the words complained of were addressed. No apology was made by the hon. Member for Mid Cork himself to the hon. Gentleman the Member for Devizes, and no request has been made by the hon. Member for Mid Cork for delay. No intimation has been conveyed to the hon. Member for Devizes, or to the House, that there was a desire to have this debate adjourned; but now, after a Motion is made, the hon. Member (Mr. Sexton), who has certainly done his best for his hon. Friend, has suggested that the debate should be adjourned. The facts are admitted. [Cries of "No, no!"] They are not denied. [Mr. T. M. HEALY: They are.] Well, Sir, I contend that no denial whatever has been made to the House of the facts as stated by my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes.

I never heard of the affair until I came to the House this evening.

I am bound to say that whatever the position of any hon. Member of this House may be, if he has notice—ample notice, that his conduct will be brought up for the consideration of the House, and if he pays no regard whatever to that notice, but lets his private engagements, whatever they may be, however important they may be, carry him from the precincts of the House, and does not put into the mouth of any hon Friend an authorized statement of his case, the House would not be acting with proper regard for its own dignity, and with proper regard for the order of Business in this House, and for the decency which should be preserved in the House, if it failed to record its opinion of, and pronounce its judgment upon, such conduct.

I believe there are few cases on record—in fact, I think there is only one case—in which a personal altercation between two Members of this House—which has taken place, as I may say, outside the cognizance of the House, and not in reference to any question of the proceedings before the House at the time—has been brought foward by the aggrieved Member. I do not think a charge against an hon. Member has been substantiated in his absence; and I hold that no charge can be substantiated against any person in his absence, even if he be the worst of criminals. We have not heard what my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Cork (Dr. Tanner) has to say, either in explanation, in palliation, or in defence. If it should be substantiated that my hon. Friend has addressed language of an improper character to any hon. Member, I should be among the first to deprecate any such language having been used, and, undoubtedly, to censure its user; and I should not think for a moment of attempting to defend such hon. Member in the use of any such language, or to stand between him and the judgment of the House. But the case is otherwise. We have had the statement of the hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Long) and his Friends, and while I do not wish to throw any doubt upon these statements, I must point out that we have not had the statement of the hon. Member for Mid Cork. Now, Sir, I was going to say that there are few cases on record where formal complaint has been made of the conduct of a Member in speaking in the heat of a personal altercation to another Member, and I believe there is no case on record of the House having taken any action in reference to the matter. The right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury (Mr. W. H. Smith) desires to suspend my hon. Friend for a month without giving him any opportunity whatever of saying anything in his defence. I humbly submit that the opportunity which was afforded to my hon. Friend of being heard to-day was not a sufficient one. My hon. Friend had signed a call for a convention of the seven Parliamentary Divisions of the County of Cork. He was joined in this solemn and responsible public act, having regard more especially to the circumstance of Ireland at the present time, by his six Colleagues in the representation of the County of Cork. It was necessary for him to proceed to Ireland in order that he might take counsel, and consult with the leading political personages in the County of Cork with reference to the conduct of the proceedings of this convention. I can only say that in my judgment the hon. Member would not have been justified in breaking this important engagement, or in doing anything which should prevent his action at that convention being effectual and responsible. If I had been in the place of the hon. Member, and had felt that it was necessary for the efficiency of my action at that convention that I should have been there, I should have felt myself compelled to go over to Ireland, and keep my prior engagement even in the face of such a Motion as that now made against him. But, Sir, I come to the question of fact—that no opportunity has been afforded by the House. I am not now speaking of the action of the hon. Member for Devizes, but of the action of the House—the House will bear in mind there is a distinction between the two points. The hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Long) wrote to my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Cork (Dr. Tanner) saying that he intended to bring his conduct before the House to-day; but my hon. Friend, by reference to precedents, might easily have supposed—I am not in a position to say whether he did so suppose or not—that the House would not be in haste to take hostile action against him and deprive him of his vote, or of his power to act as a Member of the House, because on all previous occasions when the conduct of Members has been impugned, even in their presence, the House has always asked such Members for an explanation, and has always given them an opportunity of making such explanation as might seem fit. Therefore, it is not a question now of the responsibility of the hon. Member (Mr. Long) who has brought forward this matter, because that ceases where the House takes it up; and I contend that my hon. Friend (Dr. Tanner) has received no opportunity from this House of making that explanation to the House, which I certainly consider is called for from the hon. Gentleman, and possibly, or probably, of making that full apology to the House, which the House has always shown itself, in such circumstances, willing to accept from its Members. I urge upon the Government to consider whether they are acting in accordance with precedent, or in accordance with that generosity and forbearance which have always distinguished the House in its action in these matters, if they now proceed to pass judgment on my hon. Friend without having heard what he has to say in his own defence, or in palliation of his conduct, or without giving him an opportunity, if he admits the justice of the charge and the foundation for the charge, of making that full and ample apology to the House which will, undoubtedly, be required from him in such circumstances. I, therefore, beg to support the Motion for the adjournment of the debate which has been moved by my hon. Friend the Member for West Belfast.

I ought to apologize to the House for intruding myself upon its attention; but my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. W. E. Gladstone) was not present during the early part of this debate, and, therefore, I who have heard it from the beginning may, perhaps, be permitted to offer a few observations. Let me say, in the first place, that in my opinion, nothing could be better or more appropriate than the manner in which the hon. Member for the Devizes Division of Wiltshire (Mr. Long) laid his case before the House. He stated it without heat of any kind, and he put the case not as a matter of insult to himself, but as of insult to the House; and, having given to the House the full particulars so far as he was aware of them, he submitted the case for the decision of the House itself. Now, Sir, I cannot but think that in a personal matter of this kind the House would be very reluctant to act, except with deliberation and with perfect certainty that the course proposed to be taken was the most appropriate one that could be taken. The House has not been in the habit of dealing with these questions in great haste. On the contrary, certainly since I have been in the House, the custom has been to decide a question of this kind very deliberately and in a judicial manner, and not to be carried away by the feeling which it cannot but have, that the language attributed to the hon. Member for Mid Cork (Dr. Tanner) was such language as ought not to be addressed to a Member of the House, either within the House itself or beyond the precincts of the House to which our Rules extend. The House ought also to consider this fact—namely, that when the hon. Member for Devizes spoke just now, he was not in possession of the reason why the hon. Member for Mid Cork was unable to be here to-day; but we have heard those reasons since from the hon. Member for Cork (Mr. Parnell). The hon. Gentleman explained very clearly that his hon. Friend had to be at Cork to-morrow in compliance with a public engagement of some standing, and that, therefore, it was not in his power to be present in his place to-day. Now, that being the case, and stated upon the responsibility of the hon. Member for Cork, I cannot but hope that in a personal matter of this kind the House will give the hon. Member an opportunity of explaining or apologizing for what he has said. No harm will be done to anyone by delay, and the honour of the House will not be violated. The House will stand just as well, whether it decides this question to-day or postpones it for a day or two. Let me remind the House what it is the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury proposes. The right hon. Gentleman proposes that for language which I can only say is language of a very grave character, and which ought not to be tolerated on the part of a Member of this House, this House should inflict on the hon. Member for Mid Cork a mere serious punishment than would be inflicted if the hon. Member were Named by you, Sir, from the Chair, and that his constituents should be deprived of his services in this House for a whole month. [Laughter.] I do not know why it should be considered a matter for laughter that an hon. Member's constituents should be deprived of his services for four times as long a period than if he were Named for improper language from the Chair. This is, therefore, a very serious proposal, and I appeal to the House, whose generous consideration of faults committed against itself has been so long recognized, not to rush suddenly to a decision on this matter, but to give the hon. Member the necessary time to return to his place in the House to make an explanation as to what he said. If that explanation should be unsatisfactory, I shall not have a word to say. It is perfectly impossible for the House to tolerate such language as that which has been described by the hon. Member, whether used in the House or outside of it within its precincts, where a Member is responsible to the House for having used it. But it must be remembered that the hon. Member for Devizes himself was obliged to say that he doubted—I forget the exact words—whether he had been wise in speaking to the hon. Member for Mid Cork, and in using the light sentence which he spoke to him in the Lobby. I need not say that this, to my mind, would afford no apology for the language alleged to have been uttered. On the other hand, I repeat that the House is generous in respect of faults committed against itself, and has not been in the habit of adopting violently and suddenly a decision in these cases. Above all, the House has always had an explanation from the hon. Member whose conduct in a matter of this kind is impugned before arriving at its decision. Therefore, before arriving at a decision, I would appeal to the House—I would appeal to the Government itself, and especially to the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury—to allow this question to be adjourned, not for an unreasonably long time, but until the hon. Member is able to attend, and to offer an explanation and submit himself to the judgment of the House. When he does so, I have no doubt that right will be done; but, in the meantime, I would ask that he should have the indulgence of the House.

I think that the House ought just to consider the position in which it is now placed—not only its position in reference to what happened last Friday, for it is impossible to shut one's eyes to what has gone on before in the present Session, and what stands upon the Records of this House. But it is not for that reason that I intrude upon the House. I will show the House, in one moment, that the hon. Member for Mid Cork (Dr. Tanner) knew, in the most distinct manner, that at half-past 4 o'clock today this matter would be brought before the notice of the House; and yet he has not made the slightest communication, either through a friendly Member, or by letter, or even by telegraph, asking that the matter may be adjourned, or giving the slightest explanation. The hon. Member for West Belfast (Mr. Sexton), who said everything he could in the painful circumstances in which he was placed, stated honestly and candidly that he had had no communication of any kind with the hon. Member for Mid Cork. In fact, as the matter stands, apparently no communication has been made to anyone who is authorized to represent the hon. Member for Mid Cork, or to state how the matter stands in reference to him. The hon. Member for Devizes has handed to me the letter which was addressed to the hon. Member for Mid Cork, and delivered to him by a messenger of this House. That was on Friday night, and the letter was in these terms—

I can assure the House that if I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for South Edinburgh (Mr. Childers) that it would be wise to adjourn this debate, it is not through under-estimating the importance of the matter before us, but because I think it is one of a very grave character. But, before I go further, I wish to advert to the statement with which, somewhat to my surprise, the hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General commenced his speech. I have no wish to complain of the hon. and learned Gentleman; but we look on the Law Officers of the Crown to guide the House in acting judicially, and I understood the hon. and learned Gentleman to say that this transaction could not be properly considered without reference to former transactions—that is to say, that this very grave complaint was apparently to be the subject of some prejudice and adverse presumption on account of matters which had taken place on some former occasion, and that on that account—I do not say it was said, but it was inferred—the hon. Member for Mid Cork is to stand in the position of one who is to be presumed guilty before he is heard, and that this question is to be entered upon with some prejudice.

Will the right hon. Gentleman pardon me if I say that I had not the smallest intention of prejudicing the case? What I meant was simply to say that from what has passed in this Session it could not be taken as an isolated case. I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will pardon me if I—

Sir, I rise to Order. I ask you, in the first place, whether this interruption is in order; and, secondly, whether the hon. and learned Gentleman is addressing himself to the Question before the House—namely, that of adjournment?

It is quite true that it is difficult to distinguish between reasons for the Motion and reasons against the adjournment; but, unquestionably, it is to the Motion for Adjournment that remarks ought to be strictly confined.

The hon. and learned Gentleman is going, apparently, to commit a breach of the Rules of the House in regard to references to past debates in the present Session.

No, no!

Would it be in Order for him to make such a reference?

I do not know what the hon. and learned Member is going to say, and therefore I cannot say whether he is out of Order or not.

If I am at all out of Order one word from you, Sir, will induce me, of course, to refrain. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. W. E. Gladstone) asked me to explain or withdraw a statement I had made. I am simply going to read from the report in Hansard what has happened this Session in reference to the conduct of the hon. Member for Mid Cork.

Order, order! I must say that the question as between the hon. Member for Mid Cork and the hon. Member for Devizes is one which stands upon its own merits. Anything that has passed on any previous occasion in reference to the conduct of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Cork must entirely be kept out of the question, and should have no influence in guiding the action of the House.

I have not a word more to say on that point. My contention would have been to the effect that the question must stand by itself, and be judged upon its own merits. Looking at it from that point of view, I think that what has been said by my right hon. Friend (Mr. Childers) is quite true. I did not enter the House until the hon. Gentleman the Member for West Belfast was addressing the House; but I think I have fairly collected the merits of the question in regard to the issue now before us. What I would venture to put very strongly to the Government is this—that it is extremely unfortunate if in any given place—especially a ease of a grave character, a personal character, and a judicial character—it is extremely unfortunate if when probably or possibly there is no difference of opinion on the merits of the case, and when a harmonious judgment may possibly be given by the majority of the House—it is extremely unfortunate if any course is taken which tends to produce out-of-doors, either on this side of the Channel or in Ireland, an impression that there has been anything unfair done. I am not at all inclined to take a lenient view of a complaint such as that which has been made by the hon. Member for Devizes. I entirely accede to what has been said as to the propriety of the matter being laid before the House by him; and the manner in which that painful office has been performed by him may well stand on the acknowledgments already made. But, for the present, I think it would be a mistake to assume in any respect the absolute culpability of the hon. Member for Mid Cork; but this I say, that if he cannot shake the base of the statement of an offence of that kind the offence is a very grave offence. With that very grave offence it is proposed by the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury at once to deal; and I own, though I think it a very grave offence, yet I could have wished for some little opportunity for consideration as to the measure of the punishment to be inflicted, because, Sir, we have means provided for judging of these matters in the punishment now inflicted by the House when there is distinct and contumacious resistance by a Member of the House to the judgment of the House, and to the authority of the Chair. I apprehend, Sir, I am right in saying that you never name a Member until, in your judgment, contumacious resistance has been offered to the authority of the Chair. I am also, I apprehend, right in saying that one week is the term during which for the first offence the Member is subjected to disability. That is the amount of punishment it is usual to give. I feel it difficult to decide at a moment's notice on a matter of this kind. I cannot tell whether there are palliating and excusatory circumstances as between one Member and another; but it is proposed for the first offence—[An hon. MEMBER: It is not a first offence.]—to give four times more punishment than is given for contumacious resistance to the authority of the Chair. I do not complain of the course taken by the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury. I am quite sure he has done no more than what he thought to be his duty. I wished to say those few words as to the amount and proportion of punishment. One word more upon the absence of the hon. Member for Mid Cork. I must say that, unless the circumstances stated by the hon. and learned Attorney General can be met by some adequate explanation, they distinctly form a very serious aggravation of the original offence, supposing the original offence to be established. About that I feel there can be no doubt whatever, and it is, therefore, that I say in all likelihood it may be found—and I have nothing more to say than what has fallen from the hon. Member for Cork (Mr. Parnell)—it may be found that we all take substantially the same view on this question. The original question has possibly been complicated and aggravated by the absence of the hon. Member for Mid Cork from the House; but all the more because it has been so complicated, and because there is an aggravation of the original offence, I hold it is most desirable on every ground that we should know the whole case before we decide, and have the hon. Member present before we arrive at our sentence. If there is any question of undue delay in his appearance here, and if it is thought that the authority of the House ought to be exercised in order to secure his speedy attendance, I cannot conceive the slightest objection. I do not enter upon that at the present moment. Probably we may hear from some Gentleman who is personally acquainted with the hon. Member for Mid Cork when the hon. Member is certain to be in his place. That is a question which ought to be considered, perhaps, after the adjournment, if the adjournment is conceded; but I do put it on every ground of policy, propriety, equity, and on every question connected with the dignity of this House—and it is most important that this House should act as a body—I do put it that the right hon. Gentleman would exercise a wise discretion if he consents to allow a reasonable time to elapse before calling on us to give judgment in this case?

After the appeal which has been made to me by the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. W. E. Gladstone), I think it would be fitting that I should agree to the Motion of the hon. Member for West Belfast for the adjournment of the debate. I have no desire, in a case of this kind at all events, to secure the triumph of a majority. I thoroughly reciprocate the feelings expressed by the right hon. Gentleman that the judgment of the House should, if possible, be as nearly unanimous as it can be. An offence has been charged against the hon. Member. The offence charged is an offence against the House, not against an individual Member, nor against a Party, but it is an offence against the House itself; therefore, it is most desirable on every ground that as nearly as possible the unanimous feeling of the House should be given in dealing with so grave and serious a question. I, therefore, consent to the adjournment of the debate, but I will follow with the Motion—"That Dr. Tanner do attend in his place at half-past 4 on Thursday next." I think that would afford ample time.

I claim the indulgence of the House for a moment. I have not one word to say in defence of the hon. Mem- ber for Mid Cork; but it will be in your recollection, Mr. Speaker, that I brought under your notice some time ago a matter of a somewhat similar character, in so far as it affected the Privileges of this House, and one which I considered to be of considerable importance. Upon that occasion, Sir, you informed me that as the circumstances to which I desired to refer had not occurred within the House, it was not a matter of which the House could take cognizance. Under these circumstances I hope the House will refuse to entertain any Motion in regard to this matter. In my opinion a much more serious breach of the Privileges of this House occurred in the Lobby after I had brought forward a Motion some time ago relating to the Corporation of the City of London. You will probably remember, Sir, that on that occasion you asked me—

I must remind the hon. Gentleman that the Motion before the House is a Motion for the adjournment of the debate; but the hon. Member is entering into another matter altogether.

Then I will only urge on the Government not to proceed with the matter further. After the manner in which the subject has been brought under the notice of the House, I feel persuaded that it would not be consulting the dignity of the House to pass a Resolution upon the matter. I think the House would consult its dignity very much more if it would pass away from the subject altogether.

I have now to move—

"That Dr. Tanner, Member for the Mid Division of the County of Cork, do attend in his place on Thursday next at half-past Four o'clock."

I see no reason for objecting to that Motion, which is only a just and reasonable one.

May I ask what is to be the course of Business tonight, and what Votes the Government propose to take in the event of disposing of this Vote at an early hour?

It was stated the other night that it was intended to take Vote 6, and then to proceed in regular order with Votes 9, 10. &c.

I propose to take Vote 6 first.

May I be allowed to appeal to the Committee to separate, as far as possible, the discussion upon Votes 6 and 10, both of which deal with matters of vital importance; one in relation to our naval armaments, and the other to the manner in which the money given to the Admiralty for armaments is spent by them. Nothing would be more unfortunate in the discussion of Vote 6 than for the Committee to be led into a review of the questions involved in Vote 10. If we are to discuss Vote 6 to-night, we ought, as closely as possible, to confine ourselves to Vote 6. If we finish the discussion at an early hour to-night, then my noble Friend the First Lord of the Admiralty might find it convenient to proceed with Vote 10; but if the discussion upon Vote 6 is continued until a late hour, then I trust that the First Lord of the Treasury will find it convenient to take Vote 10 as the first Vote upon some other evening. I would strongly press upon the Government the propriety of taking that course.

I am very anxious to make any arrangement that will meet with the convenience of the Committee; but any hon. Member who is anxious to raise any question as to the design of the ships will, of course, be able to do so if he chooses upon each of these Votes, and thus there would be a double discussion, or the same subject might be discussed twice over.

I understand that if Vote 6 is disposed of at a reasonable hour, the Government then propose to proceed with Vote 10.

As a general rule there have been two separate discussions on Votes 6 and 10. It has never been the custom to take a general discussion upon both Votes at the same time.

I have to ask the indulgence of the Committee while I make a close analytical examination of Vote 6, which provides for Dockyard Establishments at Home and Abroad. I am anxious to make the examination as close as I can, and to analyze the details as fully as I can, because, owing to the very late period of the Session at which the Committee on the Army and Navy Estimates was appointed, it has been quite impossible for the Committee to devote an adequate amount of time to the examination of the Estimates; and, therefore, it is impossible for the Committee to assist the House, and the House must itself do the best it can to arrive at a decision upon the question whether this expenditure is rightly incurred or not. The first thing which strikes me about Vote 6 is its form. I am afraid that I am going to trouble the Committee with a great many figures, but I must ask their careful attention to them. As I have said, the first thing that strikes me about Vote 6 is the form of the Vote; and that is very important. If the Committee will look back to former Estimates, they will find that, until the present year, Vote 6 has always contained about 12 times as much information as it does this year. The detailed information in Vote 6 this year is all put in the form of Appendices. The noble Lord the First Lord of the Admiralty (Lord George Hamilton), in the Memorandum which he placed before the House, said—

"The Vote for Dockyard labour is taken in the present Estimates as a whole, and is not allocated, as has been the practice in past years, to the several Yards. The object of this change is to afford the Controller of the Navy more latitude in the distribution of work and of the classes of labour, in a manner which may promote greater efficiency and economy in carrying out the varying requirements of the Navy."

That is very plausible as far as it goes; but it raises questions of the utmost possible importance. Now, the Controller and Auditor General, and the Committee on Public Accounts, have nothing whatever to do with any matters outside those which are not contained in the Vote itself. They are not concerned with any statement that may be made by the Admiralty in the appendices of the Vote. Such statements never come under the notice of the Controller and Auditor General, or of the Committee on Public Accounts; and, therefore, the more you limit the information in the Vote, and extend it in the Appendices, the more you withdraw matters from the knowledge of the Controller and Auditor General, and the greater are the opportunities of the Admiralty to expend money without the knowledge, and possibly without the consent and sanction, of Parliament. To show the Committee how excessively important this matter is, I now turn to Vote 6. Perhaps the noble Lord the First Lord of the Admiralty will make a note of my objection to the form of the Vote. If you look back to the year 1872–3, you will find that £988,562 was thought sufficient in that year for the maintenance of the Dockyards at home and abroad. You will find that this year the Admiralty demand £1,732,600, so that the Vote has practically doubled. But you cannot consider Vote 6 without considering Vote 11, for New Works and Machinery in the Dockyards. Both must go together, and Vote 11, in this year, is £553,000. Combined, these two Votes amount to £2,285,000; and they have more than doubled since 1872. Then, Vote 10, for Machinery and Ships built by Contract, has increased by six times since 1872–3. In 1872 the expenditure under Vote 10 was estimated at £375,000; in 1881–2 it amounted to £1,911,000, so that if Vote 6 had doubled, Vote 10 had sex-tupled, or increased by six times as much. The Committee will, I think, allow that these are remarkable facts. I should now like to analyze Vote 6 as it stands in the present year. Vote 6 combines the Home Yards and the Yards abroad. I will take the Home Yards first. The Admiralty ask for £1,538,095 to carry on the work in the Home Yards. If we say to them—"What are you going to give us in return for that expenditure of £1,538,000?" they tell us—"We are going to spend £702,131 on new construction, £322,268 on refitting and repairing ships, and £106,569 on manufactures and materials, making a total of £1,131,968." This is what the country will get in direct return for its expenditure of £1,538,000 in the Home Yards. But a considerable balance, amounting to £406,000, is left; and this balance is entirely absorbed by salaries and incidental expenses. This is a point which I shall probably allude to more than once in the course of my remarks; and I hope the Committee will give their anxious attention to it. The incidental charges amount to £406,000, as compared with £1,100,000 in direct returns to the country—that is to say, your incidental charges, which do not come under the heads of labour and material, amount to no less than 34 per cent on the return of £1,130,000 which the Admiralty proposes to give you. That is an enormous percentage indeed; much larger than in any other country. But supposing we add to this expenditure Vote 11, which is for now works and machinery by contract. We then have to add to the incidental charges connected with the maintenance of the Dockyards no less a sum than £304,150, so that we have altogether about £700,000 spent in charges incidental to the maintenance of the Dockyards while turning out work valued at £1,100,000. Consequently, the 34 per cent becomes nearly doubled, and becomes nearly 60 percent. I think the Committee will admit that that is a very startling statement indeed, and if it is worked out it will be seen that the expenditure is increasing rapidly, and that there is the utmost difficulty in defending it. If I turn to the expenditure upon foreign yards, I find that matters are still more serious, and I shall have a great deal to say in regard to it before I conclude. The total Estimate for Foreign Yards is £195,322. The direct or effective expenditure, on new construction, refitting, and manufactures, is put down at £87,659, and the incidental charges amount to £107,663. Therefore, comparing the incidental charges with the actual work done in the foreign yards, it will be found that the incidental charges amount to 130 per cent as compared with the direct returns you get from the Dockyards. If I add to the £107,000 incidental charges connected with these foreign yards to the charge of £139,000 equally incidental, which comes under Vote 11 for the extension of foreign yards, I get an item of £246,000 spent upon foreign yards, while your return in direct service amounts only to £87,000, amounting to something like 200 per cent for indirect charges as compared with the returns you get from direct charges. These figures disclose a state of things for which a most elaborate defence is demanded from the Admiralty. Let me go back to the Dockyards. Examining the details of Vote 6, I find that there were some curious facts as to the cost of building ships in the Dockyards. In 1869–70 the average cost was £55 per ton; in 1877–8 it was £80; and in 1884–5 it was £109 per ton. Therefore, the average cost of building ships in the Dockyards has increased since 1870 by more than 50 per cent, and since 1878 it has increased by £29 per ton. This increase is not accounted for by any increase in the cost of labour. On un-armoured ships the cost of labour since 1878 has only increased £4 per ton. On armoured ships the cost has only increased by £6. You thus only get a mean increase of £5 in the cost of labour, but you get a gross increase of £29 per ton in the cost of building. Will the price of material account for the increase? Again I say that it will not, for there has been an immense fall since 1874 in the prices of nearly all structural materials with hardly an exception. The price of the principal commodities used in the manufacture of ships has fallen largely, so that you cannot quote the price of materials in order to account for the increased charge per ton for the building of ships. Between 1874 and 1883, since which prices have not risen, iron plates fell in price from £19 3s. 4d. to £18 15s.; pig lead fell 36 per cent; zinc, 43 per cent; mill coals, 23 per cent; hemp, 15 per cent; copper, 24 per cent; and red pine as much as 50 per cent. Therefore, there has been a large fall in prices, yet, notwithstanding this fall in prices since the time when ships were built at £50 or £60 a ton there has been a large increase in the cost of shipbuilding. Therefore, you can neither go to the cost of labour nor the price of materials to account for the increase in expenditure—an increase of £50 per ton since the year 1885. That is a very remarkable fact, and it is a point on which I think the House is entitled to some explanation from the Admiralty. I desire, on this subject, to read an extract from an article in the May number of The Westminster Review, an article of great ability upon "the State in its manufacturing attitude" a more moderate and temperate and wise statement of the matter I do not think I have ever read. The article says—

"If the period 1873–4 is compared with that of 1886–7, it will be found that the items in the Navy Estimates that are liable to be affected by prices were £2,750,000 more in the latter, or cheap, than they were in the former, or dear times. It would appear that there has been an increase in the latter year of nearly £2,000,000 in the item of 'machinery and ships built by private contract.' If this had been the only increase—in other words, if the work formerly largely done in the Dockyards had been transferred to private naval constructors—there would have been little reason to find fault, since there has been a large consensus of opinion in favour of such a transfer on the part of high authorities and responsible statesmen. But this increase has proceeded pari passu with one of £500,000 in the Dockyards and Naval Yards, and of nearly £300,000 in Naval Stores, for which there appears to be no adequate equivalent given."

This Westminster Review, after summing up the case, and after examining it care- fully, says further—and this is what I wish to commend to the attention of the Admiralty, because it is not the statement of a heated politician or of a Party opponent, but the statement of a grave and moderate quarterly periodical—

"It is, of course, customary to hear it said that this large increase of expenditure has been entailed by the more expensive and complex character of the appliances of modern naval warfare. On this point we do not care to venture any opinion. It is possible that there is force and truth in the argument. But after every possible allowance has been made that the most indulgent and reasonable of censors can allow, after all the difficulties that confront the Admiralty have been fully extenuated, after the necessarily more cautious and circumlocutionary processes common to governmental work have been taken into consideration, there still remains a formidable and apparently unanswerable indictment lying at the door of those who are responsible for our naval expenditure. The charges of wasteful, inefficient, and inadequate administration have been proved to the hilt, not by the impersonal or irresponsible criticisms of the public Press, of anonymous pamphleteers, or of foreign rivals, but by the evidence of Admiralty officials themselves, and by the well-considered and weighty deliberations of successive Committees appointed to inquire into the subject. Of such Committees there are two whose recent Reports are entitled to special consideration—the first being the Committee on the building and repair of ships; the second the Committees appointed to inquire into the Admiralty and Dockyard administration and expenditure. The first of these was presided over by Lord Ravensworth, and included such authorities as Mr. John Burns, Mr. Samuda, Mr. Ismay, Sir Charles Palmer, and Mr. Norwood. They examined authorities as competent as themselves, among others Sir Edward Reed, Sir N. Barnaby, Mr. F. K. Barnes, Admiral Sir W. H. Stewart, Mr. W. Laird, &c. That Committee reported in October, 1884; and the summary of their Report is this—'That the Admiralty system failed to show the entire cost of labour on a Dockyard-built ship; that the whole question of incidental charges was so obscure as to render unreliable any comparison between the cost of shipbuilding in public and in private yards; that the incomplete and meagre character of the specifications furnished by the Admiralty to contractors not only increased the time during which ships were under construction, but also materially enhanced the cost of the work; that the time occupied in building a ship under contract compared favourably with the period of construction in a Dockyard, the whole tendency of contract work being to avoid delay; that a heavy expenditure was incurred in refitting ships that have completed their commission when it was really not required; and that the Admiralty would do well to follow more largely the practice followed in the Merchant Navy of adding new ships to their fleet in preference to incurring a heavy expenditure on old ones.'"

These are all of them distinct charges made by the Committee on the Admiralty, who say that they were all proved before them. They did not even limit their condemnation by saying that the work of the Admiralty was well done. Not at all. They go on to say—

"They found that alike in the general principles of management and in the merest matters of detail the system was inefficient; that in spite of enormous sums voted for machinery and works 'the tools employed were of an obsolete character, which must necessarily increase the coat of the work;' that large sums of money were wasted in patching up old ships when a very little more, or, perhaps, oven less, would provide entirely new vessels; that ships were over and over again stripped and 'torn up' when about to be placed in a new commission, although no such expenditure was required; that there was a want of touch between the several heads of Departments coincidentally with too much centralization of detail, which caused 'delay and unnecessary correspondence.'"

That the whole administrative arrangements were, in fact, such as no private firm or individual would be likely, even if he could afford it, to tolerate for a moment. That is the Report of the Committee, although it has never been alluded to in Parliament, no doubt to the great enjoyment of the Admiralty. But that was not enough; more still remained behind. That Committee reported in 1884. Another Committee was appointed in 1885—namely, a Committee to inquire into the Dockyard expenditure, and it was presided over by a distinguished officer—Admiral Graham. That Committee presented their Report to the Admiralty last year.

No.

At any rate, they got it last year, and here is a summary of their Report. It was two years after the Committee on the building and repair of ships had presented their Report when this interesting, but it is to be feared absolutely unheeded, document was submitted to my Lords of the Admiralty, in which the Committee on Dockyard expenditure reported that—

"'The supervision of labour is unsatisfactory, and that idleness and incompetence are practically unchecked;' that 'the want of co-operation between the superintendent and the officers acts unfavourably upon the cost of works in progress;' that 'we can imagine no more unsatisfactory state of affairs, nor one more calculated to subvert all effectual control over the men;' that 'very serious inconvenience and waste of labour are experienced both in procuring articles from contractors and in drawing them from stores;' that 'the condition into which Dockyard business has been gradually drifting is, and has been for some years, entirely underrated in the Admiralty Department, and, we greatly regret to add, to the very serious detriment of the Service;' that there is 'no systematic or concurrent financial control over Dockyard expenditure;' that 'duplication of accounts, over-employment of clerks, preparation of voluminous, and, in some cases, useless Returns, and defective audit,' are 'defects common to all yards and to all branches of work therein;' and that, as regards management, 'the system is seriously defective, and does not secure a fair return for the vast outlay annually absorbed therein.'"

These are the Reports of two Committees within the last two years. Now, what I want to know is what answer the Admiralty have to make to these elaborate heads of condemnation fastened on them by these Committees? The Admiralty have told us that they cannot make any reduction in the gross amount of expenditure, and that any demand for a reduction is intolerable and unjustifiable. Both of these Committees condemn the system as rotten and inefficient, and what have the Admiralty done to meet the charges brought against them? Let me examine these things a little more in detail. I have given a summary of the Committees' Reports; and now, if I am allowed, I desire to lay before the Committee a few figures with a view of comparing the cost of Dockyard ships and ships built by contract. It is possible to examine the cost of ships built by contract in 1880–1, and to compare it with the cost of ships built by contract within a very recent period, and, by comparing that cost with the cost of Dockyard-built ships, the House will see what the Dockyard system costs the country. I propose to take, for the purpose of comparison, two ships—the Constance and the Carysfort, which are recent ships built in 1880–1, and it appears that the Constance, which was built in the Chatham Dockyard, cost £114,886 for her hull and £36,000 for her engines, making a total of £150,886, or £90 9s. 3d. per ton for her hull and £15 3s. 4d. for her engines. I will now go to the Carysfort, which was built by contract at Glasgow. The cost for her hull was £98,480, and for her engines £29,948, making a total of £128,428, or £77 10s. 10d. per ton for her hull and £13 5s. per ton for her engines, which shows a difference of £22,458 in favour of Glasgow upon the whole cost—of £13 per ton on the hull and of £1 18s. 4d. per ton on the engines. Notwithstanding these striking facts, the Constance and the Carysfort appear in the Estimates this year as each costing £123,000, thus making it appear to Parliament that contract ships and Dockyard ships cost the same price. I hope the noble Lord the First Lord of the Admiralty will give us some explanation of this. I now proceed to the case of larger ships—the Camperdown, built in Portsmouth Dockyard, and the Benbow, built by contract on the Thames. The original estimate for the Camperdown was, direct charges, £668,947; indirect charges, £93,880; total, £762,827. The estimate for the Benbow was £665,718, and Dockyard work £43,831, making a total of £709,559, thus showing a difference of £53,000 in favour of the contract ship. After the Benbow was constructed a change was made in the designs as to armaments, and an extra expenditure of £50,000 was incurred; but even with this additional expenditure added to the cost of the Benbow, which was not fairly incurred, the latest estimate for the Benbow is only £762,000, as against £776,000 for the Camperdown, which is £14,000 in favour of the contract ship. Then, take the case of the Immortalité, built at Chatham Dockyard, and the Australia, built by contract. The direct estimate of the Immortalité was £278,720, and the indirect charges were £45,194, making a total of £323,914. In the case of the Australia, the contract ship, the direct estimate was £245,458, with £20,955 for Dockyard work, and indirect charges £5,966, making a total of £272,379, showing a difference in favour of the contract ship of £51,535. What has the Admiralty got to say to that? Why, in the case of three different classes of ships, should they be built at a higher percentage of cost than in private dockyards? I know that one reason why Dockyard building is so costly is that the Admiralty never know their own mind. They never have the smallest idea when they lay down a ship how much they are going to spend upon it. Now, I will give the Committee an example of this, which, I think, has never been brought before Parliament before. In the case of the Dreadnought, in 1871 the Admiralty of that day came to Parliament and asked it to vote £269,000, and on their statement Par- liament voted that sum for the building of the ship. The final estimates, about five years afterwards, came to £445,000, and the actual cost of the ship was £491,000, or nearly double the sum of £269,000, which the Admiralty told Parliament when they induced Parliament to vote the money. Now, take the case of the Téméraire a little later, a ship of which the country is justly proud. The original estimate upon which Parliament consented to her being laid down—because these are not supposed to be mere phantom estimates; if you tell Parliament—"I intend to spend so much on this ship," and £500,000 is spent, then Parliament is deluded and deceived, and all Parliamentary control becomes an absolute farce. The original estimate of the Téméraire was £281,000, the final estimate £356,000, and the actual cost £375,000, showing an excess of £90,000 over the original estimate. In the case of the Inflexible, the total estimate was £396,000, the final estimate £607,000, and the actual cost £625,000, showing an excess over the estimates submitted to Parliament of no less a sum than £229,000. Now, take a smaller class of ships. The original estimate for the Shannon was £168,000, the final estimate £218,000, and the actual cost £250,000, or an excess of £82,000. Therefore, even in the case of a ship like the Shannon the Admiralty cannot estimate the cost of building her. Take again the Bacchante, a well-known vessel. The original estimate was £107,000, the final estimate £152,000, and the actual cost £164,000, making an excess of £57,000. Now, what I want to know is this—what would become of any private firm that made such mistakes as these in its calculations? What would become of them when they found that the cost of building a ship was exactly double their estimate? That firm would soon be in bankruptcy. But the Admiralty cannot go into bankruptcy, because they have a deluded Parliament and country to draw upon ad libitum; and these mistakes, which would ruin both the character and the credit of any private firm, are passed over by Parliament actually unnoticed, and with a light and cheerful heart the Admiralty submit estimates they know to be utterly delusive. Again, look at even the estimates of the amount they are going to spend in labour upon ships. The original estimate for labour upon the hull of the Impérieuse was £147,000, and the final cost £210,000, or an excess of £63,000; in the case of the Warspite, the figures were £147,000 and £202,000, in that of the Mersey, £62,000 and £98,000, in that of the Severn, £62,000 and £90,000, of the Curlew, £19,000 and £26,000, and of the Melita, £19,000 and £23,000. Therefore, the Committee will see that oven in the case of very small ships, where you would think there was no difficulty in estimating the amount, it was not in the power of the Admiralty to ascertain what they ought to pay? Now I come back to the remark I made at the beginning. I want to show the Committee the utterly untrustworthy and deceptive character of the Admiralty statements contained in the Estimates submitted to Parliament. If you turn to the appendices, you will find a certain amount of labour promised by the Admiralty to be expended on certain classes of ships, some to be advanced, and others to be completed. But those statements contained in the appendices are not worth the paper they are written on. All you put in the appendices escapes the control of the Auditor General altogether. If it is in the Vote, the Controller and Auditor General has to report that certain sums put down in the Estimates have not been expended; but if it is in the appendices, the Controller and Auditor General has nothing to do with it, and never notices it, and the Committee on Public Accounts never notices it. The Committee will be surprised to hear this. You have a Committee on Public Accounts; but the only check on your Army and Navy expenditure is a Return called the Expense Account, which is never issued for the Navy until two years, and for the Army three years, after the expenditure has been incurred. Although you have a Committee on Public Accounts, that Committee knows nothing even of the existence of this Expense Account, notwithstanding the fact that that is the only possible check on the Departments, and the only means of finding out how the Departments spend the money. Is not that a disgraceful state of things for the country? The Expense Account is not audited by the Controller and Auditor General, and never comes under the notice of the Committee on Public Ac- counts. The Appropriation Account has nothing whatever to do with the details in connection with your manufacturing establishments. All the Admiralty do is to tell you that they are going to spend so many hundred thousand pounds on ships in the course of the present year. I have been enabled to furnish some details of your manufacturing establishments which show the utter absence of Parliamentary control. Take the case of the Dreadnought. She was commenced in 1870. Building was suspended for two years, and begun in earnest in 1872, and the Admiralty told Parliament in the appendices that they intended to spend for labour and material upon her £27,000—that is to say, that they proposed to build one tenth of the Dreadnought so far as the original estimate was concerned. As a matter of fact, what do the Committee think they did spend? All they spent was only £11,000. Having got Parliament to vote them money to advance the Dreadnought by one-tenth of her total cost, they only advanced her by one-sixtieth. In 1878 they told Parliament that they were going to spend £12,000 in labour only; as a matter of fact, they spent £26,000. In 1873 the Admiralty informed Parliament they intended to spend £28,000 in labour upon the Téméraire—that is to say, to advance her by one-tenth of her total cost. As a matter of fact, they only spent £5,618, not even a fraction of her total cost. In 1874 they told Parliament they intended to spend £36,000 on the Téméraire; they only spent £24,000. Let me take another ship. In the case of the Shannon, in 1873, the estimate for labour was £15,000, the actual expenditure only £6,000. In 1874 the estimate for labour on the Shannon was £27,000, and the actual sum spent was £42,000; in 1875 the estimate was £26,000, and the actual sum spent was £35,000; and in 1876 the figures were £11,000 and £16,000. In 1877, apparently, the Admiralty did not propose to spend any money upon the Shannon, but they spent £5,500 upon her. Surely this ought not to have been done without the Controller and Auditor General taking a note of it. It shows the utter useless-ness of the Admiralty telling Parliament—"We will advance a ship so much." The money is given to them for a certain purpose, and then it is spent for other purposes—money that is voted for repairs is spent upon building, and vice versâ. It may be right, but I contend that unless you are going to make the whole thing the commonest and most transparent farce the Estimates submitted to Parliament should be adhered to, and Parliament should know that the money it has voted for a certain purpose will be devoted to that purpose, and not spent at the whim and caprice of the Admiralty officials. Now, I should like to pass to another point. I wish the Committee to see how utterly useless is the Appropriation Act for all purposes of control. There is no control whatever in the hands of the Committee of Public Accounts, or of the Controller and Auditor General. Why, in the case of the £3,000,000 or £4,000,000 you spend under Vote 6, or the £3,000,000 or £4,000,000 you spend under Votes 11, 12, and 13 for the Army, you have absolutely no audit, no Parliamentary control or knowledge, until two or three years afterwards. The Committee, perhaps, has no idea of that, but it is so, and that is exactly what must be put a stop to. And now let me bring the Committee back to the important question of incidental charges. They are very remarkable—these incidental charges—and I want to direct the attention of the noble Lord the First Lord of the Admiralty to the figures. I presume that he is well acquainted with them; that he has examined them; and that he is ready with his reply. I want to compare them with the labour charged direct to ships and other effective services. In 1880 the indirect charges for your Home Dockyards were £662,000, and your direct charges for labour in connection with ships were £884,000—that is to say, your indirect charges amounted to 70 per cent of your direct charges. I do not believe any country in the world can show such bloated charges as those. Your labour charges have gone up from £864,000 in 1880 to £1,152,000 in 1885, an increase of £288,000, still increasing at the same ratio of 70 per cent, in comparison with the money spent for labour. Seventy per cent this year, as in 1880, is the measure of the increase of your incidental charges. Now, what I want to ask the noble Lord the First Lord of the Admiralty is this. In his Memorandum he contrived to hint—if he did not actually state—that he looked for- ward to a large reduction in the expenditure upon shipbuilding, because many contracts would fall in. Does the Admiralty intend to make a corresponding reduction in the indirect charges? Let us analyze some of those charges. I must tell the Committee that it is quite impossible to find the total cost of any Dockyard either at home or abroad. I hope the noble Lord will make a note of that. I do not believe any member of the Admiralty—the cleverest clerk in the Admiralty—will find out the total cost of any Dockyard within a good many thousands of pounds. At Portsmouth the direct Vote for labour, taking the expense account of 1885–6, was £374,000, while the incidental charges for the establishment amounted to £260,000, or 70 per cent; at Devonport the direct Vote for labour was £277,000; the incidental charges, £182,000, or 65 per cent; Chatham—direct Vote, £272,000; incidental charges, £164,000, or 59 per cent; Sheerness—direct Vote, £95,000; incidental charges, £75,000. or 78 per cent; Pembroke—direct Vote, £133,000; incidental charges, £56,500, or 42 per cent. Then I come to Haulbowline, where the direct Vote was £171, and incidental charges £4,500, or 2,572 per cent. The Admiralty have expended altogether £526,000 in the extension of Haulbowline, and the expenditure has not ceased. I have no hesitation in saying that the whole of that £500,000 has been absolute and total waste, and that if you had taken that money and expended it in real public works you would have done 50,000,000 times more good than you are likely to do as regards the naval expenditure at this yard. [Lord GEORGE HAMILTON dissented.] I am not the least bit deterred by the dissent of the noble Lord the First Lord of the Admiralty from that statement; I assert that the Haulbowline Dockyard is a clear instance of profligate waste, and that the expenditure upon it ought to be stopped. I shall have more to say about the Dockyards presently, and especially about Sheerness. The First Lord takes up this position. He says—"We can make no economy; we must keep ail our expenditure going on; it is all justifiable; and though the taxes are high and people crying out, every penny of these £13,000,000 we must have for the Navy," and yet here you find at Haulbowline expenditure which is the most utter waste. As regards the foreign yards, in the first place the Admiralty do not separate the incidental charges from the labour in detail. For some reason or other they conceal that from the Committee, and you can only get them in the total. They give the incidental charges, however, in connection with Hong Kong and Malta. Now, the Labour Vote at Hong Kong was £10,000, while the incidental charges were £29,000, or 300 per cent; at Malta the Labour Vote was £48,000, and the incidental charges £63,000, or 133 per cent. If we take all the foreign yards—Antigua, Bermuda, Cape of Good Hope, Esquimalt, Gibraltar, Halifax, Hong Kong, Jamaica, Malta, Sierra Leone, Sydney, and Trincomalee—we find a total Vote of £80,000 for labour, with incidental charges amounting to £213,000, or 266 per cent. Now, make any allowance you like as to keeping up certain expenditure, and still I defy you to say that that scale of incidental charges is not grossly extravagant. There is one remarkable feature in connection with Establishment charges in the Home Yards, and that is the item of salaries. I particularly invite the noble Lord the First Lord of the Admiralty to explain how it is that the salaries of superintendents, officers, and clerks, which were £101,000 in 1878–9, rose to £174,000 in 1885–6, an increase of £73,000? If he pleads that he cannot answer for those years, I will put another question—namely, how is it that the salaries of superintendents, officers, and clerks have increased from £140,000 in 1884–5 to £172,000 in 1887–8, or an increase of £32,000, that increase having only taken three years to bring about? And it is very curious that, whereas your £140,000 worth of salaries superintended £1,200,000 worth of wages for labour, you now require £172,000 in salaries to superintend £1,300,000 of wages—namely, an increase of £100,000 in wages to labour requires an increase of £30,000 a-year to superintendents, officers, and clerks. That is a remarkable state of things, and one that the noble First Lord will find difficulty in explaining satisfactorily. Now, let me take the Committee back to Sheerness Dockyard. An enormous sum of money has been expended on Chatham and Portsmouth. In their extension there has been expended £4,245,000, and clearly it was intended by the Admiralty that when these extensions were completed Sheer-ness would be shut up. But is Sheerness, which shows 78 per cent for incidental charges, going to be shut up? Not for a moment. On Vote 11 there is taken for new works at Sheerness £8,000, for repairs £4,735, for new machinery £738, and for new machinery by contract £2,200—in all, £15,673 for new works and machinery this year, although you have spent an enormous sum on Chatham and Portsmouth on the express understanding that Sheerness was to be closed. The total cost of Sheerness this year, with these new works, amounts to £100,000, and the Admiralty might as easily save that £100,000 to-morrow as it would be now for the noble Lord (Lord George Hamilton) to rise in his place. And this is the First Lord who said he could not make one single economy in the Navy Estimates. I also assert, without the smallest fear of contradiction, that you might, by mere application for three weeks, reduce the gross charge for incidental expenses by at least £100,000, and by careful and prolonged watching reduce it still more. There the charges remain continually increasing, and the noble First Lord seems to be under the impression that they are to be defended. I must point out that by the proposal to shut up Haulbowline and Sheerness you might not only save a great deal of money, but you might do a very good thing by getting rid of the buildings and land. Now, let me ask the noble Lord the First Lord of the Admiralty to explain some of these sources of waste. I learn that during 1885–6 in the Dockyards you thought it necessary to expend £14,000 on cable chains and moorings, £22,934 for hawsers and rope for guys, and £2,477 for yard boats. Now, I am told by those who know that this is a very large sum of money. I have been told that there are eight or nine lighters which are very rarely used, two men and a boy being kept for each lighter for the purpose of taking care of it. That is the kind of thing which goes on under the head of these incidental charges, and they are matters which the Admiralty cannot possibly defend in this House. The noble Lord the First Lord of the Admiralty will, perhaps, explain another matter connected with the incidental charges. You maintain a laboratory at Greenwich, costing £1,000 a-year for professors and teachers; but, for some inscrutable reason, the Admiralty thought it necessary to erect another laboratory of an expensive character at Portsmouth, costing £2,350, and maintained at a cost of £750 a-year. That is the way the money goes. Have the Admiralty ever considered the number of depôts on the South American Station and the North American Station comparatively? Is the Admiralty aware that for the last few years all the depots on the South American Station have been done away with; that the depôt vessels which used to cost a great deal of money have been got rid of; and that the vessels on this station draw stores direct from England? For the North American Station, apparently, a different principle prevails. The Admiralty maintain at a very considerable cost three depôts on that station—Halifax, Bermuda, and Jamaica. I think the Admiralty will hardly differ on this point, that one depôt for the North American Station would be ample, and you might save the money expended on the others. These are economies which undoubtedly might be made if you were bent upon it. I turn now to another subject. An enormous amount of money is spent on chaplains and schools in the Dockyards. A most ridiculous amount is spent altogether on education in the Navy; £2,400 is spent every year for chaplains at Chatham, and £2,980 every year for schools. I cannot conceive that at the Dockyards of Portsmouth, Chatham, Devonport, and elsewhere there is not a large surplus of clergymen who would discharge the religious duties required at a very much lower figure; and, as far as the schools are concerned, there must be a large number of elementary schools to which the Dockyard children might go. But some of the Dockyard schools are for higher education—for engineers and students—and this raises an important question. The system of education pursued in the Navy is a very remarkable one. An enormous sum of money is spent on the education of shipwrights and others who may rise from the ranks in the Dockyards up to high positions in the Constructive Department. It is an extremely extravagant method. You maintain for that purpose Dockyard schools and Greenwich College, which receives £5,500 a-year. You make all kind of allowances to instructors for apprentices amounting to £5,000; and, having educated several hundred apprentices a-year in order to get a few good ones, you leave them at perfect liberty to seek service in foreign countries or in private yards. It happens, therefore, that after the country has spent a large sum of money in educating these students they instantly leave you and give all the benefit of their education to the enemy or to private enterprize. Is that not an absurd and extravagant system? If any one of us went to Sir William Armstrong's or to Whitworth's we should have to pay a large premium. This might be a source of profit to these firms, but the Navy pursues exactly the reverse method; it pays persons in order to teach them the science of shipbuilding. No doubt, that is a system which is susceptible of a very large reform indeed. The whole principle of your education in the Navy must be reconsidered, and if you do that you must save a very considerable sum of money. That, however, is perhaps a larger question than may properly be brought in to be examined on this Vote. But, speaking generally, besides Greenwich College you maintain the Britannia at £22,000 a-year plus £15,000 contribution; you maintain the Marlborough and the school at Devonport for engineer students at a cost of £13,393, and £3,000 contribution. You maintain, therefore, a most costly system of education in addition to the Dockyard schools. The whole question of Navy education, I think, ought to be carefully examined by the Admiralty, and is worthy of being examined by the House. I have only one more remark to make on this Dockyard Vote, and it is this—I want the explanation of the Admiralty as to the system of spending money on ships that have been completed. I think the hon. Member for Cardiff (Sir Edward Reed) brought before the House, the last time the Navy Estimates were discussed, the question of the ship Archer, which, after delivery at the Dockyard, had enormous sums of money spent on it. But I have found in the Estimates some of the oddest things in regard to sums spent on repairs up to March, 1886. I find, for instance, that in 1881–2 the Constance was built at a cost of £123,000, and up to March, 1886, you spent £8,000 on her. In 1879–80 the Carysfort was built at a cost of £123,000, and £12,556 was spent on her. In 1878–9 the Comus was built at a cost of £123,000, the sum of £49,595 being spent on her to keep her going. What is the meaning of such sums being spent on repairs? Let me take another ship. The Shah, built in 1876–7, cost originally £249,984, and no less than £40,000, for which the Admiralty is responsible, has been spent on repairs connected with a ship which you are not going to employ. The Leander, built in 1885–6, was completed for £191,000; but in the same year the Admiralty spent £8,947 on her. What is the reason? The ship is delivered to you built according to contract and fully completed; but you find it necessary, either with regard to ships built by contract, or ships built by yourselves, to be continually spending vast sums of money on them. I was told by a military gentleman who had just come back from Malta that the Carysfort just returned from a cruise was redocked, refitted, and taken to pieces from top to bottom at immense cost, although my informant said that the captain had declared that she did not require a penny to be spent upon her. Take some other ships, and see what you spent up to March 31, 1886. Take the Agincourt. She first cost £483,000, and you have spent £202,000 on her. The Northumberland—first cost £490,000; on her you have spent £201,000 in repairs—ships, I believe, perfectly useless for fighting purposes, and yet such enormous sums of money are spent upon them. The Penelope—another useless ship—first cost £196,000; £94,000 has been spent on repairs. The Iron Duke first cost £280,000; £186,000 spent on repairs. The Swiftsure first cost £267,000; £102,000 spent on repairs. The Triumph first cost £268,000; £147,000 spent on repairs. The Briton, £56,000; £50,000 spent on repairs; and so on with the smaller ships. These are the general matters connected with this Vote which I want the Committee to consider. Let me briefly summarize the points—the high proportion of the incidental charges for your labour; the form in which you bring your estimates before Parliament is not only perfectly inconvenient for Parliament to get any knowledge as to what they are spending, but deliberately calculated and contrived to keep out the control of the Controller and Auditor General; the number of your Dockyards at home and abroad and the enormous amount of the incidental charges connected with them; the utter unreliability of your estimates as regards ships, whether as regards the original cost or the final estimate as compared with the original; the useless amount spent on repairs and in alterations; the amount of money which is spent in the maintenance of foreign yards which might perfectly well be closed; and other matters which I have brought forward as bearing out in every word the condemnation—the strong and deliberate condemnation—passed upon the system pursued by the Admiralty by the two Committees which I quoted at the beginning of my speech. I trust the noble Lord the First Lord of the Admiralty will not put these remarks—thoroughly authenticated and well founded—aside by merely trusting to his official majority. If he does not attach importance to them, the country does. The country will not go on throwing millions of money into the hands of the First Lord of the Admiralty to have them expended in the way in which the official documents show they are expended. Let him show what he has done to produce improvement in these branches of the Service, or, if he does not, looking at the question as not one of Party in the least degree, I do earnestly implore the Committee to refuse absolutely to proceed with the Vote until the Admiralty have furnished the most ample and complete information.

My noble Friend has made an attack, not only on the Board of Admiralty, but upon different Boards of Admiralty for years past. Well, I say at once that while I do not wish to make political capital by reflecting on the action of our official Predecessors, I cannot, on the other hand, hold myself in any way responsible for what occurred before the present Government came into Office. My noble Friend has not been quite just in his criticisms. I have never said that the Navy expenditure could not be reduced, and the Navy Estimates for this year show a reduction of £800,000 upon the Navy expenditure of last year.

What does it include?

Does it include guns?

No. I say that the Navy Estimates this year show a reduction of £800,000 on the Navy expenditure of last year; and if there had not been sprung upon us, at the last moment, a liability which we had not expected to meet, and if we had not had to pay 53 weeks' wages instead of 52 weeks', the reduction shown would have been £900,000. I distinctly stated in my Memorandum that I was satisfied that for years to come there could be a steady reduction of expenditure and an increase of efficiency. My noble Friend has alluded to the Reports of two Committees. With regard to the first Report of the Committee, over which Lord Ravensworth presided, I believe that nearly all its recommendations had been acted upon. But the second Committee made a very strong Report upon the Dockyard expenditure, and especially dealt with a large proportion of incidental expenditure connected with the Dockyards. Let us understand what is meant by this incidental expenditure. It includes every conceivable item of expenditure except labour and materials. What is meant by a Royal Dockyard? It is not like an ordinary shipbuilding yard. It is a great naval arsenal. It has to perform every conceivable kind of work—not only to build and to repair ships, but there is an enormous expenditure in a Royal Dockyard which does not take place in a private shipbuilding yard. In addition to that, there are a multitude of duties which must be performed in a Royal Dockyard as long as you have a Navy at all. Now, what did I do in reference to this Report? As I have said, the Report of the second Committee was a very strong one. Admiral Graham was Chairman of that Committee. He had various conversations with me, and he satisfied me that a great many economies could be effected. What did I do? I took the first opportunity of making him Controller of the Admiralty, and he has effected immense economies. A great many of the criticisms of my noble Friend I admit to be perfectly just. Why do the Dockyards cost so much in the building of ships? I am sorry to say it is, to a great extent, because the idea has got into the heads of the localities that instead of the Dockyards existing for the Navy, the Navy exists for the Dockyards. So long as the establishments were in excess of the work which they had to perform, the estimates sent in were not regulated by the work done by the number of men on the establishment. We have found that out over and over again. In one instance there were double the number of joiners who could possibly be employed. You could not get rid of them; they were on the Establishment, and entitled to continuous employment. I know that what we did was very unpopular. The result of bringing down the Establishment to its work is, that only the other day the Sheerness Yard competed with private contractors for some torpedo boats, and not only built them below the amount for which the contractors would have done it, but for more than £500 less than the estimates. That shows that if the Admiralty kept the work, and tried to infuse in the minds of all the officials in the Dockyards the sense that it is their business to save money in every possible way, it can be done. But what are the influences against which we have to contend in enforcing economy? We have every political and social pressure to contend against; and if any Government undertakes to cut down establishments, immediately Parliamentary pressure is brought to bear upon the Government so acting, and there is a social pressure brought to bear upon the local officials in the Dockyards, which, in human nature, they cannot resist unless they are strongly supported by the Admiralty, because one great peculiarity of the Dockyard establishments is this—that for generations past members of the same families have been employed, and multiplied, in them, and there is more consanguinity to be found among the Admiralty employés in the Dockyards than exists in any similar number of workpeople in the world.

In the Admiralty?

No; in the Dockyards. Promotion is very properly given by merit; and the more persons you employ, and the larger the establishments in the Dockyards, the more the localities benefit. Undoubtedly there was a desire on the part of the local officials to run up the establishments. Well, we have stopped that, and I dare say that everybody else who might have been at the Admiralty would have done it. Without quarrelling with the elaborate analysis of my noble Friend, when I state what we have done, I think I shall be able, in a few sentences, to make good my words. For the first time for many years past there was no Supplementary Vote for the Dockyards last year; for the first time for many years past ships are being built within the estimates. In past years it was the practice to sanction an excess expenditure, and by not keeping proper control over it the localities benefited. But I shall be happy later on to lay on the Table information showing the ships which have been built within the estimates. My noble Friend pointed out that our Votes afforded much less information than previous Votes afforded. Now, if you allot a certain sum of money to every particular Service in every individual yard, you may rely upon it that every farthing of the money will be spent. But, on the other hand, if you keep control of that money, and do not let those in the localities know what they have to spend, the estimate will not be according to the sum which you put in the Vote, but according to the actual cost of the work to be done. I am quite satisfied that the exclusion of the minute information which we gave in past years has resulted in substantial economy this year. My noble Friend has pointed out the great growth of incidental charges; he has pointed out that the cost of labour has not grown, and that the cost of the material worked by that labour has, in many cases, absolutely diminished. But that is a misleading estimate to apply to the work which professional and naval officers have to perform in the Dockyards. Ships of war are now probably the most complicated machines that were ever constructed; and there is not the slightest analogy between the costs of the ships of war which were built a few years back and those which are now laid down. If the Committee will allow me, I will give a few figures to show how continual the changes have been. You say—"How marvellously the cost of ships of war has increased?" There has been more improvement and more development in shipbuilding and in naval ord- nance during the last 30 years than has probably taken place during the 500 years preceding.

Say in the last 10 years.

Yes; but I will take 30 years. Guns have increased in weight from 4¾ tons to 110 tons, and the powder charge from 16 lbs. to 900 lbs., in weight of projectile from 68 lbs. to 1,800 lbs., in energy—measuring the force of blow struck on impact—from 450 foot-tons to more than 50,000 foot-tons at a range of 1,000 yards. You will see from this how much the ingenuity of the Naval Constructor is taxed to construct a ship which would be able to withstand so tremendous a blow. Of recent years it has been the practice largely to subdivide war ships into a number of minute watertight compartments. The Sombruiel, launched the other day, had 80 or 100 of these watertight compartments, together with a corresponding number of watertight doors, sluice valves, drain pipes, suctions, and a multiplicity of other complicated machinery. It is impossible to institute any fair comparison between the cost of such ships and that of ships built some time back, which had no such watertight compartments. My noble Friend has drawn a comparison between the cost of building ships in private yards and in the Dockyards. I confess I do not quite follow the figures of my noble Friend, because the figures which I have here show that the total cost of the Benbow, which was built in a private yard, is higher than the total cost of building the Camperdown in a Dockyard.

No, no! On page 110 the estimate of the Benbow is £709,000.

The figures I have here are £810,000, which includes everything.

I claim that the original estimate of the Benbow was £709,000, and that the estimate was brought to £762,000.

It is not possible to make a perfect comparison.

It is, indeed. It is perfectly accurate.

The Admiralty of that day had not decided what sized guns would be put into the Benbow, consequently there were a number of alterations, and they made two separate calculations; but, as far as I can judge from these figures, the total cost of the Benbow exceeded the total cost of the Camperdown. But I am quite ready to admit that private yards ought to build more cheaply than the Dockyards. It is the practice in the latter to lay down a certain number of vessels, to put men on, and to take a certain number off for other work as it arises; but, in private yards, they have to ascertain the total number of men that can be economically employed. And, in reference to the ships that we are now laying down, I may say that the cost of the Trafalgar, as far as we have gone, is 50 per cent less than of the Camperdown, because we have put on a larger number of men and taken care that those men are not removed. There is no doubt that my noble Friend is perfectly just in saying that increased cost is the result of the changes that are constantly taking place in the design of vessels after they were laid down; but we are doing all in our power to prevent this. We have passed rules and regulations by which complete co-operation will take place between the various offices—between those responsible for guns, engines, and complement. They will thus find the weight for each ship, and I have every reason to hope that the arrangement will prevent the delay which has occurred through the Department not knowing their own mind as it is called, and also the increased weights which have occurred in the past. Then my noble Friend calls attention to the fact that the Controller and Auditor General has practically little control over the application of the sums included in these Estimates. [Lord RANDOLPH CHURCHILL: I said that he had none.] Well, it is the system which I discourage, and my hon. Friend and I are in consultation with the view of arriving at a form of estimate which would give the control which the Committee undoubtedly desires. But in managing a business like the Dockyards it is never possible to estimate with exactitude at the commencement of the year the precise proportion of money required. For instance, we have a considerable number of ships out on contract. We estimate a certain amount of labour required, and we provide it; but the contractors are frequently behind time, the engines possibly will not pass the trial, and thus we are not able at the time we intended to put on the men. In that case I say that a certain latitude must be given to the Controller and to the Admiralty, so that as these difficulties arise they may transfer the men which they have on their establishment, and which they cannot discharge, to some other work. My noble Friend has stated what I think is practically true—that it is very difficult to give the exact cost of any one of our Dockyards. The expenditure connected with the Dock yards is contained in the different Votes; but when my noble Friend says that it is impossible to give it fully—

I never said that it was impossible to give it; I said that it was impossible to get it. That is a totally different thing.

It would be difficult certainly for the Estimate presented to Parliament to contain all the information which would show fully and completely the expenditure of each separate Dockyard. I think it could be done, but it would be difficult. My noble Friend has called attention to the very large proportion of incidental charges of the Dockyards carried to the account of labour. Now, the first part of Vote 10 is for all the stores which are required for ships. You must, of course, take cognizance of labour in this just as much as you must take cognizance of the labour which works with the material. But these comparisons are in many cases very misleading. My noble Friend pointed out that the salaries at the Dockyards in the last two years had increased by the sum of £72,000. Now, in 1883, the Board of Admiralty promoted a number of shipwrights to the position of sub-inspectors, whose wages had previously come under the head of labour. [Lord RANDOLPH CHURCHILL: The amount is £28,000.] But, their salaries being transferred, the labour Vote is diminished. That accounts, I think, to a considerable extent, for the very large proportion which the incidental expenditure bears to labour. In fact, the increase is only apparent.

May I be permitted to say that the increase of £30,000 in the salaries of officers in charge took place in 1884–5, and that the change the noble Lord is referring to was made in 1883. It does not relate to my point at all.

I may be wrong as to the exact date, but it was done about that time. The noble Lord has referred to Haulbowline, and he has denounced the expenditure in connection with that place. I was not responsible for that. It was an expenditure advocated by Lord Spencer, who said that the work was an act of justice to all parties. I do not think it is a very profitable expenditure so far. But my noble Friend took the total cost of the Victualling Yards.

No, no! The labour I took was the labour expended on repairs. The incidental charges wore exclusive of the Victualling Yard and Dockyard.

Yes; but there is no Dockyard there; there is a graving dock, but it is in no sense a Dockyard. There is this to be said—that in time of war Haulbowline would be a most important post, because it is not accessible to shell fire. We have, besides, added a wall at low-water mark, and we hope that as those works are completed, and as the workshops are put up, the locality and the country will be able to get some little return for the very large expenditure which has been incurred. Then my noble Friend calls attention to the expenditure at Chatham and Portsmouth Dockyards. I am very much disposed to agree with the noble Lord as regards Chatham. The expenditure there appears to be enormous. I cannot believe that it will ever be utilized. But that brings us to a very difficult question—namely, that a great deal of the expenditure is forced on the Government because of the necessity of finding employment for our convicts. But, so far as the expenditure is concerned, we have stopped that of which the noble Lord complained; and I believe that next year there will be a considerable saving in building and works generally. My noble Friend has said that Sheerness might be shut up, and that the result would be the saving of £100,000 a-year. But that is not so, for there is at Sheerness a large establishment of men, who, by the terms of their contracts, are entitled to employment; and if you were to shut up that establishment you would have to put the men elsewhere. But there are reforms in many directions to be carried out, and although it generally happens that when reforms are made which carry with them reduction of expenditure, the unfortunate individual who makes them gets all the odium, and his Successors the credit; still, we are prepared to undertake the responsibility in this case. It has been pointed out that there are very expensive schools in connection with the Service, particularly the Engineering College, which the noble Lord says is too costly. That College was established about a year before I became First Lord of the Admiralty. I have not been satisfied with the result; I think it is far too costly, and I think we may provide other means than the College for obtaining an excellent supply of officers for the Navy. But a large number of boys have been entered at the College, and their parents have contracted with the Admiralty that they are to be kept for a certain time, and it is not in my power to shut up the College, or get rid of the teachers. I shall look into the matter as soon as I can, and try to reduce the cost of the education, and inquire whether other means cannot be devised by which to attract engineers into the Service. I can assure my noble Friend that we are trying to see whether something cannot be done to keep down the cost of Dockyard schools. But these schools, I would point out, are not in any way ordinary schools. They are rather schools in which the apprentices who entered have received instruction in shipbuilding and other matters, and many of whom have become Inspectors in the Navy. Our attention has been called to the number of apprentices in these schools; and, as we believe that they are more numerous than the needs of the Service warrant, we have largely reduced the number of entries this year—the reduction being something like 50 per cent. My noble Friend has alluded to the great cost of repairs, especially in connection with the Shah. The expenditure was stopped by me soon after we came into Office, and I notice that ships can be re-fitted at Malta much more cheaply than they can at the Dockyards here. My noble Friend also called attention to the fact that after ships are delivered by the contractors considerable expenditure is incurred upon them in the Dockyards. Well, as a rule, these ships are not de- livered complete, and a certain number of additions have to be made to them. Upon this point, I may say that our attention was called to the fact that the specifications in certain contracts made by our Predecessors were not sufficiently precise, and also to the fact that when ships are delivered at the Dockyards a considerable amount of substantial work was not done. I think we have, to a largo extent, stopped this waste of money. Our specifications are more exact; there is more communication between the contractors who are building and the Dockyards, and a closer system of supervision is adopted. I am, therefore, in hope that this expenditure, if not altogether got rid of, will in future be largely reduced. My noble Friend has referred to the cost of Naval Yards abroad. We have, not had time to go into this matter; but the Inspector of Dockyards is about to make a tour of inspection if he can get away, the result of which I hope may be to enable us to effect gradual reductions. Whether we require so many Dockyards is a question upon which I cannot express a decided opinion. My impression is that some of the Naval Yards abroad might be closed. My noble Friend cannot, of course, expect mo to follow all the details he has brought forward; they range over a large number of years, and many of them have little or no connection with the Estimate which we are now discussing. I think I have now answered all the questions which my noble Friend has put to me. [Lord RANDOLPH CHURCHILL: Oh, yes.] I think, at any rate, I have answered all the material points, and I can only say in conclusion what I have stated in my Memorandum. When I first came to the Admiralty, we had been on the verge of war, and our system had not been overhauled for years past; its defects had not been discovered. Undoubtedly, there had been a considerable waste of money; and, undoubtedly, money is still sometimes unwisely expended on the repair of ships which are almost useless for the purposes of war. Many duties, however, are imposed upon the Navy, in addition to those directly connected with war, which it is necessary to provide for; and, although I cannot help thinking that the noble Lord has somewhat over-estimated the extent of the reforms that can be made, I am still of opinion that im- provement is possible, and that expenditure can be reduced. I have confidence that we can effect improvement, and reduce expenditure; and, although my noble Friend has to-night been a little hard upon us, I trust he will continue to give us effectual assistance in our attempt to obtain a better return for the money which the country expends upon its Navy.

The noble Lord (Lord George Hamilton) takes credit for having reduced the Navy Estimates by the sum of £800,000. I do not quite agree in the amount of reduction, the total of which appears to me, after deducting the amount taken in Army Estimates for additional naval guns, to be £685,000; but I am glad to find that the noble Lord has been enabled to reduce the Navy Estimates, and that he does not now insist on the enormous expenditure which he endeavoured to force upon the late Board of Admiralty. I have one or two remarks to make with regard to the speech of the noble Lord the Member for South Paddington (Lord Randolph Churchill), with whom I agree when he says that the Board of Admiralty have not paid much attention to the recommendations made by some of the Committees which have reported on Admiralty matters. The noble Lord spoke especially of Lord Ravensworth's Committee, with reference to the policy of repairing old ships rather than building new ones, which I am afraid still goes on at the Admiralty. The noble Lord complains that there is not so much information given in these Estimates as was formerly the case; but I think we must give the First Lord credit, in the case of obsolete ships, of furnishing a little more information than has been given before, because on page 242 I find there is an amount shown on account of obsolete ships which comes up to the very large total of £2,500,000. At the same time, I must say the information given here might lead anyone not conversant with Naval matters to come to an inaccurate conclusion, if he assumed that all the ships built after 1876 were efficient, because there are many vessels on the list which I am sure the noble Lord the Member for East Marylebone (Lord Charles Beresford) would not deem efficient. I am afraid that a very large reduction must be made from the list of ships. I should say that the first half- dozen ships on the list are obsolete—the Black Prince, Prince Albert, Bellerophon, Minotaur, the Agincourt—all those vessels, I think, are obsolete. Then, further down the list, there are the Iron Duke, Swiftsure, and Triumph, which I do not think my noble Friend will consider efficient; and again, when we come to the smaller vessels there is a still larger number of obsolete ships left on the Navy List. I have said that anyone looking at the total in the Appendix would imagine that all the ships built after 1876–7 were efficient. But if you turn to page 250, there are a number of vessels built in 1878 which ought not to be on the list; amongst them are the Osprey, the Pelican, and the Penguin, and there is also the Dragon, built in 1878–9, to which the same remark applies. Most, if not all, of these ships were condemned by the Naval Lord (Lord Charles Beresford) before he went to the Admiralty. Then there is the Kingfisher, on service at the East India Station; she was built in 1880, but I am afraid it would be a very doubtful policy to spend any more money on her. I come now to eight composite vessels, built in 1881–2; these were included in the list of the Naval Lord; they were not, in his opinion, fit to go to sea, but ought to be destroyed. These vessels cost £200,000 for building and repairs; and I hope the Committee investigating Naval matters upstairs will make close inquiry into the circumstances, and ascertain how these vessels came to be built. I am not charging this upon the present Board of Admiralty; they are no more responsible for it than the late Board; but when the Committee get the Controller of the Navy into the Chair, I hope it will be ascertained how it was that these ships of a speed of only nine knots came to be built. I say that, having regard to the qualities of vessels being built by other Powers at the time, we had no right whatever to build ships of only nine knots an hour. I have heard it suggested that we ought to have a Committee of the House to inquire into the designs of our ships. But I do not think Boards of Admiralty pay very much attention to the recommendations of Committees, and, therefore, I should like the Committee upstairs to make a minute inquiry into the system under which our ships are designed and built. It might be advisable to appoint a Committee to consider the question of designs; but I think the subject should be first investigated by the Committee now sitting upstairs. I think the First Lord sufficiently answered the noble Lord (Lord Randolph Churchill) with regard to Haulbowline. Of course, Haulbowline is an entirely new work; there has been expenditure, but nothing has been got from it yet, but I do not suppose the noble Lord would seriously ask the Committee, when they have spent £500,000 upon the work, to give it up, and build a dock somewhere else in Ireland. The expenditure has been made; we were not responsible for it; but I believe we required a dock in Ireland, and I do not think that, having spent the money, it would be good policy to spend more money in building a dock somewhere else. The noble Lord says that we have no depôts in South America. If the noble Lord was alluding to the Brazils, it is perfectly true that we have no Dockyard there; but that is no reason why we should do away with the Dockyards at Bermuda, Halifax, and Jamaica, which are absolutely necessary for the maintenance of our communications and for coaling stations in that part of the world. I do not propose to raise any question on this Vote with regard to gun-mountings, as that will come under Vote 10, although, as I have said, I agree with a good deal which has fallen from the noble Lord the Member for South Paddington, and I think that a great many of his criticisms were very just. On the other hand, I consider that he has overlooked the enormous growth of cost of war material, and that he has also overlooked the fact that, although iron-plates have gone down in value, the value of steel-plates has greatly increased. Another point which has escaped the attention of the noble Lord is, that the overhead protection of our ships is now nearly double what it used to be. I think that will account for a good deal of the increased expenditure; but I can only say that the noble Lord will have an opportunity of examining all these subjects as Chairman of the Committee now sitting upstairs to inquire into the War Office and Admiralty administration. I will only add, in conclusion, that we on this side of the House shall all be glad if by any means the noble Lord can show us how we can arrive at increased efficiency with reduced expenditure.

There are but few observations which I desire to make upon this Vote. The First Lord (Lord George Hamilton) has spoken of a feeling entertained by some that the Navy exists for the Dockyards. I am not one of those who think in that way; but I certainly have the idea that the keeping of the Dockyards in a state of efficiency largely and directly contributes to the efficiency of the Navy; and if it has not done so, the cause, in my opinion, does not lie in the Dockyards themselves, as is implied by some of the speeches we have heard to-night, but in the controlling power of the Admiralty. I know that the Members representing Dockyard constituencies when the First Lord of the Admiralty took Office were brushed aside, and that any advice we were able to give was treated as coming from those who were rather interested in expenditure than economy. I must point out that the increased expenditure in connection with the Dockyards does not arise altogether from the increased amount of labour; and it has been shown that a portion of the increased charge is due to increased salaries, and fie has referred to a transfer which has taken place of a part of the Vote. But that does not account for the whole of the increase. We have been told that it was necessary to give ships to private yards, in order to check prices—that is to say, to give away work that would have been of service in promoting the efficiency of the Dockyards. And it has been said on this and on previous occasions that we could not get rid of the people on the Establishment. That would certainly have been a very strong reason with business men for getting out of these servants the maximum amount of work, because it would not have entailed any additional cost for supervision. But we are told that is not so, and at the same time that, in order to check prices, we do away with one of the chief elements of Dockyard efficiency. I submit very respectfully that both those arguments cannot hold good. Reference has been made to Parliamentary and other forms of pressure put upon the Admiralty; but so far as Parliamentary pressure is concerned, I think the noble Lord has not altogether shown the amount of con- sideration that might have been extended to the suggestions of those of us who have endeavoured to discharge their duty in connection with these matters in this House, and who have objected rather to the way in which things have been done than to the things themselves. There is a right way and a wrong way in all cases; and, so with reference to the discharges that have taken place in the Dockyards, I say that this could have been done in a manner which would have obviated much of the difficulty which has been experienced. On that ground we still complain, notwithstanding what the noble Lord has said with regard to Parliamentary pressure; and on that point I venture to express the hope that Parliamentary pressure will always be brought to bear upon Ministers in the direction of having the best use of the money which is put into their hands to be spent for the service of the country. Then as to the local and social pressure spoken of, that is a very small matter. I have never heard of it before in these cases, and certainly any amount of local and social pressure ought not, in my opinion, to be sufficient to prevent a First Lord doing his duty; that sort of pressure, at any rate, will not entail any heavy burden on the Exchequer. When the noble Lord says that all increase is stopped, I take issue with him, and say, on the contrary, that having a considerable increase of high-salaried officers, while only the number of labourers and others at the Dockyards is decreased, is not the best way to promote efficiency or economy. With regard to the Engineering College, I think that the noble Lord has made a very disturbing statement with reference to that institution. I do not know what is in the mind of the noble Lord; but I hope he will give us a little more information on this subject, so that we may better understand the position which the College will occupy in future. The idea was that the College was of great advantage to the Navy, and that it was doing useful work, with every prospect of advantage resulting there from to the country. That being so, I say that if there is to be any change with regard to the College, it is of importance that we should hear a little more on the subject. The noble Lord the Member for South Paddington (Lord Randolph Churchill), in speaking of the cost of our ships, has alluded to two Reports, which, he say, have not been referred to in this House. We have not always had the advantage of the noble Lord's presence on these occasions; but I am glad we have it this evening, for I can assure him that the Reports in question have been referred to in this House in many ways and at many times. The Committee presided over by Lord Ravensworth urged, and I have also many times urged in this House, that the additional expenditure in the case of ships in course of construction arose invariably from the changes which were constantly being made at the Admiralty. I am perfectly certain that it will be found, from beginning to end, that the apparent increase of expenditure in connection with shipbuilding in the Dockyards, as compared with private yards, has arisen from the changes in the construction of vessels which the Admiralty have, so to speak, in their own hands; whereas, in the case of a contract made with a private yard, the work is estimated, a certain number of men is put on, they are paid a certain price, the work is done, and the ship is delivered. It is beyond doubt, I think, that if we do not build ships in our Dockyards as cheaply, more cheaply, and better than they are built in private yards, it is not the fault of our Dockyards, but of the Admiralty, with whom the control rests. Having regard to the plant and labour at our Dockyards, we ought to be able to turn out ships cheaper than they can be delivered from private yards. When this subject has been brought up, it has been suggested that a great deal of the excess of expenditure arises from the idleness of the men in our Dockyards. I am again obliged to repudiate that statement. There is no class of men who desire to work more faithfully or at less extravagant wages than the men employed by us; but if, on the other hand, obstacles are put in the way of the men working on a ship, the fault, I say, does not lie with the men, but with the system, which I am afraid has not been improved, notwithstanding the large expenditure for the purpose of obtaining better control and supervision, which, after all, comes to nothing, for we have still to get ships, it seems, built in private yards in order to check prices. The question is, whether or no this new policy elaborated by the present Board of Admiralty has been successful. If it has, nothing is more likely to show an improvement in the figures which the noble Lord presents to the House in the direction of economy than to give as much work as possible to the Dockyards, without making it necessary to increase the staff and the supervising power. If, on the other hand, while you reduce the work done at the Dockyards, you cannot reduce the salaries and other expenditure there, you will by-and-bye have a charge for supervision far in excess of the expenditure on shipbuilding. Such a system would not be allowed to operate in private yards; and I believe it will be stated by a high authority before the Committee upstairs that the cost of our shipbuilding would be cheaper than in those yards if the same system followed in them were adopted in our Dockyards. When the noble Lord the Member for East Marylebone (Lord Charles Beresford) sat on the opposite side of the House he gave us a list of ships which he said ought to be broken up. I do not think we have heard quite so much on that subject of late; but I believe the noble Lord to be one of those who would not allow a change of sides to alter his principles—we had from him the statement that it would be a great waste of money to attempt to repair a number of ships, because by the expenditure of a little more money we might build new ships of a more serviceable character. With that view of the noble Lord I entirely agree; and I hope that, as Naval Lord, he will be able to tell us that steps have been taken in the direction which he indicated. I wish, again, to express my disappointment that the idea should have been expressed that Parliamentary pressure has always been in the direction of a large expenditure, to the prevention of economy, in connection with the Dockyards. I absolutely and entirely repudiate that view, and in doing so I venture to express the hope that the First Lord and his Colleagues will be able to arrive at a really economical result by conferring with those who for many years have been acquainted with Dockyard work, and that, whatever we who represent Dockyard constituencies may say here, we may have credit not for desiring the expenditure of money for the benefit of our constituencies, but an efficient naval administration in the interest of the country at large.

There are one or two remarks I should like to make in reference to Dockyard shipbuilding. I think the Committee upstairs would have been the better place for a minute discussion of this question than the House; but inasmuch as the question has been raised here, I desire to offer a few observations, especially with reference to some of the figures given by the noble Lord the Member for South Paddington (Lord Randolph Churchill). I was rather surprised that the First Lord of the Admiralty (Lord George Hamilton) did not point out, if the Estimates are at all correct, the great mistake the noble Lord the Member for South Paddington made in his comparison between contract-built ships and Dockyard-built ships. I think the House of Commons ought to understand thoroughly that by no possibility can any ship be built by contract cheaper than it can be in Her Majesty's Dockyards, if the accounts are kept and the money is voted in the same way. But if you charge the salaries of the superintendents, and storekeepers, and police, and chaplains, and the expenses of schools, and various other items to ships, the outcome is that a larger price stands against the Dockyard-built ship than against the contract-built ship. The noble Lord the Member for South Paddington quoted the case of the Benbow which cost£810,633. If we take the sister ships of the Benbow we find that the Camperdown, which was built at Portsmouth, cost £743,074, and that the Anson, built at Pembroke, cost £752,288. How, consequently, the noble Lord can make out that the Benbow was a cheaper ship than the Camperdown or the Anson, all three ships being of 10,000 tons, 10,600 horse power, and 17-knot speed, I am at a loss to see. Of course I am aware there is a difference in the armaments, but that does not account for a difference of over £60,000 in cost. I want to see the accounts for shipbuilding so kept that a fair comparison can be made. If an account were so kept—my opinion is, judging from the answers which were given before Lord Ravensworth's Committee which has been several times quoted, and especially from the answers given by Mr. Barnes—in which he told us that the incidental charges in the Dockyards are far in excess of what would be required regarding them simply as workshops—that Dockyard-built ships would be found to be quite as cheap as contract ships. Mr. Barnes told us that there was a good deal of difficulty in the comparison, from the mere fact that the charges were so different in the Dockyards and in private yards; and when he was asked by the hon. Member for the Jarrow Division of Durham (Sir Charles M. Palmer) if the incidentals were sent to the Accountant-General in London, he explained that items So-and-so gave the salaries of superintendents, professional officers and clerks at £38,000, and that of that £21,900 belonged to the "Ships and Services" and the remainder to "National charges." Consequently, I say no fair comparison can be made between Contract-built and Dockyard-built ships until the money is voted in the same way, and the accounts are kept in the same way. A good deal has been said in regard to the repairs of the ships, and the other night I asked my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Marylebone (Lord Charles Beresford) a Question in regard to the repair of the Garnet. The First Lord of the Admiralty took credit for stopping some repairs of the Shah; but he did not mention the repairs of the Northumberland, which is an utterly obsolete vessel, simply kept going because there are still left, unhappily for the Navy, some officers to whom royal yards are essential; they cannot believe that any ship can be properly kept afloat unless it has royal yards across. I admit that when the band plays "God save the Queen" it is a very dignified proceeding to "sway across;" but it certainly is not war, and it is certainly not an object for which ships utterly useless for war should be repaired at the expense of some £40,000 or £50,000. Now, the Garnet is a ship which, I believe, never steamed more than seven or eight knots an hour. Perhaps in her most useful days she did eight or nine knots, but anyhow she cannot do more than seven or eight now, and I think that a sum of £30,000 has been, or will be expended upon her, because it is felt necessary to keep such vessels for the relief of foreign stations. Well, I cannot see by what argument the First Lord of the Admiralty and the Secretary to the Admiralty, who, I know, are not favourable to unnecessary expenditure, were persuaded to propose this sum. I should have supposed that the East Coast of America or the Pacific generally would have done just as well, if not better, with a modern vessel if there had been one ready. There are no ports, or hardly any ports which a vessel of 1,000 tons more than the tonnage of the Garnet or of any of the Gem class could not enter. Now, as to the question of the expenses of the Dockyards, the noble Lord asks why ships cost so much more when built in the Dockyards; I think I can answer that question by saying, because you put on all those ships charges which are not put on ships built by private builders. Take the case of the Pembroke Yard with which I am most familiar. I find there has been an increase of £1,000 in the charge for police during the last 10 years; and in looking at that charge I regret to find it is not an increase of pay given to the police for services, but that it is charged on account of the increase in the number of the police employed. Now, to my certain knowledge, Pembroke Yard has not been in any way increased during that time, and I should like to know why this extra charge is made, because I may say about two-thirds of that charge, if not all, is put down to shipbuilding there. The First Lord of the Admiralty has mentioned another great flaw, one of the greatest flaws perhaps in the Dockyard administration—namely, that the officials cannot be discharged. I mean that although Dockyardsmen can be discharged an Overlooker cannot. The Admiralty, for some reason best known to themselves, have debarred themselves from the right of getting rid of any overseer in the Dockyards under 60 years of age, unless he commits himself in such a manner that he must be discharged. If they really mean to maintain the Dockyards efficiently at a reduced complement, I should think one of the first things to do would be to take to themselves power to maintain a right proportion between over lookers and ordinary labourers; and I hope that in any reductions they may make, they will take some such step as will enable them to maintain a proper proportion. I know that the First Lord of the Admiralty said the other day that the number of over lookers was fixed when the complements of the Dockyards were much lower than now. I think it is a patent fact that the overlooking is not what it might be, or else an ordinary Dockyardsman does not do the same amount of work as a man in a private yard. I am not able to say whether that is so; but that is the common belief, and that is one of the reasons why we are told the Dockyards will have to be reformed. It is argued that there are too many men, and that the work is inefficiently performed. My own impression is that if Dockyardsmen are set to their work properly, and are properly overlooked, they will do just as good work, if not better, than it is possible to turn out in a contract yard, and do it just as cheaply. There is another very important point, in my opinion, with regard to the Dockyards to which I wish to draw attention, and that is the appointment of Superintendents. I do not think I am mistaken in saying that the present First Lord of the Admiralty is of opinion that the continual changing of the Superintendents of the Dockyards by no means conduces to the efficiency of the Yards. Anyone who has studied the subject must be of opinion that if we wish to have efficiency the Superintendents of the Dockyards must be appointed for three, or, I should say, for live years at least, and that men should be selected on account of their fitness for Dockyard work. I have been given to understand that the First Lord perfectly agrees with that view, but that the Treasury will not grant the necessary money. If that be so, I can only say that this is only another instance of the Treasury standing in the way of efficiency in the Navy. Moreover, it is remarkable how these appointments are made. Instead of people being selected on account of their special fitness for the work, or on account of their having served in the Steam Reserve, we find the very opposite is the practice. Although I have nothing whatever to say against the able officer, personally, who was last appointed, he has never served in the Dockyards, has never been in the Steam Reserve, and knows nothing whatever of the duties he is called upon to perform. That, I submit, is not the way to get the most out of the Dockyards. I have stated several times that, while we cannot find fault with a certain number of the reductions in the Dockyards because we are bound to recognize the fact that whereas 10 years ago there were only 17,000 men employed in the Dockyards, there are now 22,000, the way the reductions have been made is most unsatisfac- tory, and the doubt as to the future in which men are kept is extremely trying, not only to the Dockyardsmen, but to the Members representing Dockyard constituencies, who are continually being asked for information as to how many men are going to be discharged, &c. We were told by the First Lord of the Admiralty, when he laid his Statement before the House, that the Admiralty had a plan. I have asked several times for that plan. If you have got a system, why do you not produce it? If you know what you are going to do, barring accidents—for which a Supplementary Vote can always be got—if you know what you are going to do in the next four or five years, you must know how many men you will want to do it. Why cannot you say, this Dockyard will be reduced to a certain number of men, and such work will be given to the Yard? I think it would be far better to concentrate all your building in certain Yards, and do all your fitting and repairing in other Yards. I will not detain the Committee further, because I look with hope—and I trust I shall not be disappointed—to the result of the labours of the Committee upstairs in unravelling some of the difficulties which are extremely puzzling to the uninitiated, or even to those who know something about them. The hon. Member for Devonport (Mr. Puleston) has spoken of Parliamentary pressure in favour of contractors, and the First Lord of the Admiralty has alluded to a similar pressure in favour of the Royal Dockyards. All I can say is, that considering the number of the Members of the House who are connected with shipbuilding, I should imagine the Parliamentary pressure in favour of the Contractors was every bit as strong, if not stronger, than that which those interested in the Dockyards are able to bring.

I will not detain the Committee more than two or three minutes. All I desire to do is to make a few observations upon the speech of the noble Lord the Member for South Paddington (Lord Randolph Churchill). The noble Lord, in the course of his able speech, dealt with two main principles, and in other respects with details. He made considerable impression on the Committee, I thought, by the comparison he drew between the present cost of labour per ton of shipbuilding and the cost some years ago. It struck me that the noble Lord had left out some factor in his calculation; and I think that if the Committee considers for a moment, it will observe that the noble Lord left out the factor of the amount of labour required per ton. There are two factors to be considered upon the labour question—one is the cost of the labour, and the other is the amount of labour which is expended on a ton. The more complex is a ship, the greater is the amount of labour which has to be put into a vessel for each ton, consequently the price of the labour per ton must rise. The noble Lord left that factor completely out of his calculations; and, therefore, I do not think he presented a perfectly fair issue to the Committee in this respect. Then the noble Lord drew a comparison between direct and indirect charges. It appears to me that there, again, he did not quite present a fair issue to the Committee, and for two reasons. He altogether forgot to give us any comparison by which we might be able to appreciate whether the ratio of the indirect to the direct charges in the Dockyards was greater than the ratio in other large undertakings. He pointed out that in the English Dockyards it is about 70 per cent. That may or may not be; the fact I do not pretend to say; but certain it is that until we know what the indirect charges are made up of, and what are the circumstances which render these charges necessary, it is a useless issue to offer to the House to say that the indirect charges are the cost of looking after the direct charges, i.e., of labour. Moreover, it struck me that in the figures the noble Lord gave to the House from the constant quantity of 70 per cent, which he said was the ratio of the indirect charges to the direct charges in the English Dockyards, the inference rather was that the indirect charges were not unreasonable, because we find that figure of 70 per cent the constant charge of all English Dockyards, whereas abroad we find that the ratio is very much greater, in some instances 300 per cent. That is not to a certain extent, so difficult to account for, when we remember that the cost of labour in places like Hong Kong and Malta is lower than in England. I venture these two criticisms upon these portions of the noble Lord's speech, because I feel that those hon. Members who were present when the noble Lord spoke were very much struck with the way in which he placed his case before the Committee. I do not think he placed it quite fairly before the Committee, having, as I say, in one instance, left out the most important factor in the case, and having in the other instance not given us sufficient ground to form a judgment. In the remaining part of his speech, the noble Lord simply repeated other charges which had been made on previous occasions, and which, I think, have been at different times admitted by the First Lord of the Admiralty. The noble Lord (Lord George Hamilton) admitted on a previous occasion that many of these charges were perfectly true, and. that he and his Colleagues were doing their best to meet them. No doubt the noble Lord the Member for South Paddington (Lord Randolph Churchill) has made some charges which have not been made before. I do not complain of the noble Lord pointing out where there is ex-travagance, I am quite with him in wishing to see economy introduced into the Navy and extravagance put down where possible, and I certainly hope that the noble Lord the First Lord of the Admiralty and his Colleagues will be successful in carrying out the undertakings in the direction of economy which have been so frequently given to the House

The noble Lord the First Lord of the Admiralty commenced his remarks this evening by strongly disclaiming any responsibility for what had been done before he took Office. I wish I could believe that that disclaimer will be thoroughly carried out. I confess that when the present Government, or rather the present Government in its 1885 form took Office, they made such a decided, and as I think such a correct and worthy stand upon the matter of construction that I hoped for better things from them, and was myself anxious as far as I could to give them support. I felt that the course that the right hon. Gentleman now the President of the Local Government Board (Mr. Ritchie) took was a course of a very peculiar character, because it was a fearless and independent one, within the walls of the Admiralty. I happen to be one of those who think that the curse of the Navy and of the country in its administrative Depart- ments is the servility of Ministers to their subordinates. The noble Lord the Member for South Paddington (Lord Randolph Churchill) by the course he has taken has revived, or perhaps I ought to say, has begotten the hope in his mind that some great changes in the spending and administrative Departments will be made, and whatever may be thought by others, I can only say I could not fail to contrast the speech delivered by the noble Lord tonight with the speech of the First Lord of the Admiralty which followed it. The First Lord of the Admiralty gave certain reasons for keeping up what he admits to be improper and extravagant expenditure, and dwelt largely upon the difficulties of making changes. Well, I do not think that that is the particular spirit which the country now desires to see men bring to the management of the public Departments. I think it is a totally different spirit we want; we want to see men in Office now who will take these difficulties by the throat and overcome them, and who will relieve the country and the public purse from the incubus under which we have been suffering for so many long years past. Now, strange to say, the course which the noble Lord the Member for South Paddington took in his speech to-night proceeded very much upon the same lines as I had myself intended to take in any observations which I might myself make to-night, but I am happy to say that the noble Lord took a broader view than I had intended to take. I am glad to say that in order to make clear to the Committee my views on this Vote I shall not have to repeat many of the figures the noble Lord gave us, though I shall, from a different point of view, be able to support the noble Lord's argument, that argument being that under this Vote the country is burdened with enormous charges, the nature of which is certainly not made clear, and the causes of which probably are, to a very large extent, unnecessary and extravagant. There was one part of the speech of the noble Lord which I really thought would have elicited from the First Lord of the Admiralty a totally different treatment from that which it received. The noble Lord the Member for South Paddington made it absolutely certain in the Committee that one of two things existed, either that the most lavish waste and extravagance exists in the Dockyards, or else that the Estimates presented to the House are entirely untrustworthy. Now, it is known to the Committee, and to everyone who has acquaintance with this subject at all, that we have been receiving from the Ministerial Bench, for very many years past, the very same answer, a very unsatisfactory one, which occupied a prominent place in the speech of the noble Lord (Lord George Hamilton) to-night—namely, that those who complain of the extravagance in the Dockyards forget that our Dockyards are great naval establishments as well as establishments for shipbuilding. The question arises, why do you not make that clear to us in the Estimates which you present to Parliament? Why do you contend that the Dockyards have other purposes than the building of ships, but so confuse your figures for shipbuilding operations that under that confusion the extravagance and waste of which we complain takes place? The answer which I must respectfully submit ought to have been given to the noble Lord the Member for South Paddington to-night was, we will not henceforth confuse these charges which arise on account of the national character of the Royal Dockyards with the charges for shipbuilding, but we will give the House a fair opportunity hereafter of distinguishing between the two, and of deciding which of them is correct and ought to be allowed to remain. Now, the noble Lord the Member for South Paddington has, as I have said, dealt very broadly with this Vote. He included in his purview the whole of the Royal Dockyards at home and abroad, and the items both for labour and material, and the cost under Vote 11, of buildings and machinery which are employed in the production of shipbuilding work. Now, I will take a different line; and I think I shall be able to show that the result is quite as unsatisfactory as that shown by the noble Lord. I find, on looking through these Estimates, that when you take out the actual result of shipbuilding, ship-repairing, and refitting of ships, the amount expended on labour in the whole of the five Dockyard Establishments amounts to £1,132,000. That is the sum paid for labour in the Royal Dockyards at home, which, I believe, includes Malta—I know it does in regard to some figures; but whether with regard to all the figures I do not know. The charges for "Salaries and Allowances" in the five Royal Dockyards—the charges for administering this expenditure of £1,132,000—is £172,000, and to that I am obliged to add a few other items. Now, Mr. Courtney, it may tend to make my arguments clear if I, at this moment, take note of what has fallen from several hon. Members—and two hon. and gallant Members—in reference to the figures which the noble Lord the Member for South Paddington gave, and to the general question of incidental charges. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for the Holderness Division of Yorkshire (Commander Bethell) stated that the noble Lord failed to make clear how his charge of 70 per cent for establishment charges in Her Majesty's Dockyards compared with similar charges in private establishments. Well, now, I can give the Committee some little guidance on this question. It has fallen to my lot repeatedly to have shipbuilding, and ship-fitting, and ship-repairing done in private establishments upon this principle, that the builders were to be paid the net cost of the labour and materials, and so much in addition for establishment charges and for profits. I only deal here with the Establishment charges. In the figures which I just gave to the Committee, and in most of the figures the noble Lord gave, we deal only with one item of Establishment charges—namely, the item that takes the form or salaries of supervisors, storekeepers and the like. But in the Establishment charges of a private yard the charges paid for include all the expenses of the establishment, all the coal consumed in the furnaces and boilers, in fact, all the stores consumed in the performance of the work in respect to which the contract is made. And now, I make this statement without any fear of contradiction, that when you include every item of Establishment charges, builders are very glad indeed to receive 12½ per cent upon the cost of labour and materials, as Establishment charges, and in no case have we ever allowed a builder, or has any builder asked for more than 14 per cent upon the actual outlay upon labour and material. And I may add that 14 per cent was only sanctioned in a case which was exceptional in its way, when the whole of the armour bolts of the ship bad to be renewed, and that involved a large amount of Establishment expenditure. Now, the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for the Holderness Division asked how this 70 per cent in Government Dockyards compared with the expense in private establishments. My answer is that it is pretty nearly six times as much. I wish to make it quite clear, indeed it is quite clear from the speech of the noble Lord the Member for South Paddington, that the mischief, the worthlessness of the figures which are placed before us in these Estimates arises from the mixing up of matters which should be kept totally separate. Now, sometimes an illustration is valuable in discussions of this kind, and I would point out to the Committee that if they turn to the book of Appendices and Index, page 170, they will find this item under the heading of "Dockyard Work,"—"Steam, Coal, Sea Stores, &c," £560,000. Now, any ordinary Member of the House, indeed anyone looking at this heading "Dockyard Work," is entitled to infer that the Admiralty actually spent £560,000 for coal for dockyard purposes. [Lord GEORGE HAMILTON: No.] Then why is £560,000 taken under the heading "Dockyard Work?" There is no answer to that question. The only answer is that there is a total and absolute confusion of the figures. [Lord GEORGE HAMILTON: Look at the margin.] The noble Lord points to the margin. I admit that it is perfectly true that there you get a contradiction of the heading. But I ask the Committee whether it is a reasonable thing to put, with any explanation at all, under the Estimate for Dockyard work, Vote 10, Section I, an item for coal for the Royal Navy? The fact that the note needs to be pointed out shows that these Estimates are not such as should have been put before the House, and I sincerely hope the noble Lord the Member for South Paddington, who has great influence in this matter, perhaps more influence than any other person in this House, will insist upon the total separation of these items. If these items of Fleet Expenditure and Dockyard Expenditure are separated I am sure that not only a great cause of difficulty will be removed, but a great cause of extravagance and waste. Now, I go on with the labour charge. The sala- ries and allowances as I have said for spending £1,132,000 amount to £172,000. The storekeeping, a part of which, I admit, goes to these coals and for stores, but still here it is, is £63,592; and there is an actual charge of £35,000 for police in the Dockyards. Then again, the charge for the Controller's Department ought to be attached to this Dockyard Vote as a part of the charge for expending the £1,132,000. In any private establishment all the services rendered to the Royal Navy in the Controller's Department, so far as the Dockyards are concerned, have to be rendered by the staff of the private firms within the private firms, and to be taken into account in making out any Estimate for the building of a ship, so I think the expenses of the Controller's Department ought to be added to the expenses of the Dockyards. And then we come to an item of which the noble Lord (Lord Randolph Churchill) took no account. I am rather surprised that he did not, because it really needs a little explanation. He said nothing whatever either about the£90,000 which goes in pensions to civil officers, or the £150,000 which goes in pensions to artificers of Her Majesty's Dockyards. Now, I do not wish, this evening to be understood as expressing any opinion for or against the pensions, but I maintain that this Committee is always informed by the Government of the day that the justifications for these pensions is the fact that we get our labour for a very much lower price than we could get it in the open market. Well, Sir, the consequence of that must be of course that as you get labour so cheaply, you must add the pensions for labour to the actual charge for labour in order to make such an account as any private firm would insist upon receiving; although I cannot imagine that any private firm would ever dream of spending £150,000 a-year in pensions to artificers, and the number of men on the Establishment is actually not larger than is employed in a single private firm in this country. I believe I am correct in saying that the hon. Baronet the Member for the Govan Division of Lanarkshire (Sir William Pearce), whom, if he were present, I would congratulate on his new honours, employed 7,000 men at a time when the wages of engine fitters ranged to nearly £5 per week, and when the wages of fitters were nearly £4 per week. I have not the smallest doubt that the hon. Baronet's weekly expenditure on labour was then equal to that in the whole of Her Majesty's Dockyards put together, and I should like to know how the hon. Baronet would have got on if he had had to find £150,000 per annum for pensions to artificers who had been formerly in his employ. Why the thing will not bear a thought. I am not speaking, as I say, against pensions, but I am arguing that as you have got to pay pensions on account of Dockyard labour, and as you imagine that you get the value of these pensions in the reduced cost of Dockyard labour it is a perfectly correct and proper thing, as a matter of account, to add these charges to the annual charge for labour. Now, I admit at once that I am exposing myself to a charge of a serious character, but one for which I believe I have a perfect answer. It may be said that this charge should be added to the labour item, and not to the accumulated charges I am dealing with. Well, I would add it to the labour charge, and not to the other charges if we got the value for it. [Captain PRICE (Devon-port): It is added.] Now, let me deal with that case. We have heard here to-night speeches from the Representatives of Dockyard constituencies, and I entirely sympathize with the spirit of those speeches. I am glad I have ceased to be a Dockyard Representative, because as such a Representative I found certain invidiousness in speaking upon naval matters. I sympathize with hon. Gentlemen in all the comparisons they institute between the cost of ships built by contract and the cost of ships built in Her Majesty's Dockyards; but I must point out that hon. Gentlemen simply take the labour and material expended in the Dockyards, and leave out altogether these other matters. [Admiral MAYNE: No, no!] I know my hon. and gallant Friend (Admiral Mayne) is of opinion that that is not so. He said to-night, most distinctly, that we only find Dockyard-built ships dear in comparison with contract-built ships because of the accumulated charges upon them. Now, I want to speak upon that point, and to show that he is entirely mistaken. There are some figures given by the noble Lord (Lord Randolph Churchill) which have been disputed. I do not know whether they are disputed rightly or wrongly, because they are not figures I am now prepared to deal with; but so far as I was able to follow the figures of the noble Lord, they appeared to me perfectly correct, even when they went the length of overthrowing the figures placed in our hands in the Estimates of the year. I believe that they will be found to be so, and that is why I am so anxious that the Lords of the Admiralty should not become the mere tools and servants of their servants. We ought to have their assistance in bringing these things to light, and in arriving at a sound conclusion in regard to them. I should like incidentally to complain of a statement which the First Lord of the Admiralty made the other day in reply to a question put to him by mo as to the tonnage of the Impérieuse. A tabular statement has been put forward on the Motion of my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow-in-Furness (Mr. Caine), and by the courtesy of the Secretary to the Admiralty (Mr. Forwood) I have been allowed to see an early copy of it, and I quote from it, in order to show what the permanent officials will induce the Board of Admiralty to do if they lend themselves to their purposes. This is the authoritative statement on which the First Lord of the Admiralty contradicted me as to the tonnage of the Impérieuse. The tonnage is given here, the displacement is said to be 7,600 tons, and then a, star is put to it, and there is a note under—

"Beam was increased by one foot by the addition of the thickness of wood sheating between the date of preliminary design as detailed to Parliament in March, 1881, and the finished design."

That is the explanation given by the noble Lord (Lord George Hamilton) to the House; but what will the noble Lord say when I tell him that in every Estimate presented to the House since the Impérieuse was begun, the original tonnage has been given? The tonnage which I gave—7,309 tons—is the tonnage which has been presented to this House every year from that time forth. Then, why does not the noble Lord come forward and justify my statement? Why does he seek to discredit me by making statements which we have no means of verifying, and which I do not in the least believe?

I had not the slightest notion that I was attacking the hon. Gentleman. It has never been the practice of the Admiralty where tonnage is taken by displacement and not by measurement, to take notice of any alteration which may occur during construction. That is the invariable practice, and the Question put to me the other day was what was the extra weight which was added to the Impérieuse during construction.

The explanation of the noble Lord is this that when a Member of this House gets up and speaks with care and confidence upon the figures which have been year after year presented to this House, he is to be subjected to contradiction, and the explanation for the contradiction is to be found in the fact that an alteration was made in a ship five years ago, and that the Admiralty never took the trouble to acquaint the House with it. That is no explanation at all; or, at any rate, it is an explanation which I myself would be ashamed to be made the organ of in any assembly of gentlemen, and I am surprised, nay, more, I am alarmed, at the conduct of the noble Lord, because it proves that in future we shall not be able to depend upon communications that are made to us through the noble Lord. What we have a right to expect from Ministers is personal examination of all points in which Members of this House require information, and a Minister ought to be able to depend absolutely upon what he says. Now, in the noble Lord's own Minute there is a rigmarole—I hope it is not un-Parliamentary for me to use such a word—about compound engines having a different quantity of fuel supplied to them. I had to deal with compound engines when I was at the Admiralty, and nothing of the kind existed. It is a fiction palmed off upon the noble Lord, and it appears in his Minute as though it were truth. There is another thing. We are actually told that certain ships of a most important character, and costing £2,000,000 sterling, are safe because of their armour having been sunk below the water-line, and have got a lot of coal on the top of the armour to help to sink them. I expected better things of the noble Lord, and even yet I expect better things from him.

I did not say that.

It is in your Minute.

No; it is not.

I am sorry to detain the Committee, but it is said in the noble Lord's Minute—

"Thus, although the position of the belt may have been correctly calculated for the weight of coals it was at the time decided to carry, and which were adopted as their deliberate policy by the then Board of Admiralty, the same is undesirably low if coals to the full stowage—which is the policy of the present Board—are put on board."

Then the noble Lord goes on to say—

"There would be above the armour belt—

No; read the preceding paragraph.

I am going to read your words.

Read the preceding sentence.

I am going to give one of the reasons why we are to be satisfied.

You must read the next sentence.

I have not the slightest reason to object to read the next sentence, and I will do so. The noble Lord says—

"Though the policy which placed the position of the belt so low does not commend itself to the present Board, it is right to say that some claim for it certain compensating advantages, their contention being—(1) That there would be above the armour belts running along 140 feet of its length, when the full fuel supply is on board, a coal protection of 6½ feet in height, and of 11 to 17 feet in depth."

I quite admit that the noble Lord put it in the form that "some say" this, but he did not give it a contradiction. If he meant to contradict it or to put it forward as something very absurd it is a great pity he did not add a few words to that effect. But, to return, I want to make myself perfectly clear to the Committee upon the question of the relative costs of ships built in private yards and of ships built in the Royal Dockyards. In order to do so, I will take what I think is a perfectly legitimate and convincing case. I will not take the case of the disputed ships; but I will take the case of the figures presented to us as the estimated cost of certain vessels to be built all alike, to be built, some by contract and some in the Royal Dockyards. Now, I take the case of those belted cruisers which I so fondly hoped were going to be belted cruisers, but which have turned out to be belted cruisers with their belts below the water line, and in which the noble Lord seems content to be satisfied, for he has made no proposal for redeeming them from that condition. In the Appendices we get the estimated cost of shipbuilding in the private yards and in the Royal Dockyards, and amongst those building in the Royal Dockyard are two vessels of the belted-cruiser class—namely, the Immortalité and the Aurora, and there are given the five vessels of the same class which are building in the private yards. Now, Sir, I hope the Committee will kindly attend to this, because it is perfectly conclusive. The estimated cost of the ships to be built by the private trade are as follows—namely, £266,000, £245,000, £245,000, £275,000, and £275,000 respectively. Now, the two ships, precisely the same, to be built in the Dockyard are the Immortalité £278,000—£3,000 more than the highest contract-built ship—and the Aurora, £284,000. These latter figures are for labour and material alone. So that when you take the labour and material alone, when you do not add to the labour and material of the Dockyard ships a single penny of the many charges for salaries and other expenditure which fall upon the builders of contract ships—when you take labour and material alone, the cost of the two Dockyard ships is estimated to be in excess of any of the five ships precisely of the same kind to be built in private yards. That being so what we have to look to is this—that the argument of my hon. and gallant Friend (Admiral Mayne) to the effect that the Dockyard-built ships become so expensive because of these charges incidental to a great Naval Service falls to the ground. I maintain I am justified in imposing upon the cost of labour in Her Majesty's Dockyards all these extra charges which are numerous for storekeepers, police control, and pensions to officers, which I take to be about £90,000 a-year, and pensions to artificers which I take to be £150,000 a-year. Then I add to that the £111,000 for incidental charges, which gives this result that we have an aggregate amount of £672,000 piled up upon an expenditure of £1,132,000 for work upon ships in the Royal Dockyard. I say there is no way out of this except one. I must challenge the Government upon that point, and elicit from them at least a promise that in the future we shall have a clear distinction made between the charges that are given for the general Naval Service, and the charges for shipbuilding. That is desirable in the interests of the Dockyards. I agree with hon. Members as to the capability of the Dockyards to do work as cheaply as any private yard. I believe they can do it more cheaply when they are properly looked after. The reason is that these figures are one mass of confusion, and the services are mixed up in such a ridiculous manner that no one can tell what ships cost or what they are likely to cost. The noble Lord the Member for South Paddington said to-night that under the existing form of the Estimates you cannot tell what is going on in any Royal Dockyard. I confess that when I began to study this book of Appendices, I made search for Her Majesty's Dockyards. I knew that we were to be called, upon to vote this large sum for Dockyards, and I thought I should like to see what progress was being made with certain vessels. To my amazement not the name of a single Dockyard occurs in the Index to the Estimates. Not even the name of a Dockyard is given, and I do not hesitate to say that it will take anyone half-a-dozen hours to extract from n the Estimates a notion of what is being done in the Royal Dockyards. The First Lord of the Admiralty made a very curious statement. He said that this system had been adopted advisedly, that it had been adopted because he did not want the Dockyards to know how much they were to be allowed during the year, because if they did, they are induced to spend what they are allowed. But will the noble Lord allow me to say that all the fault found with regard to Dockyard management lies in the fact, not that the Dockyards have spent what has been allowed them in the Estimates, but that they have spent monstrous sums in excess of what the House granted? We are deliberately told now by the First Lord responsible for the administration of the Dockyards that he cannot be responsible for the Dockyards being managed satisfactorily unless they are kept in the dark as to what they are to be allowed to spend. In order that the Dockyards may be kept in the dark, we are to be kept in the dark. All I say is that if we submit to that, our last state will be worse than our first has been for some time. I hope the noble Lord will reconsider this point and give us hereafter an authentic statement of what has been done in the several Dockyards. I agree with what fell from the hon. and gallant Gentleman (Admiral Mayne) upon one point. I think the noble Lord (Lord George Hamilton) deserves our thanks and praise for having given us a good deal of information which exists in these Estimates, and which we have never heard before. The noble Lord the Member for South Paddington made very good use, I thought, to-night, of some of the novel information. I was rather sorry to hear him produce it, because I have taken pains to pick out figures bearing on the relation to the original cost of ships, to the expenditure which has been incurred upon them since. I could not help remarking with what scorn my hon. Friend here (Mr. Duff) spoke of a great many of the Jubilee ships which we are to see at Spithead this week. I do not wish to say one word that would seem ungracious, or would mar the pleasure of any hon. Member in looking at that great array of ships, but 1 must say it does seem rather a strange proceeding to assemble at Spithead, as a manifestation of the naval power of this country, a lot of old craft which the Admiralty have not known what to do with for many years past. I could not help thinking of it, when my hon. Friend (Mr. Duff) mentioned the Black Prince, a ship which dates from the earliest days of iron shipbuilding. The Admiralty have really not known for years what to do with half-a-dozen or more of these obsolete ships, which we are to look at on Saturday next, and admire, and feel proud of. I am very glad, however, that we find some opportunity of putting them to some service in a National spectacle, but I hope no Members of this House will come away so impressed with what they see at Spithead as to suppose that they have been looking at more than seven or eight vessels which the noble Lord (Lord George Hamilton) can pronounce as suitable to go into battle. I was rather shocked to hear some facts stated by my hon. Friend, because he mentioned certain vessels as con- demned which were built not long ago. That is an appalling state of things for the Committee to be acquainted with. I thought it was bad enough; but what do I find as regards Her Majesty's yachts? The Victoria and Albert cost £136,000 a great many years ago; but it has cost £300,000 since. The Osborne, which was built fifteen years ago at a cost of £105,000, has cost £111,000 since. The Enchantress, which cost £39,000 originally, has cost £73,000, and the Helicon cost originally £46,000, and has had £46,000 spent upon it since. There are five other vessels—very old craft—and I am afraid they are kept going for no better reason than that the noble Lord the First Lord of the Admiralty and his Colleagues opposite have not the courage of their opinions, and to come down to the House and propose that a new yacht should be built. The consequence is that these yachts, some of which were built before many of us were born, are kept going, with the nett result that they originally cost £162,000, but have since had spent upon them £193,000. This state of things when it relates to ships that are 20 years old or more, is bad enough, but what is to be said of a state of things in which an hon. and gallant Gentleman who was formerly Civil Lord of the Admiralty, comes down to the House and tells us that ships that we built so late as 1880, 1881, and 1882 are condemned as unfit for the Public Service? Well, that being so, I say the noble Lord the Member for South Paddington (Lord Randolph Churchill) ought to have a totally different reply from the noble Lord the First Lord of the Admiralty (Lord George Hamilton) than that which he has had.

Why?

Because we ought to receive from the First Lord of the Admiralty when such a ghastly array of facts has been put before us, some better assurances of reforms than have been given. That, at any rate, is an important view of the case. I confess I should not feel very much hope in the matter if it wore not for the tremendous accession of force which the friends of economy and reform in finance have received in the person of the noble Lord the Member for South Paddington. I for one thank the noble Lord for the very gallant mariner in which he has devoted himself to the task of bringing about a change. As regards Sheerness, which is my native place, I do not wish to see it shut up; but I must say I was surprised at the reply the noble Lord the First Lord of the Admiralty gave to the noble Lord on that subject. The noble Lord said that Sheerness Dockyard cannot be shut up, because you have a number of officers there who will be entitled to pensions, and some men also. I know something about that question, because it fell to my lot to shut up two Dockyards; and I would call the noble Lord's attention to the fact that, however true his answer may be with regard to some officers, he himself explained in an earlier period of his speech that which it is necessary to do on certain occasions. It is possible to transfer these officers from a yard at which they are not wanted to a yard in which you do want them. It cannot be said—"Oh, but we do not want them any more," because it happens to be a fact that you have only about 6,000 men on the establishment to be provided for, whilst you have 11,000 others in the Dockyards to whom the authorities are under no such obligation. I was very glad, indeed to hear the noble Lord the First Lord of the Admiralty say that he would consider the whole question of naval education—to give something of the nature of a promise that he would have the whole matter considered.

I referred to the question of Engineers. Schools in the Dockyards.

I should like to say a few words upon that subject, because, having been educated myself in some degree in the Dockyard schools, I know what those schools once were, although I do not know what they are now. They were schools established for the purpose—if the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Admiralty (Lord George Hamilton) will allow me to say so in contradiction to his statement—for the purpose of providing elementary education. There was not, at any rate in. my day, a single particle of professional education imparted in those schools. When I say elementary education, I mean elementary, mathematics, and so on. It was necessary to sustain these schools for a number of years, because in the Dockyard towns there existed no educational appliances worth mention- ing. But that state of things has passed away; and now in the common Board schools of the country the children of the working classes are receiving in very many cases an education which it is oftentimes very difficult for a wealthy father to secure for his son, so good is it. Therefore, I contend that the maintenance of schools in the Dockyards for the purpose of teaching elementary and somewhat advanced scientific education—apart from professional education—is an anachronism. It is not necessary; but I am sorry to say that, if my information is correct, either the noble Lord or one of his Predecessors is responsible for having recently elevated the class of masters in the Dockyards. I should be sorry to see faith broken with anybody; but I really think we ought to have an undertaking, not only from the First Lord of the Admiralty, but from every branch and Department of the State, to the effect that the face of the Government will be as much as possible set against increasing the number of persons entitled to pensions. The probability seems to be that we have here a case in which three or four men are brought away from the Universities and fixed upon us for the rest of their natural lives, whether they are wanted or whether they are not. If some remedy is not brought about to remedy that state of things we shall get into such a condition that the country will demand that faith shall be broken with these people rather than that these burdens should be any longer borne. Will the noble Lord the First Lord of the Admiralty allow me to ask him to spare us those statements with regard to additional expenses which some ingenious person in his Department is continually furnishing him with, especially with regard to a comparison of the guns of the past with the guns of the present? It is all very well to use these arguments at the Mansion House and other places; but to use them in the House of Commons is nothing more than to raise a side issue which has little or no connection with the main question. I will tell the noble Lord that he must be upon his guard, as he is surrounded by people who will "fool us to the top of our bent." The result of my calculations as to the proportion that the incidental expenses in the Dockyards bear to the working expenses I will now state. The noble Lord showed a charge of 70 per cent on the cost of working. Well, what I show is that you put £672,000 of expenditure on top of £1,100,000. As I understand the statement of the noble Lord the First Lord of the Admiralty, we are expected to go on in this way without any serious effort being made to remedy this state of things, and the noble Lord's speech is to amount to nothing more than an assurance that he will make little economies where he can. I do not want to challenge the Government now, because it is late in the season—I do not want to be hard upon them; I do not want to put difficulties in their way which would not be to the advantage of the public—but I do think that we ought to have some indication from them that the affairs of these Dockyards will be dealt with in a different spirit. The noble Lord the Member for South Paddington was right in what he said as to the chaplains and medical officers in the Dockyards. There is a charge of £10,000 a year for chaplains, medical men, and schools. I should like to ask hon. Members who are connected with large private yards how much they spend in chaplains for their workmen? Do they expend money in this way? I apprehend that they do nothing of the kind. Let us have some explanation of this matter. If these chaplains are not for this purpose; if this money is not devoted to this purpose; if it is devoted to any other object, lot us know it, and do not go on palming these people off upon the Dockyards in connection with shipbuilding. The great complaint against the Estimates in their present form is that we have no means of checking what is done, not only in the Dockyards, but in individual ships. I have looked over the details of several ships to and how the money has been got rid of upon them, and I have not been able to obtain any satisfactory information. We are told how much has been spent; but we are not told how the amount quoted to us in this way has been got rid of, and this is the case particularly in connection with those vessels on which the most extravagance has been displayed, that is to say, those vessels built by contract and brought into the Navy Establishments for completion. On that point I wish to make a brief reference. The noble Lord has told the Committee that he has it from the Chief Constructor that there are as many as 5,000 new drawings going out of his office every year. Very well; but I should like to know how many of these are prepared by other people and merely submitted to him for approval? When we come to Vote 3 I shall move a considerable reduction if I am in the same mind as at present, and I shall do it on this ground, that a year or two ago a change was introduced—I do not know who brought it about, but, whoever did, it put upon us a salary of £1,500 a-year for a Director of Dockyards, and three others of £1,000 a-year for Assistant Superintendents of Dockyards, the object being to give us better Dockyard administration. The management and inspection of Dockyards was in this way taken out of the hands of the Chief Constructor of the Navy and handed over to these new officials. When I was at the Admiralty it used to take myself and my principal assistants almost an entire day to do this Dockyard work; and if we were able to get into the drawing office by 3 or 4 o'clock in the afternoon, we were very glad to be able to do so. Well, when this enormous labour was taken from the shoulders of the Chief Constructor, the Chief Constructor becoming simply a designer of ships, there ought to have been, as a consequence, a large reduction in the staff devoted to that official. I maintain that at least three large salaries ought to have been saved when the control of the Dockyards was taken away from the Chief Constructor. Instead of that, however, the Chief Constructor at the present time has the same staff to do very little work—for, after all, it is comparatively very little work that has to be done. We ought to have had a great reduction. If the noble Lord the First Lord of the Admiralty can tell me that these gentlemen, who were formerly under the Chief Constructor, have been transferred to the Director of Dockyards for the same duties, then I can understand there being no reduction in the Vote, because if we are to look to the Director of Dockyards for economies in Dockyard working, it is only natural that his staff should be strengthened. Unless we get some satisfactory explanation of this matter, I shall move the reduction of the Vote and leave the noble Lord the First Lord of the Admiralty to deal with those gentlemen as best he can. It appears to me that no question of Party sentiment ought to induce us to lose the great benefit of the advocacy of the noble Lord the Member for South Paddington. We ought to avail ourselves of every advantage that flows from having such a supporter of economy. I congratulate him on his onslaught on the existing extravagance. When the country arouses itself to the fact that every year whilst you are spending £1,100,000 on Dockyard labour you are spending £670,000 on people to look after that Dockyard labour and its produce, I do not think it will much longer submit to these charges, and will insist upon having enormous changes brought about. If I might venture to give advice to the Government, it would be this—that they should be wise in time, and give us a promise of great amendment in the future, which, while ensuring efficiency, will, at the same time, bring about great economy.

Whilst listening to the able speeches that the Committee have heard this evening, I could not help thinking that those speeches would have been much more appropriate if addressed to the Boards of Admiralty which have been in charge of the Department in years past, instead of to a Board that only came in in August last, and whose Estimates had to be prepared within a very few weeks of their coming into Office. At the same time, I feel that the noble Lord the Member for South Paddington, and those who have spoken to-night, have done good service to the Admiralty in bringing these matters forward, although—as in the present case—they deal with what is passed. I think that to keep on pegging away is one of the best means of strengthening and assisting those who are in charge of the administration of the affairs of the Admiralty. I believe that the essence of economy is to have our accounts stated in a simple, straightforward, and intelligible manner; and I perfectly agree with the criticisms that have been levelled against the accounts which the Admiralty have presented to Parliament for the present year. I feel that they are not sufficiently clear—that they do not bring under one head all the charges that are properly applicable to that head. But I wish to call the attention of the Committee to the fact that when the present Board came into Office it was so late on in the year, and the Estimates had to be got into shape so very soon afterwards, that it was utterly impossible for the Board to take into consideration the very serious and important duty of re-casting the form of the Estimates. I believe that the true mode of securing economy is not to start at the top and say—"You are spending £11,000,000 or £12,000,000, whilst you ought not to spend more than £10,000,000 or £11,000,000." That is not the true way to secure economy. The best way is to start at the bottom, and see where the sixpences are spent. Seeing that it was impossible to make any change in the form of the Estimates, having regard to the books and the form in which they were kept at the Admiralty, the next thing that could be done was to place before the House the utmost information, in the shape of Appendices, which could be given. My Colleagues, as well as myself, feel that we cannot be too explicit in our statement to the House; and, therefore, we have laid a great deal of information before it in these Appendices, information which has never been laid before the House of Commons in any former Estimates. I assure the House that we did all we possibly could in the time at our disposal to give the fullest and most complete information in our power. In reference to shipbuilding, for instance, we have endeavoured to give the character and description of the vessels, the cost of each vessel, and the total expenditure upon each ship since its construction. The noble Lord the Member for South Paddington commented very strongly—and I sympathize with him in every word he uttered—upon the irregular and unsatisfactory manner in which money has been expended in past years, and as to the unsatisfactory statements which were given out with reference to the cost of vessels compared with the Estimates which were laid before the House. Well, Sir, I just claim, for one moment, the attention of the Committee with regard to one of the Appendices which have been laid before the House in the present Estimates. We have there set out particulars of the amounts voted last year for specific ships, compared with the actual performance or the actual expenditure on these ships, in order that the House may keep a check on the course of proceeding. Although we only came into Office late in the year, I venture to claim that our performance at the Dockyards, the expenditure upon materials, and work done, have kept up very near to the promises which were made in the Estimates. Where the performance has fallen short of the promises, it will be found due to guns not having been brought up in time to enable the construction of the ships to be proceeded with. It is perfectly absurd, to go on with the construction of the other parts of a ship that depend upon the placing of the guns until the guns have arrived; otherwise we should have to pull down work already completed, and spend large sums of money in alterations. I have alluded to the form of keeping accounts. The best way to keep accounts is to have an accurate expense account. We have heard to-night from the hon. and gallant Member for Pembroke (Admiral Mayne) and the hon. Member for Devonport (Mr. Puleston), that we do not keep correct accounts of the expenditure on the ships built in the Dockyards. They believe that if we kept our accounts close up to date we should show the cost of vessels built at the Dockyards to be very moderate as compared with the cost of those built by contract. Allusion was also made to Admiral Graham's Committee. As one of the outcomes of that Committee—as one of the recommendations which we have adopted—we have organized an expense account at the Dockyards. For the future the time of every man employed upon a certain job will be charged to that specific job on the books of the Dockyards. Every atom of material that is worked into a certain ship or work at the Dockyards will be forthwith calculated and brought to account in the debit of the ship in the expense books of the Dockyards. In this way we shall be able to carefully ascertain the amount of labour and the amount of expenditure. We shall be able to find out at once what the expenditure upon a certain ship is, and not be obliged as hitherto to wait, perhaps, a year before we are able to ascertain the particulars. I hold that it is important that when the Dockyards bring forward an estimate and declare that they are prepared to do work which will cost a certain sum of money, and the Admiralty give them that sum of money, we should have the accounts brought up so closely to date that it would be impossible to exceed that amount without the attention of the Admiralty being brought to that excess. Having organized the expense accounts of the Dockyards upon this basis, I think we shall be able to prepare a much more satisfactory estimate in the future than we have been able to in the past. My feeling is that, instead of scattering the cost of different Services over a dozen different Votes, we ought to bring all the Services of one character into one Vote, so as to show the total amount of those Services. Take an example. We have the Britannia training ship at Dartmouth. A considerable amount is spent on repairing that vessel, and that appears in the account of the Fleet generally. I maintain that it ought to appear as part of the educational charge, seeing that this ship Britannia forms a portion of the educational branch of the Service. Then take the Vote for labour. I feel that the Vote ought to show the amount spent on building vessels, the amount spent upon repairing, and the amount spent upon other Dockyard and manufacturing services, and that we should attach to each Vote such an appropriation of the amounts, that the Auditor and Accountant General may see that we have dealt with the sum the House has voted in the manner that was intended when it was voted. These are matters which have engaged the attention of the Department for some months past, with a view of originating reforms. The object in view, as I have said, is to enable the House to know exactly, or as closely as possible, for what purpose money is going, and how the money is spent, in order that the Parliamentary Auditor may afterwards see that the Board of Admiralty have applied the money in the way the House wishes to see it applied. No doubt, there will be some little difficulty in carrying out this system with precision. It must be obvious that the estimated cost of repairs to a ship made in August, September, or October, when the ship will not arrive home from her commission for, perhaps, 12 months, must be, to a large extent, speculative. Some margin must be left to the Admiralty. Ships on foreign stations, for the repair of which sums are put down in the Estimates, have not been surveyed; and it is more or less guess-work what the re pairing will coat. As regards shipbuilding, however, the House can have a precise and definite account of what is to be spent; but we shall require to have some margin at the Admiralty in order to deal with unforeseen contingencies—and there are a great many unforeseen contingencies, so far as the repairing of vessels is concerned. The object of the Admiralty, as enunciated by the noble Lord the Member for South Paddington, is to bring each account under its proper head—to show every item of expenditure on work done by the Admiralty, so that the House shall vote as nearly as possible the amount actually required to be spent during a specified time. As regards the incidental charges, it is pointed out that they bear a very high proportion to the Labour Vote of the Admiralty; but I beg hon. Members to remember that our Dockyards are not simply constructive departments. They are not merely shipbuilding yards. As I take it, they are kept open as great national institutions—as a sort of pro visional insurance ready, in case of emergency, to undertake repairs and any work which it might be necessary for them to perform were a war to break out. Therefore, we have to keep these establishments upon a very different basis to what would be necessary if they were private concerns, carried on simply for the purpose of making money for the owners, and in connection with which there was nothing else to consider but the question of money making. At the same time, whilst I am making this explanation, I am bound to admit that there are many questions in connection with incidental charges at the Admiralty which I hope to see very seriously reduced in the future. Until we get an exact account of the labour of each individual man, and an account of each individual item in the expenditure, we cannot put our finger upon those items where it will be possible to save money. Only by that means should we be able to grapple with this great charge for incidental expenses. The Committee must not run away with the idea that these charges for incidental expenses are all more or less shipbuilding charges. I should be glad if hon. Members would allow me to call attention to the fact that we have no less than five shipbuilding ports, that each of these five ports have dry docks and floating docks, and that the incidental charges cover not only the building expenses of vessels, but include the manipulation of these docks, and the passing in and out of the vessels that use them. In other words, great expenses such as those which have to be borne at St. Katherine's Docks, the London Docks, and elsewhere, have to be met in our Dockyards under this head of incidental expenses. There is another item in the incidental charges—all the expenses of constructors, salaries of inspectors, of working, and superintendence. These items ought not to go down to incidental charges. They are as much part and parcel of the expenditure of the shipbuilding as the labour of the men; and, therefore, it is an improper mode of stating accounts to include these things in the item for incidental expenses, when they are strictly applicable to the cost either of constructing or repairing vessels. I will not trouble the Committee by going through the list of these incidental charges, item by item; my eye catches one, however—namely, the dredging of harbours, which costs £28,000 a-year. That large charge is made in order to enable our Dockyards to be kept open for the ingress and egress of vessels. That is put down as an incidental charge. Then, again, we have enormous stocks of stores to keep in our Dockyards—a great reserve of stores which it is necessary for the Admiralty to keep, in order to provide against contingencies. We have the stores, and the cost of the labour attendant on the keeping of these stores, and the cost of receiving them, examining them, and delivering them. This involves an item of £33,000, and that again is included in the incidental charges. There are one or two of the other large items which do not belong to the Shipbuilding Vote, and ought not to be added to the cost of construction. When hon. Members say that the cost of a ship amounts to so much, and the incidental charges amount to so much more, a large portion of the incidental charges ought to be distributed over the ships. Clearly the mode of making out the account requires revision, so that we may see what is the cost of incidentals as applicable to the vessels, and what is the cost of keeping up the Dockyards as a great National undertaking. An allusion has been made to the cost of ships in years gone by, and the cost of building modern ships. With all respect for the noble Lord the Member for South Paddington, I submit that it is improper to draw a comparison between the cost of modern vessels and that of the vessels of 13, or 14, or 15 years ago. It is quite a misleading comparison. It is a misleading comparison to say that steel in 1874 was £13 a-ton, whereas now the same steel can be bought for £8, and that, therefore, the cost of the vessel ought to be less. Bear in mind such vessels as the Nile and Trafalgar. These ships carry a steel-faced plating which costs £100 a-ton, and when you look at the enormous quantity they carry, it is obvious that an enormous amount of expenditure has to be incurred in connection with those modern vessels which had not to be contemplated in connection with the older vessels. Such plating as this was not known 14 or 15 years ago. Such comparisons as those I describe cannot be made. Then, again, there is the question of power in which, there has been a great increase. The indicated horse-power, as applied to the hulls of the ships, has within the last two or three years increased five-fold from what it was 14 or 15 years ago. It is true the cost has decreased from about £13 per indicated horse-power to £9, yet when we take the enormous powers which are now used—10,000 or 12,000 horses in place of 2,000 or 3,000 horses in the old days—we see that the saving in the price of power is very much more than absorbed byit9 increase in the case of each ship. Then, as regards the Dockyards and their work, there is no one more anxious to keep them employed than the present Board of Admiralty. But there are matters besides the Dockyards to be considered. There is, no doubt, an advantage in going outside to private yards, as they form a guide and a test of what the cost of our own Dockyards ought to be. That is one reason why we ought to go outside. Another reason is, that it is an advantage to have other places in which we can build our ships besides our own Dockyards. I feel that we ought to bring our Dockyard work down to a normal condition—to such a position that year by year we may be able to put down a given quantity of tonnage, and thereby find employment for a certain number of men; and if then we required any additional vessels to be built, by reason of serious contingencies arising, we could put them in the hands of private firms to build. This brings me to another matter which will in some way indicate why the expenses of the Admiralty have increased, and will show the difficulties that the present Board have to face. The normal number of men employed at the Dockyards between 1877 and 1881 was about 17,000; but when the present Government came into Office, they found no fewer than 22,800 men employed, or 5,800 more than was considered the normal number of men necessary to keep the Navy in an effective state up to 1880 or 1881. I am not prepared to say 17,500 are sufficient. I believe that one reason why we have had to increase the number of men so largely during recent years has been the prevalence of a starvation system prior to 1881, and that the increase of the number since then has been to restore that fair balance of power which we ought to have maintained. Probably there may be a means as to the number of men necessary to be employed between the numbers employed prior to 1881 and the numbers now employed. The adoption of such a standard will involve the reduction of a number of hands in the Dockyards, and it is obviously a most anxious time for the Board to contemplate such a step in these troublous times of depression. We regard it as a serious thing to have to say to these men—"We have no further employment to give you;" but if we are to dispose of the taxes of the people in a satisfactory manner, it is necessary for us to be hard-hearted, and we must be prepared, I am afraid, to hear a great deal said to our disparagement. But these disagreeable conditions have to be faced, and I can assure those hon. Members representing Dockyard constituencies who have spoken this evening that the Board of Admiralty will endeavour to make these discharges in as reasonable and easy a manner as they possibly can so as to enable the men they discharge to obtain fresh employment elsewhere. Now, Sir, some remarks were made by the hon. Member for Cardiff (Sir Edward Reed) as to pensions, and I wish to tell the hon. Member that the present Board have stopped putting men on the establishment. This is not a time to discuss that matter; there is much to be said upon it pro and con; and, at any rate, until the matter is decided, the Board have determined not to increase the number on the Establishment, which is now 6,130. Then, Sir, I will not go into the question as to the difference in the cost of vessels built by contract alluded to by the hon. Member for Cardiff and the estimated cost of vessels built in the Dockyards, because the present Board had nothing whatever to do with the question of the Estimates that were prepared for ships built in the Dockyards, nor with the comparison between those vessels and the vessels built under contract. As regards fitting ships, the present Board is not responsible for the estimates of fitting in the Dockyards ships built at private yards. The Board's policy has been to put a stop to this as much as possible, and whenever they have put out vessels to contract they have required the Chief Constructor to call upon the contractor to finish the vessel so far as he could. It cannot be denied that hitherto it has been rather the custom to require contractors to do as little work as possible under contract in order to allow as large an amount of work as possible to be finished in the Dockyards. We have come to the conclusion that this is an extravagant system, and we are determined to alter it, and to have our specifications drawn, so as to provide that the ships shall not be taken from the contractor's yard into the Dockyard until there is little else to be done to them than to put in the guns. Then allusion has been made to expenditure upon ships that are worn out. Well, no one has set their faces more strenuously against expenditure of this kind than the present Board of Admiralty; but we have had to deal with the necessity of providing reliefs for foreign stations, and to do so satisfactorily we have been obliged to use vessels of an obsolete pattern in the absence of any suitable now vessel. It has only been when the necessity for relief has been urgently pressed upon us that we have consented to spend large sums on the refitting of vessels that are obsolete. We have selected in those cases ships that we considered of sufficient speed, only regarding as absolutely obsolete vessels which cannot steam 13 knots. When it has been necessary to find relief we have examined the vessels at our disposal, and in making our selection we have had regard to speed and capacity for fighting under modern circumstances, and endeavoured to avoid spending money in trying to modernize them. The hon. Member for Cardiff has alluded to the Return which was placed upon the Table of the House on Friday, and has only just been put into the hands of Members to-day. As regards the Impérieuse, the hon. Member did an injustice to the noble Lord at the head of the Admiralty (Lord George Hamilton) in reference to those matters. I am one of those who do not hesitate to state the facts as they are. The facts as to the displacement of the Impérieitse will show how correct was the noble Lord at the head of the Admiralty in his statement with regard to the vessel. She was originally laid down, and in the Estimate originally presented to Parliament she was intended to have a displacement of 7,390 tons. Now, as my noble Friend has explained, it has not been the custom to have detailed particulars of alterations presented to Parliament until a ship is completed. Until a ship is completed you cannot have the actual displacement accurately known. With regard to the Impérieuse, let me remark that when the then Secretary to the Admiralty announced that the Admiralty were going to lay down a number of ships of which the Impérieuse was one, the actual designs for the vessel were not completed, having once stated in the House that it was proposed to build such a ship immediately, the Dockyards were greedy for the work of building in order to find employment for the men, they pushed on the work of construction, really before the plans and calculations had been properly made out. They started with a figure—7,390 tons displacement; but, as the hon. Member for Cardiff well knows, constructors when they do lay down ships rather increase upon the lines, and put a fraction of an inch more here, and a fraction of an inch more there, so as to guard against their calculation being increased. The result was in the case of the Impérieuse that instead of the displacement being as stated in the original estimates it amounted to 7,470 tons. That does not seem to me at all an un- reasonable margin for the constructors to take. As I have stated, it is to be explained by the fact that the constructors were in a hurry to get the ships on to the stocks. By the time the ship had progressed so far that no alteration could be made in her internal dimensions a determination was come to as to her armament, a doubt then arose in the minds of the Admiralty as to the stability of the ship, and six inches of planking were added to the outside of the vessel on each side, which had the effect of increasing the stability, but affected her displacement very little. The ship only gained 15 tons displacement instead of 80, had they put the extra beam into the interior of the ship. This additional planking brought the vessel up to the displacement of 7,600 tons.

Who is responsible for this?

The matter is one of the dim and distant past. I have stated the facts simply as they were, and as we found them, and I wish only to take that case as it has been alluded to by the hon. Member for Cardiff. I can assure the Committee that we have endeavoured, by our new regulations which we have laid down, to put a stop to any mistakes of this kind in the future. One of the earliest decisions taken up by the present Board was that the contractors and designers shall have an accurate knowledge of the weight of the ship to be constructed, of the weight of the engines, and of the armaments, and an accurate knowledge also of the number of men to be carried; and we require the officers responsible for the engines, the armaments, and the men to say whether the weights put down in the ledger are correct, so that when a ship is partly constructed, and it is said we want more of this, and more of that, there shall be someone to whom responsibility can be attached for having advised the Board. I have endeavoured to set before the Committee the policy of the Board of Admiralty, which is governed by common sense and by business principles such as would influence any private manufacturing firm; and I hope that that policy will be judged, not by work which the present Board has merely had to complete, but by work which it may itself originate.

Mr. Courtney, I should like, in the first place, to point out what is the obvious lesson of this evening's discussion. The debate only confirms the impression I have formed, after successive debates in this House, that a Committee of the Whole House is not altogether a competent tribunal to deal with the details of these Estimates, and I hope that every hon. Member of the House will feel grateful to the noble Lord the Member for South Paddington (Lord Randolph Churchill) for having moved for the Committee on the Estimates, now sitting upstairs. I think that the existence of that Committee should make us comparatively careless of the result of this debate. Already it has justified its existence by a good deal of work on the Army Estimates, and when it comes to deal with the Navy Estimates I think it will be shown that there is a good deal of foundation for the speech of the noble Lord. I think the noble Lord has a little overdone his case, but I have not much fault to find with him for that. He has endeavoured to make abuses visible to the naked eye; and, in the main, I think it will be found that his speech is justified by the facts. The noble Lord the First Lord of the Admiralty (Lord George Hamilton) stated at the close of his speech that he thought he had answered nearly all the points brought forward by the noble Lord the Member for South Paddington. The noble Lord the First Lord of the Admiralty made a very able speech, and one which I listened to with very great attention; but I venture to think that not even he, as he is, would be capable of dealing with one-tenth part of the questions brought forward by the noble Lord the Member for South Paddington in the hour which he gave to them. Many of the points brought forward by the noble Lord and other hon. Members it is impossible to discuss in Committee of the Whole House. There is the point raised by the hon. Member for Cardiff (Sir Edward Reed), and which has often been raised before, as to the belts of the Impérieuse and other ships. I do not think it is possible for any layman, or for anybody who is not an expert like the hon. Member himself, to properly discuss that question. We ought to have that distinguished engineer, Mr. White—Chief Constructor— in the House; we ought to have diagrams hung all over the walls of the House, and Mr. White walking up and down with a fishing rod explaining important points, and illustrating his explanations by the diagrams. It is quite easy, however, to bring experts before a Committee, and to examine them as witnesses. I must say that to my mind, at any rate, a Committee of the Whole House is not a competent tribunal to deal with the various questions which arise upon the Army and Navy Estimates, seeing that Members are not able to examine witnesses or to talk to the experts face to face. We have had a reference made to-night to a custom which has prevailed in past times at the Admiralty, and which I rather gathered from the speech of the noble Lord the First Lord of the Admiralty is to be done away with. We have already had a Parliamentary Paper containing some statements which encourage us to think that the habit of altering the details of a ship during construction will not be continued.

It refers to the adding of weight.

A Paper has just been laid on the Table in accordance with a Motion made by myself, and it gives a very simple record of the way in which the Impérieuse has been altered during construction. It was decided to build her, I think—I am not sure of the date—in January or February, 1882. There have been six important changes made in the ship during her construction, and the increased cost has amounted to £90,000. Now, the question that has to be asked in deciding whether or not consecutive Boards of Admiralty, who have had charge of the building of the ship, have been justified in their increased expenditure was whether the improvements have been worth the increased cost. I find that of these six important changes the earliest was made in February, 1882, and the last on the 13th of November, 1886. The Impérieuse was a good ship as designed, but the different inventions and improvements brought out whilst she was in course of construction induced admirals, constructors, and other experts to press the Board of Admiralty to make various changes in her. The first improvement was an increase of three-quarters of a knot in speed—to my mind a very important improvement. Then she had 3,000 additional miles given to her by means of increased coal-carrying capacity. Then her heavy armament was increased, and the number of torpedoes carried by her was increased from three to 18. Subsequently, some very small improvements were made in her many small engines; and, lastly, a torpedo-net was provided. But the result of these various improvements was to put the ship lower down in the water. As far as I can make out, that is the only deterioration which has resulted from the improvements—that is to say, that the height of the armour above water has been decreased by 1 foot 10 inches out of a total of 3 feet 3 inches. I am told that the report of the trial trip of the Impérieuse has been laid on the Table. I have not yet seen it; but I understand that the effect of it is to justify, or that it professes to justify, the changes which have been made.

On the contrary, the Report says that great changes are necessary.

Well, that may be so; but what hon. Members who are exports in these matters have to determine for us is whether or not the net improvement—if there be a net improvement—in consequence of these changes is worth £90,000. I do not myself think they are. I am strongly opposed to altering ships during the time of construction, and I think it would be wise, when once a design is adopted, to adhere to it until the ship is completed. If it be necessary to lay down fresh ships to compete with the new ships of rival Powers, by all means do it; but I think the story of the Impérieuse is a very fair instance of the way in which the cost of a ship is increased by altering it during the time of construction. There is, however, an impression among hon. Members who are not experts on naval questions that the increased cost of the Impérieuse was not necessary, and that the whole of it has gone for nothing. I wish to point out that that is not the case. As to the question of engineer students, the noble Lord the First Lord of the Admiralty very justly pointed out, in reply to the noble Lord the Member for South Paddington, that it would be quite possible for an engineer student, after having had six years' instruction in engineering, to escape entering the Admiralty, and so gain all the advantage of the Government instruction for no thin g by wilfully refusing to answer questions at the examination. Now, I would suggest that this difficulty might be got over by providing that every parent or guardian of a boy entering the Naval School should be called upon to give a bond that if the lad does not enter the Navy, or if he fails in the examination, they will pay a sum of £500 for the education given to him at the cost of the nation. There is another point on which I should like to say a few words—namely, the rival advantages of private firms and dockyards. It must not be forgotten that the men who are employed in our Dockyards constitute a standing army of artificers in case of war. The question we have to ask ourselves is whether or not we are to maintain such a standing army. If we are—and certainly if we have a war with a first-class Power that standing army will have to be largely increased—it becomes necessary to drill the men composing it, and the only way to do this is to keep them employed. The thing to do in your Dockyards is to find out how much shipbuilding is necessary, to give sufficient work to the Dockyards to keep the men employed, and to have the rest done by contract. On the general question of economy I do not wish to say much. A Committee has been appointed; I think that Committee is fit for its work, and when it reports I think the noble Lord the Member for South Paddington will find in it great justification for the attack he has made on the economy and the efficiency of the Admiralty.

The hon. Member for Barrow-in-Furness (Mr. Caine) has challenged the Admirals in the House to answer a question as to the efficiency of the Impérieuse. I have no hesitation in saying that the so-called improvements in that ship, with the single exception of the one which enables her to carry more coal, sink into utter insignificance when compared with the great detriment she has sustained by reason of the partial submersion of her armour plating. I myself have been always opposed to constant changes of front in the construction of ships. I think that when a ship is once laid down she ought to be completed and launched as soon as possible. It is a perfect impossibility that any ship can be made quite perfect. You must go the nearest way to work, and in order to do that you must complete your ships as soon as possible. There is another question which the hon. Member (Mr. Caine) touched upon, and one which the noble Lord the First Lord of the Admiralty (Lord George Hamilton) dealt with in a way which caused me considerable regret—I refer to the subject of the engineer students. I would remind the Committee that a Committee sat on this subject, and that they expressed a unanimous opinion that the time had arrived when we should educate our engineer officers for ourselves. There are other points to be considered besides the main question of getting a sufficient number of engineer officers. There are social questions, for instance, which ought not to be lost sight of. It is desirable that engineer officers should take their place on the quarter-deck with the other officers. It is a necessity that these men should be brought up from an early age in habits of discipline like other officers, and I have no hesitation in saying that it would be the greatest mistake in the world if we did away with the Colleges for engineer students. I am perfectly aware of the fact that sometimes there may be a young man who does not desire to go on with the profession for which he had been intended, but wishes to adopt some other walk of life. I believe, however, that this is not very often the case, and I think that such a case would be met by exacting from the parents or guardians a fine of, not £500, as suggested by the hon. Member for Barrow—because I think that is a great deal too much, and that it would prevent a great many youths being entered in the Colleges—but of £100. This amount might be exacted if a boy did not pass the examination when it was perfectly well known that he could if he chose. There are one or two other questions that I must touch upon. I agree, in the main, with what has been said by the noble Lord the Member for South Paddington (Lord Randolph Churchill); but I also concur with the hon. Member for Barrow in thinking that, as far as the present Board of Admiralty is concerned, the noble Lord the Member for South Paddington has been, perhaps, a little bit inclined to overstate his case. I am perfectly certain, however, that there has been any amount of extravagance in the Dockyards and any amount of want of supervision. I will give the Committee an instance of what certainly occurred some years ago, but of what is, I am sorry to say, pretty nearly the same at the present day. It was determined to fit a certain class of corvette with an auxiliary rudder. Surely, in making an experiment of that kind, it would have been wise to have fitted one vessel first to see whether the thing answered. But the Admiralty insisted on fitting eight, or nearly the whole of the vessels, with the now invention. The whole thing turned out to be a signal failure, and the consequence was that the expense of fitting the eight vessels was thrown away. Well, what did the Admiralty do next? They fitted the Canada with a most ridiculous rudder, which weighed 10 tons and took up a large portion of that part of the ship's space which was most wanted. The consequence was that it was not only an element of the greatest danger, because it interfered very much with the ram, but it was of no good. The fitting of the rudder cost, I suppose, £2,000 or £3,000, and the thing is at the present moment lying in Bermuda Yard perfectly useless. It was found that it only altered the course of the ship a couple of degrees in a quarter of an hour. A similar thing occurred with regard to the Sultan two years ago. Two rudders which were fitted to the ship at great expense were found, when tried, to be utterly and entirely useless. There is another silly thing that the Admiralty do. They build vessels by the half-dozen, instead of building one at a time, so as to find out where the faults lie and what improvements can be made. I have no hesitation in saying that you would be able, on trial, to see the necessity for improvement in any vessel. On Saturday hon. Members who go to the Naval Review will see 10 gun-boats; but I would rather not call them gunboats, for they are something between a clock case and a bathing machine. They are all perfectly useless. One of them is employed as a tender in Portsmouth Harbour, and when it is under weigh all the other vessels sheer off, because those on board are perfectly certain that she will run into something. If one of these 10 boats had been tried first, the other nine would never have been built. As to the question of the Dockyards, I am not going to deal with it as the Representative of a port in which there are shipbuilding yards, but from a naval point of view. I am not desirous of taking away any work from the Dockyards; but, at the same time, I do think that there is plenty of room for contract work outside the Dockyards. But what I complain of is—and this is the general complaint throughout England—that the contracts are not only not served out fairly, but nobody knows what the contract prices are. I myself think, and I believe it is the general opinion, that kissing goes by favour. I think that if the tenders were issued to a very much larger number of firms the work done would be more satisfactory. We are told—"Oh, such and such a firm is not on the list;" or, "Such and such a firm is on the list." But if a firm is on the list, and is not in the inner ring, it gets no work to do. [Mr. FORWOOD: No, no!] The hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Admiralty says "No, no!"—

I beg pardon. What I said was that that was not in this Vote.

I shall be happy to discuss this matter on Vote 10; but I understood that we might do so on this Vote. Well, what I wish to say is, that if there were more firms employed the contract work would be very much better done. I know myself of one or two instances in which really excellent work could have been done by firms which have never had the opportunity of tendering. And why have they not had that opportunity? They have built large merchant ships which have given satisfaction in every way to large Companies, and I have no hesitation in saying that they could give satisfaction to the Government in the same way. At the same time, I. affirm that during times of peace we ought to educate all the shipbuilding yards of the country as much as we can, so that in time of war they may be able to do the work required of them. Government work is a speciality, and people must know how to do it. Then there is the question of torpedo boats. If instead of only three or four firms being favoured with the orders for torpedo boats there were dozens of such firms, the work would be done just as well, and for a great deal less money. I hope that what I have said in this respect may have a little influence on the First Lord of the Admiralty. I should myself be very averse for one moment to set up the Dockyard system and the contract system one against the other, because I do not think it is at all necessary to do so.

The noble Lord the Member for South Paddington (Lord Randolph Churchill) has brought charges against various Admiralty Administrations, and has formulated his charges under five distinct heads, three of which I will name. The first related to direct charges for ship-building; the second was the insufficiency of the audit of accounts; and the third was the useless expense in connection with repairs. As regards the question of the audit of accounts, I fully agree with the noble Lord. All I can gather is that the audit of accounts is as inefficient as it can possibly be. But with regard to the question of incidental charges, as compared with direct charges, I am distinctly at issue with the noble Lord. The noble Lord came down with a mass of figures. I do not know where he obtained them from—

From the Estimates.

I cannot find them in the Estimates, and I do not find that they tally with the Estimates now before the Committee. I will give an instance. The noble Lord compared the cost of the Camperdown, which was built in a Government Dockyard, with the Benbow, which was built by contract. He said that the cost of the Camperdown was something like £60,000 more than that of the Benbow.

No. Perhaps the hon. and gallant Member will allow me to explain. It is as well to be accurate in these matters. What I stated was that in the original Estimates respecting the Camperdown and the Benbow. there was a difference in favour of the Benbow, and that after the contract had been altered there was still a difference in her favour of £14,000.

I think the impression given to the Committee by the noble Lord was that the total cost of the Camperdown was much greater than that of the Benbow. I dispute that. I find that, on the contrary, the total cost of the Benbow was £60,000 greater than that of the Camperdown. The noble Lord has told us this evening what incidental expenses are. I submit that his description of what he calls incidental charges is totally inaccurate and misleading, and I think that if the noble Lord could explain to the Committee what incidental charges really are, he would be a much abler man than I take him to be. I would point out that this question of incidental charges was considered by a Committee of this House in 1884. Part of the duty of that Committee was to ascertain whether the ships made in the Dockyards were dearer or cheaper than those made in private yards. What was the composition of that Committee? Was it composed of men who were likely to tell us that it was cheaper to build in the Royal Dockyards? Not at all. No less than five out of the seven Members were either shipbuilders, or men connected with private shipbuilding yards. You might almost as well take seven Members of the extreme Nationalist Party and ask them to consider whether it was better that Ireland should or should not have a Parliament in Dublin. Well, what was the evidence given before that Committee as to the question of incidental charges? Take the evidence of the Accountant General, Mr. Willis. He says, practically, that it is impossible to state what incidental charges really are in regard to the cost of building ships. At the end, the same witness said it was difficult to ascertain and determine with preciseness the proportion of incidental charges which are applicable to shipbuilding alone; and the Committee themselves, composed, as they were, of private shipbuilders, actually say in their Report—

"The evidence given by the Accountant General of the Navy is sufficient to show that the whole expenditure on incidental charges is so obscure as to render unreliable any comparison between shipbuilding in public and private yards."

I quoted that.

I hope that the noble Lord, if he presides over a Committee upon the Navy Estimates, will call before the Committee witnesses who are really accustomed to deal with this matter, and who by experience know exactly what the incidental charges of the Dockyards amount to. Now, on this point the noble Lord (Lord Ran- dolph Churchill) went so far as to tell us that no less than 70 per cent of the whole charges on shipbuilding in the Royal Dockyards ought to be put to incidental charges. He said that the labour and material expended on the ships this year amounted to £1,100,000, and that the indirect charges were no less than £774,000, which, as he told us, was 70 per cent of the whole. But what are these incidental charges? He takes the whole of the sums voted for our Dockyards, and cuts them up into two parts; he says that the £1,100,000 is due to labour and material, and that the whole of the rest is due to incidental charges which we must heap upon the ships to ascertain what their real cost is. This ought not to be so. It has been shown to-night by others that our Royal Dockyards are not Dockyards only for shipbuilding—they are quite different to private yards. In private yards a ship is built so that she may go to sea; she may go to the bottom for anything the builder cares; at any rate, she is never seen in the private yard again. The duty of a private yard is simply to turn out the ships; that is not so with the Royal Dockyards. The Royal Dockyards are great store-houses. The whole of the labour which is expended in accumulating these vast stores, not only for shipbuilding, but for the whole purposes of the Fleet—stores of coal and material of all kinds—comes under the heading of incidental charges; so that actually when the noble Lord tells us what the cost of certain ships is, he absolutely includes the charges for chaplains, for dredging the harbours, for laying down of moorings, and for 500 other things which have nothing to do with shipbuilding, and which are not chargeable to shipbuilding in private yards. Let me add one or two items. There is a very large charge for the police force in the Royal Dockyards; it amounts to £45,000. [Lord RANDOLPH CHURCHILL: £35,000.] I think it is more than that. There is no expenditure for police in private yards; the police are paid for by the locality out of local rates. Then there is a sum of £230,000 for salaries in the Dockyards; these salaries are not all for shipbuilding, but only a small part of them. A very large proportion of the salaries are for work done in the Navy afloat, and not building. My hon. Friend the Mem- ber for Cardiff (Sir Edward Reed) said something about pensions; he said that in addition to all this you ought to add to the cost of your ships the cost of the pensions which you are giving to the men on your establishments; and the noble Lord (Lord Randolph Churchill) cheered my hon. Friend (Sir Edward Reed) when he made that statement, Is my hon. Friend aware, and is the Committee aware, that this sum due for pensions is added to the cost of the ships? The evidence given by the Accountant General upon this point was very clear. He was asked how, when dealing with the question of labour, they dealt with the expectation of pensions; and he said it was decided in 1868 that a charge should be added to the salaries of officers and clerks, and to the pay of the workmen to represent the eventual charge for pensions, and he actually gave the opinion that 70 per cent would fairly represent the eventual charge. Just one word as regards pensions. Does the Committee know that the established men receive from 2s. to 4s. per week less than the hired men, and that this compensates for the pensions we are to pay hereafter? It is absurd, therefore, to try and bring the Committee to imagine that these pensions are perfectly unnecessary. If they are done away with, you must add to the wages of the men to compensate them for the loss they would suffer, and to bring their wages up to the wages of the hired men. You would not give a man who has worked for 30 years continuously a lower wage than a man who has been in the yard for a few months at a time—at least, I think it would be very unwise to do so. Now, again, as to the question of incidental charges. I really think that the noble Lord's own argument shows how absurd it is to charge everything not actually labour or material to incidental charges on the ships. He mentioned the case of Hong Kong, which is a very extreme case. He said that the labour at Hong Kong amounted to about £10,000 a-year, and that the incidental charges amounted to £29,000. But what does the Establishment at Hong Kong exist for? It exists so that in time of war we may have a Dockyard to which our men-of-war may run for repairs. There is no building done there and there is only a very small amount of repairing; and, therefore, what the noble Lord calls incidental charge is very much in comparison with the amount spent on labour. I think that is sufficient to show that these Dockyards really do not exist for shipbuilding alone, but for great State or National reasons. Now, I come to a further head of the noble Lord's charges, and my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff dwelt a very great deal upon it also—the question of the useless expenditure on repairs. The noble Lord the Member for South Paddington said that the Agincourt and Minotaur were perfectly useless. [Lord RANDOLPH CHURCHILL: For fighting purposes.] Is the noble Lord aware that in Foreign Navies there are a good many ships which these ships would be fully competent to fight; and, if that is the case, why should you do away with them? My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff talked about the Black Prince, and said what an absurdity it was to trot her out at the Naval Review we are all going to on Saturday. I do not altogether disagree with my hon. Friend; but I want to know what the economists will say to this argument? What will the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Central Bradford (Mr. Shaw Lefevre), who generally comes down and preaches to us upon economy in naval matters, say, and what will the other economists in this House say upon this subject? What have we been accustomed to hoar in these debates? I and the other hon. Members who are always preaching efficiency in the Navy have been from time to time accustomed on these occasions to make comparisons between the Fleet of England and the Fleets of foreign countries, very much to the disgust of the official Members on both sides of the House, and how are we met? Those who represent the Navy for the time being give us a description, from their point of view, of the French Fleet and other Foreign Navies, which they always very carefully minimize; and then they drag out a long list of the ships in the British Fleet, and invariably in that list figure such ships as the Black Prince, the Minotaur, and the Agincourt, and so on, and they are cheered to the echo by the economists, when they say—"Look at the splendid Fleet we have got! If these ships are worthy of appearing in our Naval Lists, they are lit to be sent down to the Review at Spit- head." If economists consider that these ships should be done away with, something better should be put in their place. I wish something like that could be done, but it is absurd to use both arguments; either we should have them or we should not. The noble Lord the First Lord of the Admiralty said that from time to time he had to submit to a good deal of pressure from Members representing Dockyard constituencies, and I was very glad to hear that he does sometimes submit to pressure from local officers not to too largely decrease the numbers of the workmen in the Yards. I am quite certain my constituents do not wish for men to be kept on in such numbers as cannot be employed. My constituents are patriotic enough to know that efficiency is, of course, the first thing to look after, but that economy must be also considered; and all I have ever done and shall continue to do is to ask the noble Lord the First Lord of the Admiralty and the House to take care that these discharges, if they must be made, shall be made at a time of the year when the men can get employment, and that the Admiralty should even go so far as to try and get employment for them. I myself remember that 25 years ago there was a serious reduction made in the number of the men engaged in the Dockyards. The men did not know where to go; they emigrated to America in thousands. What was done then has never been forgotten in the Dockyard constituencies. I hope the noble Lord will bear this in mind, and will be careful how reductions are made, and will do all he can to get the men other employment.

I rise with considerable diffidence to speak on this question. As my name is so much associated with a large shipbuilding company, I naturally abstain as much as possible from taking part in these debates; but so much reference has been made to-night to a Committee which was presided over by Lord Ravensworth that I feel it to be my duty to say a few words. The noble Lord the Member for South Paddington (Lord Randolph Churchill) referred in complimentary terms to the benefits derived by the Admiralty from the Report that the Committee of which I was a Member submitted. But the hon. and gallant Member for Devonport (Captain Price) has questioned the constitution of that Committee. In the first place, I may take the blame or the credit, whichever it may be, of the constitution of the Committee. It was originated by myself by impressing upon Lord North-brook, who was then the First Lord of the Admiralty, the necessity for a Committee of experts to be formed in order to investigate the management of the Dockyards, and a system of the repairing of ships. The noble Lord acceded to my request, and all the Members of the Committee, with the exception of two, I recommended—the two exceptions being the Gentleman who represented the Admiralty and the Gentleman appointed by the Treasury. Entering upon our investigations, we naturally desired to know how we could accomplish the building of ships within a reasonable time. If the hon. and gallant Member (Captain Price) has read the evidence given before that Committee, he will have discovered that our great object was to bring about that the shipbuilding in the Royal Dockyards, as well as in private yards, should be done in a reasonable time—namely, that specifications and plans should be put forward-in such a perfect state that shipbuilders might be able to give their complete estimates, and to turn out the ships in a given time. Of course, our desire extended to the Dockyards as well as to private yards. It was, in the first place, stated to us that it was almost a matter of impossibility to accomplish this, and the reason given before the Committee was that our armaments changed so materially from day to day that we could scarcely know what the fittings of a ship would be before she was complete. In the end, we came to the conclusion that we must throw aside the question of armaments, and when the work was put out no deviation from the design should be allowed until the completion of the vessel. That was the first recommendation of the Committee, and that very fact really explains away a good deal of what the noble Lord has said as to the extra cost over and above the estimates in shipbuilding. Unless you know what work you are about to undertake and to finish, and when you can finish it, it is impossible to know what extra expense will be incurred. Hitherto, the building of ships has been left to the discretion of the overseers, so that it has been quite impossible for contractors to know what the ultimate cost would be. The result of all this has been that our ships have far exceeded in cost the estimates, and that altogether the building of ships has been most unsatisfactory. Now, what has been the effect of the Report of Lord Ravens worth's Committee? All the difficulties have been overcome. The Report was followed up, because I took care that it should be followed up by the Admiralty by the appointment of a Departmental Committee to see that the Report was carried out. Specifications are now put forward of such a character that contractors and our Dockyard Authorities know precisely the work they are to proceed with. The result has been beneficial, as proved in the case of two ships which have been built in the private yards connected with my name, the Orlando and the Undaunted. These ships were completed three or four months before the contracted time, and that shows that great progress is being made in that Department of the Admiralty, and that improvements may be made in Dockyard administration. But the House must remember that the administration of such great establishments as the Dockyards of this country cannot be changed in a day. There are great faults, no doubt, in the administration of the Dockyards; but it requires lime and great care before you entirely change it. In pursuing my investigations in regard to these Dockyards I went down to Chatham, and wont through the shipbuilding departments; and I must confess that I was not surprised that the shipbuilding at Chatham should far exceed in cost the shipbuilding in private yards. They have not the proper machinery at Chatham for building ships; and I myself suggested the clause in the Committee's Report which has been read, I think, by the noble Lord, to the effect that the machinery in our Dockyards was very imperfect. Another point has been raised by the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Devonport (Captain Price)—namely, the pensions of the men. Now, I venture to say that if our men were not under better control than the men in the Dockyards, we should not be able to work at the price we do. The pension question is a very serious one, and one which must undoubtedly be abolished. What is the result of the pension system? Men have a claim upon the Dockyards. The Chief Comptroller or Director of Shipbuilding in the Dockyards has no control over his own men. He may see a man loitering, or not doing his work properly, and he may report him to the Admiral Superintendent. Considering that the man has a pension to look forward to, the Admiral Superintendent merely gives him a little lecture, and sends him back to his work. We would not do that in a private yard; and, therefore, the time has come when the pension system will have to be reconsidered. If our Dockyards are to compete with private yards, they must be placed on the same footing—namely, the footing of perfect independence on both sides—on the part of the workmen as well as of the authorities. I will not trespass on the time of the House by entering on the question of the system pursued in our Dockyards; but I venture to say that the time must come when you will have to separate the constructive departments in the Dockyards from the naval element. Let the constructive departments take the responsibility of building ships up to the period at which they can hand the ships over to the naval department. Let our naval officers give their advice as to what the armaments should be, but not interfere when the building is going on. Interference with construction by naval officers is one of the most serious difficulties experienced in our Dockyards. Now, I think I have explained away some of the attacks which have been made on the Dockyard system—at any rate, I am quite sure of this, that great improvements are being made in the system, and if the lines which were laid down by Lord Ravens-worth's Committee are followed throughout, I am satisfied that we shall find in future that our ships are not only built at a less cost, but are built in the time specified and at the cost estimated. There is no doubt whatever that, as a general principle—and possibly the Committee may think I speak somewhat interestedly, and that is the reason why I speak with some diffidence—it has become almost a necessity that the large shipbuilding establishments in the country should be entrusted with the building of the ships which the Admiralty require, that the minds of the great shipbuilding establishments should be directed towards naval construction, and that the Dockyards should confine themselves largely to repairs.

I should like to make a few remarks in reference to the speech of the noble Lord the Member for South Paddington (Lord Randolph Churchill). From his remarks it will probably appear to some hon. Members possibly that the whole of the bad administration of which he complains is due to the present Board of Admiralty. I should like to point out that though, as a rule, the noble Lord's remarks are founded on facts, he exaggerates. The people who communicate with him tell him what is not actually the fact. Many people, like myself, who really wish to reform the Navy, and who really wish to get money's worth, are put in a false position. By having to come down and contradict certain statements of the noble Lord, it appears as if we defend the entire system, whereas we do not approve of it. I shall endeavour to make my remarks without the pomposity about which the noble Lord has spoken. Many points the noble Lord referred to as requiring reform have been found out, as far as the Admiralty is concerned, by Committees which my noble Friend the First Lord of the Admiralty (Lord George Hamilton) has started. The deficiency, the maladministration, the want of organization generally have really been found out by the Committee appointed by my noble Friend. It has been remarked in reference to the Admiralty that they do not know their own mind; but I deny that that is so in the case of the present Board of Admiralty. I do not blame the former Boards of Admiralty, but I do blame the system under which they worked, and that system we are now trying to alter. Some remarks have been made as to the Téméraire and Inflexible, but the noble Lord is right about that. They took some years to build, and their armament was altered, and so circumstances connected with their draught were altered also. The present Board have arranged, when we lay down a ship, that it shall be built, and turned out, and commanded as she was originally planned, and all within a third or a quarter of the time which was formerly occupied. The Nile and Trafalgar will be turned out, and will have their pennants up, in three years from the time they were laid down, or perhaps four years.