The Express.
London, England, 1860-05-17 00:00:00

Zte erortiss.

TO 001LOWONDIDITT.
Owelloommis folisioll .Tbs ispreas" 101400 Evening
= mad
la the dor el pOlsOlio.
be al as 11.91. 1 0, Jouverlastreet, by Two

MATMAILEII7.
This Crook 113 YAKUT WRIT. Mitsms.W. Pang"
M Mien. , BeekMow : Mks Aug
Pec rzirf=2=l BM Mr. .
Magda Sawaser, Mir Itteman.—Aa4 TMIL MUM CiPtiri

!II Nqdrel.

Sues gruel's. OTHILidT Ira sod Ryder lees
BasliVand Nina Salaam—AM Till ITLPII Idasna 1
idenaburs about, and Sakes. Mims C. Leskres, L [wk
),1.
Jain and H. Howard.

JAMI. 6
TES Iniromk A YIUIND IY MEAD. loam ►. Robinson.
7 artlileard; Miss Mrtrry.-11ADO. 11,. C. Too,; Mks
—AM A CILL.NOIL OF SYSTEM

lIRITAIITLi.

Ts IifiMMDA 11111 431110a=linsirs-wiliney random r
PHI LADY Or LYONS. Moor IL Firma and C. Dim .I4a A.
lair Mir L Arra CHAMPION OF lINOLAND.—And
11111 M TIMM Of MARAIMLLIA

MON_ WATiI

DFilik4elefrilii:A47•77.7lllol.
UhiMaul, —Naming, vh. ....Afirraoca. OIL NEL

LONDON, THURSDAY, MAY 17.

Lrr us know the worst of it. This should be
the demand of the House of Commons in all that
relates to naval administration. We have never
asked for more than this, and we shall never be
satisfied with less. The habit of suppression is
so familiar to the official mind, and the disposition
to make things pleasant so ingrained, that only the
other day, Sir JOHN PA RINOTON, a past and
possible First Lord, was fain to request the pre-
sent Sr.i.rarrsay of the ADMIRALTY to " tell the
" truth " about the gunboats. This seems a
modest re.juest enough applied to the ordinary
transactions of life, and one that ought not to be
too difficult to gratify. But Sir Joan Psantorotr—
moved, no doubt, by a keen remembrance of the
sensitiveness of the official conscience--felt that to
• the delicate ear of ir Secretary to a Department it
might sound unreasonably abrupt and peremptory,
so he hastened to soften it down by a Pickwickian
expletive and a parliamentary amplification.
" I do not imply that the noble lord
" will be disinclined to tell the truth,
" but I hope that the whole truth will be
" candidly told, and that he will inform the
" Home whether there is any fair ground of
" serious imputation against the contractors." To
this tolerant appeal Lord Ctriancn Peonr made
answer with the best possible grime, yet with a
frankness rather of form than of substance. His
most anxious wish was not to let us know the
worst of it : quite the reverse. "I think," he
said, "that the first business I should perform is
" to endeavour to allay considerable anxiety that
" exists as to the whole number of the gun and
" mortar boats in the Navy being rotten and un-
" fit for use." That is the function of the De-
partment—" to allay anxiety." And how did
the Sscizraay Of the ADMIRALTY perform this
emollient function f By a statement which may be
summed up as follows :—Besides the gunboats
on foreign service, twenty-three "in a partial
" state of decay have been completely
" repaired." There are six at present "on hand "
for examination, and sixteen hauled up on Haslar
slip, and as yet unexamined. There are forty
afloat in the steam reserve, which " have not
" shown any signs of decay," not having been
examined. As to the sixteen on Hula: slip, the
Secretary volunteers a cautious assurance " The
" public must not give way to the fear that they
" will be found defective." And as to the forty
afloat the Secretary is quite easy in his mind :
" I am very hopeful that those which are afloat
" will not require such extensive repairs as has
" been supposed." As to the mortar boats : " I
" must own that some of them which we have
" opened have been found MI au extremely
" defective state." The Secretary, in order to
allay anxiety, forbears to tell us how many have
not been found in " an extremely defective state."
Of the gunboats built in the Government yards,
eleven have had to undergo considerable repairs.
So that it is not only the contractors who deserve
hanging. Indeed some of the contractors are in
a position to plead an "extenuating circum-
" stance" in the quality of the timber.
It comes out that one told the Admiralty
" candidly"— a favourite word with the A druiralty
that he had not seasoned timber enough in
store to go on with ; and, notwithstanding, he
was desired to "go on building." The fastening
with short bolts is not so susceptible of explana-
tion, and on this point it is satisfactory to the
country to learn that the Admiralty is actually
taking legal advice—for the satisfaction, we 'op-
pose, of the officers and crews of the unexamined
gunboats on foreign service. The Freer Lords
account of the matter, however, was fair enough,
inasmuch as it absolved the short bolts from the
suspicion attaching to contractors' copper. " The
" copper was supplied by the Government." Only
one or two eases of short bolts have been discovered,
says the FIRST Loan of the ADMIRALTY ; and we
are permitted to conjecture very freely how they
came there, when we are reminded that the con-
tractors, all hut ruined by the concurrent
rise in the price of timber and in wages, were
working day and night, " when the snow was
" on the ground," under a sudden and extreme
pressure. The Duke of Sousamer, therefore, at-
tributes the short bolts, not to any shipbuilder,
but to some "scratch" workmen brought in at a
critical moment, and doing job and task work at an
hours of the day and night. A couple of experts
were detached from the royal yards, as inspectorand
sub-inspector, to the yards intwhich the boats were
building ; but "the snow was on the ground," and
the work was carried on through the night, and
so the short bolts went smoothly and noiselessly
into the green timber, and the inspector and sub.
inspector may or may not have been standing and
shivering by on eateries that would make very
short bolts indeed if the annual total were counted
out in copper. A Department has a right to reckon
upon the absolute integrity of all whom it employs,
from the highest grade to the lowest; but