The Sun.
London, England, 1863-03-14 00:00:00

IRON SHIPBUILDING.

Mr. John Ford, Managing Director of the Thames
Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company, in a letter
to a contemporary, dated March 10, says :
A paper on the construction of ships for her Ma-
jesty's navy has just been presented to Parliament
and printed.

It is signed by the Controller of the Navy, and
contains charges so grave, and at the same time so
unfounded, against the contractors by whom our
iron-cased-ships have been built, and singles out so
especially our firm, the builders of the Warrior, that
We cannot pass it over in silence, and must request
the favour of your giving our reply a place in your
columns.

We are accused of "general slovenliness in the
work," of being " beset by great temptation to use
inferior and cheaper material," of taking advantage
of any alteration or improvement being desired to
enforce exorbitant terms for its execution ; and of
failing altogether, in common with all the other
contractors, to fulfil our agreements either as to
time or cost.

To all these accusations we give an indignant
and complete denial. We challenge the Controller
of the Navy and all his officers to produce a single
example of slovenliness in workmanship or infe-
riority in material. We appeal to the thousands
who have seen the Warrior, to every practical
man who has examined her (and where are those
who have not ?) as to her present condition after
more than a 12 month's trial through the worst
weather, and to the reports of her captain, as our
vindication against these charges ; and with the
great companies for whom we have built some of
the finest vessels afloat, with foreign Governments,
by whom we are largely employed, and with the
private firms for whom we have worked, we hope
that we have established a reputation which will
withstand even such a blow as one in the high posi-
tion, and armed with the authority of Controller
of the Navy, has thus sought to deal against it.
With respect to the charge of claiming exorbi-
tant terms for making alterations, we are able to
prove that in no instance have we received even
adequate remuneration. Such an accusation could
only have been made by those who, not having to
spend their own money, know little of, and care
less for, cost.

As to our failure to fulfil our engagements either
as to time or cost, we have specific facts to deal with.
The Controller states that we "agreed" to build the
Warrior " for £210,225, including extras."
We never made any such agreement, nor any-
thing giving even colourable ground for such a com-
plete misstatement. Our original contract sum
for the Warrior was £190,225. On March 16,
1861, six months before the Warrior left the Thames,
we sent in to the Controller an account of extras
amounting to £40,808, intimating at the same time
that we had other large claims, and when all
was finished, we claimed, not the sum of £254,728.
as stated by the Controller, but £269,600, of which
we were paid only £251,646.

The changes and additions made in the Warrior
beyond her original design were, aP., these figures
will themselves show, enormous ; in fact, the ship as
built was, to a very great extent, different from the
ship as contracted for, and when she was finished
we took the following course :—We submitted to the
Controller that these additions and changes were so
extensive, our claim for extras so large and so diffi-
cult for the Admiralty officers to deal with, that the
fairest course would be for us to show the Admi-
ralty what the ship had really cost, and that they
should pay us that cost with a profit of 121 per cent.,
which, considering that all our resources had for
more than two Fears been placed at the disposal of the
Government, we did not consider unreasonable, nor
so much as we might have claimed in an extra
bill. The Controller of the Navy himself recom-
mended the adoption of this principle of settlement,
only reducing the profit to be allowed to us to 5 per
cent., or £12,000. All our books and accounts were
submitted to the closest investigation by the Ad-
miralty accountants, who verified their absolute
accuracy, and we consented to receive this settle-
ment, although really, as we now desire to state, it
gave us no profit as shipbuilders at all. Not con-
templating during the conetructiou of the vessel the
possibility of such a mode of settlement, all the iron
and the armour-plates, which we manufacture our-
selves, were charged to the ship at little over their
prime cost, and at much less than the market prices,
or what, had we been shipbuilders only, we must
have paid ; and the £12,000 given us as profit just
about represents this difference.
As to the question of time, the paper contains
an admission that " some" delay was occasioned in
the Warrior by the alterations made in the course of
building. This admission is made in such a manner
as to suggest that the delay so caused was trivial,
and that the principal delay was due to the miscal-
culation or dilatoriness of the contractors. In the
tabulated form the delay is put down as 17 months,
but between July, 1860, and October, 1861—the
dates given in the same table—is only 15 months,
and even in such a point as this there is the same
utter disregard of correctness in facts and figures
which characterizes this paper throughout. We
frankly admit, as we have before done, to the
Admiralty, that had we built the Warrior
without any alteration from the original design
our estimate of time would have been two or
three months too little ; but beyond that we
affirm that all the additional delay is due to the
changes made by the Admiralty and to the stop-
page of our work, and the additional work thereby
imposed upon us. This is not the occasion to de-
monstrate this in detail, but the amount claimed
and the sum actually paid by the Admiralty on this
account will show to the general reader the magni-
tude of these changes, and their consequent neces-
sary effect upon the time required for the comple-
tion of the ship. With respect to our other engage-.
ments with the Admiralty for the completion of
the Valiant and the Minotaur, we are prepared to
prove that the delay in the former is in no respect
due to us as contractors, and, as to the latter, we
shall launch and finish her within an additional
time, less than is due to the alterations and delays
caused by the Admiralty themselves. The truth
is, that in building these vessels our interest is so
great in completing them quickly—the possibility
of profit depends so greatly upon this—that it is
one continued struggle on cur part to get on, in
spite of official delays. Nevertheless, we have
always admitted that the Admiralty were right
in seeking in every way to improve those vessels,
and that in the Warrior the improvements were
well worth all the time occupied in planning and
carrying them out ; at the same time, in our corre-
spondence with the Controller, we have protested,
and do protest, against their system of blaming the
contractor for the consequences of their own acts.
Having dealt with the private question between
the Controller and ourselves, we venture to make a
few remarks on the public question as to the build-