The Sun.
London, England, 1863-02-25 00:00:00

GOVERNMENT ARTIFICERS.

Sir H. WILLOUGHBY asked the Secretary of State
for War, whether the numbers of the foremen, artificers,
workmen, &c. in the various manufactories of the war
department were not omitted in the Army Estimates for
the year 1863-4 ; and, if so, whether the Secretary of State
for War would take care that the omission was supplied in
the same form as in the Army Estimate of 1862-3.
Sir. G. C. LE WIS replied that the War Estimates were
very carefully prepared, but it was not considered that the
information specified would be useful, because the artificers
were paid by piece, and thus their earnings greatly varied.
But if the hon. baronet desired it he should feel happy to
furnish it. (Hear, hear.)

THE SUPPLY OF SALMON.
In reply to Mr. T. SMITH,
Sir G. GREY said a bill would be introduced to prevent
the exportation of salmon during the fence months.
ITALY.---EXTRADITION TREATY.
In reply to Sir G. BOWYER,
Mr. LAYARD replied that no treaty, convention, or
agreement had been entered into with the King of Italy of
the Mature specified. The Italian Government, had pre-
pared an extradition treaty with this country with respect
to the delivering up of criminals, many of whom had taken
refuge at Malta. It had no reference to political offenders.
(Hear, hear.) So soon as the treaty was finally agreed
to by the local council and the Italian Ciovernment it would
be l4id on the table of the house. (Hear, hear.)
SALMON FISHERIES BILL (IRELAND).
Ur. M'MAHON, at the request of Sir R. PEEL, post-
poned further proceeding with this bill until to-morrow
week.

Lord PALMERSTON said, as in that case there would
be no particular public business standing for to-morrow,
nor private business of any special importance, perh&ps it
would meet the convenience of the house if he were to move
that at its rising it be adjourned until Thursday.—
Agreed to.
Mr. HADFIELD inquired if the house would sit on the
10th of March—a day anticipated to be an universal holi •
day ? (Cheers,)
Lord PALMERSTON—Sir, I imagine you will be in
attendance elsewhere on that day, and in that case, pro-
bably, the house will not deem it requisite to sit. (Hear.)

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THE SUN, LONDON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY - 25, 1863.

such as to enable the officers to maintain a due position in
the service. Now, it seems to me that it is a dangerous
course for this house to assume to itself administrative funs•
tions. (Cheers.) Anybody who knows anything of ad-
ministration must know that a multitude of administrations
for any one particular purpose cause confusion. But that
an aseembly of 650 gentlemen should be able to administer
the details of any public department is, I think, a proposi-
tion which it is only necessary to state, in order to see the
impossibility of its application. At the same time I admit
that there may be instances in which it might be fitting, in
the opinion of the house, to address her Majesty's Govern-
ment, with a view to some particular purpose which the
house may think it expedient to accomplish. But in that
case, the house ought to be precise and intelligible in its
recommendations. The resolution ought to be one which
the Executive Government of the day might know how to
carry out if it thought fit to adopt it, or which it might
understand fully and in detail, in order, if it did not
choose to be responsible for it, that it might be able to
take such steps as the circumstances might dictate. But
the resolutions of the hon. and gallant officer, if adopted
to-night, would leave the Government entirely at sea as to
the particular mode of acting upon. them. They call upon
us to say that the present system of promotion and retire-
ment is unsatisfactory. W ell, then, what is satisfactory ?
What would the Government have to propose to the house
with the view of making the present system satisfactory ?
Probably the hon. and gallant member would answer, "You
will find that in my speech or my memorandum." (Hear,
hear, from Sir J. Hay.) Bat his speech and his memoran
dum are no part of the decisions of this House of Parlia-
ment—(hear,hear)—they don't appear in our journals; they
are not matters to which the Government could appeal and
say, in the name of the Sovereign, " We have done that
which the House of Commons asked," because the House
of Commons would not have asked anything definite, pre-
cise, or intelligible, which the Government would know to
be the object and purpose of the resolution. The same re-
mark holds good as the second resolution about retire-
ment by age. There is already, to a certain degree, a prat•
tical application of that principle. The hon. and gallant
gentleman wishes the principle to be extended, but he
doesn't say to what limit, in what way, or, in short, give any
clue to enable the Admiralty to know that by doing any parti-
cular thing in that respect they will have accomplished the
wishes of the house. I say, then, that these resolutions are so
vague and indefinite in their terms that, if they were affirmed
by the house, the Government, with the utmost desire to
meet the intentions which the house might be supposed to
have expressed, would remain perfectly in the dark as to
the mode in which effect should be given to them. (Hear,
hear.) I won't go into the details of that which the Admi-
ralty have already done upon these matters. My noble and
gallant friend the Secretary to the Board, will, I have no
doubt, explain fully to the house all that they have done,
and in what degree the opinions and assertions of the hon.
and gallant officer in regard to the many points of detail on
which he has entered are well or ill founded. But as to the
last resolution, which bears upon pay, I humbly submit that
that is not a proposition which this house would, if well
advised, think it proper to adopt. (Hear, hear.) It does
not oven say that the pay ought to be increased ; but there
are words inserted in the concluding paragraph by which
the house would pledge itself to make good the expense of
any of these different propositions, Well, I hold out that it
is not expedient for this house to address the Crown gravely
to make an increase in any department of the public expen-
diture. (Hear, hear) It is for the Executive Government,
upon its responsibility, if it should see fit to do so, to propose
to Parliament such additions to that expenditure as they
may deem necessary for the public service, and it is for this
house to alopt or reject them as it pleases. (Hear, hear.)
But I think the house will agree with me that it is not ad-
visable to address the Crown in these vague expressions,
calling upon it indirectly to make a great increase in our
naval expenditure—an increase which must be followed by
further augmentations of charge in that very same depart-
ment, and which, if carried into effect with regard to the
navy, could not be stopped there, but must be extended to
the army, and even to the civil ser vice also. The hon. and
gallant officer dwelt very much upon a comparison of the
emoluments of certain ranks in the navy with those of the
army and other public departments. Now, as to a compa-
rison with the army it must be borne in mind that the cora-
msisions in that service are purchased, and that the officers
embark a considerable capital to rise to any high rank,
whereas in the navy the same practice does not obtain. But
in both the army and the navy, if you merely took the in-
comes given to men even in high rank as professional pay,
why, no doubt, every man would wish that they were a
great deal more. But the remuneration to these services
does not consist simply in annual emoluments. (Hear,
hear.) There is the respect which is paid to them in
their several positions—there is the admiration which
the nation feels for the service of which they are
members. And it is not a vain assertion to say
that honours and respect are not an insignificant
element in a requital for public services, because our whole
system is founded upon a contrary assumption. (Hear,
hear.) We reward men by titles and by decorations ; and,
when we come to the highest rewards, you, sir, reward the
most distinguished commanders not by pecuniary emolu-
ment, but by conveying to them from that chair the thanks
of this House of Parliament for the services they have ren-
dered to the country. (Cheers.) The highest recompense
awarded to public men consists of honours showing that
they have entitled themselves to the respect and regard of
their fellow-countrymen. That, therefore, must be borne
in mind when you consider what naval and military officers
receive in return for the personal exposure they undergo
and the deeds they achieve in performing their duty to their
Sovereign. (Hear.) It, then, I cannot concur in the mo-
tion cf the hon, and gallant officer, I feel it incumbent on
me to pursue on this occasion precisely the same course as I
pursued two years ago with regard to the resolution moved
by the hon. and gallant officer who bits next to him (Sir J.
Elphinstone). The hon. and gallant officer who made the
present motion has referred to what then took place. On
that occasion, resolutions had been carried which involved
not only the question of promotion and retirement, but the
question of pay. The house on being appealed to on a sub•
sequent day rescinded those resolutions, and consented to
refer to a committee then sitting on Admiralty organisation
the question of retirement and promotion. It so happened that
that committee consumed the entire session in taking evi-
dence, and did not make any report. The hon. and gallant
officer says they did that which was most damaging to the Ad-
miralty ; they reported the evidence they had taken. I might,
perhaps, be allowed to interpret their course upon a different
principle. The committee was not appointed in any friendly
spirit to the Admiralty. Their examinations were not oon-
ducted with the view of heaping honour and credit upon the
Admiralty. But when they came to the end of their in-
quiries, and the session was over, they prudently abstained
from putting into a report the result of the evidence they
had taken. I believe, if they had done so, the report would
have been favourable to the conduct and the organisation of
the department they inquired into. (A laugh.) At all
events, why did they not move to reappoint the committee
in the ensuingof
seessionF(Hear, hear.) If they had thought
theresultevidence they had taken was so damaging
oth
to the Admiralty as the hon. and gallant officer says, I
should have imagined that pure patriotism, if no Orer mo-
tive, would have led them, for the sake of the public ser-
vice, to re-establish that committee the following year,with
the view of bringing to a condemnatory conclusion the evi-
dence which he thus characterises. But no such thing.
Last year was allowed to pass away without any re-esta-
blishment of that committee. If it had been so re-esta-
blished it would have gone into those questions connected
with retirement and promotion which it was specially in-
structed to investigate, and which it was not able to do in
1861, because the time did not permit of it. Well sir, I now
propose to do precisely what I did then. As the hon. and
gallant member has brought this question before the house,
if the house thinks it fit that ax inquiry should be made
into the existing system of promotion and retirement, her
Majesty's Government have no objection whatever to that
investigation being made, And I would propose that a
committee should be appointed for the specific purpose of
going now into that inquiry which the committee of 1861
could not enter upon. I therefore propose as an amend-
ment to the resolutions of the hon. and gallant officer those
of which I have given notice—that in the first place it is in-
expedient for the house to pronounce an opinion on a ques-
tion of promotion and retirement which has been com-
mitted to a committee, until we shall have received the
report of a committee on this question, and that a com-
mittee be re- appointed for the purpose of entering on that
investigation. (Loud cheers.) The noble lord concluded
by moving the following resolutions, as an amendment to
the motion of Sir John Hay :
" 1. That this house having, on the 13th day of March,
1861, instructed a select committee to consider the present
system of promotion and retirement in the Royal Navy, is
of opinion that its decision should be suspended until the
subject shall have been accordingly considered and reported
upon.
"2. That a select committee bo appointed to consider
the present system of promotion and retirement in the
Royal navy, and to report their opinion thereon to this
house."

Sir J. ELP HI NTSTONE said the speech of the noble lord
at the head of her Majesty's Government was like the month
which was about to commence ; he came in like a lion, and
he went out like a lamb. As he (Sir J. Elphinstone) did not
belong to the naval service of the country, the animadver-
sions which he passed upon the navy did not belong to him,
and he stood there as an independent member, and would
speak freely and boldly upon what he considered the wrongs
and grievances of the officers of her Majesty's naval ser-
vice, which cried aloud for inquiry and redress. (Hear.)
The noble lord had stated that the grievances of the Church,
the law, and the civil service were also great. The Church
had many members who were labouring in a good cause
upon inferior incomes ; but two blacks never made a white,
and that was no reason against redressing the grievances of
the navy. With regard to the law, it had many representa-
tives in t hat house, and it could be shown that it was not in
a very bad state. As for the civil service, its grievances had
been brought before the house year after year until they
had been redressed ; and he thought no complaint would
come from that quarter until the claims of the navy were al-
lowed. He was ready to admit that it was a proud reward
for a naval officer who had distinguished himself to have the
thanks 3f that house presented to him ; but it was usual
that an event of that kind was accompanied with more sub-
stantial marks of approbation. If the house should
adopt the proposal of the noble lord, he hoped the corn-
_ mittee would be appointed upon a fairer basis than the