The Sun.
London, England, 1863-03-13 00:00:00

IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT
HOUSE OF COMMONS---last Evening.
The SPEAKER took the chair tit four o'clock.
The Birmingham and Sutton Coalfield Extension Bill
was read a second time.
ATIIENRY AND ENYIS JUNCTION RAILWAY
(ABANDONMENT) BILL
The order for the sec ind reading was withdrawn.
PETITIONS.
Petitions were presented by Mr. Cox, from inhabitants
of Bishopsgate-street, complaining that the Government
had sent two detective officers to Warsaw without written
instructions, and praying that they might be called to the
bar to explain the exact nature of their mission ; Sir J.
SHELLEY, from Westminster, to the same effect. Mr.
HENNESSY, from St. Pancras, to the like effect, and pray-
ing for inquiry ; from Dundee, in favour of the independence
of Poland ; Mr. BAINES, from Leeds, against the Prison
:Ministers' Bill; from certain ministers, in favour of the
prevention of the sale of intoxicating liquors on the Sab-
bath; an HoN. MEHBER, from Ripon, in favour of the
repeal of the duty on malt.
THE PROCESSION ON SATURDAY.
In reply to Genera) BUCKLEY,
Sir G. GREY said the galla ,t general had not given
him notice of his question ; 'out he might state that his
attention had been particularly called to the imperfect
police arrangements on Saturday, when the Prin-
cess Alexandra passed through the City, by the news.
papers, and to the absence of any official regulations
for keeping the streets clear. The accuracy of the state-
ments published in the newspapers had since been con-
firmed by gentlemen with whom he had conversed, who
were in the City. The subject, however, of uniting the
City and Metropolitan Police had not as yet received tlae
attention of the Government.
Sir DE LACY EVANS desired to ask a question on
the same subject, but would defer doing so until to. morrow.
INDIA—MEDICAL SERVICE.
Mr. R. MILLS asked the Secretary of State for India,
when the details for the amalgamation of the Medical
Service of the late East India Company with that of the
Royal Army were likely to be promulgated ?
Sir C. WOOD replied that this subject was now under
the consideration of the War-office. He was not in a con-
dition to say when the details would be promulgated, but
he hoped only a short time would elapse.
WOODEN FRAMES FOR IRON SHIPS.
Mr. LINDSAY rose to move—" That it is not expedient
to commence at the present time building wooden ships
which are to be cased with iron armour-plates." He said
when the Secretary for the Navy brought in the nary esti •
mates he stated that there was a large stock of timber in the
navy, and that it was intended to use a portion of that tim-
ber in the construction of five ships, to be covered with iron
armour plates, and he (Mr. Lindsay) proposed the reduc-
tion of a ?articular vote in order to raise the question. A
discussion followed, and the noble lord at the head of the
Government promised that the construction of those five
wooden ships should not be continued until the opinion of
the house had been taken upon the subject. The first ques-
tion he desired the house to consider was whether iron or
wood was the most suitable material for the construction of
ships of war. It was well known that iron was len times
stronger than wood : that was to say, an inch plate of Eng-
lish iron was quite as strong as a 10 inch plank of English
oak. The first operation in constructing a ship was the lay-
ing down the keel, and in the case of wooden ships the keel
and sternpost were necessarily divided into a great number
of different parts, and the ribs, or timbers of ships as they
were called, were fastened together by bolts and trenails.
But the sternposts and timbers had in themselves very little
strength. It was only when they put the planking outside
and the fastenings inside that the ship became so strong.
But the keel and kelson and sternpost of an iron ship could
all be formed into one piece ; that was to say they could all
be welded together, and every part when welded was as strong
as, if not stronger than, any other portion of the hon. He
might incidentally state that he was not a shipbuilder, nor
was he directly or indirectly interested in any shipbuilding
yard in this or any other country. But he was a ship-
owner, and for the last 10 years he had had no ships built
of wood, as he had arrived at the conclusion that iron ships
were much stronger. The Admiralty had recently laid a
paper on the table of the house on the relative advantages
of iron and wood, and relative cost of each material in the
construction of ships for the navy. In that paper, though
tho Admiralty admitted that an iron ship was on the whole
much stronger than wood, yet they argued throughout that
it was advisable to construct of wood the ships that were in-
tended to be cased with iron. In the first place they stated
that they had not been satisfied with regard to the
quality of the iron supplied. Now the quality of iron was
a question of price, and if they had not the best iron for
the construction of their ships of war it was the fault of
the Admiralty. Then it was stated in this paper that the
compasses of iron ships were liable to get wrong. Now
there was a vast number of iron ships afloat. He had him-
self iron ships sailing to all parts of the world, and
he had not found those serious difficulties with regard to the
compasses which were stated in this paper. With regard to
fouling the bottom, which was another objection made;
shipowners who had iron ships going voyages to India and
California. and Australia. found no difficult in this respect ;
and it was a singular thing that when the ships were taken
into fresh water, up a river, the barnacles all fell off. But
independently of that, there was the obvious remedy of dock-
ing. With regard to the splinters from iron ships in case
they were struck by shot he was not so capable of giving an
opinion, but he would bring forward two or three witnesses.
One was Mr. Scott Russell, an iron shipbuilder,
who in two
able pamphlets published in 1861 and last year, called
" The Navy of the Future," went into the whole question of
the strength of iron ships, and the effect of shot of various
kinds, and he proved that iron ships might be built as strong
as wooden ships of far greater dimensions and weight, and
much stronger than wooden ships of equal weight and mea-
surement; that iron ships would have less draught, could
carry much heavier weights, were far more durable, safer
against the sea, safer against fire, much safer against ex •
plosive shot, safer against red hot shot and molten metal,
and that they could for all practical purposes be made im-
pregnable even against solid shot. Such were the conclu-
sions of a gentleman who was not merely a shipbuilder, but
who had dealt practically with the question for a great num-
ber of years. But he saw in his place the hon. member for
Birkenhead (Mr. Laird), a man of great experience in these
matters, and with all deference to the Comptroller of the
Navy, far more competent to advise the house than that offi-
cer was on this question. Capt. Halsted, who in 1861 and
1862 gave a series of lectures at the United Service Institu-
tion, arrived at almost the same conclusions. Against these
opinions the Admiralty dwelt on the prodigious ravages
caused by splinters of iron when broken or smashed by shot.
That statement, however, was only founded on the experi-
ments of au old vessel of 20 tons burden, called the Ruby;
and he believed that, about 16 years ago, was fired at by 68-
pounders, and of course sent to smithereens. He believed,
however, that her plates were not thicker than a half- crown.
He should like to know on what other authority the Board
of Admiralty were making these extraordinary assertions.
He should refute this statement by their own officers, before
a committee of the house. Capt. Hall, who commanded tbo
Nemesis, an iron vessel, was examined, and was asked to
state his experience of her in China. He stated that several
wooden steamers were ewployed on the same service, and they
were invariably obliged to lay up for repairs, while he could
repair the Nemesis in 24 hours. On being asked if he had an
opportunity ofjudging of the effect of shot on iron vessels, he
said the Nemesis on one occasion was struck 14 times, and one
shot came in on one side and went out on the other. Never-
theless there were no splinters, the shot having passed right
through, just as if you had put your finger through a piece
of paper; and that nothing could be more easily stopped
than these holes. Another witness, Capt. Charlwood, gave
evidence which was the same insubstance. He (Mr. Lindsay)
believed that armour plates, of themselves, were anything
but a source of strength to a ship. He was rather of opi-
nion that the great weight of armour plates tended to
weaken them and to make them top heavy. The Admiralty
brought forward a witness, a Frenchman, to prove that
wooden ships were equally strong for the purpose. But
they had no occasion to go to France for a witness. On that
subject he would refer them to any master shipwright in
their own dockyards. There was nothing so difficult as to
fasten the stern frame of a ship, on account of the tremen-
dous vibration caused by the movement of the screw. On
the Edgar, a 90 gun ship of 600-horse power, the vibration
and the strain were so great that the master shipwright
himself said, "For God's sake, stop this engine or you will
drive the sternpost out of the ship." The next question Was
whether it would be desirable to build iron ships ite her Ma-
jesty's dockyards, supposing it to be desirable to build them
at all. The objections brought against private contractors
were-Ist, that they did not keep to their agreements ;
2dly, the general slovenliness of their workmanship ; 3dly,
the great temptations they were under to use inferior and
cheap materials ; 4thly, the impossibility of departing from
the plans when once agreed to without allowing the con-
tractors to charge what they pleased. These were grave
accusations, but were they true ? He had received a letter
from Mr.Santuda (which the hon,gentleman read at length)
denying them altogether, stating that the delay which had
occurred in the cot struction of vessels for the Government
was due to the interference of the Admiralty, and affirming
the writer's belief that the cost of building no one of the
iron-plated vessels had remunerated the shipwright..
From the Thames Shipbuilding Company he (the hon.
member) had also received a long letter exculpatory of the
charges which had been made against them with special re-
ference to the Warrior. (This the homgentleman also read.)
Tu all the accusations in question the company gave
a complete and indignant denial. They challenged the Ad-
miralty to produce a single instance either of slovenly work
or of bad material in their ship ; and they denied that they
had ever contracted to build her for £210,000. The altera-
tions made by the Admiralty were so serious, that the course
the company had adopted was to propose that the Govern-
ment should simply repay them their costs out of pocket and
12i per cent. on the outlay—an allowance which they did not
consider at all too great. That course was at once adopted,
only the Admiralty reduced the rate of profit to 5 per cent.,
which the company agreed to take. They admitted that
even if the Government had made no alterations in the pluir
the time they had in the first instance asked for was too-
short by two or three months; but they contended that
the alterations which had been made amounted to so great•