The Sun.
London, England, 1863-03-06 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, FRIDAY EVENING, MARCH 6, 186%

Ship. (Hear, hear.) That was what they said in former
wars. (Hear, hear.) It is not my busitiess to defend the
Government in which my hon. friend opposite (Sir J. Pak-
ington) was at the head of the Admiralty ; but 1 think it
right to tell my hon. friend the member for Rochdale that
he is under an erroneous impression when he says the com-
mittee of 1858 did not recommend the construction of large
ships. My hon. friend says that committee told you the
French were doing nothing, that there was no necessity
for exertion on your part, and that if the Government had
taken up the
,report of that committee, and acted on it,
they would not have put the country to expense. Now,
here is a paragraph in that report which states,—
" It will be seen that France, since 1852, has increased
her steam line-of-battle ships from two to 40, of which
there are five building and tout converting, and that that
has been effected by the conversion of 26 sailing ships and
the building of 14 screw ships. England in the Fame time
has increased her line of-battle screw steamers from 17 to
50, of which there are 10 building and seven converting.
This has been effected by the conversion of 27 sailing ships
and the building of 23 as screw ships."

From that statement it appears that while France had in-
creased the number of her line-of-battle ships from two to
40, England had increased hers from 17 to 50, I ask is
that a statement whi2,h would justify any Government in
not undertaking the construction of large ships ? (Hear,
hear.) But the next paragraph states—
" The ad lition, therefore, to the French navy in steam
line-of-battle ships, complete, building, and converting, is
38, and of England 32, since 1852. France has at present
fur iron-sided ships (fregates blindees) in course of con-
struction, as before stated. Th. steam frigates of France,
screw and paddle, have been increased from 21 to 46; and
England has increased her steam frigates, screw and paddle,.
from 23 to 34, and her blockships of 60 guns each from four
to nine. It is necessary that we should notice this supe-
riority in steam frigates on the part of France over Great
Britain, which, in the event of hostilities, might form a
serious detriment to this country, especially in relation to
the interruption of commerce."
I say that any Ministry who did not act on that statement,
and did not at once set about putting the country in the
position she ought to occupy in respect to her navy, would
deserve to be sent to the Tower or to that Penitentiary into
which my hon. friend wants to put me. (A laugh.) I main-
tain, therefore, that the Government of that day as well as
the present Government were right in making great exer-
tions towards putting the navy in an efficient state. (Hear,
hear.) As to what my hon. friend has said on the subjects
of our delay in the adoption of iron-plated vessels, I must
remind him that I came down to the house for several years
in succession, and lifted my voice in favour of armour-
plated vessels, but all that time my hon. friend was silent.
(Hear, hear.) However, Ido not hesitate to assert that
the course taken by the Government, whether the late Go-
vernment or the present, has on the whole beenj the wisest
that could have been adopted for the safety of the country.
My honourable friend says that periodical panics occur by
which Parliament is frightened out of its propriety, and
that, after all, they tarn out to be bugbears. Now, why
did not hon. members who now object to what the Govern-
ment has been doing within the last few years come down
to the h use and ask for a statement of the stocks in hand
and the vessels which the Admiralty were building? Until
I took the liberty of laying on the table an annual statement
of your property in ships and of what you were building,
there was no detailed information on these points supplied
to the house. Why did not my hon. tritnd come down and
ask hew we stood ? We never should have had those panics
it this statement had been put upon the table, because I be-
lieve the country would not have been allowed to be so be-
hindhand as she was in the construction of ships. (Hear.)
We were many years in a state of alarm as to the manning
of our navy. We had ships in our ports month after month
waiting for men, and my right hon. friend opposite only
three years ago was obliged to come down to this house and
' propose to offer what to men in the position of sailors is
almost a small fortune—a £lO bounty; and now, having
got them together, it would be a most unwise thing to dis-
perse them again. (Hear, hear) The men we have now
are almost all continuous service men, and if you were to
break faith with them by listening to the startling sugges-
' tion of my hon. friend, depend upon it you would never get
them back again. (Hear, hear.) The noble lord the
' member for Huntingdon says that the present Govern.
ment are not making any experiments with a view to get-
ting the best armour plates. If he had turned round to
my hon. friend the member for Wakefield (Sir J. Hay),
he would have told him that we are spending very large
sums of money in such experiments. Therefore it is not
a just charge to make against the Government. (Hear,
hear.) I sincerely trust that the house will not depart from
the estimates which we have laid before them. It may be
possible in course of time to reduce our force by not filling
up vacancies as they occur, but now that we have for the
first time got a standing navy, suddenly to make a great
reduction in it I am positive would be a most suicidal step.
(Hear, hear.)
Sir J. PAKINGTON—I hope the house will allow me to
occupy its time for a few moments while I reply to the very
unexpected attack made upon me by the hon. member for
Rochdale. (Hear, hear.) I came down to the house ex-
pecting to hear one of those verbal duels between the two
ends of the party opposite to which we have been accus-
tomed so often of late to listen, without the slightest idea
that my administration of the navy was to be made in detail
the object of a violent attack. If the hon. member for
Rochdale had given me the slightest notice that he was
going to make any reference to my administration I might
have had an opportunity of looking at the papers, which
would have refreshed my memory. (Hear, hear.)
Mr. COBDEN—I beg to remind the right hon. baronet
that on the last occasion when the affairs of the navy were
being discussed I wrote him a letter fo tell him that I
wished him to be in his place as I intended to take notice
of matters in which he was concerned. (Hear, hear.)
Sir J. PAKlNGTON—Perfectly true, but that was last
session. (Hear, hear.) In the session of 1862 the hon.
member wrote to me telling me that in bringing forward the
subject of the navy he intended to refer to my administra-
tion, but that is no explanation of his neglect to inform me
of his intention on the ,present occasion. (Hear, hear.)
He has made a violent attack on my administration of the
navy without the slightest notice to me except that which
could be gathered from the terms of his notice, and from
that I suppose no one could infer more than that he intended
to refer to the Navy Estimates of the year and the general
conduct of the present Government. (Hear, hear.) I cer
tai' ly was surprised to hear the noble lord opposite say that
the hon. member had made an admirable speech. I cer-
tainly cannot agree in the least with that compliment. The
hon. member has gained great and well merited reputation.
But I have heard him speak several times on naval affairs,
including his "admirable speech" of to-night, and, if I
might take the liberty of offering him any advice, I should
counsel him to avoid the subject altogether. (Hear, hear,
and a laugh.) I never heard him speak on naval matters
without being reminded of the words of the song—
"'Tis a pity when charming women
Talk of things that they don't understand."
(Oh, ch, and cheers.) Unless the hon. member's charge
against me is that I and my colleagues did not know in 1858
and 1859 what was not then known to anybody, he really
has not made a single reference to my administration which
is not totally erroneous and founded in complete misappre-
hension. In order to make his attack more pungent, I
suppose, the hon. member charged me with having boasted
in this house of having reconstructed the Navy, and on that
he bases an attack on the mode in which I carried it out. I
assure the hon. gentleman I never made use of the expres-
sion" reconstruction of the Navy." (Hear, hear.) The ex-
pression occurred in the Queen's Speech of 1859—(hear,
hear)—and as a member of the Cabinet I am responsible for
it—but in order to embitter the attack which he was about
to make on my administration the hon. member made it a
personal charge against me that I had used that expression
boastingly in this house. I never made any such boast,
and in the discharge of my duty in this house I always
endeavoured not to speak in a boastful spirit. The hon.
member says that successive Governments--referring, of
course, to the Government which preceded the last—com-
mitted a great absurdity in going on building the obsolete
class of wooden vessels. How did he support that argu-
ment ? I cannot suppose that he meant anything so absurd
or so unjust as to charge Lord Derby's Government with
not knowing what nobody knew at that time, that this class
of vessels would be subsequently superseded by the dis-
covery of iron ships, and, therefore, the only way in which
1 can explain the meaning of his accusation is by what he
said on the subject of the improvement which had taken
place in the construction of shells. But does he really
mean gravely to argue in this house that the navy of Eng-
land was to be withdrawn from the seas because an im-
provement had taken place in the construction of shells ?
His argument really amounts to this—shells have been
improved, and to such a point that they will set wooden
ships on fire ; therefore, the navy of England ought to
have no wooden ships afloat. (Hear, hear.) But at that
time nobody had any idea of any other but wooden ships ;
we still talked of the " wooden walls of old England ;"
armour ships had not yet been tried, and, therefore, to say
that we ought not to have gone on sending wooden ships to
sea is a charge so unfounded that I don't believe it will re-
ceive any support either in this house or out of it. The next
charge which the hon. gentleman brought against us is
equally unfounded, and I put it broadly to the hon. gen-
tleman that he has no right to make such charges unless
he has really taken some trouble to inform himself on the
subject. He referred to the Treasury minute to which the
noble lord has also referred. The hon. member said that the
drawing up of that minute by Lord Derby's Government
was a very good party move. I repudiate the charge, and I
say that a charge more unfounded was never made. (Hear,
hear.) At the time the committee was appointed which
drew up that minute, it was a secret committee. It was ap-
pointed as a mere matter of detail; it was a departmental
committee, solely appointed to draw up a report for the in-
struction of the Government. (Hear, hear.) It was the
eeling of the Cabinet that we should not be justified in call-
ing upo Parliament to vote navy estimates which were of
an almost unprecedented character for a time of peace with-
out the clearest grounds for doing so. In the arduous posi-
tion of First Lord of the Admiralty I had no time to make
inquiry and to draw up the papers which were required,but
it was the opinion of Lord Derby's Government that inquiry
had better be made into the whole of the circumstances. A
paper was drawn up by a committee solely for the guidance
of the Government, and I can state broadly to the house
that it was never intended that paper should go beyond the
Cabinet which ordered its composition. (Hear, hear.)
There ayes not the slightest intention of making it a Par-
liamentary paper or of making it public, and I ask whether s