The Sun.
London, England, 1862-08-07 00:00:00

ADMIRALTY WASTE.

The following letter has been addressed by Mr.
J. Scott Runell to a contemporary :

In the recent discussions which have taken place
on this subject in both Houses of Parliament and in
your own columns, I have been made responsible
both for certain statements which I accept and for
some which I have not made. As the subject which
these statements concern must form the topic of
continuous public discussion, and lead to Bennis
action also, I beg leave to state precisely some of
the data for suzh discussion. . _

The statement I make is that since the efficiency
of iron armour ships became practically established
by experience, our A imiralty have expended on the
material of the navy in our dockyards 30 millions,
and that nearly the whole of this has been expended
on combustible wooden ships, known t 3 be useless
as engines of war, and proved to be untenable against
horizontal shell fire.

The accusation I make against the Duke of
Somerset is that, even since the inauguration of an
iron armour fleet by his predecessors in office, he has
wasted 12 millions, which might have produced us
now a fleet of 20 Warriors, without increasing the
ordinary expenses of the navy ; and I assert that
we have now only two iron-plated ships possessing
the requisites of high speed, capacity for a long
voyage, fine seagoing qualities, along with heavy
shot-proof armour, and that for the good qualities
of these Chips none of the merit is due to the Duke
of Somerset or his Admiralty. These are the
facts.

Two replies have been given in Parliament to
this accusation. His Grace replies for the Admi-
ralty, as recorded in the Times of July 26, by
recounting the difficulties which attend the build-
ing of iron ships, his ignorance of what it is
best to build, the advice which he receives from
and the discord among those he consults, and
(appalling fact !) that, instead of applying the
money appropriated to building a fleet to that
purpose, he is at the present moment building no
fleet at all, but " ten or twelve different kinds of
iron plated ships,—different sizes, and different
forms of vessels "—in short, on mere heterogene-
ous experiments, made in the hope that some-
thing will turn up which may be of use as an
iron-plated vessel. A well-balanced fleet, there-
fore, of similar and equal vessels capable of co-
operation is nowhere.
The second reply, by Lord Clarence Paget, in the
Times of the 2d of August, is that " We had 19
iron plated ships;" and then ne recants his statement
of fact by substituting the prophecy "or would
have very soon." When he said so he must have
known that we had not 19 iron-plated ships ; he
must have known we had only two effective and
two more ineffective ones, and that when he said
" very soon," he meant some time in the year 1864.
Such are the only two replies which have been
given to my statements, and they leave the matter
exactly as I have stated it.
To sum up the accusation I make against his
Grace and his Admiralty concisely and in the
manner best capable of refutation, I beg to put it
in the following form :

1. I accuse his Grace of having expended in
three years 12 millions of money on the materiel of
the navy without having given us our navy.
2. I assert that, by a wise and timely economy,
and following up the initiative which had been
taken before he came into office, he could have pro-
vided by this year, 1862, a fleet of 20 Warriors.
3. I accuse him of gross waste of public money
in having spent on timber and timber ships the mil-
lions which were wanted for iron ships. His only
excuse is, that he didn't know what kind of iron
ships to build. I answer that he did know what
kind of wooden ships not to build ; and I say it is
no answer to my accusation of waste of money to
say that he was waiting to see what sort of iron
ship would turn up. I accuse him, therefore, while
waiting for the best, of deliberately expending the
money upon the worst.
To sum up, I admit that his Grace did not, as he
said, know how to spend his 12 millions advan •
tageously for the country ; but I assert that it was
palpably his duty, and certainly for the benefit of
the country, in his state of vacillation and hesita-
tion, to have saved the 12 millions. Had he saved
the money he did not know how to expend, he
would have saved the chief of his Administration
much of the trouble and danger into which he has
brought the Government of Lord Palmerston by a
course of official incompetence manifested at e
critical moment when the nation was in want of
firmness, knowledge, and administrative capacity of
a high order, to give direction and force to the
revolution in naval construction and naval tactics
which the improvements of modern artillery and
the inventions of modern science have rendered
inevitable.

EXTRAORDINARY EXPLOSION OF GUN-
POWDE.R AND RIFLE AMMUNITION.

HEREFORD, WEDNESDAY.

Yesterday morning about 4 o'clock the inhabi-
tants of the town of Kington were thrown into a
dreadful state of alarm by a loud report and the
forcing in of doors and windows. The universal
impression was that an earthquake had taken place,
and as the inhabitants in almost a state of nudity
rushed out into the streets, the falling of tiles, flying
timbers, window fronts, and shutters served to con-
firm the impression. The first effects of fright over,
the cry of " Fire" was raised from the Oxford Arms
Hotel, and on proceeding thither it appeared that a
building some 50 or 60 yards in the rear of it, occu-
pied as a depot for gunpowder used in the blasting
of rocks in the neighbourhood, and for the keeping
of the ammunition of the Radnor Rifle Corps, had
been blown up, and the adjoining buildings, stables,
and ricks of fodder were on fire.

It would be almost impossible to picture the state
of wreck into which the building itself has been
blown, as scarcely a vestige, even to the stone floor-
ing, remains, and the destruction of windows, door-
ways, roofs, chimneys, &c., in different parts of the
town is scarcely less extraordinary. From a per-
sonal visit of your correspondent to the town shortly
after the explosion he gleaned that about 14 or 15
barrels of blasting powder, a quantity of Dartford
cannister, and several thousand of blank and ball
cartridges were lodged in this building, which took
tire, it is supposed by a quantity of unslacked lime
igniting some ricks of hay, the heat from which
communicated with the said building. That, how-
ever, is only surmise.
_ _ _

. .
The whole of the windows of the Post-office were
forced in and a hole cut out of the roof, the debris
not falling into the room below, but being carried
away. At the Mitre, the whole of the windowe and
doors of which are demolished, a servant was thrown
ont of bed and tumbled down stairs, near the head
of which she was sleeping. A daughter of a shoe-
maker in the high-street was also thrown out of
bed, the bed-post near to the window being actually
broken off near to the mattress on which she was
sleeping. The ball cartridges flew about in all
di-
rections, and it is truly marvellous that no life has
Zno lost. The explosion was distinctly heard
r ngliout the Radnorshire valleys for many miles
and in all directions.

baeenletterl
[Abvn ----- ...............m..
Un. ItTism,----- _ .
soacited , -.1,1T
wEixfeether;.din narci—Jlllr. Rippon, hair-dresser, of
I„,,ti___ .I—Holloway's Ointment and Pills.—
legs. After tryaireat eSuffeuZ Ist, 1862, writes :—" My
towether to no pul. t.ax„
__err for several years from bad
I)og,', different applications for months
medicaments, and
tr
sz
you
recommended your
her and yourself for e feel most thanktul to
My wife is now able to t:krrfectilew,
they have effected.
comfort. You may publishaX,xlk ref
ternsleor or five miles with
be the means of inaucii);is
may have
:a l„ld I only hope it
admirable remedies, which provedll_!geyers to use your
to us." Such testimonials are irrefutable.ti blessing, indeed,