The Sun.
London, England, 1865-04-05 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.—Once again the House of Commons has
been occupied in a discussion of that very old but
still interesting enigma, the constitution and merits
of the Board of Admiralty. There must be some-
thing in a Department to enable it to stand so much
abuse, exposure, and condemnation. At any rate,
it must be hard to suggest anything better than we
have, or by this time should surely have got. Sir
Morton Peto did not exaggerate the case in saying
that the opinions of our best naval officers could be
cited against our system of naval administration.
We could fill a page with such authorities ; in fact,
the most violent attacks upon the Board have
always come from the profession itself. But how is
the case to be mended, and what is to be the con-
stitution of the Department which will satisfy the
House, the profession, and the public ? The truth
is, that whereas the duties of the Board are so
manifold and different as to require all kinds of
gifts and capacities, its opponents are apt to take
one branch of the business exclusively, and to shape
their criticisms by that view. For instance, it is a
common practice to speak of " the Admiralty" as a
Department intrusted with enormous funds to be
employed in shipbuilding ; nor is this practice at all
surprising. The Admiralty, beyond doubt, is respon-
sible for the navy, and the navy is presented to our
eyes or our imaginations in the shape of so many
well-built and well-manned ships of war. But Sir
John Pakington, though himself one of the many
malcontents, explained to the House as the result
of his official experience that a " very large" part of
the business devolving upon the Board is entirely
unprofessional in its character, and such as a civi-
lian is just as competent to transact as a sailor.
Dockyard work, in short, is only a small item in the
work of the Department. Then again, when you
get to the Dockyards you are still a long way from
shipbuilding. The public learnt five or six years ago
that not above a third of a vote especially assigned to
the building and repair of ships can ever be applied
to the construction of new vessels. All the rest goes
in repairs and outfits. So, when it is asked why
her Majesty's ships cannot be built like the ships in
a private yard, the answer is that there is no analogy
or parallel between the two cases. If the best
practical shipbuilder in the country were called into
council at Portsmouth, he would have to learn the
business before he could open his mouth, for the
ships they build at Portsmouth are ships of war, and
not such ships as are built in private yards. Then
there are other details, such, says Lord C. Paget, as
" sailors alone can determine upon." Moreover, he
added, "if you were to put your docks into the
hands of a civilian, you would have the captains
coming in wanting their ships altered and fitted,
and it is well known captains ask for a great many
little things which it would be extravagance to grant,
and which a civilian would grant, because it is only
a superior naval officer that can decide what is really
necessary to be done to the ship." By these argu-
ments the Royal dockyards are taken out of the
category of yards in general and represented as
establishments of a peculiar and exceptional cha-
racter. This is all very well, and perhaps, to some
extent, very true. It may be improper to judge
the Board of Admiralty by the success or failure of
a frigate ; but shipbuilding, after all, is a very im-
portant function of the department, and one of
which the performance is open to practical tests.
There must, too, be many conditions in common
between the works of one yard and another, and,
what is very much to the purpose, the complaints
of the expenditure in the Royal dockyards proceed
from officers of the Royal navy as well as
from civilians. The whole case of the re-
monstrants could be supported by the testimony
of admirals alone. If our ships are built on
injudicious models and at extravagant cost, it is
no defence of the builders to say that they have
other duties besides shipbuilding to attend to. We
pay for the best ships and the best guns, and
we ought to have them, though of course we ought
to have other things besides. The gravamen of the
charge against the Admiralty is that, awing pro-
bably to its constitution, it works at a vast loss of
power and money. The actual work is not ill done,
but it is done circuitously and expensively, with the
disadvantages of cumbrous machinery and antiquated
systems. In a recent debate Mr. Laird said that the
artificers of the royal yards were able workmen, and
the manual work excellently performed, but that the
appliances for economising time and labour were
defective in- the extreme. He thought a large sum
might be spent with a great saving in putting our
dockyards on a level with more modern establish-
ments. On Monday he hit another blot in the Go-
vernment system. He said that, instead of getting
at once a clear conception of a good plan and carry-
ing it into execution with promptitude and effect, so
as to obtain the greatest amount of advantage from
the improvement, we took small voted year after
year, and spent so much time over the work that it
was half obsolete before it was well finished, and
required to be re-modelled before it had ever been
turned to account. He reckoned, indeed, that "in
ten years £1,500,000 had been spent upon peddling
alterations of works, without making them more
efficient for the business of the navy." We believe
these are the charges most easily sustainable. Some-
how or other there is no harmony or concert about
Admiralty work—no adjustment of proceedings, or
adaptation of means to ends. If we get ships, we do
not get docks ; and perhaps by the time we have
got the great docks now projected, the great ships
for which they are required may have gone out of
fashion. On this score, however, there is one thing,
at any rate, which may be said for Mr. Reed. Whe-
ther the ships built by the new Constructor of the
Navy are good or bad vessels remains to be seen ;
but they have, at any rate, been built expeditiously,
and before any newer models have been suggested.
They will, when first sent to sea, be ships of the
very latest fashion, and that is more than can be said
of any other such productions. W e are of opinion,
indeed, that the actual condition of the navy, mea-
sured by the condition of other navies, is not un-
satisfactory ; but, except in America, there are pro-
bably no ships which have cost so much money.
One of the charges against the Admiralty does cer-
tainly appear to be confuted by these very debates.
A Board whose members have to defend their pro-
ceedings so constantly can hardly be thought an
irresponsible Board. It may be hard to say on
whose shoulders the principal or ultimate responsi-
bility rests, but it is plain that every official con-
nected with the Department considers himself bound
to explain, to justify, or to excuse. If we still can-
not understand the Dockyard accounts, it is, per-
haps, because they are unintelligible. Mr. Stansfeld
devoted himself to this inquiry with almost despe-
rate resolution, and Mr. Childers has followed him,
but we are not sure that the mysteries have been
elucidated. To this hour Mr. Childers and Mr.
Seely cannot make out each other's figures. In such
a predicament it is safest to go by results. It may
be very absurd to put a civilian at the head of the
Naval Department, and a naval officer in superin-
tendence over a Department devoted to practical
shipbuilding, but if the Navy is well administered
and the ships are well built, we need not trouble
ourselves about theories. Unfortunately, the fruits
do not certify the goodness of the tree. There is,
if not bad work, at any rate a disproportion between
the work and the cost. Improvements and disco-
veries are neglected till new discoveries and new
improvements have superseded them. Every now
and then we are scandalised by complete failures,
It is hardly fair to quote the gunboats built in the
Russian war, for they were constructed under severe
pressure for an immediate exigency, and they would
have served that purpose if they had done no more.
But there has been up to recent times almost a fata-
lity of miscalculation in Admiralty proceedings, and
it is no great wonder if similar results are antici-
pated still. We hope better things from our fleet
of the future. With fewer ships, fewer guns, fewer
men, and smaller establishments generally, the
chances of miscarriage ought at any rate to be les-
sened, and publicity and discussion should do the
rest.

HERALD.—From the time that General Sherman
left Atlanta, to the 16th day of last month, he had
never fought a battle or been confronted by the
enemy in force. To save his army he avoided Macon
and Augusta, in Georgia. The conquest of Savan-
nah and Charleston was a bloodless victory, of
which the fleets of the Federals may claim at least
half the credit. The occupation of Columbia was
scarcely disputed, and that only by a mere handful
of men. The fall of Fayetteville followed inevitably
upon that of Wilmington, the Cape Fear River
being navigable for gun boats as far as Fayetteville.
It was in his further progress that General Sher-
man's troubles began. Hitherto he had laid waste
the country, he had burned towns and villages, he
had obtained possession of cities with high-sounding
names, whose occupation was a source of weakness
rather than of strength to him. All this time he had
aimed no blow at the vital points of the Confede-
rate defence, he had put no single Southern army
hors de combat. When he arrived in the centre of
North Carolina the position became critical. If he

could reach Lynchburg in Virginia, or effect a junc-
tion with Grant, then Richmond would be lost, and
with Richmond, perhaps, the Confederacy. Ac-
cordingly, when Sherman had reached Fayetteville,
when Schofield, from Newbern, had made his ap-
pearance at Kingston, on the Neuse River, the
Confederate armies, which all this long time had
been falling back to draw the enemy away from the
seaboard and his gunboats, suddenly made a stand,
faced about, and attacked his advancing columns
with terrible effect. In three several engagements,
at Kingston, at Bentonville, and at Averysboro',
the Confederates have fought with Sherman and
Schofield, and each time won the day. This weari-
some delay, this tedious and circuitous retreat, has
been advantageous rather than otherwise to the Con-