The Sun.
London, England, 1853-04-20 00:00:00

men pass him by. And the only soulbulitinonduryhincnhthhen
could arrive at for that dereliction ofthpat in Portsmouth
part of the hon. gentleman wda
If the
there was no Conservative ca
house granted him the commitnteeis:lhaetew.
circular of 1835
was confident that
he could prove still further that
had been also virtually cancelled,
ea r not. ahsatdr o
nowiee of t epen, but by act and deed. (He
d He had stated that
dis-
charged the duty he had as
he did not bring the motion
nsumfmoaard
(fßroemar.a)ny pHerse ohnaadl
hostility -to the hon. gentle
been actuated solely by
the house granted the acosmenmsietteef, paunbdlie d,
the
esulatnodf iitf
should be to acquit thite
hliasteerrßnor,aradndofwnnld Admiralty,
be happhye
should be ready
to have it shown thtoaadtnathhd beeneainfinencprneoperly exercised,fagreatpubl de-
partmentand of the state
its patronage honestly distributed. (Cheers.)
Sir G. PECHELL seconded the motion.
Mr. STAFFORD rose amid loud cheers. fromf thehn Con-
servative benches to reply to the allegations
member for Marylebone. tendering an
acknowledgment to the hon.H
baronet for ftohrenthase
kcoeudrttehoeusintine.
in which he had spoken of him, an
defend
atask his
which
hc
cnh-
gence of the house whilst he attempted
duct whilst Secretary of theAdmiralty;tedh t
of Sir J. Graham,
would have been much easier were e now filling that
office, for, notwithetanding the courtesy
the present First Lord of the Admiralty,there were docu-
ments at the Admiralty which, now that he was out
havetheywould
been if he were now a member of the Government. With
all respect to the hon. baronet the member for Marylebone,
he would take leave to answer his charges not exactly in
the order in which they were made. The hon. baronet
had most justly stated that it was the privilege of the re-
presentatives of the people to ask questions of the Execu•
tive Government in reference to several departments, and
that the Executive Government had the choice of either
giving an immediate answer -or refusing to do so.
There was another course open to those officials—that of
giving to hon. members subsequent explanation. He be.
lieved that the house would not judge harshly of any mem-
• ber of the Government, however subordinate, if, after
having made a statement, he came down to the house and
said that, on further inquiry, he found that he had to give
an answer different from that which he had already given
to the inquiry of an hon. member. (Hear.) He (Mr.
Stafford) aknowledged that the hon. baronet put questions
to him in the terms which he had quoted. He acknow-
ledged that he had given answers such as the hon. baronet
had stated; and that he had declined to give any subsequent
explanations. In fact, he never once thought of giving any
such explanations. (Hear, hear.) It was his
practice when
Secretary to the Admiralty to go to the First Lord of
the
Admiralty, the Duke of Northumberland, every morning
with such papers as he thought were sufficiently important to
be submitted to him. On the 26th of April, 1852, the Duke
of Northumberland told him that the Surveyor of the Navy
was exceedingly annoyed by a circular which had beenissued
on the 19th, and which, he considered, had cast a stigma
upon his character. The Duke of Northumberland said
that he did not believe the surveyor would remain in office
unless that stigma was removed. He (Mr. Stafford)im-
mediately said that nothing could be easier than to remove
that imputation—that another circularcould be issued that
day. The duke assented, and he (Mr. Stafford) proceeded
to his office to draw a rough draft circular, which was sub-
sequently issued. Sir B. Walker had written a letter
addressed to the Admiralty, and entrusted to Admiral
Hyde Parker, in which he complained of the stigma which
the said circular of the 19th April cast upon him as Sur-
veyor of the Navy. Admiral Hyde Parker, however, be-
lieving that the fresh circular removed any complaint of
that Boit, determined to destroy that letter. (Cheers.) The
hon. member for Marylebone had asked him (Mr. Stafford)
whether he had ever seen that letter. He was not going
to shrink from answering fairly, and he would say in reply
that, according to the best of his belief, he never did see
that letter. Not being aware that any such letter was
ever written, he certainly did say in the House of Com-
mons, in reply to the hon. baronet, that no such letter
had been addressed to the Admiralty. Sir B. Walker,
finding that no answer had been returned to his letter,
wrote another letter to the board, complaining that no
answer had been vouchsafed to his previous communica-
tion. Having ultimately discovered that his first letter
did not reach its destination, he wrote the following letter
to him (Mr. Stafford) :—" With reference to your letter
of the 96th inst., I beg to acquaint you that, since my
communication of the 25th inst., I have been informed
that my letter of the 21st of April, addressed to the Secre-
tary of the Admiralty, which was delivered to Vice-
Admiral Hyde Parker, was not brought before the board ;
and, with reference to the letter of the 10th of May,
it was a communication addressed to the First Lord
of the Admiralty, and not to the Secretary." He had
taken a most straightforward course, and he did not see
that he had anything to conceal in the statement which
he had made. He thought that the affair had been settled
as far as Admiral Parker was concerned. When the ques-
tion of the letter was mooted in the Chatham committee
he thought that the simplest way would be to move for the
correspondence, with a view to its being laid on the table
of the house. He believed that it would explain itself most
completely. When the motion for the correspondence was
made, the hon. and gallant member for Brighton moved,
by way of amendment, an addition—" And in case such
correspondence shall not be in the office, that the surveyor
shall be directed to furnish copies of any letter or letters
addressed by him to the Secretary or the First Lord of the
Admiralty on such subject." He (Mr. Stafford) received a
letter addressed to himself, and he must say that he read it
with considerable surprise; aniellthough it was most dis-
tasteful to him to mention a private letter, yet when he
found that the letter which he received was in answer to a
private note, written by himself to the Surveyor of the
avy on the 2d of the same month, he felt that he could
not do otherwise than refer to it. His letter was marked
" private and confidential." The hon. gentleman then
read the letter, which was to the following effect :—That
he found that great dissatisfaction existed amongst his
political friends as to the arrangements and promotions in
the dockyards—anti that there was a general impression
that all these things were disposed of for political pur-
poses, insomuch that there seemed no alternative but to
resume the s
throw any blameSe on
him (Sir B. Walker) who was altogether too much removed
from politics to understand these matters. (Hear, hear.) For
himself he hated all notion of patronage, which only exposed
him to trouble, and he stated the case to him in perfect
frankness for the purpose of obtaining his opinion. That
letter might have been right, or it might have been wrong,
but he certainly had not expected to see a quotation made
from that letter. (Hear, hear.) He must be permitted
to observe, with respect to the second letter which had
been referred to, that it always rested with the discretion
of the First Lord of the Admiralty to say whether a letter
was public or private. The First Lord of the Admiralty
was a Cabinet Minister, but the other members of the
board were not in the Cabinet, neither was the Secretary ;
and, considering the vast amount of correspondence that
-took place, the house world see that it was not only wise
but indispensable that the First Lord should have the
power of saying whether a letter should be considered pub-
lic or private. He did not know what had been done in
this case—he did not know whether there had been a pri-
vate
'interview, or whether the First Lord had written an
answer. He (Mr. Stafford) trusted that he had shown to the
satisfaction of the house that he believed he was answering
conscientiously when he gave the answer which he had
gives, and that he did not stand charged with the public
offence of wittingly stating that which was not the fact.
He now
baronet (Sir came t
Hall the first question proposed by the hon.
B. ). The hon. baronet wished to know
"-the circumstances under which a circular sent to the
superintendents of her Majesty's dockyards, dated wept.
26, 1849, was cancelled on the 19th of April, 1852, with-
out any order or minute of the board." He (Mr. Stafford)
had to state that he had looked through the general board
minute-book, and finding that the circular had not been
issued by a general board minute, he had ascertained that
it had been issued by a board minute. Then it was said
that he had signed it by their lordships' command. He
had to inform the hon. baronet that the secretary only
acted as the servant of the board—that he had no vote,
and that his duty was merely to carry out the directions of
the board. The circular in question, however, was re-
affirmed by a general minute on the 26th of April, and
therefore it had received a double guarantee. At the
board held on that day there were present the Duke of Nor-
thumberland, Sir Hyde Parker, Sir T. Herbert, Captain
Duncombe, and Captain Mylne, and they deemed it ad-
visable to revert to the system previously in force, "of
having all the communications on Therefore subect addressed to
this office in the first inetanee." the charge of
. his having made this alteration without the knowledge of
the board, at all events, fell to the ground. With regard
to the cancelling of the circular, which he was called
upon to explain, he hoped that the house would hear
him, and then judge as to the state of circumstances which
had induced the board to determine that it should be can-
celled. When Sir Henry Ward was at the Admiralty, the
administration of that department was conducted with the
greatest firmness and success ; but it afterwards fell into
the more amiable hands of Mr. John Parker, then a mem-
ber of the house. He (Mr. Stafford) had two letters which
were samples of innumerable communications which he had
received on the subject of dockyard patronage. The writer
of the first said that when the
in 1848, began to
feel their power, they thought it necessary to devise some
system by which, if they left office the dockyard patronage
would still be left in their hands. They consequently had
storeiedalse,veexryeluhdoileegand
corner in these yards with Whig
altogether those who did not belong to
the Liberal interest,ff and the writer expressed his belief
that a sort of t •
certain a had been laid down as to the value of
pwpooiruktiumeents. The writer of the second letter
said that
because they entell:f* good conduct and experience, merely ed Conservative opinions, had had
fresh hands placed aa:iredril
stheir heads. Mr. an officer
tinheonWhe oifgtsh,ethdeoCekyonsery dockyards) showed the greatest paaftiality for
worst work. (Hear, h
eeatri
se
ns
iblucaieni t,:augifanhvesi
er inatub
tleyo d
ji)u(ui
stnt
iat oft;
sayt
hhee
that these statements ever:s
"anted that all the ap
change, but it was repeated.i pointments had been made J. ornePr The Conservative
melt'
convenient party got little or nothing—an eeeree*
rangement, of course, for hon. gentle
ar-
hear, and a laugh)--but only lelintdheeLeslyd°Par astitoe—nce(h, and
like When,
not let them stand up for purity
like Irish reciprocity, all the appointments eve'r made on one side. (Hear, hear.) He fours Z?Zidently
cretary-at-War always corresponded with the he
tendeats of the yards ; the hon. member. for Tyrosnue- e(riee
Corry), when in office, had done so, and he (Mr. Staffordr.
did not see why the communication should be choked u)p,
by Somerset-house, as had been the case previously to-
Sept., 1849. Throughout the whole of the dockyard in-
structions it would be seen, that communications from
the dockyards ware to be made directly to the Board of
Admiralty. These instructions, which were dated in
3844, were signed by the Earl of Haddington, Sir
G. Cockburn, Sir W..H. Gage, and by Mr. S. Her-
bert. One instruction was as follows " All reports
/from the officers of the yards are to be submitted by the
atiperintendent to the Secretary for the direction of the
board." He was free to confess that, so far from following
eiolitical precedents, the suggestions which he had chiefly
studied were those which were to be found in the evidence
of Sir H. Ward and Lord Auckland; and a
wished to obtain a knowledge of the working
._ny t person
of thatwho
de -
penned could not do better than to read that evidence