The Sun.
London, England, 1853-07-12 00:00:00

IMPERI.

HOUSE OF LORDS—(YESTERDAY.)
NAVAL PROMOTION AND RETIREMENT.
The Earl of HARDWICKE rose to call attention to
the order in Council of the 25th of June, 1851, bearing
upon the promotion and retirement of officers in the
navy. He did not wish to make any attack upon the
present government, because they had nothing to do
with the order in Council in question. When it was
issued he stated his objections to it, and he now ventured
again to trouble their lordships on the subject. He
wished to induce the government to look into the matter
with the view either of revising, rescinding, or amend-
ing the order in Council, in order that justice might be
done to the officers of her Majesty's navy. It did not
seem right, while the late government held office, until
the opinion of the country was taken upon an important
question of public policy to alter the order in Council.
But if the late government had continued in office, he
should have done in the Cabinet what he now proposed
to do in their lordships' house—namely, to represent the
injustice and inefficacy of the order in Council, first, in
regard to the instruction of midshipmen ; secondly, as
to lieutenants and commanders : and thirdly, as to
post-captains. The regulations regarding the half-pay
of officers also required revision. A post-captain, in
order to receive the rank of admiral on the active list,
must serve for six years in peace, four years in war, or
five years in war and peace in a rated ship. That was
the sole and entire test of the ability of an officer. The
object was to endeavour to place upon the list of admi-
rals for active service young, active, and intelligent men
practised in their profession. If the order in Council
produced that effect, he should have no objection
to it ; but it was unjust as well as ineffica-
cious. The injustice was, that however desirous and
able an officer might be to serve in a rated ship, the
Admiralty did not provide a rated ship for him. An
officer might expend the best part of his life in the ser-
vice, and might serve an apprenticeship under the best
officers, but, having attained a certain rank, he might
not succeed in getting a ship for six years, and when he
arrived at the top of the list the door was shut in his
face, and he was liable to be dismissed from active ser-
vice. On the other hand, another officer, through the
accident of getting a rated ship, arrived at the rank of
admiral on active service. Then, a rated ship was a
term that implied a wide margin, from the smallest fri-
gate to the highest line-of-battle ship. If an officer had
never commanded a line-of-battle ship, and had had no
experience in the evolutions of a squadron, he might
still, if he had served in a frigate, become an admiral.
But another officer, who might have served three years
in a frigate, and only two years or one year in a line-of-
battle ship, where he might become conversant with the
practice of evolutions of a squadron or fleet was removed
to the reserved list. There was also another point to
which he wished to call attention, and which bore upon
the civil portion of the service. By these orders in
Council any officer having been in command of a dock-
yard, victualling-yard, or in any civil service under the
Crown relating to the navy, was entitled to take his
place on the active list, and was competent to command
a fleet. The order enacted that the time passed in ser-
vice might be reckoned as so much sea time passed
afloat. He believed, however, that this order in Coun-
cil, which applied immediately to the dockyards and to
the victualling-yards, did not apply to hospitals, and
yet, notwithstanding this, three distinguished naval
officers, who had served their time as superintend-
ents of hospitals, were made exceptions to the rule.
That apppeared a flagrant act of injustice, because,
as he had said before, although there was some doubt
on the subject, he did not believe it was intended
that the officers at the head of medical establish-
ments should be allowed to reckon their time, yet the
officers to whom he alluded had been so treated, and
were continued on the active list. What had been the
result of the practice followed since 1851 ? Had the
present system, as was intended, produced upon the ac-
tive list a body of young and active officers who might
be supposed, from their youth, to be more energetic and
able to command our fleets, and had the result been
that on the retired list the names of old officers were
found whose years justified and rendered necessary their
retirement ? Quite the reverse. The ages of 16 officers
on each side produced—on the reserved list 1,027 years,
and upon the active list ],038 years, so that there was
a small balance against the activity of the active list (a
laugh), and it followed that there had been placed upon
the active list a larger number of aged officers than upon
the retired list. The service of six years in a rated ship
could not be any sufficient test of the ability of an officer,
because officers might have served within a week or
month of that time ; while, on the other hand, you
might have an officer pushed on in the service by inte-
rest, who might have served the required period afloat,
and still might not be so efficient a man as the other,
who had not served quite so long a period. If their
lordships took into consideration the mode in which the
navy was governed, it was the very last profession in this
country which ought to be regulated by orders in Coun-
cil of this description. The whole mode of promotions and
appointments was objectionable at present, because those
promotions and appointments were not made by the
board as a board, but were exercised by one individual,
the First Lord. By orders in Council of this description
you placed the First Lord in the very difficult and painful
position, because although, doubtless, as an English gen-
tleman lie wished to do justice to every one, great sus-
picion was thrown upon him, let him do whatever lie
might and be as just as he could. In the army no such
system existed, and if there was retirement it was retire-
ment by selection of the Crown, and upon intelligible
grounds. The recent order in Council was only a repe-
tition of the order passed in 1827, which, far from being
considered just by the service or by the governing power
of the day, was thought so unjust to the service that it
was repealed, and another substituted in its place.
What he would ask the Government to do was, to exa-
mine the bearings of that order in Council, and to re-
store to the service the arrangements then effected in-
stead of those existing at present, which produced no
financial advantage to the nation. The order substituted
for that of 1827 would effectually meet the case
which he had described, and would prevent any govern
ing power being placed under circumstances of grew
difficulty, and from from having its motives repre
sented in a spirit totally foreign to its feelings and in.
tentions.

The Earl of ABERDEEN said, the noble earl had
rightly stated that her Majesty's present Government
had not originated the order in Council to which he had
alluded, and had also given a reason for not bringing
the subject under the attention of the Government of
which he himself was a member. He thought he recol-
lected that at the time this order in Council was issued
the noble earl, with some of his friends, had made some
observations on the subject. He believed the matter
had been considered by the Government at the time,
and had also been fully considered by Parliament. Now,
he (the Earl of Aberdeen) knew the subject was one
upon which much difference of opinion prevailed in the
naval profession, and he confessed that he himself was
not very competent to offer an opinion upon any practical
view which the noble earl had taken upon the working of
the order in Council. As, therefore, the noble earl had
done nothing more than call the attention of her Ma-
jesty's
Government to the subject, he would, without
offering any opinion or coming to any conclusion himself,
simply engage that his right hon. friend at the head of
the Admiralty should give the subject his full conside-
ration, and he had no doubt that ultimately a decision
wouldtbe arrived at which would give some satisfaction
to the noble earl.
The Earl of HADDINGTON had long been of opi-
nion that the matter was one which needed consideration,
but it was a subject of very considerable difficulty in-
deed, and it was more easy to point out defects in the
existing system than to devise a remedy for those defects.
He doubted whether under any general orders or regu-
lations whatever, cases of hardship might not occur. He
knew an instance in which an officer who had served
five years and a certain number of months in a rated
ship was then put upon the retired list. He had pre-
viously at the desire of the Government of the day, con-
tinued for a considerable time to serve in a sloop, and,
if he had been allowed to count that service in the sloop,
he would not have been put upon the retired list. That
he thought was a case of great hardship. (Hear.)
The subject then dropped.
TRANSPORTATION OF OFFENDERS BILL.
The LORD CHANCELLOR, in moving the second
reading of this bill, regretted that there was a necessity,
at the present day, to introduce a bill of that description.
He did not treat lightly the advantage of transportation
as a secondary punishment. His experience in criminal
courts had convinced him that transportation answered
the end of punishment better than anything else that
could have been devised. (Hear, hear.) It had all the
main ingredients of secondary punishments ; it had a
maximum in apprehension and a minimum in endur-
ance ; it excited great terror, without, perhaps, eventu-
ally inflicting great pain, and he knew not what they
could look to better. If the United Kingdom alone
were concerned, he should have deprecated the removal
of transportation from the statute-book, to any great
degree, as a punishment for crime. Its terrors operated
to prevent the commission of crime, and those who had
committed it were afforded the best chances of reforma-
tion. But we were bound also to consider the interests
of our numerous colonies, which realised much more
truly than before the observation that we were at the
head of an empire on which the sun never sat. The
question was, whether for our own social advantage, we
were to persevere in getting rid of the criminal popula-
tion of the United Kingdom at the expense of those co-
lonies where we had been hitherto in the habit of sending
them. The opinion of thoso colonies having been in an
unmistakable manner manifested against receiving any
mo:e convicts, we must, sooner or later, discontinue send-
ing them there. At present the colony which had been our
grand depob for convicts, Van Diemen's Land, had signi-
fied great reluctance to receive anymore ; and the Govern-
ment,their only
forthe reasons stated in the late debate, had acceded
to their request. The question arose, what number could
be sent to the only colony, Western Australia, which was
still willing to receive them. That point ascertained,
course was to determine which of those
to take ia
offenders whom they had been in the habit of tran-
sporting should continue to be sent out. Treating tran-
extefftofrecmapittbale pbuenttisehmm,eanat,itall
were,the
ocewli
do
aass
ormai nbal
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tclasse re
eaesi
v e largereceive.
Ita number b e
impossible
aas th e colonyt
Nvas
ascer-
tain that number with absolute accuracy, but it might
be assumed at from 800 to 1,000 annually. Then came
the question—from which set of convicts the punish-
ment of transportation should be removed ? Undoubt-
edly from those who were in the eye of the law the
least culpable. The returns for 1851 showed that there
were sentences, to transportation in England and Wales
2,892 convicts, including 56 who were capitally con-
victed, but whose punishment was commuted to tran-
sportation. Of these 1,562 were sentenced to seven
years only, leaving 1,330 sentenced for longer terms,
practically for ten years and upwards. Scotland and