The Sun.
London, England, 1849-01-30 00:00:00

THE FINANCIAL REFORM ASSO- 1

CIATION.

THE NAVY.

SECTION 1.-SHIPBUILDING AND ENGINE-MAKING,

On the 22d of February, 1848, a Select Committee
of fifteen Members of the House of Commons was ap-
pointed, " to inquire into the Expenditure on account
of the Army, Navy, and Ordnance, and to report their
observations thereupon to the House." This Committee
consisted of—Lord Seymour, Chairman; Mr. Fox Maule,
Mr. Hume, Mr. George Bankes, Sir James Graham,
Marquis of Granby, Sir William Molesworth, Mr. Cob-
den, Mr. Corry, Mr. Walter, Mr. Edward Mice, Mr.
William Miles, Mr. John Greene, Sir Frii,ch Thorn-
hill Baring, Sir Thomas Acland.
The business was chiefly conducted by Lord Sey-
mour, Sir James Graham (formerly First Lord of the
Admiralty), Mr. Corry (formerly Secretary to the Ad-
miralty), Mr. Hume, and Mr. Cobden. During their
sittings, extending through the greater part of the long
Parliamentary session, they were occupied .its evidence
relative to the expenses of the navy. A volume of 1,226
folio pages, containing the report of the Commit ee,
10,191 questions and answers, and a large number of
offic:al documents, tabular statements, &c., has been
prin. ed.
To read a volume of such dimensions seems a formi-
dable task, yet few will begin this without going through
it. The Financial Reform Association, for the sake of
those who cannot obtain the. original, nor find time to
go through it if they had it, make a few ;electi.,fis, In
the first place, Mr. Ward, the present Secretary to she
Admiralty, in his evidence, states—

"I should say that there is no department" (under
Government) " in which the want of a regular system
has been so much felt as in the Admiralty ; one in
which so many expensive alterations, p inicularly in
naval construction, have been created by the sudnen
changes of persons having the authority, and by the
want of a systematic application of certain principt s.
There is no doubt that the alterations in naval con
struction have been one cause of the immense increase
of labour in the dock-yards, and of our great national
expenditure." _ _ _

An adverse vote in the party warfare of the House of
Commons gave, with a new ministry to the country, new
Lords of the Admiralty, a new secretary, and a whole
legion of applicants for employment and State pay.
Ships on the stocks were pulled to pieces, the timber re-
hewed into other shapes, or sold as offal, and new frames
of other ships of other dimensions laid on in their
places ; ships completed in the building were pro-
nounced not to be worth rigging; or if completed in the
rigging, not to be worth manning and commissioned for
sea; and, accordingly, new ones, without regard to number
or expense, were hastened forward, while these virgin
ships, to the extent of 70 or 80, were kept, and are now
kept, in the harbours, going to decay, or getting repairs to
the extent of 20,0001. or 25,0001., once in every cycle of
six or seven years; they have not been commissioned,
and never will be, as they are alleged to be
complete failures. As many or more have been
taken to pieces within a few years. The Lords
of the Admiralty and their servants have
worked at some as children do at toys, adding a
piece to the length and taking away a piece; changing
form, and restoring form; cutting down and building up,
until the thing under their hands has grown so mon-
strously absurd, that they have thrown it aside as way-
ward children do, disgusted at their own work. And
so they have gone on to something else, to repeat the
same expensive child's play,
But not only have the amateur lay Lords, and the
crotchetty sea Lords of the Admiralty, amused them-
selves with millions of public money and scores of ships
every year thus ; they have employed servants
equally incapable and crotchetty. Mr. Creuze,
the surveyor to Lloyds, who had been educated in
the School of Naval Architecture, who was a mas-
ter shipwright in the Admiralty Dock-yard up to
1844, and still retained a partiality for some of the
practices there which others did not approve, was unable
to withhold his condemnation of the Admiralty ships
built since 1832 by the Surveyor of the Navy. fie stated
that in 1843 and 1844 he had been officially employed to
examine and report upon the ships of war which had been
built during 10 years; but in:reply to;question 9,029, put by
Mr. Hume, said he" would rather be permitted to forego
any examination upon that subject." Whereupon ques-
tion 9,030 was put by Mr. Hume thus :—" The com-
mittee, however, request that you will state (though
you may be compelled in doing so to mention facts that
may be disagreeable to the parties who took part in that
construction) what opinion you formed of the system
pursued in the construction of ships for the public ser- ,
vice?" To which, being thus pressed, he replied,—
" That the ships were merely a series of experiments,
not founded on correct principles." And to the next
question, he answered, that these were " the whole of
the ships, to a greater or less degree, that were built by
Sir William Symonds."
Question 9,032 (by Mr. Hume)—" Are you to be un-
derstood to mean that all the ships built by Sir William
Symonds were built without regard to the scientific
principles to which you refer?"
Answer—"l do not say they were built without re-
gard to scientific principles, but I say that Sir William
Symonds was not sufficiently acquainted with the pro-
gress which correct principles of naval architecture had
made to make them available in the construction of his
ships; thus, for instance, one great fault was a want of
knowledge of the correct principles on which the sta-
bility of ships depends * • All his ships were more
or less uneasy, so as to render them virtually inefficient
as men of war. They were expensive from their wear
and tear. • • An uneasy ship deteriorates fast,
because the strains upon her are heavy. She becomes
loose and leaky, and the admission of water causes her to
decay fast; therefore, she is frequently under repair."
Other witnesses proved the astounding numbers of
ship-building abortions which had been begun, not com-
pleted, taken to pieces and the timber reconverted for
ships of other sizes, or sold as " offal."
But in steam-engines made for the navy, and the ships
built for the engines in the dockyards, without their
respective artists having any knowledge of what the
other was doing, exceeds in absurdity, and even in cost-
liness, the freaks of Sir William Symonds and the ama-
teur Lords of the Admiralty.
Mr. Scott Russell, a practical engineer, and member
of the Institute of Civil Engineers, who had been exten-
sively concerned in the construction of steam-ships and
their engines of the first class—those magnificent vessels
which work like clock-work on the Atlantic Ocean—
explained how easy it was to obtain a certain result in
the mercantile steam-navy, while in the war steam-navy
all was uncertainty, and reckless cost.
Question 7,027 (by Mr. Cobden).—" You have ex-
plained to the committee how it is that in private yards
they obtain one uniform result in building steam-vessels
where the builders are experienced; how do you account
for the failures which have taken place in the Admiralty
steamers during the interval of time as you have stated
to the committee the merchant steamers have been so
uniformly successful?"
Answer—" I think the cause is just the difference
between people of experience building and people of
inexperience. • • Sir William Symonds, for
example, began to build a war steamer. Sir William
Symonds had never built a war steamer before ; the
consequence was, that instead of taking the section mid-
ships, which we learned by our dear experience to be
the only section that would answer, he took a section
of a sailing vessel which we bad found, seven years
before, would not answer ; just putting back the work
seven years."
In the next section, a list of the ships built under this
blundering system, from 1832 to the present time, with
their tonnage and cost per ton, will be given. The list
is too long for the present section, but a few specimens of
the steamers may be cited here. The royal yacht Victoria
and Albert is one. The naval architect had spoiled a good
many ships in attempting to make a steam -navy, and fooled
away a goodly number of millions sterling before he tried
his hand at the royal yacht; so that it might have been
expected that he had gained experience. But no; the
Victoria and Albert cost in building, rigging, and fitting
for soa, 69,9411.; but, on getting afloat, the obstinate
ship held down her head, and would not move, except at
the risk of being driven by the engines to the bottom. The
engines had to be taken out; fittings pulled down to get
them out; and before they and the fittings were replaced,
a further sum of 43,8064 was expended. The engines
were lighter than they should have been, being con-
structed for another ship. This construction of engines
for one class of ships, and placing them in another when
they are found not to work in the class intended, dege-
nerate occasionally to a farce.
Three first-class steamers were built; the Simoon, to
carry engines of 780 horse power; the Vulcan, to carry
engines of 700-horse power; and the Megrera, to carry
engines of 566-horse power. The Admiralty men changed
their minds after the engines were in progress, and partly
paid tor, thinking them too heavy. They resolved to
transfer them to three ships of the line, already afloat.
Preparations were made, at great expense, to render
those ships of the line fit to receive them. But
again the Admiralty men changed their minds,
thought the three ships of the line would be spoiled,
and so the large engines lie unemployed. Meanwhile two
steamers were ordered to be built, and begun, called the
Seahorse and the Eurotas, the engines of which were to be
350-horse power. Mr. Napier, of Glasgow, who had made
engines by contract for the Admiralty, refused to tender
for engines of that size, "to be crammed into the small
hold of the Seahorse and Eurotas ; but other engineers
tendered, and the engines were made. Not
so the ships. The minds of the Admiralty
Lords were changed ; the Seahorse and Eurotas
abandoned, and the engines left unemployed The Lords
looked around to discover if they could use them any-
where—anyhow; and seeing the Simoon without an en-

gine (which was built for one of 780 horse-power), or-
dered one of those of 350 horse-power to be placed in
that ship.
Mr. Gordon, an engineer, the London agent of Mr.
Napier, of Glasgow, says:—" The reckless waste of
money in altered and defective plans in building
ships and steam-engines for the navy would have
long since made any mercantile company bankrupt."
He gives, as one of the reasons for the slow progress
of science in the steam-factories of the dockyards,
the fact of the practical men there being debarred,
through formality in speaking, from suggesting improve-
ments to the superior officers; while these again, must
make their report through Somerset House, whence the
suggestion goes by message to the Admiralty, at White-
hall, where it lies on the table, to be considered by the
Lords. They may or may not understand the nature of
the practical suggestion; but they answer, and send
their answer to Scmerset House, from whence it is sent
to the surveyor, or captain superintendent of the dock-
yard, who conveys it to the master-buildt r or engineer,
or some one else. But the chances are that they are
lost by the way, or so absurdly transformed in its formal
progress from one power to another, that it no longer
applies to its purpose. On the other Land, Mr. Gordon
states many, if not most, of the practical improvements
in the engine factories of private firms originate in sug-
gestions or remarks made by intelligent workmen, fore-