The Sun.
London, England, 1848-08-10 00:00:00

established at Devonport. The system was begun with the
Board to which his Hon. Friend was attached, and it had been
carried out by the present Government. The steam reserve
would be our great security, if, unhappily, we should be in-
volved in hostilities with any foreign country. That steam
reserve,' the House must understand, cost nothing. The
steamers wore in preparation, with an organization under
Captain Austin—the whole establishment was not more than
270 men—and yet they could have six of these vessels made
available within twelve hours; and six more as soon as they
could put men on board of them. He thought that after
stating that the Admiralty were ready to adopt 29 out of the
33 recommendations of the Committee, he need not give
another pledge of the earnest desire of the Admiralty to carry
out legitimate economy; but in stating the desire to pursue
economy, he did lot propose, nor did he wish the Committee
to imagine, that the Government would do anything to
cripple or impair our most legitimate sources of power in case
of foreign aggression. The Admiralty wished to be prepared
with ample means, not with a view to purposes of hostility to
any party, but to resist aggression from whatever quarter it
might come. He hoped that the votes which he was about
to put would meat with the approbation of the House.
The first vote proposed w s a sum of 293,5601. to make
up the sum of 1,393,5061. for the wages of seamen and
marines.
__ _

3.6.111UME said he had sat on many Committees, but he
must say that he had never sat on any Committee where he
more approved of the conduct of the Chairman than he did
of the conduct of the Noble Lord who presided over the
Committee on the navy estimates, whose continuous and pa-
tient application under every occurrence that took place de-
served from him (Mr. Hume), at least, the highest appro-
bation.—(Hear, hear.) He begged to say of the Committee
also, whose conduct had been attacked by a Gallant Ad-
miral, that, differing in several important points from them,
he had never seen a Committee who had more fairly weighed
and inquired into the various matters that came under their
consideration before coming to a decision than that Com-
mittee did.—(Hear, hear.) He did not think them liable,
therefore, to.the charges which had been made against them
on that head.—(Hear, hear.) The Committee had not
proceeded to the length which he wished and which he
proposed to them; but he had no right to 'complain; he
submitted his views to them, and when those were not adopted
he yielded to their decision, as he always did when he
found himself in a minority.—(Hear, hear.) He came then
to the question, how far the Committee had conducted
their business with advantage to the country or not—and
he feared he could not express a very favourable opinion
on that point. They had hit a few blots, but they might
have proceeded much further than they had done. The
Chairman of the Committee stated at the outset that he did
Hot wish them to lose time in finding out what mischiefs
had taken place from want of system and mismanagement;
but that the object they should have in view should be to
correct, as far as possible, the evils that existed, and point
out how improvement could be effected in future. He there-
fore could not allow his Hon. Friend (Mr. Ward) to take
credit for the fact, or allow the country to believe, that no
mismanagement was discovered, or could be discovered. He
believed, from what had -come to his knowledge, that the
waste of public money, in consequence of the waste of ma-
terial and experiments in the construction of ships during the
last fifteen years, had been enernious; and the necessity for
a change and for additional checks in respect to these- matters
was admitted in every arrangement that was now making.
The Hon. Member had concluded his speech by saying that
the navy was in a most efficient state. If that was the case
—which be did not doubt—he wished to know if it was not
in such a state as to afford a reduction of expense? He
agreed with the Hon. Gentleman that the service should not
be crippled nor impaired; but the question was, what was
necessary
for the service of the country, and whether the
aggregate amount of expense was properly proportioned? In
the first place, it was important to settle the number of men
that was requisite to be maintained—for the whole report
proceeded upon the assumption that unless they fixed a
limit to the number of men in the first instance, there was
no limit to the expense of stores. On the 20th of March
last, he proposed that the number of men should be reduced
from 43,000 to 36,009—being 11',003 more than at a former
time when the navy was declared to be equally efficient; but
only 38 Members out of a House of 385 agreed to effect that
reduction.—(Hear, hear.) His Honourable Friend said that
that question having been decided by the House he did not
think it necessary to enter into it ; but had no circumstances
occurred in Europe since that period to induce a reduction ?
At the present moment when the rest of Europe were occu-
pied with their own affairs and not seeking to meddle with
us, was this a time to increase the expense of the navy ? In
the years 1833-4-5 and 6 the average number of men was
27,000 and the expense of supporting them 4,630,6431. In
the years 1845-6-7 and 8 the number of men was 40,000, and
the expense 7,667,295/. ; while for the years 1818-9
the number of men voted was 43,000, and the es-
timated expense 7,951,8421., being an excess of
3,517,059/. over the estimates of 1835-6.—(Hear, hear.)
His Hon. Friend had referred to the number and efficiency
of the steamers; but since they had so, many steamers why
should they not have fewer ships? Was no reduction to be
made on that score ? (Hear,
hear.) The Government was
keeping up a naval establishment much beyond what the
purposes of the country required, and it was the duty of the
Executive to ascertain what reductions ought to be made.
It was not in the power of any Committee to point out the
details wherein a saving might be effected, and he at once
admitted that there was not a single vote inquired into by
the Committee with which they had done more than merely
skimmed the surface. The Committee had in one respect
done good service in pointing out the principles upon which
the naval department should be conducted, at the same time
leaving it to the Government to introduce those checks and
improvements which would be advantageous to the country.
The great increase in the number of men and number
of ships—and which had occasioned an expense of
3,500,000!. for this year beyond the average of the esti-
mates for the years 1814, 1835, and 1836—was not to be
accounted for by the external relations of the country,
for our colonies had not been attacked, nor our own
shores invaded, and the only possible ground for such an in-
crease appeared to him to be that system of political interfe
rence with the affairs of other nations which had been too
much pursued by this country. How were our ships sta-
tioned ? If they went back to the year 1838 they would find
Sir G. Cockburn stating that all the force that was required
to protect British commerce in the Mediterranean was four
chips, one large frigate and three small ones; "but," said that
Gallant Admiral, " I do not give that evidence in allusion to

the political state of affairs, I speak only of what is necessary
to protect our coesmeeeial interests." Now, there was a re-
turn on the table made up to 1842, which showed that there
while
the in
fin.lce 79w2 h,
itchhe the
whole
oleov
ern.
were sr pennants in the Mediterranean, and the number of
men employed w
num-
ber of seamen and marines in the British navy amounted only
tinoelr_6t.bst
'"o nin'eante Thena
at
ly persevered in keeping on the western coast
Committee
esthigaavtiengthis been matter
appointed
in
intedto
inquire of Afriat, consisting of no less than 28 ships. The Com-
mittee conse-
quence
re do i
into
a d notit s
Special
They, however, went far enough to show
thoroughly
that no good had been done by our interference, but that
mischief had arisen from it. lii 1847, no less than 43 ships
were expressly employed in a fruitless endeavour to suppress
the slave trade ; 28 off the western coast of Africa, 11 at
the Cape, and some halt-dozen ships on the southeast coast
of America, where they were interfering with other people's
affairs. It was by measures such as these that the aggregate
expense of our establishment was occasioned, and his Hon.
Friend held out no hope that any reductions would be
effected in this enormous expenditure. The labour of the
Committee, therefore. would be of very little use unless the
House should interfere and stop the supplies. There ap-
peared to him to be no other means by which the Govern-
ment could be induced to adopt any measures of economy.
His Honourable Friend had said that there were only
fifty sail of the line, but they ware not manned. The ships
could not be brought into ore, and were kept merely to
be looked at. Many of our largest ships had never been
in the water, but had literally rotted on the slips. His
Hon. Friend had, declared that the Government would not
agree to the recommendation of the Committee with reference
to the half-pay, and to the number of admirals that were
at present in the service. Upon that question he (Mr.
Hume ) should certainly take the sense of the House. only
13 admirals were actively employed, it was therefore mon-
strous that so large an establishment as 100 flag officers
should be kept up. He altogether disagreed with the
reasons which his Honourable Friend had assigned for main-
taining the establishment at that rate. His Hon. Friend
said that there were a great many young mess growing up in
the naval service, all of whom were looking anxiously fin--
ward to obtaining a flag. What would be the state of
things if the country were called upon to maintain a plura-
lity of Lord Chancellors, in order that the expectations of all
the young barristers who were growing up and aspiring to
hold the great seal might not be disappointed?—(Hear,
hear, and laughter.) Or why not (as an Honourable Friend
behind him had suggested) make provision that
every clergyman who entered the Church should ultimately
become a Bishop ? —(" Hear, hear," and laughter.) It would
be just as reasonable as to adopt the system supported by
his Hon. Friend. A comparison had been drawn by his
Hon. Friend between the army and the navy. A similar
comparison was drawn by the Committee of 1840; and if
anything more than another ought to induce the Govern-
ment to make a change in the system of promotion in the
was
the result which that comparison presented.
Friend had compared the number of admirals in
nnaivsy hio tn. w
the navy with the number of generals in the army, but had
be allowed for the fact that there were four times the
number of soldiers than there were of sailors? To make
the comparison, a fair one, the number of Jag officers, and
the expense of paying them, ought to be multiplied by four.
He almitted that the increase of generals and sniff-officers
in the army was far beyond what the service of the country
required as was the number of admirals ; and if the Govern-
ment acted on a sonnd principle they would put an end to
the system. He therefore in that respect differed from the
Committee in retaining 100 admirals, and proposed that the
number should 75.--(Heer.) What bad been the
services of the-naval
be only
officers.? He bad, in anticipation of
some such comparison being psade as that which had been
instituted by his Hon. Friend, extracted a passage from the
Commissioners' report in 1840 relating to that subject, and he
was sorry to say it presented a very poor picture of their ser-
vices. There were many of those'officers, no doubt, who were
anxious to be on active service, but who were unable to ob-
tain appointments.' They were laid on the shelf, and at last
became old men and unfit for service. He found by a com-
parison of the services of the naval and military officers, as
lowing results
reported by the Commissioners for inquiry in 1840, the fol-