The Sun.
London, England, 1860-04-17 00:00:00

tion, while such eminent niannfattu :aiMessrA. Craw-
Aaw, Abbott and SO3; or Woo l 'and Co,wnuld be willing
t,) supply similar articles at als:fid. (Hor.) For many-
years he had heen convinced that the dockyards were e,st-
ing the countri ought to do, and that With
I,'proper management 149,090,000, or, at any rate, -510,000,000
I.would go •as far as the £0,000,006 which they were about
to vote. A most searching Inquiry ought to -take place into
its enormous expenditure., '

• Sir m.•s_gYmoult, alluding to the case of the. gallant
efficers which had been_ brought before the house by the
Portsmouth, for rertsouth, said they had been induced to re-
move from the ac4i:ve list; in the hope that as time passed
their position would not; materi illy differ from that of the
officers remaiaing on the active list, and they 1:61t *than-
selves aggrieved beeanse they had not'shared in thelsAvards.
Which the other classes had received. The subject had
been frequently brought under the notice of the Admiralty,'
and he trusted the noble lord would be able to deal satis-
factorily with their claim. A subject equally deserving
attention was the case of the widows of warrant gill-
cers, which had • been touched on by the gallant officer
the member for Southwark. A certain degree of con-'
sidenition had been extended by the Admiralty and the
Chancellor aithe Exchiquer to this class, an arrangement
having been made by.which from Jan., 1860,,these widows
wore to receive' their penaions". But it was in evidence that
from the year 1t 3O till now a number of these widows with
their children had been compelled to seek relief from the dif-
ferent unions, and he hoped some measure of relief would
also be extended to them. The navy estimates Were rightly
held to be enorniouslylarge, but he did not believe the coun-
try would refuse the amount requisite to do justice to the
widows of deserving officers. Several instances had come
under his own observation, when serving in a distant pirt
of the world, in which warrant officers had lost their liVes
by climate and exertion. The carpenter of his flagship; after
performing his duties with _great .ability and assiduity, and
with much care and economy in the handling of stores, died
on his passage home a few months Prior to the period from
which this order would take effect, and had left a widow and
several children in great distress. He agreed up to a certain
point with what the gallant member for Southwark had said
in reference to the Channel fleet; he believed their rules were
not so good as they might be, and that in certain ships the
conduct of the men had not been so steady and satisfactory
as all well-wishers of the navy must desire. put it must be
borne in mind that both officers and men on board those
ships had been placed in a position of great temptation. In
any previous period of our naval history ships with their
full war complement had never been kept in the home ports
during the entire winter season. In future a different sr-
sangement would .probably be made, and by the distribu-
tion of vessels in different quarters of the globe, and the judi-
cious quartering of the coastguard, they might be able to
avoid additional expense to the country, at the same time
that greater efficiency to the service would be secured.
He thought with the hon. member for Sunderland that the
national dockyards were not managed with all the economy
possible; but many of the differences between the cost of
the same class of ships which the hon. member had been
unable to reconcile were entirely owing to the various
modes of keeping the accounts in different yards. He ad-
mitted that the expenditure of the naval dockyards was ex-
ceedingly heavy ; but the work done in them was of the very
best kind. (Hear, hear.) As to the important question of
manning the navy, he was glad to hear that the Govern-
ment intended to carry into effect the recommendations of
the manning commission. He fully approved the proposal
to keep 1,000 seamen gunners in the home ports as a re-
serve force, and the plan of a standing reserve of seamen.
`The`niarinei, too—a body of whom it was impossible to
speak tee :highly—might well be increased by 5,000 or 6,000
men. The difficulty,of manning the navy had always been
great ; the Admiralty had never been able to get a fleet to-
gether without considerable difficulty in manning it. A
system of general 'impressment could never be resorted to
again; it would not be desirable or justifiable, except, per-
haps, to the extent of an impressment afloat. With an
enemy at sea, and a sudden necessity for men, he did not
suppose an Admiral lying with an unmanned fleet at St.
Helen's could allow a merchant ship to come up Channel
without taking some of her sailors for the public service.
The number of seamen in the mercantile marine had greatly
increased ; but their money value to the naval service had
not yet been quite ascertained. The commercial marine of
the United States was very large; but there was this curi-
ous fact connected with it :—of 150,000 men sailing from
American ports only 9,000, or about 1 in 12, wore Ameri-
cans born. Of the crew of the Ohio, a ship of the line,,con-
sisting of 1,000 men, only 182 were native Americans. The
rate of pay was a most important question, which the Ad-
miralty would be compelled to take into-serious considera-
tion; and the pay of all ranks would have to be considsrcd;
for at present no class appeared to be satisfied. The gallant
Admiral then proceeded to comment upon the great diffi-
culty which had been experienced on former occasions, as
well as at present, in manning the navy, and to paint out
how necessary it was to keep the internal defences of the
country in a state of efficiency, observing that in 1803 the
total military force of tho country—when neither her
population, nor her wealth reached half its present
amount—was, including the volunteers, 615,000 men. It
was, he added, quite evident that the patriotism of the
English people had since that period undergone no diminu-
tion, and that it rested with the Government to give the
national feeling duo effect. (Hear, hear.)
Sir J. PAKINGTON said he wished before the Speaker
left the chair to allude to the position of the officers on the
captains' reserved list, and to express his belief that the
claims which they put forward, and to which reference had
been made by the hon. member for Portsmouth,' were not
without foundation. Had he been aware that the subject
would have been entered into that evening, he should have
had the order in council which bore upon it at hand, in order
to substantiate the view which he entertained ; for, although
that document. was somewhat loosely worded, he could not
help thinking the construction which was put upon it by the
officers to whom he referred in their memorial was more
reasonable thanthe interpretation of the Board of Admiralty
He, under those circumstances, trusted that the Board would
be able to take a generous view of the matter, and he might
add that they would be enabled to do so with the less diffi-
culty because of the fact that the list of officers in question
must be regarded as en expiring list, and that the number
of names on it was very limited. This was one of those
numerous lists which were the result of a succession of con-
trivances which had been resorted to for a long period as a
substitute—and a miserably bad substitute they were—for
a good system of retirement and promotion. He did hope
that before this session closed the noble lord opposite would
be enabled to announce that the Admiralty had adopted a
system of retirement that would be satisfactory to the . pro-
fession. 'Whenever that desirable end was attained there
would be no more necessity for creating from time to time
these little lists which as he had said were mere substitutes
and very miserable substitutes, for what was due to the
Navy, and what the Admiralty were bound to provide—
namely, a well-regulated system of promotion and retire-
ment. When his noble friend brought forward the Navy
Estimates he did intimate that the Admiralty were medi-
tating a system of retirement which they intended to
announce; such was the general understanding; he
hoped his noble friend would not now object to state
that the Admiralty still entertained that intention, and that
before the estimates were concluded he would be able to

inform Parliament what was the nature of the schen:eth;
proposed to adopt. He had no desire to detain the house

longer-on this question, but he sincerely hoped the
Admi-
ralty would tako a liberal and generous view of the claim
which these gallant officers had made.

Sir F. BARING was sorry he had not been present when
the case of these officers was brought forward by his gallant
colleague. Indeed he only knew of it from expressions which
had dropped from the right hon. baronet who had just sat
down. It bad been his fate to draw up the order on which
their claim was founded, and he could speak as to what the
intention was. He should have no objection, on the con-
trary he should be glad to hear that the Admiralty really
took a favourable view of these claims ; but, on the other
hand, he was bound to say, what he had stated to the claim-
ants themselves, that the order never was intended to bear
the construction they put upon it. In neither the letter,
which stated the intention of the Admiralty, nor in the Or-
der in Council which carried that intention into effect, was
there anything to sustain that construction. The letter
clear, and drew a plain distine•
was not loose, but perfectly
tion between the two classes. What it did was this—lt
placed on the redundant permanent half-pay list officers who
had not served for 20 years, or who were incapable, promis-
ing them they should rise and enjoy all the advantages they
had on the active list, but to those who were promoted it
made no such promise—it gave them promotion and nothing
else. It never was the intention to give them more. It did
not even in words do so. He quite admitted the gallant ser-
vices of these officers, many of whom he had himself placed
on the list, and he should be glad if the Admiralty, on a fair
consideration of the case, could take any view t hat might be
favourable to them ; but he must say, as a witness, having
himself drawn up the order and the letter of the Admiralty
on which the vote in Parliatnent was given, that it was not
the intention of the Admiralty to give these officers what

t hey now asked.
Mr. lIENLEY thought the great amount of the Navy
Estimates this year warranted every member in making
almost any observations on them which came strongly be-
fore his mind. The hon. member for Sunderland had al
hided to the report on dockyard expenditure, its voluminous
nature, and the various subjects with which it dealt. The
gallant admiral the member for Southwark also alluded to
the deficiency in the supply of timber in the dockyards.
That deficiency was commented on by the commissioners in
very strong language. It was almost impossible to speak
more decidedly than they did on this subject. The report
of that commission., as had been stated, was naturally
enough referred to the various officers of the dockyards and