The Sun.
London, England, 1860-05-02 00:00:00

F. very creditable it is to them.
)are doing well in the merchant
to he sent out to any of your
...,QlTer Plate, or any of those IA
carrying on some small hostilit
regular European we'll eak,
mail' • -firear;lii.id.) 7' Titling'
have a tgfaT feebteire Of about 11;
they are.all ioo-4:11.1614.i:1nit is
The nobld -and learned lord says .
larger number of reserve men; and I have ro doubt-that,
if we had gone about offering bountie-s to any sort of men;
we shouldhave made a much larger show on paper than we
do at preient. But that Would have been a very injudicious
course in-the long, run." The right course was to begin Well,
and to 160-kratefficieney as well as to numbers. (Hear, hear.) ,
I am told-that, if we had taken the_warst-Class of ineni, the
best class of men would never have joined. The course we
have taken has two advantages—it does not involve so large
an expenditure as if we had taken men of all elaesee;.and it
give us the nucleus of a valuable force hereafter. *The
noble and learned lord talked with a total disregard of econo-
mical considerations ; and, if we are to establish a force
whi9h is to last, we must pay some attention to economy.
If we were to establish it on an extravagant and wastehll
system Parliament would very soon be for putting it down
again. What the country wants is a force that shall grow
and he efficient, and the cost of which will 'not be Aces-
sive. I believe by the =measures we have taken we shall
attain that result. The noble and learned lord said we could
not expect men to join for £6 a year. I have heard that
before. Suppose you give a man £lO orlls a year. He
willnever joie your navy, because he will be much better
in the a'N'aval Reserve with £145 a year, and picking up odd
money in any way he can. You ought to give a man just
enough to be a tie upon him, bat still compelling him t
continue his service in the mercantile marine, qualifying
himself for service in the navy. It has been said that we
should give as much as £2O a year. If we did so the men
would live ashore, and in a few years they would be a set
of drunken fellows, unfit to serve their country at sea. The
commission recommended £5. We raised the sum .to ay,
but I had great doubts about it, and it was only after con-
sultation with experienced and competent persons that I
thought on the whole £6 would be a better sum. (Hear.)
There is another body to which the noble and learned lord
hag not.referred, but which I consider far the most impor-
tantpart of the force--I mean the boys. What we want
is to bring in boys to serve in the navy. A boy whoihet,
been a couple of years at .sea is a better person for your Ser->7:_ ,
vitle:thinta,imost any man you can obtain from the nierean-'
.j
eiiii4n€: In 1855, which was a year of war, we entered'
4,000 first and second class boys ; in 185 G we entered 3,000;
in 1857, 1,800; in 1858, 1,690 ; and in 1859, 5,147. (Hear.)
There are 8,200 first and second class boys now serving in
our ships. 'lt must always be borne in mind that in train -
ing boys for our ships the proportion of boys must have
some reference to the proportion of men, and that therefore
we must take in only such a number of boys as can be ab- •
sorbed in the fleet. But we have not yet reached that point,
and in the estimates for the present year, besides the 11,000
-excess that I have of men over the estimates of last year,
there is an addition of 2,000 boys. We are, therefore, train-
hie- more boys for the navy. I think that is a very wise
Course. Captains just returned from sea have told me that
the boys are the best sailors in the navy, and that we can-
not have too many of them. Accordingly, I haVe had some
vessels prepared, and am having more prepared, for tho
purpose of training boys. (Hear.) The noble and learned
lord has referred to a kind of compulsory service. I believe
that if anything could make your navy unpopular, and
cripple your efficient force afloat, it would be the attempt
Ito establish a compulsory service. (Hear.) The noble and
earned lord adverted to another point, which he seemed tee
'think the root of all the evils he pointed out. I' do not
think, hoWever; it is such' a great misfortune that the First
Lord should not be a professional seaman. I may refer the
noble and learned lord to a speech made by the late Sir
Robert Peel in which he showed the House of Commons
what bad our naval First Lords when we had them.
lie described how Lord Howe had been hunted
down, how Koppel had been treated, what had
become of St. Vincent. Lord Howe was absolutely hunted -
out of his place, and Ido not think Lord St. Vincent was
a very-successful First Lord. We cannot, in fact, make a
remarkably good show.of our naval First Lords. After all,
however, the question is not, between civilians and seamen.
In a Parliamentary Government the Board of Admiralty _
must be properly represented in Parliament. If you have
got a good naval officer in Parliament I see no reason why
he should not be made First Lord, but I do not think it is
absolutely necessary that the First Lord should be a profes-
sional sailor. Anybody who knows what the details of the
Admiralty are, how many questions there aro which have
nothing, to do with service afloat, must admit that for the
administration of the navy it is not essential that a man
should have a naval education. (Hear, hear.) I agree with
the noble and learned lord that it is a misfortune there
should bo such constant changes in the Board, but that evil
is not now so great as it was formerly. 'When I came into
office I found a gallant admiral there who had been one o
the Board in the time of the noble earl opposite, and I think
it is always desirable to retain the servicesof some members
of the Board. But there is also an advantage in some
change. What is now done at the Horse Guards, with re-
spect to a compulsory retirement at the end of five years, is
done in an indirect way at the Admiralty. You change
some of your Men and retain others ; there is an infusion
of fresh blood, and other members of the profession have an
opportunity of serving in the Admiralty, where they acquire
knowledge which makes them better officers when they re-
turn to sea. (Hear.) The noble and learned lord has not
referred to block ships, but it has been frequently asked in
another place " Why do you keep block ships in different
harbours ?" I admit they are useless for the purpose of p-
ing to sea, but for the purpose of drilling men and as bat-
teries to guard the mouth of the rivers, they are useful ves-
sels. If we were to condemn them, and send them back to
the dockyards, they would be stripped, become hulks, and
not worth refitting again. I think it is desirable, there-
fore, to keep them up as long as they can be turned to a
useful purpose. Some of them are still good and effi-
cient batteries, and, if their services were required ,
would be able to defend the mouth of our rivers. (Hear,
hear.) I shall not follow the noble and learned lord into
other questions upon which he touched. We may talk
about them more conveniently when we come to consider
the budget. Let us not mix up anything of party with this
question. What we all want is, that our navy should be
powerful. It may be that difficult times are coming, and
we ought to be prepared for them. Let no consideration of
party, or of Admiralties, or of Governments prevent us
from doing whatever is necessary to render our navy
efficient. That, I think, is the right course to be taken, and
it
.is one in which I hope and believe all parties will co-
operate together for the common good. (Cheers.)

The Earl of HARD WICKE said the noble duke had
fully answered the speech of the noble and learned lord, th
he had left very little for him to say. Ho *as glad that
his noble friend had brought this question before their lord-
ships; but he must :remind him that he himself had not
neglected his duty, but had early in the session called 'the
attention of the noble duke to the state of the naval reserves.
It was true that for a certain period after the peace of 1815
the navy was greatly neglected, and that state of things
continued until the Russian war, when the condition of our
fleet in the Baltic was perfectly lamentable. It ought not,
however, to be forgotten that our power in that sea, such as
it was, was mainly created by the Duke of Northumberland,
who during the short time he held the office of First Lord
of the Admiralty, under the Government. of his noble friend
near him (Earl Derby), constructed no less than nine sail of
heavy screw ships. After the conclusion of the Russian
war, the condition of the navy fell off again, until a period
arrived when the country was aroused to a sense of its
danger. It happened that his noble friend near him was
again in office, and during the short time that he continued
in power the British fleet was, by great exertions and by the
exercise of true economy—(lleat', from Lord Lyndhurst)—
increased by 14 sail of the line, with eight or nine more ships
upon the stocks nearly ready for launching. A Channel
fleet of considerable power was formed, the Mediterranean
fleet was strengthened, and 8,000 seamen and 2,000 marines
were added to the navy. Much attention had been excited
by the statements as to the supposed facilities possessed by
the French for manning their navy ; and in consequence his
noble friend appointed a Commission to inquire whether
something could not be done to increase our power in that
respect. He was, he confessed, rather surprised that mea-
sures wore not earlier adopted for carrying into effect the
recommendations of that Commission. The report was pre-
sented in May, 1859, and, according to the statement of the
noble duke, it was not until March last that he really com-
menced the formation of a reserve force. The object of the
csd ihaot oc 1 s
process,h ip s.
b y which recep-
tion
they hoped to relieve the navy from the immediate pressure
Commission was to establish a permanent reserve to be used
in case of emergency, and that reserve they proposed to
founduapdounitt
shewttrlaainanin4g,
aonf boys in e
of the want of any reserve at all. The accounts received as
to the progress of the reserve were encouraging, and he be-
hovel that if it once took with seamen, we should soon
have a very considerable number of men ready to serve at
rolonpis s
the call of the country. Ile only regretted that so long an
interval was allowed to elapse between the presentation of
es‘di ointioearnaladissnethri,goorseoettintteindagrtihnsaeetsrithinouselyto
work
rtoporfot
hromaf
dtthhneeo
reserve.tC poin
Go-
vernment ee
addi-
tion to the 15,000 which formed the standard force. The
marines were a most useful body of mon ; and if a 50-gun
ship had to be sent to sea in an emergency, by putting on
board of her 50 marines they would have a trained artillery-
man to each gun, who, with the assistance of such seamen
as might be picked up for service, would be able to fight a
tolerably good action. With regard to the coastguard,
the commissioners had found that the strength
of this force was insufficient for the due protection
of the revenue, and they had come to the conclusion that it
ought to be raised to a total of 12,000 men for the United
Kingdom. In the present uneasiness which prevailed as to
the state of Europe, he thought it would be wise to raise
the Coastguard to that standard, more especially as the
number of the men already stood at 100,000, according to
the statute book. In ordinary times it might be very well
to maintain the Coastguard service as a mere resting-place
for honourable seamen; but, under existing circumstances,
the force should be extended. If it were increased to 12,000
(Continued in ow fourth page.)

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