The Sun.
London, England, 1860-07-25 00:00:00

was all very well to say that the matter should be left to the

Admiralty, but it should be recollected that the Admiralty
had brought forward a plan which had given no satisfaction.
He had that morning received ft letter from a distinguished
naval officer, who asked him to support the present motion,
and stated that he had not heard one naval officer speak of
the plan of the Secretary to the Admiralty except in terms

of the strongest condemnation. Reference had been made

to the mates in the merchant service. In periods of war the
country would be obliged to depend on the assistance of
active young officers from the merchant service ; but they

must be dealt with liberally, and be allowed a fair chance of

rising to tho highest positions. He should certainly, if tho

house divided, vote in favour of the motion. _
Mr. WHITBREAD said the hon. gentleman had referred
to the excess in the retired list of officers as though it were
a great evil, and declared that officers had been taken into
the service whom we could not employ. But it was always

necessary to have in ordinary times a large margin of expe-
rienced captains and higher officers, because it was impos-
sible to create such officers when they were wanted again
and again, as was the case in time of war. The main
grounds urged in favour of the motion were, first, the
grievance of captains of line-of-battle ships and others in
command not having an adequate allowance of table money;
and, secondly, the grievance of the mates on the supposi-
tion that their time was not to count. Now, he had ex-

petted from the right hon. gentleman some other grounds
for the appointment of a commission which was to inquire
into so many different points ; but no such statement was

forthcoming. Tho right hen. gentleman made no attack

on the system of promotion, and confined himself princi

pally to broad assertions of the discontent which he said
existed throughout the service, but of which the Admiralty

were not aware, and of the two grievances before men-
tioned. His noble friend's reply was, in the first place
that the question of counting the mates' time was still
under consideration. With regard to the table money
question, the rule now so much complained of was that
captains should be paid according to their standing, and
not according to the size of their ships; and the origin of
the rule was this :—ln 1856 it was necessary to appoint
officers of the highest standing to small vessels, there being
then a probability that the best men would be wanted in
those commands. The rule in question was therefore
established, on the representation of a large 'masher of offi-
cers, who said it was manifestly unfair that when appointed
to a fifth-rate they should not have the pay to which by
their position in the service they were entitled. Since then,
however, a memorial had been presented to the Admiralty.
The right hon. gentlemen was in office at the time, but
he could not find that anything was done. In February,
however, the present Board had decided that the
subject should be taken into consideration when the next
estimates were prepared, which was the earliest moment at
which they could bring forward a vote. The right hon. gen-
tleman said the Admiralty ought to entertain all serious
complaints. He believed that this had been done. The
changes made in the position of the paymasters, the engi-
neers, and the chaplains were all preceded by memorials ;
but in this case the officers who complained had not man-
fully set forth their grievances. The right hon. gentleman
had, indeed, taken letters from his pocket and read them
anonymously, but he did not call these serious complaints,
and it must be remembered that the language of the right
hon. gentleman on former occasions had been well calcu-
lated to elicit such complaints. (Hear, hear.) It was said
that if it were not from feelings of duty officers would not
take the commands which were offered to them. But some-
how they did take them, and therefore the grievance was
not of such a practical character as the house was led to
suppose. Ho concurred with the right hon. baronet (Sir
F. Baring) in his objections to this motion. A commission
had not the fear of Parliament before its eyes, and generally
ended in recommending a large expenditure. That would
be the result in the present instance, or else it would end by
creating that which the right hon. gentleman so much de-
precated—universal discontent throughout the service.
(Hear, hear.) Comparing it with the army, he de-
nied that the navy was underpaid, and the real test of this
was that no difficulty arose in finding gentlemen to enter
the service. He was not at all sure that they would be
going upon a right principle if they made the navy looked
upon as merely a lucrative profession; but he would ask.
whether even now a poor man's son found it as difficult to
enter and support himself in the navy as in the army ? Be-
fore the right hon. gentleman made himself the organ of
these frivolous complaints, as some of them were, he should
have made further inquiry as to what was being done, and
what was the relative position of the army and navy in re-
spect of pay. He hoped the house would not agree to the
appointment of a commission, which, instead of remedying
a small grievance, would only lead to general discontent.
(Hear.)
Sir J. PAKINGTON said the reason why he had not
referred to the question of promotion was, that promotion
and retirement were, in fact, the same question, the one
depending on the other; so that in demanding ale improve-
ment in the mode of retirement he was really dealing di-
rectly with the subject of promotion. The right hon. baro-
net (Sir F. Baring) had asked what was the great evils
into which the commission was to inquire ? The Secretary
to the Admiralty had told the house in plain terms what
the evil was—namely, a stagnation of promotion to such an
extent as to create a serious and a discouraging effect upon
the whole naval service. The right hon. baronet had been
First Lord of the Admiralty, and would he the last man to
deny that this was a serious matter. Then the right hon.
gentleman, alluding to his scheme of retirement, said the
number of promotions had been as high under the present
system as under the check system. But the right hon.
baronet did not go on, as he should have done, to give the
reason for this. The reason was that the check system, as
it was called, had been broken up by board promotions,
which exceeded the restriction of promotion in other ways.
The right hon. gentleman also said that we had arrived at
a desirable state of things as regarded promotion. The
captains' list might be reduced to the prescribed number
no doubt; but the commanders' list was not.
Lord C. PAGET—It will be by the retirements.
Sir J. PAKINGTON continued—But how long would it
remain reduced ? (Hear, hear.) It was that miserable hand-
to-mouth system that he objected to. No system would
answer but a self-acting system, permanent in its operation,
and not a mere temporary contrivance. The right hon.
gentleman also said that the house could not deal with the
question in a generous spirit ; but ho (Sir J. Pakington)
only asked for a commission of inquiry, and did not ask the
house to deal with the subject at all at present. The right
hon. gentleman further asked why the Admiralty could not
eleal with this question, and added, " What was a Govern-
ment for ?" But had the right hon. gentleman never before
heard of commissions of inquiry ? (Hear, hear.) Only the
previous evening the house was engaged in considering the
recommendations of a commission upon the subject of for-
tifications. Again, in 1854, a commission with similar ob-
jects VMS appointed for the army. When the right hon.
gentleman could only find such excuses for his vote, it
proved that there were no strong arguments to be found
against the present motion. The right hon. gentleman had
attempted to ridicule the letters he (Sir J. Pakington) had
read, but those letters came from officers of the highest
character and station, and were quoted by him as the
strongest evidence he could adduce in support of his mo-
tion. lie would notice one or two points in the speeches of
his noble friend, and the Junior Lord of the Admiralty (Mr.
Whitbread). He regretted that the noble lord should have
departed from his usual courtesy in repeating an attack upon
a point "thich had been previously explained. The noble
lord had asked why' he (Sir J. Pakington) had not dealt
With this quzstion when he VMS at the Admiralty. The
answer Wag, that ho did so as far as he could. (Hear.) He
had dealt with the surgeons and the chaplains. Ho ad-
ulated the warrant respecting chaplains had not been suc-
c3ssful, but the caplet:tat/on was that it was based upon the
assumption that chaplains of met -of- war, like other officers,
adopted the naval service as their profession, but he found
that those gentlemen after serving afloat for is few years
generally desired to Obtain a living or a' curacy on shore.
The rola lord had also referred to the captains' memorial
having been. teethed by him with the word "read" only.
That was true ; but it Wee no' aegrtment against his state-
ment that ho intended to deal with that memorial. Another
reason that was urged against the appoieteeent of a commis-
sion was, that improvements had been effected by s'ucc'essive
beards, but that was' a reason for a commission, Wenzel so
many anomalies and inconveniences had been introciaced by
the action of different boards, acting upon various and con-
flicting views, that a complete consideration of the whole
subject was necessary. (hear.) He could assure the house
that he was contemplating while in ofWe the very step
which he asked the Government to adopt now. When the
change of Government occurred ho had not made tip his
mind whether it would be better to deal with the subject
seriatim or to appoint a commission. Ho made this motion
from no party motive, but solely from a desire to promote
the welfare and 'efficiency of the navy, and therefore he
hoped the house would assent to his proposition.
The house then divided. The numbers were :
Ayes
Nees
Majority against the motion —33
PACKET AND TELEGRAPHIC CONTRACTS.
Mr. DUNLOP, in rising to move resolutions with the
view of bringing packet and telegraphic contracts under the
more effectual control of the house, took occasion to refer to
the recommendations of the committee which had been ap-
pointed to inquire into the subject and to the importance
of the considerations which the question involved, inasmuch
as no less a sum than £1,000,000 a year was now expended
under the head of packet contracts alone. Now, it might
be contended that a sufficient check for the provident
expenditure of so large a sum was to be found in the
fact that the various items were set down in the esti-
mates which annually came before the house; but then it
should be borne in mind that the votes taken for contracts
furnished no intimation as to their renewal in those instances
in which they were renewed, while in the case of new eon-
tracts—which did not frequently come into active operation
for a year and a-half or two years after they had been en-
I ered into—the votes were not laid before the house until
the services had begun, the contractors having, in the mean
time, gone on building vessels and making the other neces-
sary preparations for the performance of new engagements,
so that it was almost impossible for the house to exercise
with respect to votes so submitted to its notice a fair and
deliberate control. (Hear, hear.) To such an extent, in-
deed, was that the case that it was only in
,those instances
in which there hid 'been some alleged misconduct on the