The Sun.
London, England, 1867-02-21 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

The Minister of Agriculture and Commerce, in
consequence of the intensity of the cattle plague in
Belgium, has issued a decree extending the previous
prohibitions against the entrance of animals into
France to the whole line of the French frontier from
Dunkerque to the Rhine near Lanterbourg. Similar
interdictions have been issued by the Belgian Go-
vernment.
Some sensation has been created among the Paris
papers by a circular from the post-Office authorising
the opening of letters supposed to contain a letter
to General St. Priert from the Count de Chambord.
The explanations given upon the subject by the
Government in an official communication to the
newspapers is perfectly satisfactory. The letter, we
may add, contained treason against the present
Dynasty, and all Governments claim the right to
suppress treasonable correspondence. When the
late Sir James Graham was in office, he contwded
openly in the House of Commons for the right.
The Russian Correspondence of St. Petersburg
states that the Imperial Mineralogical Society has
just celebrated its fiftieth anniversary. After aTe
Deum bad been celebrated, Prince Nicholas de
Leuchtenberg, the President, stated that he had
been honoured with a rescript from the Emperor,
in which his Majesty thanked the society for its
activity and useful labours. His Imperial Highness
afterwards announced the recompenses awarded by
the Emperor to the members, both Russian and
foreign.

TlMES.—Dockyard debates are almost as myst,
fYing as dockyard accounts, but it may, perhaps,
simplify the present controversy if we explain and
discriminate between the complaints of the public,
the apologies of officials, and the promised measures
of reform. On the first point there is very little
uncertainty, for even the stanchest defenders of the
existing system have no difficulty in discerning and
The
expressing the opinions prevailing around them.
The general idea, says the Duke of Somerset, is that
" an enormous sum of money is annually expended
on the navy, and that the country does not receive
an equivalent return—does not, in fact, get the
money's worth." The notion floating about, says
Mr. Stansfeld, is that " dockyards, if not nests of
jobbery, are at least scenes of waste which, in its
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these are correct representations of the popular be-
lief. Mr. Seely himself could not have stated the
case against the Admiralty more plainly, and such,
indeed, is the reputation of the board that, as Mr.
Stansfeld frankly added, " somehow or other, Idon't
know why, everybody seem s inclined to believe every-
thing that is said against it, and nobody seemsready
to believe anything that is said for it." The ques-
tion therefore is whether, and to what extent, this
universal opinion is erroneous. It will be in the
reader's recollection that the Duke of Somerset, who
is now credited with the authorship of the pamphlet
ou Naval Expenditure to which we recently referred,
described the Admiralty as the victim of a prejudice
created by resentment on the part of disappointed
officers and impatience on the part of taxpayers, but
we shall find quite enough in Tuesday's debate to
give another colour to the conclusions of the coun-
try. Mr. Stansfeld 's apology for the Department
was based upon the improvements which had been
effected since its condemnation by the Report of a
Committee seven years ago. The language then em-
ployed in speaking of the Admiralty was not, he said,
applicable to it at present. Yet he agreed directly
afterwards with Mr. Seely himself, and admitted, in
the very terms of the proposition before the House,
that there actually was" a want of efficiency iu the
control and management of the dockyards." All he
contended for was that the defect was due, not to
the constitution of the Board, but to the bad organi-
sation of the subordinate departments, and the ab-
sence of due responsibility ; so that he acknow-
ledged the evil, but disputed the remedy. At the
same time, he seemed desirous, as did other
speakers, of mitigating or qualifying the imputa-
tions attaching to the department, and on this
point, therefore, we had better at once appeal to the
authority of the First Lord himself, who spoke on
the occasion with remarkable plainness and candour.
46 I pledged myself last year," said he, " that I
would endeavour to ascertain what were the real
errors in our dockyard system, and what remedies
could be found. I have tried to redeem that pledge,
sparing no pains in making inquiries both in the
dockyards and elsewhere, and the conclusion I have
arrived at is this—that the worst thing we have to
complain of is a certain laxity which characterises
the whole system ; that laxity I attribute mainly.to
the fact, which you cannot disguise, that these are
vast establishments carried on for the most part by
persons who have no direct pecuniary interest in
economy." We can only observe that if this is the
" worst thing," it is quite bad enough, and that it
is amply sufficient to account for the expenditure of
money without the production of money's worth.
But, now it must be asked how far this laxity of
system is inevitable, or to what extent it may admit
of correction, and we shall soon find that the in-
quiry will lead us to the very pith and marrow of
the controversy. The Duke of Somerset, Sir
John Pakington, Mr. Stansfeld, and Mr. Childers
all concur in impressing upon us that we cannot
reasonably expect the economy of a private esta-
blishment in a public dockyard. It is not merely
that we miss the close and energetic supervision
given to affairs " where every shilling tells on
the profits of those who manage them," but that
the national establishments are, in point of
fact, required to do much more than is done in the
yards of private shipbuilders. The dockyards are
not merely places in which ships can be built at lei-
sure. They are, and they must be, establishments
equal to the support, maintenance, and repair of the
fleet in times of emergency. Their resources must
not only be at any time in apparent excess, perhaps,
of actual needs, but capable of sudden expansion.
The cost, therefore, of the work performed in them
cannot justly be measured by that of work done in
a yard where nothing is required except to build a
particular ship as economically as possible. That, in
in a few words, is the standing defence of the Ad-
miralty whenever it is said that a ship which could
be built for £150,000 by contract costs £200,000 at
Portsmouth ; and to a certain extent the justifica-
tion is complete. But the complaint of the public is,
not that there should be an excess of charge arising
from this inevitable obligation, but that nobody can
tell whether the excess is reasonable, or, indeed,
what it actually amounts to. And when it is asked
how this mystery comes about we are referred to
the system of " dockyard accounts" as being at once
imperfect and unintelligible. To this point Sir J.
Pakington fearlessly went. There is an officer called
the Controller of the Navy—at this moment, by
common consent, a most efficient man. With him
Sir John took counsel, remarking that in theory, and
according to presumption, he was " the head of the
dockyards," and " really controlled and managed"
them. So, " I asked him," says Sir John, " ' Can
you do it ?' He said ' I cannot do it.' " Here, there-
fore, by the description and confession of the First
Lord of the Admiralty, WO have " vast establish-
ments" in which no person is under any inducement