The Sun.
London, England, 1861-03-01 00:00:00

THE NAVY.

Sir J. ELPIIINSTONE rose to move the following re-
solutions :

" 1. That the mismanagement of naval affairs is due to
the inefficiency of the present means of naval administration.
" 2. That no efficient administration can be hoped for
without direct personal responsibility.
"3. That to obtain direct personal responsibility, it is
essential to abolish the Board of Admiralty, and to sub-
stitute for it a Minister of Marine, with a secretary in this
house.

"4. That the Minister of Marine shall bo directly respon-
sible to this house for tho conduct and management of naval
administration.

"O. That he shall be assisted by a council of not lens
than four naval officers, whose opinion he may consult, but
to whom he is not bound to defer.

"6. That the members of council be appointed for five
years. _ _ _

"7. That each department of the navy shall have a
known land acknowledged head, appointed also for five
years.

"8. That the heads of departments shall be directly re-
sponsible to the Minister of Marine, and that he shall be
responsible to the country that efficient men fill them.
"9. That all promotions and appointments be the act of
the Minister of Marine in Council, submitted to him through
the proper heads of departments, but for which he is per-
sonally responsible.
" 10. That all naval commanders-in-chief be empowered
to manage, and be responsible for, all questions of detail re •
lating to their command.
" 11. That the following departments are, in the opinion
of this house, of sufficient importance to require the special
superintendence of separate heads :—The discipline and
training of the navy, and general superintendence of the
fleet in commission, and the submission of the appointment
and promotion of officers ; the manning of the fleet ; the
construction of the navy ; the victualling of the navy ; the
paying of the navy ; the controller of the coast guard ; the
Royal Marines; the medical department; pensions and re-
wards ; the store department ; the department of works ;
the hydrographer ; the transport service."

During the last 20 years they spent an enormous sum of
money in the construction of shipping, and an opinion had
been gradually gaining with every class that the govern-
ment of naval affairs had not been commensurate with the
exigencies of the occasion. The mode in which the affairs
of the Admiralty had been carried on was so clumsy that it
rendered it impossible there should be either economy or effi-
ciency in the department. This was not a question involv-
ing the character of any of those eminent men who held the
positions they now occupied in the Admiralty, but it was a
question of system. In former discussions upon this sub-
ject, the question had always arisen, by what means were
they to reconstruct the departments—how were they to re-
pair the machinery ? He owned that that was a difficulty
which had always met him when he had ventured to discuss
the subject in that house. He had, however, consulted
some of the highest authorities in the naval service, and
found them entirely agreed, not only as to the necessity of
a change of system, but as to the main features by which
such change should be brought about. On the present oc-
casion he would confine himself to pressing upon the atten-
tion of the house some preliminary points which, he be-
lieved, if carried into effect, would go very far to relieve
many of our difficulties. It could not be denied that the dis-
cipline of the navy at this moment was in a most woful con-
dition, and he felt confident they would never have proper
discipline until they were able to discharge the various
crews of vessels into comfortable barracks, where they could
be visited by their wives and families. Tinder the existing
•rder of things a ship might have been commissioned is
1855 and sent to sea with a crew of growing lads, able sea-
men, and good landsmen, and after a four or five years'
cruise that ship would come home in a most perfect state of
discipline, every man knowing to a pound what hisneigh-
bour could do. 'Well, they took that perfect machine and
stripped it and turned those men adrift into a gulf of iniquity
where they were destroyed and ruined, and those who sub-
sequently returned to the service came back in a state of dis-
ease and misery. This was disgraceful to the country and to
civilisation. There was a large extent of Government land
at Portsmouth, where they might erect barracks and have
a practising ground and all things necessary for the welfare
of the seamen, and docks might also be provided instead of
the basin at Portsmouth, which was so small that most of
her Majesty's ships were obliged to be stripped in the stream,
and the crews at once sent adrift. Without proper docks
our fleets would be wanting in one of the main things which
a merchant would first look to. (Hear.) He believed that a
great many of our ships which were or would be useless for
the direct purposes of war might be applied very effectively
for the transport service, and form a very important auxi-
liary to the marine of the country. Although some excep-
tions might be taken to the resolutions he had brought for-
ward, he maintained they contained the germ of a plan which
would in all probability be the mode in which the Govern-
ment would eventually get out of their present difficulty.
He did not intend to press them to a division. He had merely
laid them before the house that they might be discussed and
considered, and that they might become the guiding element
of the committee, which, he believed, was about to be
granted. There could be no doubt that there was now a crisis
in our naval affairs. We could not go on constructing aad
reconstructing, and spending enormous sums of moneywith-
out any direct responsibility much longer. The Admiralty
broke down in the Baltic during the war with Russia. Ad-
miral Berkeley then admitted that he was at the end of his
tether, and that he could do no more for the fleet in the
Baltic. The ships were constructed in such a manner as to be
unfit for the purposes for which they were designed. We
were now going to re-construct the navy again, and having
no confidence whatever in the Board of Admiralty, he took
that opportunity of chalking out some way of getting out of
the present difficulties, and of placing able and distinguished
naval men in a position ix which their services would be
beneficial to the country. He had heard the late Sir C.
Napier, who was an ornament to his profession, and whose
loss he deeply deplored, frequently find fault with the con-
struction of ships, and although the organ of the Govern-
ment used to get up and defend the Admiralty, one could