The Sun.
London, England, 1861-03-20 00:00:00

NATAL EXPENDITURE.

Two or three years ago, during one of the
paroxysms of public indignation produced by the
extravagance of our naval expenditure, an explana-
tion was offered which really threw some light
upon the mysteries of the Royal dockyards. What
produced the disclosure was an elaborate statement

showing, beyond all doubt, that the French dock-
yards, with a far smaller outlay, had actually turned
out more work than our own, and that our neigh-
bours could contrive to build more ships than we
built, and yet spend less money upon them. When
this became known the official mind took the alarm,

and a history of the matter was at length vouch-
safed for public information. We were-told it was
all a mistake to suppose that the millions of money
voted for shipbuilding were employed in building
ships. That was only an accidental duty—a kind
of work to which money might be devoted if there
happened to be a good margin, and if the work-
men were not otherwise engaged. The real busi-
ness of our artificers and the real object of Parlia-
ntentary votes lay in another department altogether
—viz., in fitting, refitting, outfitting, dismantling,
and stripping ships ; in pulling our men-of-war to
pieces and putting them together again ; in taking
a ship of the line or a frigate just as she had been
brought into perfect order, and reducing her to the
condition of a hulk, so that before she could be
again commissioned she would require to be fitted
out anew, and generally in doing and undoing after
a fashion which prevailed in no other establish-
ment under Heaven. The Minister who made this
statement, after speciously defining these proceed-
ings as repairs, fittings, and so forth, plainly con-
fessed that this was the way the money went; that
her Majesty's establishments, her Majesty's artifi-
cers, and her Majesty's stores were employed, in
the main, upon this kind of business, and that the
fabrication of new ships was a mere work of
supererogation, to be performed with such surplus
of funds or labour as happened to be available. We
now wish to show what is perpetrated in this way'
even at a time when the attention of the country is
especially directed towards the cost of the navy.
The other day the Marlborough, a fine screw
three-decker, came into Portsmouth from the Medi-
terranean. She was not only in excellent order,
but her crew seemed to be of 'the real old stamp of
British seamen. Hither they were good men ori-
ginally, or they had been made so, for their appear-
ance actually created a sensation at Portsmouth,
and they were recognised as specimens of what
men-of-war's men used to be and ought to be. From
all we have lately heard of these matters we should
imagine she must have been about the best
ship in the Mediterranean Fleet, and the fittest for
any possible service. This, however, is not to save
her from the harpies. On Friday next she will be
paid off, and the work of " stripping an refitting"
will be pursued, we are told, incontinently. What
the cost will be it is impossible to say, but, unless
we are greatly mistaken, the bill for the work will
convey a better explanation of our dockyard expen-
diture than any of the official documents produced
for that purpose.
This is really too bad. No doubt, it is all in the
usual course, but it is precisely this " usual course"
which has produced an expenditure of £12,000,000
annually, and leaves us in arrear of the world after
all. We are sorely perplexed with the manning of
our fleet, and we find ourselves surpassed by our
neighbours in the best class of fighting ships, but
in " stripping and refitting" we have no rivals.
There we are always up to the mark. That kind of
work we are sure to execute without stint or failure,
and, though half our crews are ill-disciplined, and
our iron-cased fleet is in an " unsatisfactory" posi-
tion, we are as ready as ever at dismantling and
destroying. We find out that we have got one
splendid ship in the finest possible order, and the
use we make of the discovery is to bring her into
harbour, disperse her model crew to the four winds,
strip her of her fittings and reduce her by costly
efforts to a state in which she may be fitted out
over again. By and by we shall hear that the
Marlborough has been recommissioned, and that
several hundred shipwrights, having been first.
employed in pulling her to pieces, are afterwards
engaged in putting her together and making her
fit for sea once more. That is the kind of work

that absorbs the energies of our establishments, till
all of a sudden we find that we really ought to have
been building some new ships, and are then in-
volved in a panic and its consequences.
Cannot this kind of thing be stopped ? We are
slow enough about other matters. We take years
to convince ourselves of the superiority of steam to
sails, screws to paddles, or iron to wood, and it is
a pity that some of this official circumspection can-
not be exercised in the work of " stripping and
refitting." Why should we not try a few " experi-
ments" in this case also ? They are very likely to be
remunerative. If the Admiralty would but ascer-
tain exactly how much it costs to dismantle a ship-
of-the-line and disembody her crew, and then how
much might be saved by dispensing with this tra-
ditional process, the conclusion might be a very
instructive one. This very year we are voting
nearly £5,500,000 for the material of the Navy,
and, according to the system which we see thus
pointedly illustrated in the case of the Marlborough;
the best part of this enormous sum will go in fit-
tings, refittings, and repairs. That is the work to
which our new docks, our new stores, our trainee,
artificers, and our costly establishments wil_l be
principally devoted. We shall build a few; sloops
and gunboats, but the chief expenditure will lie in
repairs and outfits. This, then, aught to he the
chief mark for economists. The necessary and un-
avoidable charges in this way of a Navy like ours
are surely large enough without being increased
by this wilful waste. With a great number of
ships in commission, we must needs have much
wear and tear; but it would be better to reduce
this expense to its narrowest limit, instead of swell-
ing it enormously by gratuitous destructiveness.-
2inzes.

The Brussels journals announce the decease in
that city of Major-General Robert Blake Lynch, of the
British army, aged 84. The gallant officer was a native
of Dublin, and served many years in India.
THE GREAT METROPOLITAN SEWER. The
works of this great undertaking are rapidly proceeding at
Stratford, West Ham, and Plaistow, extending to Barking
Creek. From the magnitude of the works and the extent
of the tunnels the labours of the large body of workmen
employed will be extended, however, over a lengthened
period.
REPRESENTATION OF OXFORD UNIVERSITY. A.
rumour is prevalent amongst the " residents" in the Uni-
versity of Oxford that, in the event of the Chancellor of
the Exchequer electing to stand for the additional seat
about to be given to South Lancashire, the Evangelical
party in the university will put in nomination Mr. Charles
Gray Round, of Balliol College. Mr. Round graduated in
1818, when he took a first class in classics, in conjunction
with Sir Richard Bothell, M.P., her Majesty's Attorney-
amoral.