The Sun.
London, England, 1859-11-29 00:00:00

MB. WILLIAMS
UE NT AND BIS CONSTI-
T S.

Last evening Mr. W. Williams, M.P. for Lam-
beth, met his constituents, according to annual cus-
tom, at, the Horns Tavern, Kennington, and com-
mented upon the events of the recent session and
general. Mr. j. W. Stratton pre-
upon things in
sided.
Mr. WILLIAMS (who was warmly received) said
he had no doubt that his constituents looked pretty
sharply. after him, and he wished the constituencies
of England would do the same with regard to every
member, for depend upon it this was the way to
keep them honest and to make them discharge their
duty. He attended the House of Commons through-
out the whole of last session, without the omission
of a single day or night ; and no question of the
least impottance was brought before the house in
which he did not take part. Referring to the cir-
cumstances under which Lord Derby's Government
was defeated, and the accession to office of Lord
Palmerston, the hon. member said that if the pre-
sent Ministry did not bring forward a Reform Bill
which was a decided improvement upon the mea-
sure of their predeaessors in office he should he
among the first to move its summary rejection.
There had been such procrastination in this
matter, and the country had waited so long for a
bill, that unless something worth acceptance were
offered them they, could well afford to wait a little
longer. (Hear.) Although the last session was but
a short bne, it was a very laborious one, for almost
every night the house sat until after midnight. He
was always at his post. There was a great deal of
talk and of whatthey called discussion. The greater
part of the session was devoted to the estimates,
and he was very sorry to say that those estimates,
amounting to nearly £70,000,000, were the largest
ever presented :to Parliament in time of peace.
Now, he would compare the expenditure of 1859-60
with that of 1835—a year which he selected, not
on account of any special frugality of expenditure,
but because two of our greatest statesmen, Sir R.
Peel and the Duke of Wellington, were in the Go-
vernment atthat time. Well, they required for the
expenditure of 1835 only £48,700,000, being
£20,000,000 less than was asked for during the pre-
sent year, If the Government of the country could
be carried on as cheaply as in 1835 we could dis-
pense with the whole of the income tax, with the
duties upon tea, sugar, and malt. In consequence,
however, of the extravagance of successive Minis-
tries, which he had done his best to check—though
he was sorry to say that the feeling for economy in
the House of Commons was not very general—
those reductions could not take place. He had
spent a great deal of his time—indeed that was his
principal business—in inquiring into this extrava-
gance; and he would just give them au example
how he was supported in doing so within the last
session. One night the Prime Minister all at
once proposed that they shonld proceed to vote
the Civil Service Estimates. There were seven
volumes of these estimates, which had only just
been delivered. The house had not five minutes
given them to look into the books, and he therefore
objected most strenuously to pass any of these votes,
containing, as they did, some thousands of items,
which he always made a point of carefully
comparing'with the same items in former years. It
was no use to point out extravagance in a particu-
lar instance. This would only be laughed at ; but
when he showed that in the old borough-monger-
ing Parliaments less was required. Ministers some-
times hummed and hawed, and often tried to
make a joke of it. In the case he referred to he
challenged any member to say that he had had time
to look at a singlefigure of these estimates. No one,
however, accepted the challenge, and, upon repeat-
ing it to ee Lord Palmerston, his lordship very jocu-
larly admitted that he had never looked at a figure.
(Laughter.) Yet this happened in the House of
Commons, whose principal function was to protect
the pockets of the people. He was so disgusted that
he shut up the books and walked out of the house,
deClaring that he would be no party to Such a farce,
and that he considered an insult had been offered
to the House of Commons by the Premier. No
doubt they were very glad to see him go, and the
house immediately went to work and passed 57
votes, amounting to between £3,000,000 and
£4,000,000 of money, without a word from anybody,
as fast as the votes could be read over. One might
have supposed that the-Premier would have been
anxious to allow the fullest opportunity of examin-
ing and discussing the estimates. But in this in-
stance he seemed in effect to say, " You, the House
of Commons, have no business with these votes, ex-
cept to pass what I think proper, or what the Go-
vernment order you to pass." (Hear, hear.) For
several years he (Mr. Williams) had moved the ap-
pointment of a committee to inquire into the expen-
diture of the army and navy. This was not because
he wished to diminish our protective force ; no man
was more anxious to see the country defended by a
force which would be irresistible against any attack
that could be made. (Cheers.) All he wanted was
to see that the money voted was properly applied.
Well, the army estimates this year amounted to
upwards of £13,000,000, of which only about
£4,000,000 were spent in paying and clothing the
officers and men, and in finding thpm necessaries
and allowances. This amount he never proposed
to touch. Neither our soldiers nor our sailors were
over-paid. But he wished to 'know what became
of the remaining £9,900,000. If the subject were
referred to an honest committee, he dare hardly
say what great reductions might be made in this
charge without the least loss of efficiency. Then
as to the navy ; it had always been his wish to
maintain the navy on such a footing as would
enable us to defend our shores against all comers,
and money enough had been voted to effect that
object. But how hdd it been expended ? Since the
termination of the French war ;C300,000,000 had
been spent upon our navy. At the close of the
French war we had upwards of 150 sail of the line,
while at the beginning of the present yeat, after
this enormous outlay, we had only 29 screw and 12
sailing line-of-battle ships. Well, then, the cry was
raised that the country was undefended, and he had
heard of two general officers who had said that if
10,000 Frenchmen were landed upon our coast
there was nothing to hinder them from Anarchin,g
upon London. Why, he thought the men of
Lambeth alone would stop such a force with
their fists if they had no other weapons. (Cheers
and laughter.) All this alarm existed in spite
of the vast sums voted for the navy. " The French
navy," it was said, " is stronger than ours ;" and it
certainly did happen that at the beginnine. of
1859 they had the same number of line-of-battle
ships and nine more steam frigates than we had.
Would it-be believed, then, in the face of such a
fact, that the expenditure of France upon her navy
during the last four years was less than one-half
that of Great Britain ? He stated this on the au-
thority of official papers ; and could any one blame
him, then, for wishing to know how all this money
was laid out? (Hear, hear.) The nation was now
going to take its defence into its own hands by the
establishment of rifle corps, and he hoped that
within a very short time we should see 200,000
men, or even twice that number, with rifles in their
hands. (Cheers.) We might then rest secure
though all the world assailed our shores. Why
should Englishmen not be as celebrated for wield-
ing the rifle as their ancestors were for the use of
the crossbow ? With their aptness in taking aim and
their courage, Agincourt, the greatest battle on re-
cord, was won; and in a country so well adapted
for defence, by its hedges and ditches, its woods and
•-•- •

coppices, the rifle would be most effective and would
he hoped, soon become the national weapon. Re-
turning to the navy, Mr. Williams said that the
exposures which had taken place had produced
some effect. Some time ago an inquiry was ordered
into the management of our dockyards, and in the
report just presented it was shown that in every
dockyard want of management, waste, and incom-
petence were exhibited, for which avast number of
remedies were suggested by the committee. Ile
would not go through all their recommendations,
but one statement made in the report he would
refer to. The Russian Government contracted with
a large builder on the Thames to construct two
ships of war, and the price paid for wages in that

case was £2 12s. per ton; while in WoolWich Dock-
yard, near at hand, the cost of wages for the same
sized vessel, containing the same number of guns,
and similar in all respects, was £0 17s. Bd. And
at Chatham the cost of building the same class of
vessel was some 50 per cent. less. When such
extravagance prevailed could they be surprised
that our navy w, as in et inefficient state even after
the vast 'expenditure which he had Mentioned ?
Lord Clarence Paget had pointed out some of the
waste of which our dockyards were the scene. A
man•of-war was just on the point of completion in
one yard. Somebody said, "This ship is too short."
" Oh !" was the reply, " we can very soon cure that
defect." So they cut her in two near the bow, and
lengthened her by so many feet. Instead of swim-
ming, however, her nose went into the water, where-
upon somebody else said, " We can mend this by
cutting her in two in the middle." She was cut
accordingly and lengthened. But even then she
would not swim, and then it was resolved to cut her
in two once more, at the stern. (Laughter.) The
account did not add whether she sank or floated
after all these operations; but that was one way of
getting rid of the sums voted by Parliament. From
the days of Alfred to the present hour the navy had
always been our chief bulwark, and his wish was that
it should be perfectly efficient. Apart, however, from
the cost of building ships was the difficulty of man-
ning them. Now, this led him to the question of
flogging, which he had twice brought under the
notice of Parliament last session. He had then re-
ceived letters froth all parts of our coast and from
all classes of men, assuring him that sailors were