The Sun.
London, England, 1861-03-12 00:00:00

in since the commencement of the year at the rats of 100 per
week on the average. These are not the men originally con-
templated by the act, but are all fine able seamen, selected
for character and ability. Vast numbers have been re-
jected who did not come up to the mark, or had not five
years service at sea. Had not the qualifications been re-
stricted to these, we might have enrolled double or treble
the number of men." Now, I say that is a very satisfactory
state of things. I believe we may consider that the Royal
Naval Reserve is now an established and very valuable
force. (Hear, hear.) Well, then, it naturally became the
duty of the Government to consider whether having this
reserve, and looking I am bound to say to the fact that it
would cost a considerable sum of money to the country,
they would be justified in asking the house to keep up the
same vote as last year. This year we have already 4,000 of
the naval reserve added to' a considerable force of naval
coast volunteers. It may be interesting to the house that I
s'hould give a sketch of what our reserves are. First of all,
our Royal Naval Reserve amounts to 4,000, and I should
state that the greater part of these men aro at home and al.

ways available. Hon. gentlemen may be disposed to say
that these men are on distant service, but there is a very
small portion of them on' distant service, certainly under
one-fourth. And before I leave the subject of this reservel
wish to state that her Majesty's Government are going to
bring in a bill immediately with a view to enrol the officers
in the mercantile marine or the Royal Naval Reserve.
(Hear, hear.) I believe that will be a very great advantage
to the navy, and that in the merchant service it will be ex-
tremely popular. (Hear, hear.) Well, then, the Royal Na-
val Reserve amounts at present to 4,000 ; the Royal Naval
Coast Volunteers amount to 7,000; then wehave got of the
Coa tguard on shore about 4,000 ; we have got in disposable
supernumeraries an average of 1,500 men ; we have 8,000
Marines on shore ; or rather we shall have in a few weeks
when the Marine Brigade arrives from China, and 2,000
boys in the. raining ships. The house will be glad to hear
that here is a force of something like 25,000 reserves, avail-
able if necessary for an emergency to man a large fleet. I
think, therefore, it will not be pretended that we have made
any reduction in the personnel of our fleet which is unsafe
and unwise, looking to the protection of our coasts and com-
merce. To this I might add a large body of pensioners. The
Staff Officer of Pensioners stated to me a few days ago that
there is a very considerable number of pensioner marines—
about 3,000 or 4,ooo—who are perfectly fit for service if
wanted. Then, again, of seamen pensioners we have about
3,000 embarked on board ship. It has been thought wise
that we should, as it wore, induct oar young ships' com-
panies into their duties. It is well known that, owing to
the growth of the fleet of late years, we have had a great
want of petty officers and leading seamen—a circumstance
that has been one of tbo main, causes of the disturbances
which have taken place in eur ships. (Hear, hear.) lam
positive that when the crews of the magnificent fleet which

we now possess become acquainted, as they are rapidly
doing, with the cleanliness and the discipline of men-of-
war, we shall hear very little more of those disturbances of
which the world has said so much. lam certain—and it is

my business to assure the house of the fact—that, notwith-

standing what we hear of the discontent among the officers,
and of the general dissatisfaction prevalent in the fleet, such
a state of things really does not exist. (Hear, hear.) There
are a general feeling and desire on the ,part of the fleet that
OUT navy should maintain its wonted superiority, and be
worthy of tie great country which it is meant to defend.
(Hear, bear.) Another important point with reference to
the manning of our ships is the system of entering boys.
(Hear, hear.) Of late years it has become the duty of the
Government to provide training ships for boys, and, in
fact, greatly to extend the system of introducing lade into
the service. That was one of those wise recommendations
of the Commission which sat on the Manning of the Navy
that has never been lost sight of by the Admiralty from
that day to this. (Hear, hear.) We have gone on increas-
ing the facilities for training boys by devoting more ships
to that particular object, and we are now arriving at a most
satisfactory result as regards the boy system. We have
at this moment, according to the last return, as many
as 9,639 boys being educated at the public expense. I
have attempted to ascertain what proportion of seamen for
the fleet will be annually furnished from that number of
youths. Our statistics are, however, imperfect, not because
the Accountant-General's Department, from which they are
obtained, is not admirably managed, for I am bound to fay
that in all its branches it is very admirably managed, but
because of the constant fluctuations which have been taking
place in the numbers of the navy. But I find, first of all,
that these boys require an average training- of three years.
Therefore, if we allow for the yearly loss through deaths,
discharges, and other casualties, we may reckon that the
total number left will supply to the navy about 2,900 per
annum. The next' consideration is, what is the number of
seamen whose places have to be filled up ? After eliminat-
ing officers, marines, and other parts of the service, I find
that our present force afloat is about 38,000 seamen and
petty officers, the gaps occurring among whom must be
supplied either from these trained boys or from the mer-
chant service. The proportion of casualties among these
38,000 seamen is now 14 per cent., or about 5,000 annually.
That is the present average, but I believe it will greatly
decrease as soon as the boy system has further developed
itself.

Sir J. ELPHINSTONE—Does that include deserters ?
Lord C. PAGET—It does. You will, before long, have
a navy principally composed of seamen who have been
brought up with you from boyhood, and who will be
attached to the service by their earliest associations. I
have said that we have 2,900 boys to fill up the 5,000 vacan-
cies in the fleet, leaving 2,100 to be obtained from the mer-
chant service. Here there arises a very interesting question
as to what proportion of the navy is to be supplied by youths
who have been educated by the public, and what proportion
by the merchant service. Some will say that we ought not
to look to the merchant service at all, but should entirely
depend upon our own boys. I confess that, as a naval
officer, I cannot agree in that opinion. I think it would be
extremely unwise to widen the gap between ourselves and
the merchant service. (Hear, hear.) On the contrary, I
believe it is advisable that a certain proportion of young
men should be brought into the navy from that ser-
vice, and the " remainder taken from our own train-
ing ships. The matter is one of mere speculation, but I
think it doubtful whether any considerable enlargement of
the present number of boys in course of training would be
attended with as much public advantage as some persons
suppose. (Near.) Having stated the number of men we
propose to ask, 1 now come to the next important element
of our service—the ships. It is quite impossible that we
can decide as to what should be our force, either in men or
in ships, without baring reference to the forces maintained
by other Powers. (Hear, hear.) At pt'esent, and for some
time past, it is my duty to inform the committee that,
throughout the maritime nation° of Europe there is a de-
termination—and a very proper one—to maintain an effi-
cient and powerful navy. We hear it from all quarters that
the principal countries of Europe are now paying great atten -
t ion to the materiel and the personnelof their navies. (Hear,
hear.) I will not at this moment-read to the coinmittee, un-
less they wish it, a detailed list of the maritime force of
other nations, as far as we possess it ourselves. (Hear.) If
I am to understand that the committee desires it I will read
it. (Renewed cries of " Hear, hear.") First of all, with
respect to the French navy, as far as we can gather from
the official reports—for we have no information that is not
open to the French public—we believe that France has 35
line-of-battle ships afloat and two building, making a total
of 37. We believe that the French have 18 paddle and 21
screw frigates, making a total of 39 frigates afloat and 8 fri-
gates building. All these are wooden ships. I will deal with
the iron-cased ships afterwards. The vessels I have spoken
of are all steamships. There is a great variety of small ves-
sels, corvettes, gunboats, and other classes, making the entire
French navy consist of 263 vessels afloat, and 61 building.
Then we have to consider another great naval Power,
Russia. Russia has 9 screw liners afloat, and none
building. She has also 7 screw and 10 paddle frigates,
making 17 frigates afloat and 6 building. Next, we
' have for the first an account this year of the Spanish
navy, which is taking its place among the navies of
' Europe. Spain has of steam liners afloat two, and building
' one. She has twelve frigates afloat and two building. They
are all steamers, but whether they are paddles or screws I
' cannot say. We have another navy now entering the
arena. I speak, Sir, of the Italian navy. (Cheers.) I hope
' and trust that that glorious people will speedily rank among
the first maritime nations of the world. Italy has one screw
liner afloat—(a laugh)—she has six screw and twelve paddle
frigates, with a considerable number of smaller vessels.
This is irrespective of the vessels which lately belonged to
the Neapolitan Government. Here is a very powerful force
of sea vessels. I must now advert to a very novel weapon
of war, which to my mind is of still more importance in
considering the force of nations at seg. With regard to the
French navy, we know that they have no less than two very
large and powerful iron• cased ships. We know they have
also four powerful vessel" which they call iron cased fri-
gates, and that they have likewise four of a very formidable
class; called floating batteries. In addition to these they
have five gunboats with which we are partially acquainted
by rumour, and which are of a very formidable character.
We find, then, that the Spaniards are building an iron-
cased vessel, which is not yet afloat ; and of the French
ships I may say that three are afloat; La Gloire and La
Normandi are actually on the water. Of the French float-
ing batteries I am not prepared to say how many are afloat;
but I have every reason to believe that every one of these
vessels could, if required, be afloat in a very short period
of time. We understand that the Russians aro about to
build an iron-cased frigate, and the Italians have already
one of those iron-cased frigates, which is either afloat or
about to be launched.
Mr. ROEBUCK—Where?
Lord C. PAGET-1 believe at one of the ports in the
Mediterranean. I now come to the question of the perform-
ance of this new class of vessel. (Hear, hear.) All we know
on that subject ill from what has been done by La Gloire.
As our own are not yet ready, we have no experience to
guide us, and I can only say that that is not the fault of
her Majesty's Government. I can assert for myself that I
have written many letters to the contractors, calling on them
to do everything in their power to expedite the completion
of our iron-cased ships ; and I mutt say that I think they
have not altogether done their duty to the public, or those
vessels ought to have been launched a considerable time
since. (Hear.) With regard to our force in this class, we
have the Warrior and two aster, ships, The Warrioi is