The Sun.
London, England, 1868-11-09 00:00:00

MR. STANSFELD AT BURY.

Mr. Stansfeld has been speaking at Bury on trades
unions and the national expenditure. On theformer subject
he " impressed " upon his hearers that we should be
cautious and thoughtful in addressing ourselves to the
question of legislation in reference to trades unions ; which
will not be the unmaking of laws imposing monopolies,
but which is much more likely to be, or attempted
to be, the making of laws imposing restrictions upon the
right of association of Englishmen. On the question of the
national expenditure, he remarked that the Chancellor of
the Exchequer, in his letter to Mr. Crosse, stated the case of
Mr. Disraeli's Government, that amongst the instances of in-
creased expenditure rendered necessary by the neglect of
their predecessors was no less a sum than half a million
upon the navy of the country. This is, continued Mr.
Stansfeld, what Mr. Ward Hunt says. He would call
their attention, he further says, to the statement of Sir
John Pakington made, in August 1866, in which he says
he regretted the unsatisfactory state in which he found
the reserve, indeed in such a state that the Admiralty
had great difficulty in finding relief for the ships which
returned from foreign service. If that half million had
been asked for and spent by Sir John Pakington and his
successor, Mr. Corry, in adding to our forces, armoured
vessels, or at least if it had been expended in giving us
some of the newest and most efficient vessels of the
Monitor type, such expenditure, per se, would have
been justified, or the only queztion would then have
been that raised by Mr. Gladstone, whether the Admiralty
could not and should not have been able to meet the
expenditure by economy in some other direction. But
would you believe it, gentlemen, in this day of rapid pro-
gress in invention, when no unarmoured vessel can live
within a mile of our modern guns—would you believe it,
that half a million of money—that extra half million
besides much more—was asked for from the House of Com-
mons, and was spent by the Admiralty in the construction
of wooden unarmoured vessels, most of these vessels being,
as I have several times stated, small, slow, and weak, and
for purposes of warfare thoroughly valueless vessels?
Now, I came forward at this point of the proceeding, and
I was replied to by Lord H. Lennox, the present Secre-
tary to the Admiralty, who looked at the estimates
instead of at the accounts, and he stated that the estimates
proved that the excess of expenditure was not upon
unarmoured but upon armoured vessels. Well, it took
him a long time to say it, and it was the pith of his
speech. Well, I replied to the speech. I shewed, first,
that estimates could not form conclusive evidence of actual
expenditure, and shewed further that the naval estimates
generally distinguished between the sums asked for for the
building of armoured and unarmoured vessels, and I went
through the accounts. That there might be no question as
to the authority of the accounts, I referred to the statement
of accounts brought before the House of Commons
by the chief of Lord Henry Lennox, and I
found Mr. Corry, in the following year, when it appeared
to be to the interest of the Admiralty to take credit for
the expenditure in the building of ships, making this
comparison. He said, in the year of Liberal estimates and
partial Conservative expenditure, a sum of £429,819 had
been spent in the building and equipping for sea of wooden
unarmoured vessels ; but, says Mr. Corry, in the next
year, a year of Conservative estimates and Administration,
we spent £929,344. Now, if you will subtract £429,000
from £929,000, you will find that the result is half a mil-
lion, and this is the excess of expenditure upon unarmoured
vessels under Mr. Corry, as shewn in his statement to the
House of Commons. The Secretary to the Navy—he is a
very gallant defender, as he is in duty bound to the depart-
ment which he represents—returned to the charge the
other day ; and what did he say? The money spent upon
these unarmoured vessels, he states, was not spent simply
upon the hulls and engines, but on the rigging and masts
as well. Well, I should like to know how a vessel would
go to sea without rigging and masts. It might as well go
without engines as without rigging and masts. Lord
Lennox makes answer to another charge. He went back
to the estimates. I do not much wonder at that. He
looked down the estimates ; he finds amongst the votes
one vote (10th, section 2), which is the vote of the
money which Parliament is asked to provide for the
building of vessels, whether armoured, built in the
dockyard, or by contract. Well, be tells his
constituents at Chichester that the greater portion
of that expenditure was upon armoured vessels,
and concludes, " I have refuted Mr. Stansfeld."
Lord Henry Lennox may not understand, but the
public and the press have understood, that it is a matter of
very little importance for the purposes of this discussion
under which vote or votes the money was taken. We
have to look at the excess of expenditure. The question
is, was my statement accurate or not the bold and
positive statement—that under the accounts of the
Admiralty brought before the House of Commons we
have recorded and admitted an actual excess of half a
million of money in the building of unarmoured vessels ?

There was Litany and Holy Communion on Friday
in tho parish church of East Brent, Archdeacon Denison
having invited twelve clergymen, his immediate neighbours,
of all shades of theological opinion, to give oppol tunity for
joint intercession and prayer for the guidance of those whose
office it is io fill up the vacant see of Canterbury. Mr.
Ditcher, the well-known prosecutor of the Archbishop, wo
are told, cordially entered into the plan.

An addition has just been made to the require-
ments of candidates for the Little-go, and a very
proper one. It has been a matter of surprise that
the university should ever have permitted men to pass as
graduates who displayed a total ignorance of grammatical
construction or orthography. Now, both are an essential.
It will be impossible for the future to receive the degree
of B.A. without first being proficient in those rudiments,
deficiency in which is hardly excusable in a national
schoolboy, much less is the case of A Mena* 4f the
university,