considerably reduced by a slight increase | had brought forward this Motion in the being made in the pay. The chief cause belief that he was promoting the cause of desertion among the ordinary seamen of humanity, but his speech was miswas their being kept for months at a chievous and dangerous. If delivered time in harbour, where they got into on board a man-of-war, the person who debt, and frequently into prison. Some delivered it would have been subjected people thought that the right hon. Mem- to a pretty good share of the punishber for the City of London (Mr. Goschen) ment it condemned. Speaking from an had already gone a step too far in abo- experience afloat of more than 50 years, lishing flogging in the Navy except in he could say that the infliction of corthe two cases of mutiny and of offences poral punishment was the most painful imperilling the safety of the ship; but part of an officer's duty, and that it without wishing to take a backward was never resorted to except from absostep as matters now stood it would be lute necessity. It was a punishment, highly imprudent to go any further in however, which officers in command of that direction. The hon. Member for ships ought to have the power of adLeicester had instanced the Merchant ministering in cases of emergency. He Navy as a proof that ships might be did not like to make sensational speeches, safely navigated without recourse being but he might mention an incident which had to flogging; but it was only a few had occurred to himself-not yesterday, weeks ago that they had had lamentable it was true, but years ago when he was cases of mutiny in that service. When in command of a brig in the Mediterit was recollected what an unnatural ranean. There happened to be an unruly life men led at sea, when it was remem- spirit amongst his crew, and word was bered what countless dangers were con- brought him by his officers that the tinually being run, which naturally made men had refused to wash the deck when seamen somewhat reckless, and when ordered to do so. He gave them a it was also remembered how easy it second opportunity of obeying the comwas for the best men to be led astray mand, and placing a loaded pistol upon when physically demoralized from over the capstan, he ordered the few men work or excitement, he apprehended who remained obedient to seize one of they ought not to be surprised that an the ringleaders and flog him. This exceptional punishment was required for being done, he ordered three others to these purely exceptional state of things. receive the same punishment, and that He desired to defend the penalty of quelled the mutiny effectually; and had flogging for these extreme cases on the he not possessed the power of adminisvery ground taken by the hon. Member tering this punishment the ship would in wishing to abolish it. He believed not have remained in his hands. If it was out of all comparison the least they gave up flogging, they must resort cruel mode of dealing with these pecu- to the punishment of death. In other liar offences. If in their attempt to give navies where flogging was not adminisup this remedy for that one crime of in- tered most barbarous punishments were subordination tending to mutiny, en- resorted to, which he hoped would never dangering the lives of all on board, disgrace the British Navy. During all they set to work to devise other punish- the years he had been afloat he never ments which should act as a deterrent knew of an instance in which a sailor on the human mind, he was certain they who had been flogged bore a grudge would be led into the infliction of tor- against his commanding officer for tures far more cruel, far less efficacious, having so punished him. He believed or be forced into taking human life. the better class of seamen would regret Surely it would be contrary to the prin- to see the abolition of this punishment; ciples of humanity to take men's lives and he was sorry that this Motion had for every act of mutiny on board ship, been brought forward, regarding it as and he trusted that such a horrible implying a calumny on the officers of stigma would not be laid upon the the Navy. British Navy. The hon. Gentleman concluded by moving his Amendment.

SIR WILLIAM EDMONSTONE, in seconding the Amendment, said, he believed the hon. Member for Leicester

Mr. Hanbury Tracy

Amendment proposed,

To leave out from the word "House" to the

end of the Question, in order to add the words corporal punishment in the Navy having been abolished in 1871 for all offences which do not

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require prompt and immediate punishment, and being only now retained for the case of mutiny and for offences which may imperil the safety of the ship on the high seas, it is inexpedient to take further steps for the total abolition of the punishment,"-(Mr. Hanbury-Tracy,) -instead thereof.

Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."

ment of flogging had been inflicted of late years, as conflicting and inaccurate statements had been made on the subject. It was said that in the Navy men were only flogged for offences requiring prompt punishment; but this was not the fact, for men were often flogged after the holding of courts martial, which did not sit until long after the offences had been committed. Flogging in the Navy was sometimes defended CAPTAIN PRICE said, that as a rule on the ground that on shipboard there questions of discipline in the Navy ought were not the same means of punishto be left entirely in the hands of the ing offenders that existed in the case of Executive; but this was an exceptional soldiers quartered in camps or barracks case. He had received no communica- on land. This, again, was not strictly tions from his constituents upon the sub-accurate. In large ships there were ject, or from any persons in the Navy cells, and in all vessels there were irons, except some officers. The Amendment into which offending sailors could be would have the practical effect of leaving the subject where it now was, and with regard to the Motion of the hon. Member for Leicester he sympathized with it, but he could not go to the extent the hon. Member did. He would therefore suggest as a compromise that the Army and Navy should be placed on an equal footing-namely, that in both Services the punishment of flogging should be abolished in time of peace, but that it should not be abolished altogether, and that in time of war the Executive should have unlimited power. The punishment was without doubt a barbarous one, and every one would like to see it abolished, if possible; but he feared the time had not yet arrived at which such abolition was practicable. The object of the punishment was twofold. In the first place, it was intended to act as a deterring influence upon the man flogged, and to make a better sailor and a better subject of the Queen; but he, for one, could not conceive that the best way to a man's heart was an attempt to effect a forcible entry through his back. And, in the second place, punishment should be such as to deter others from taking a similar course; and, from his experience, he did not think that flogging achieved the object for which it was intended. Flogging, so far from deterring other men from committing crimes, rather engendered a spirit of callousness in the men very much like that dare-devil life of crime that was found to exist on shore from reading The Newgate Calendar and The Illustrated Police News. He should certainly like to know the exact nature of the offences for which the punish

put. Dr. Johnson described life on shipboard as resembling life in a prison, with the additional chance of drowning. He could not go quite this length; but he certainly thought that if punishment on land was unpleasant, it must be much more unpleasant on board ship. If this punishment was barbarous in times of peace, it must be equally so in times of war; but there was no doubt that in times of war exceptional means must be used, and the powers of the Executive must be unlimited. The Government would do well to put the Navy on the same footing as the Army with regard to the infliction of corporal punishment. He thought the Government would act wisely if they adopted his suggestion, for the total abolition of flogging must take place eventually. He had only to add that he could not vote for the keeping up of the present state of things, and that he would not promise that he should not vote for the Motion of the hon. Member for Leicester if the answer of the Government was not satisfactory.

CAPTAIN NOLAN thought the hon. and gallant Member for Devonport (Captain Price) had made a very sensible speech, which the Government might accept as a solution of the question. As regarded flogging in the Army, he declared that men were sometimes on active service flogged for almost nothing. ["No, no!" Courts martial did not Hlog for almost nothing, he allowed; but the provost-marshal did, and there was no return of his floggings. Every man and non-commissioned officer was liable to be flogged when on service in the Army, and that should be remembered

it should be given only in exceptional | their ships, such a body of opinion as cases. The knowledge of that fact had would have justified him in assenting to deterred courts martial from inflicting the Motion of the hon. Member for this punishment in the way they used to Leicester. At the same time, he had do. It would be quite possible to re- received from those officers every supstrict by regulation or by statute the port in limiting that form of punishment infliction of the punishment at home in the way it had been limited in the ports; but that would be merely making last three or four years, and he well law of the present practice. As regarded remembered the great care that was foreign stations and ships at sea, it taken by the Admiralty whenever it was seemed that it would hardly be safe to actually inflicted to ascertain every cirlimit the power of flogging more than cumstance connected with the case, and at present; but he hoped the day might to see whether the regulations had been come when they might see their way to in any way infringed. He believed that act upon the view expressed in the in only one instance within the three Motion of the hon. Member for Leicester. years during which he was First Lord It would be a happy day for the Service was there any doubtful case in regard if they could see their way to abolish to the conduct of a naval officer on that flogging altogether, but he did not think point. While corporal punishment had the time had come when that could safely been thus reduced, our sailors were be done. He should prefer to give a treated in every other respect with more negative to the Motion of the hon. Mem-humanity and more gentleness by their ber for Leicester rather than to accept the Amendment of the hon. Member for the Montgomery Boroughs, because he did not think that its words technically described the present state of the law. If therefore that Amendment was withdrawn and they took the division on the Motion of the hon. Member for Leicester, they would have a clearer issue before them.

MR. GOSCHEN said, he was unable on that occasion to give any other vote than he would have given if he had still been in any degree responsible for the discipline of the Navy, and he thought it only fair to his successor that he should state that frankly to the House. He was glad that the measures taken in 1871 had practically had the effect, if not of technically abolishing corporal punishment, yet of reducing it to the very smallest possible proportions; and he trusted that what had been said that night would not create the belief out-of-doors that corporal punishment prevailed to any extent in the Navy, or that the officers of the Navy were not as anxious to put the very narrowest limits to that detestable punishment as any Member of that House. While himself at the Admiralty he had to deal with many officers of all ranks, of both sides in politics, and belonging to both the old school and the new; but he was unable to get from any officers, even of the new school, or from any officers who had been in high command or even responsible in any degree for the discipline of

Mr. Hunt

officers than those of any other nation. It was notorious that other nations had recourse to punishments for the sake of maintaining discipline, in the absence of corporal punishment, that we had never sanctioned, and which would almost revolt every one in that House. ["Name."] He did not know whether he was asked to name the country or the punishment; but he thought it would scarcely be fair to name the countries. The hon. and gallant Member for Galway (Captain Nolan) seemed to suggest that it might be better to shoot two or three men than to have to flog eight. But would the officers have the two or three shot? Would they accept the responsibility of doing that? They might, perhaps, be driven to do it, but what would then be said of the Service? The difficulty of maintaining discipline on distant stations was extremely great, and when it was urged that men might be put in irons and in cells, he remembered what had been said to him by naval officers on that subject. They said, for instance, that if they found themselves in the Red Sea, where the heat was tropical, and they imprisoned men for a fortnight, that punishment would be far more cruel and almost more dangerous to life itself than any other punishment that could be inflicted.

MR. T. E. SMITH believed that for one man flogged in the Navy 100 were deterred from entering the Naval Reserve. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London (Mr.