hesitation had he foreseen the expenses | distinguished audience, and met with they were now asked to vote. In alluding much success. The pieces selected were to the different items of expenditure he The Ladies' Battle and Raising the Wind, called attention to the office of President. and the performance was stated to have This was held by a gentleman-a vice been equal to any that could be witadmiral-who, in addition to his half-nessed at the metropolitan theatres. It pay of £600, received a salary of £1,600 a-year, together with residence, fuel, and gas. That was nearly double the amount paid to the Astronomer Royal. Next to the President came an officiala retired captain of the Royal Navy, who, with his half-pay, received an income of £800. Below these came the Director of Studies with £1,200 a-year: so that these three gentlemen received together £4,200, which seemed to him a large amount for the executive of the administration of a College of that character. Following these, there came a very large Staff, at high salaries, and the general expenditure, which amounted to £13,291, he considered exceptionally large, when it was remembered there were only 231 students at the College. Upon this number there were 110 servants to wait, and the gas bill was £3,000, or more than for Devonport Dockyard, including Keyham, and in various other items there was proof of an extravagant management. If we came to ask what we got in return for all that he was sure the answer would not be satisfactory. We expected an intellectual and scientific education, together with that technical training that would be required in the duties these young gentlemen would afterwards be called upon to perform. So far from that being carried out, he was given to understand-and he believed his information was reliable-that these young students lived in a most extravagant style, and their training was not such as would be likely to fit them for the habits and pursuits that awaited them on shipboard. He found from reports of recent examinations that out of 11 students eight of the number were plucked. Such a result was not very satistactory to the educational Staff, for he found it was not so much owing to want of ability as from want of attention to those branches of study in which they were examined. His attention had been called to a paragraph in The Army and Navy Gazette of April 27th in reference to the College, in which it was mentioned that the students gave a performance in the gymnasium, which was attended by a was clear, therefore, among the number there must be some who could give attention to some branches of study. There was one of the pieces selected with great judgment. He thought, considering the training and experience they were going through, "raising the wind" was a performance which might not be unnecessary. His objection to the Vote was not on the ground that a Vote of the kind was not necessary; but his object was to call attention to the subject, for he felt sure that the expenditure required examination, and while he was anxious for efficiency with economy, he objected to inefficiency and extravagance, believing the two often went together. The hon. Gentleman concluded by moving the reduction of the Vote. Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Sub-head, £38,051, Royal Naval College, Greenwich, be reduced by the sum of £2,000."-(Mr. Rylands.) SIR MASSEY LOPES said, he had anticipated, when he heard of the Amendment, that the hon. Gentleman was going to bring forward a real grievance; but the hon. Gentleman must know, that to secure the efficient working of such an institution, great expenses were necessary. He must be aware that the expenses of all the officers he had referred to were fixed when the College was first established. The only increase since had been in the wages of servants, and that he was prepared to justify. The late President of the College complained that the allowance of 8d. a-day for boys was not enough to enable him to secure a good class, and so inefficient were they that 58 out of 69 had been discharged. Since then the Admiralty having raised the pay from 8d. to 18., on the recommendation of the President, the result was, that they were now able to obtain the services of a better class of boys, and the complaints at present did not amount to one-half what they were formerly. When the hon. Member put his Motion on the Paper, he (Sir Massey Lopes) thought he was referring to the sum of £2,000, which was the amount taken for gas. That no doubt was a large sum, but it had been caused by the necessity of keeping gas lighted in the rooms occupied by the sub-lieutenants, which had been found to be so damp, that many of those officers were laid up by rheumatism and other affections. He maintained that the College was not conducted in an extravagant or wasteful manner. The object in establishing it was to give our naval officers a very high scientific education, and to do that they must be provided with the best instructors and all the necessary facilities for acquiring the requisite knowledge. MR. GOSCHEN wished to remind hon. Members that they must not look upon this College simply as a training institution. His hon. Friend the Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands) spoke as if the young men educated in the College were a set of midshipmen who had not been at sea. Now this establishment, though partly designed for the training of young officers, was a great scientific institution for engineers, shipwrights, and scientific men connected with the training of the Navy. They had rendered necessary a considerable expenditure in laboratories and chemical apparatus; in fact, all the appliances were provided which they used to enjoy at South Kensington. The Vote ought not, therefore, to be scrutinized too closely, and he hoped his hon. Friend would not press the Amendment. MR. HANBURY - TRACY trusted that nothing would be done to limit the resources of the Naval College. On the contrary, he would suggest that the right hon. Gentleman should rather endeavour to increase its efficiency. He regretted that the number of senior officers was so small, but one reason was that when they were married they could not afford to go to the College and keep up an establishment elsewhere. It might be desirable therefore to give increased pay, so that officers desiring it might be enabled to go to the College. If the increased pay were given, it should be on condition of their passing in a certain standard at examination. The sum charged for gas at the College -£2,000 a-year-seemed very large, as also did the charge of £1,500 a-year for police. MR. BRUCE drew attention to the fact that the College had only to pay Sir Massey Lopes £100 for buildings to the Hospital, though they were worth far more than that per year. MR. WHITWELL suggested there should be a little more detail in the various items. There was an item of £632 for scholarships and competitions, and he should like to know how that amount was appropriated. MR. GORST thought that, in justice to the Hospital, the College should pay a proper rent. MR. CHILDERS said, that the Greenwich Hospital Act did not require rent being paid; and it was perhaps unfortunate that any nominal payment in in the nature of rent should be made, as it would be followed by a claim for far more. The Greenwich Hospital Fund was not in the nature of an ordinary charity, nine-tenths of it having really been created by public charges. If the fund required additional charges on it in order to give increased inducements to men to enter the Navy, he would be the last to object; but this should be done on public grounds. If the reason was merely technical, of course the Admiralty were the best judges. He was also desirous to ask for explanation as to the heavy charge for police. As to the vote generally he was inclined to think that it would not bear much greater increase, for in time of peace it was necessary to set aside at least £10,000 a-year to augment the capital, and this certainly was not being done at present. MR. HUNT said, that the £100 a-year was a mere acknowledgment, in the nature of a peppercorn rent, and that the buildings were not Admiralty property. Although there was an increase for the pay of police in the Vote there was a reduction under that in another. CAPTAIN PRICE asked how it was that as much as £1,800 a-year was required for clerks at the College? MR. BENTINCK asked for information with reference to the system of examinations at the College, observing that he had heard they were of so abstruse a character that several officers had, after many years' service, been discharged because they could not answer questions on subjects with which it was not deemed necessary to be acquainted when they entered the Profession. It had also been mentioned to him that no fewer than eight young officers had been dismissed within a short time for a similar reason. should be glad to withdraw his Amendment for the reduction of the Vote. Motion, by leave, withdrawn. MR. SHAW LEFEVRE asked what was to be done with the Challenger collection? It was reported to have been sent to Edinburgh. He hoped the interests of the British Museum in respect to it would not be overlooked. MR. HUNT repeated what he had said on a previous occasion-that any officer of ordinary abilities and industry who went to Greenwich College might pass the examinations which he was there required to undergo, and that much good rather than the contrary was done to the service by weeding it of men who showed that they took very little interest in it by not attending to their studies. The only reason why gentle-lenger was an Edinburgh Professor, and men did not pass it was because they would not study. MR. GOSCHEN also was of opinion that it was of the utmost advantage to the profession that a proper standard of examination should be maintained at the College, and that those who went there should not regard it as a place at which they might spend a short time pleasantly. He therefore hoped the right hon. Gentleman would not give way in the matter. MR. ANDERSON pointed out that the salaries paid to Professors who taught the abstract and abstruse sciences were as high as £600 or £700 a-year, while those paid to the teachers of naval architecture and marine engineering, two most important and practical subjects, were only £147 or £180 a-year. MR. HUNT said, that the head of the scientific staff on board the Chal as the collection which had been formed was going to be put into proper shape under that gentleman's direction, it had been sent to Edinburgh in the first instance. How it would be ultimately divided he could not at present say, but he might remark that the interests of the British Museum were in good hands and would probably not be neglected. MR. E. J. REED said, that Sir Wyville Thomson informed him that the collection was going to Edinburgh solely for the convenience of classification and arrangement. Original Question put, and agreed to. (2.) Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a sum, not exceeding £1,323,750, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the Expenses of the Dockyards and Naval Yards at Home and Abroad, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1877." MR. HUNT said, he supposed the only reason why this was the case was that teachers could be got for these salaries. He agreed with his right hon. Friend (Mr. Childers) that the cost of the College should be carefully looked MR. RYLANDS, in moving to reafter in detail, and the suggestions of duce the amount of the Vote by £250,000, the hon. Member for Glasgow were said, he was led to move the Amendworth consideration. He thought that ment by finding that the increase of exprobably the appointment of a small penditure upon Dockyards and Stores Select Committee of practical men would since 1871 amounted to £2,000,000. Of be the best course to take, with the view course, he was prepared to hear repeated of pruning down any redundancies, or what had been said before, that the making good any deficiencies. Such an Stores were so much reduced, and the inquiry would not occupy very long, and Dockyard expenditure so cut down by he would, he hoped, by next Session, the late Administration, that Her Mabe able to submit a scheme of manage-jesty's Government were compelled to ment free from the objections which had been urged by various hon. Members that night. go to an enormous expense to put things upon a satisfactory footing. He thought the right hon. Gentleman who held the office of First Lord of the Admiralty prior to the present Administration ought to meet that charge, and he was glad to give him an opportunity of doing so. During the years 1870 and 1871, the cost of iron and other mateHerials was much higher than it was at MR. RYLANDS said, he heard that announcement with great satisfaction. The appointment of such a Committee would be most desirable, and he would suggest that a Report should be annually laid on the Table of the House as to the work done in the College. to present, and there were other circum- or economy. There were two branches stances which would tend to reduce the of the establishment, that of design for cost of management, yet, notwithstand-construction and of building and manageing that there was an increase since ment, and he ventured to say that the 1871 of nearly £2,000,000. The Vote Admiralty was not exactly competent to for the Dockyards alone in 1871 was carry out either of those two branches. £817,315, in 1876 it was £1,323,750. He In the management of our Dockyards had no doubt in his own mind that he believed there was great cause for under the right hon. Gentleman the complaint. He found that while the Member for Pontefract, and the right wages for artizans amounted hon. Gentleman the Member for the City £1,072,334 in a year, no less a sum of London, the Admiralty was ably ad- than £382,644 was spent in salaries ministered, wise economies were made, for superintendence, and in pensions, and reforms were carried out that in- and for police. It would appear that creased the efficiency of the Service. for every £20 paid in wages, £4 was The change which was introduced by paid in pensions. He had had great the right hon. Member for Pontefract experience of the working classes, having in the Royal Naval Hospital, by which employed thousands, and he did not that institution was put under the hesitate to say that if he went into the management of a surgeon instead of a market to purchase labour, and offered captain of the Royal Navy, and the 30s. weekly to a man, without any alchange in the control of the Victualling lowance, and 288. to a man with the department were instances of this, but promise of a small pension after a numsome of the reforms suggested by the ber of years, the man for 30s. would be right hon. Gentleman had not been fully the better man of the two. The effect of carried out. He recollected that the offering pensions was that we got a numright hon. Gentleman the Member for ber of slovenly, worthless people. He Montrose (Mr. Baxter) had remarked objected to the system of giving lower upon the great number of officials in the wages with a pension; it was far better Dockyards, and said that it prevented to give the full market value, and trust any feeling of responsibility, and the to men's own management and thrift for same thing came out at the Megara in- the future, and to make their own proviquiry. He was not aware that any sion for old age. From evidence it apchange had been made, and he believed peared that the cost of our iron-clads that the Dockyards remained in much built in Dockyards was far greater than the same state as they were in five if built in private yards. The hon. years ago, or if changed at all, for the Member for Hastings (Mr. Brassey) a worse. He contended that Dockyards short time ago stated in The Times that were manufacturing establishments, and if we had had our iron-clad fleet built should be treated in the same way as by private firms, we should have 10 more establishments of the kind carried on vessels to show for the money. That as by hon. Members of the House and coming from a man of such experience others. It seemed to him that the pro- and so well known, was worthy of careper person to place at the head of such ful consideration. But not only were an establishment would be a man of they keeping up these large manufacbusiness habits and great technical turing establishments, but they were knowledge and experience. That we spending money in costly mistakes; did not do. In fact we placed at the building vessels that in a short time head a man quite unused to anything become obsolete. From Returns on the of the kind-an Admiral Superintendent Table of the House the number of vessels -without scientific knowledge, and with of that kind would be seen, and hon. none of the necessary experience. He Members would be surprised to find was allowed to remain in charge of the them so numerous. At that moment establishment for five years, and when foreign nations were putting their trust after that time he began to get an ink-in torpedoes and rams, and that was a ling of his duties he was removed and another Admiral Superintendent was appointed who went through the same process. It seemed to him that no course would be less likely to lead to efficiency Mr. Rylands very serious question affecting the construction of ships of war, and he contended that with all our resources and appliances we should not rush at once into building a vessel because another country had a type of which we did not | hamper the Government in the present possess an example, and which, as in state of the Eastern question, he hoped his the case of the Inconstant, might prove hon. Friend would not press his Motion to be a costly blunder. He would refer to a division, because, if acted upon, it to a suggestion which had been made might do considerable mischief. He did by the hon. Member for Hastings as a not deny that our Dockyard system was very valuable one. It was that merchant capable of great improvement; that it vessels should protect themselves by was desirable to strengthen the civil torpedoes. That would make ordinary element in its administration, and to vessels independent of the protection of deal consistently with the pension queswar vessels; each would be able to carry tion, but the present was not the time her own sting, and would render unne- for forcing such questions on the attencessary the costly plan of keeping our tion of Parliament. So, again, there foreign squadrons scattered over the could be no doubt that the annual cost globe. In conclusion, he protested of repairs had risen to an alarming against the heavy expenditure in the figure. So far as he could collect from direction to which he alluded, as not the present Estimates, it amounted to justified at the present time, and moved from £1,100,000 to £1,200,000 a-year, the reduction of the Vote. and that certainly was a most serious be made into this question of repairs, question. A searching inquiry ought to but that was not the time to do so, and he should therefore recommend his hon. Friend to withdraw his Amendment. Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a sum, not exceeding £1,073,750, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the Expenses of the Dockyards and Naval Yards at Home and Abroad, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1877."-(Mr. Rylands.) MR. A. EGERTON said, that Vote 6 and Vote 10, Section 1, were governed by the programme of shipbuilding for the year, and that to attack them as the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands) had done was to challenge the whole policy of the Admiralty, which had been substantially accepted by the House. The right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Admiralty, in introducing the Estimates, stated distinctly what his Pro MR. CHILDERS said, that during the time he was at the Admiralty it had been his constant effort to keep down expenditure, and hence it might be assumed that he sympathized with his hon. Friend in his Motion to reduce the Vote by £250,000; but he would remind him that a reduction of that particular Vote by that amount, meant practically a re-gramme was, and he thought, therefore, duction of £250,000 in the Vote for the Wages of Artificers in the Dockyards; and a reduction of that sum upon the Wages Vote meant a reduction of 4,000 men during the whole year-that was to say, between 5,000 and 6,000 men for so much of the year as remained. It would be perfectly impossible for anyone in a responsible position consistently to make such a reduction, or even to dream of making it; and, further, it was a course which it was impossible to sanction in the present state of our relations with foreign powers. Besides, a reduction of that kind required to be carried out with foresight, and spread over as long a period as possible; and, for himself, he had always been of opinion that both increases and reductions should be made with very great caution indeed, not by leaps and bounds. Therefore, in the spirit which actuated the Opposition, and which rendered them disinclined to say or do anything that might that the hon. Member for Burnley, before proceeding to reduce the Vote, should have given some indication of the mode in which he proposed to deal with that Programme which was, he contended, conceived in a proper spirit, and did no less than the country required of the Admiralty at the present moment. Complaints had been made that the expense of management bore an excess proportion to the wages of the men, and this proportion had been estimated as high as 30 per cent. It appeared, however, that the proportion had been decreasing, and that while in 1869-70 it was 13.63 per cent, in 1876-7 it was only 9.86 per cent. This showed that the charges for management had been of late years steadily diminishing. The civil management of the Dockyards was a large question, which required almost a night to itself, but upon the whole he had come to the conclusion that it was better to have a naval officer |