which vexatious things scared the large ticle, the price of the same oil quoted dealers away. Then the agents came in in the same week did not exceed £126 -men without capital or an ounce of a ton. Well, he also thought it his duty tea they could call their own-and the to inquire of the best authorities what same men who took the contract for peas was the best kind of oil to use in lightand for wheat generally got the contract ing ships. Samples of colza oil were for tea. A part of the process was to sent to all the ships in the service, and require a surety from two persons that with the exception of one they reported the contract would be fulfilled; but, in favour of that description of oil. Constrange to say, this was more often than sequently, all the vessels in the Navy not filled up after the contract had been were now supplied with colza oil, which completed. The document contained cost £38 158. a ton, whereas sperm oil 20 clauses; eight to provide against the cost £134 a ton. On this article alone natural wickedness of all contractors, there would be a saving of between three essential to the carrying out of the £6,000 and £7,000. Again, an inferior contract, and the rest were lawyers' ver- kind of oil was brought from all parts biage. He found a pile of these con- of the South of Europe into London, tracts, six feet high; and he at once sent where it was put into casks, and it was them to be made into pulp, and many afterwards received by the Navy as others had shared the same fate. He Gallipoli oil. Instead of that inferior held in his hand a letter sent from a article-the last price paid for which was first-class firm of linen manufacturers to £74 per ton-the service was now supa very able assistant of his, and they plied with different and better kinds of said that they regretted to state that it oil, which cost between £40 and £45 was out of their power to tender for the a ton. The right hon. Gentleman the required articles, as they could not pos- Member for Tyrone said last night that sibly agree to the conditions of the under the former system of contracts at contract stated in the schedule. They the Admiralty it was quite impossible for said that they could not engage to abuses to arise. He said that Gambier wash and prepare the article, and they represented he had influence at the Adrespectfully declined to give sureties miralty, whereas, in fact, he had none. for the performance of the contract. This only showed how green the right He inquired as to the bills of lading hon. Gentleman was. He was sorry to used by the Department, and he held in say it was perfectly well known in the his hand one of these documents. It City that the system of "tipping" prewas contained in 19 pages, and four vailed extensively both in London and copies were written out. One was re- at the dockyards in connection with these tained in the Department, one was sent contracts. Indeed, Mr. Gambier had abroad, one was for the Commander-in-confessed since being sent to prison that chief, and another for the captain of the a series of items, found entered in his ship. This document contained the cost book and embracing columns, represented price of every article, so that the prices bribes which he had received in connecall became known to the captain of the tion with contracts. These, too, were merchant ship who carried them abroad. not bribes of £10 or £20, but very The hon. and gallant Member (Sir James much larger sums; and the right hon. Elphinstone) last night referred to the Gentleman could not for a moment suparticle of oil, and he seemed to think pose that commercial houses would go that, without any consideration, the Ad-on expending such large sums year miralty had changed the character of the oil that was used in the Navy. Now, in respect to the article of sperm oil, his attention was particularly directed to the large expenditure made upon it. The last price paid for the supply of that oil to the Navy was £134 a ton. It appeared that in accepting that tender no reference whatever was made to the price current of the day, and it turned out that though the Admiralty had agreed to pay £134 a ton for the ar Mr. Baxter after year if they did not gain some proportionate benefit. The way in which the system was worked had been told to the Admiralty by other parties. It appeared that certain tenders made to the Admiralty had been opened, with all solemnity, at Somerset House in the presence of the superintending authorities; but the right hon. Gentleman and the House would probably feel surprised at hearing that other tenders had been opened under different circum stances, and that certain messengers at Somerset House had had keys to open the boxes in which such tenders were kept. Now, that was the mode by which a great deal of those improper practices was carried on. It also, too, often occurred that when the schedule of articles required for the Navy was made up, two or three of the most important articles were purposely omitted. A hint was then given to the contracting party to offer a very low figure for the articles in the schedule, and then, when they obtained the contract, to supply the most important articles omitted, upon the understanding conveyed in a note which was to be found at the foot of each contract -namely, "All other articles required to be supplied at prices fair and reasonable." Now, the meaning of "fair and reasonable prices " in the minds of the contractors was very different from that which other persons would put upon them when applied to the sums set down for the articles in question. The prices charged were, at all events, amply sufficient to repay the contractors for any deficiency they had suffered from the low contract prices of the scheduled articles. He found in some cases that three-fourths of the whole contract were for the supply of the three largest articles which had been thus, as it were, accidentally omitted from the schedule; and as an illustration of the enormous amounts charged by contractors, he might say that for one particular article the Admiralty had been paying 98. 9d., whereas one of the largest houses in the metropolis had agreed to furnish the same for 38. 3d. When the Estimates were before the House last year the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Tyrone, amongst other charges against the Admiralty, stated that they had been supplying inferior hemp to the Navy, and that if an unfortunate vessel happened to be driven upon a lee shore the unhappy sailors would have no reason to bless the Government for the strength of the ropes they had furnished them with, and upon which their lives mainly depended. Now, he (Mr. Baxter) had never heard of that circumstance until it was then mentioned by the right hon. Gentleman opposite. On the following day he had made it his business to inquire into the matter, and he found that there was not the slightest foundation for the statement. He felt, therefore, he had reason to complain of the course taken by the right hon. Gentleman, and other ex-Lords of the Admiralty, in going down to the dockyards and putting themselves in communication with discontented admirals and other grumblers, not for the purpose of assisting to put the Navy in an efficient state, but to enable them to repeat in that House some wretched tittle-tattle for which there was not the shadow of a foundation. The present Board of Admiralty had endeavoured, to the best of their ability, to reduce the expenditure, and at the same time to procure the very best articles for the use of the Navy. If, therefore, the right hon. Gentleman could really point out any articles which were of inferior quality, they would be greatly obliged to him. He was convinced, however, from personal visits paid to the dockyards and from the information he had received, that at the present moment the Navy was being supplied with cheaper and better stores than it had ever got before. MR. LIDDELL said, that as the Government were endeavouring to carry out a system of economy which was strongly recommended by a Committee of that House, it was only fair that hon. Gentlemen on both sides should suspend their judgment until the new system had been fully and fairly tried. If it were then found necessary to institute a Committee of Inquiry, he was sure that the House would willingly assent to it. It was clear that, in reference to the new purchase system, competent persons were differing in their opinions as to the working of it. It seemed to him that all would go on smoothly and well, provided they had a thoroughly competent man, such as the present hon. Secretary, in the position of Financial Secretary of the Admiralty, he being in fact the head of the purchase department. On the contrary, if that duty devolved upon an incompetent person, and the business unfortunately fell into the hands of subordinates, it was almost certain that a large amount of jobbery would take place; but the same observation applied to every other Department of the State. He did not hesitate to say that the whole system of purchase and sale of stores had been in former times most unsatisfactory, and he was happy to find that there was a reduction to the extent of one-third in mere clerical labour, whilst he had no reason to doubt that a large amount of efficiency was also secured. MR. PHILIPS said, he had the honour some years ago of serving on the Contracts Committee, when the existence of many abuses and incongruities was proved. He thanked the Government for what they had done on behalf of the taxpayers of the country. In the new management of the Admiralty it appeared to him that the Board had made a change which was working well both for the service and the country. He, for one, felt thankful to the hon. Gentleman the present Secretary of the Admiralty (Mr. Baxter) for the zeal and ability he had shown in the administration of his Department. There were many people in the country watching with great interest what was taking place. CHATHAM, PORTSMOUTH, AND DEPT FORD DOCKYARDS. MOTION FOR A SELECT COMMITTEE. MR. CAWLEY, in rising to move that into the circumstances and causes which have led In given; but that statement contained a fallacy, and did not give a satisfactory reason for this extraordinary difference. He should prove his case from official documents on the Table of the House, to which every Member had access. respect to the origin of these works, a Commission sat upon the subject in 1861, and a Committee in 1864. In their Report the Committee directed attention to the evidence of two eminent engineers, which went to show that a great saving of expense would result from diminishing as far as practicable the time which it was proposed to occupy in the extension of the dockyards, as experience had proved that the saving effected by convict labour was nearly absorbed by the additional time required; it had been also recommended that contracts for the works should to a considerable extent be entered into and spread over several years. Acting on that view, the Secretary to the Admiralty of the day, Lord Clarence Paget, in introducing the Estimates on the 6th of March, 1865, asked for an additional sum of money, which was to be expended on carrying out contract works, and which he said would greatly expedite their completion. The noble Lord also stated that if the House would not sanction the proposed Estimates he could no longer answer for the works being executed for the sum named. The original estimate was alleged to have been based on the supposition that 2,000 convicts would be employed at Chatham and 2,500 at Portsmouth, whereas the number available had proved far short of those numbers. The next step after the introduction of the Estimates was the passing of the Extension Act of 1865, the Preamble of which recited that it would conduce to economy if the Admiralty were empowered to accept contracts extending over a series of years for portions of the works. But whether it would conduce to economy would depend altogether on the nature of the contracts and the per "A Select Committee be appointed to inquire to the large increase in the cost of the works for the extension of the Dockyards at Chatham and Portsmouth beyond the amounts set forth in the Act 28 & 29 Vic. c. 51, and what variations, if any, have been made or ordered from the works described in the said Act; also, whether the works included in the contracts made by authority of that Act, and laid before Parliament, are being executed in accordance with the drawings attached to such contracts, and as to the authority under which alterations have been made, and what has been or will be the effect on the cost of the works by such alterations; also, into the circumstances which have led to the disposal of Deptford Dockyard for an amount so much below the value thereof stated in the Stock Valuation Account," said, he did not make this Motion in any hostile spirit to the present Board of Admiralty, nor for the purpose of attacking any individual Member of the Government. The evil to which his Resolution pointed was due to a system which it behoved every Board of Admi-sons employed to carry them out. He ralty to sift and investigate. In the Estimates laid before them they found that, for the dockyards of Chatham and Portsmouth, there was an increase of £1,157,000 beyond the amount which was fixed by the Act of Parliament under which those extensive works had been carried on. An attempted explanation of this increase had been Mr. Liddell would confine his remarks almost entirely to the case of Chatham, leaving it to be understood that they would to a great extent apply to Portsmouth also. In the 2nd Schedule of the Act the maximum time for the completion of the contracts was set down as five years. At this time, therefore, the works should have been very nearly completed, whereas at Chatham some of the most impor- | Works had been a man of experience, tant, and certainly the most difficult, had not been yet commenced. The question as to the employment of convicts could not be satisfactorily answered by the First Lord of the Admiralty or any one connected with the Department, because there were matters connected with the subject which could be ascertained only by the examination of the parties in charge of the works. Any statement made in reply, therefore, must be necessarily a repetition of the reports made to the heads of the Department, and he was afraid there was as much concealment used in these matters as in those to which the Secretary to the Admiralty had just referred. He was not quite ignorant how these things were carried on, because he was professionally engaged against the Admiralty in reference to works that were carried on at Malta; but he would say no further than this, with respect to them, that they were carried on in a way discreditable to every person concerned. Not a single thing had been carried out in the manner prescribed in the original drawings and contracts, and he was afraid the same would be found to apply to Chatham. The first question that presented itself was this whether the original Estimate was really based upon the supposition that 2,000 convicts would be constantly employed in one place, and 2,500 in the other. He should be sorry to think that a deliberate misstatement had been made by the Director of Works; but from the evidence before the House it would appear that such an estimate was entirely without justification. From a Return of the amount of accommodation at both places, it appeared that before the 1st of March last the number of convicts that could be accommodated at Chatham, including invalids, was only 1,637, the total of effective men being only 1,182; at Portsmouth there was accommodation for 1,289 only, the number of effectives being 877. From the Returns before the House it also appeared that in the spring of last year it was agreed that a portion of the contract work should be taken out of the hands of the contractors, because they had not work for the convicts to do, notwithstanding that the convicts who had from the first been engaged on the works were not onethird of the number at first proposed to be employed. If the Director of or had been long connected with such He be laid on the Table of that House; and | for a wharf at Gillingham, estimated to he was equally blameable whether it was cost £40,000, but on which a largely inwant of judgment or want of foresight creased sum had been expended, in conthat had been shown. The hon. Member then described the works undertaken under the Act of Parliament for the enclosing of St. Mary's Island, the erection of a river wall, an embankment, and the construction of three basins, with two docks, one lock, and factory buildings; and he said that of the three large basins projected, only one was nearly completed, the second was in course of construction, and the third-the fitting-out basin-was not yet commenced, although the five years fixed for their completion would expire within a month. Subsequent Acts extended the time fixed for their completion to 1872, although the original intention was, for the sake of economy, to complete them in five years from 1865. He found from the Return of 1868 that Colonel Clarke's alternative estimate was £1,250,000, assuming that at least 2,000 convicts would be available. A Return had also been made a few weeks ago, from which it appeared that a portion of the work as to the river wall was completed previous to the Act of 1865; and that accounted for the difference between the estimate of £1,250,000 and the sum mentioned in the Schedule. The Director of Works stated in 1868, that the works had been constructed in great part by convict labour; but in his Report just laid before the House, in explaining the quantity of work that had been done, he stated that the number of convict labourers in the early part of the contract did not exceed 700, and he added that the sanguine expectations formerly entertained of convict labour, and that works of an elaborate and difficult character might be executed by them, had not been realized, but that experience showed that forced labour was not so inexpensive as it was supposed to be. He also said that the services most urgently required from the convicts was for the completion of the river wall and the formation of bricks; but the former work proved to be so unsuited to them that their employment on it had in a great measure to be abandoned. In that opinion he (Mr. Cawley) entirely agreed; but he contended such a result ought to have been foreseen. There were several contracts besides those he had mentioned which had not been laid on the Table of the House, including one Mr. Cawley sequence, as Colonel Clarke explained, of various unexpected circumstances. One reason assigned was that, to obviate opposition from the local authorities, a clause was introduced in an Extension Act; but no Act containing such a clause was to be found in the Library, and he was inclined to think that the explanation was a suppositious one, based on a dreamy remembrance of a dispute with the local authorities. Speaking generally, Colonel Clarke had shown conclusively the impropriety of employing convict labour in works connected with docks; but if the original estimate were made on the supposition that convicts were not what they were afterwards described to be, blame must be attached to those who made it for want of forethought and consideration. That penal discipline could not be adapted to tidal variations, and that paid labour would, therefore, have to be resorted to, were matters which ought to have been known beforehand. Some explanation was required of the fact stated in the Return, that contracts agreed to be entered into in March, 1869, were not signed and laid on the Table on the last day of May, 1870. Another point of serious import was, that works which had been contracted for as a matter of economy had been taken out of the hands of the contractor for the purpose of executing them with convict and hired labour. The information given in the Papers was enough to satisfy anybody accustomed to large works that these would not be carried out for anything like the sum set down. He should like to have a distinct statement whether it was intended to act in the teeth of the recom mendation of the Committee and of Lord Clarence Paget, and to execute these most difficult works with convict and hired labour instead of by contract. What did Colonel Clarke mean by say ing now that the factory buildings were not included in the original estimate when they were recited in the Schedule of the Act of Parliament? Surely they were not inserted in the Schedule without a full knowledge of whether or not they were included in the estimate. The statement that they were not included in the original estimate was one which must be received with great jealousy. |