mained unaltered-those in force having been given by the late Board of Admiralty. Under the circumstances, he thought it was not worth while to discuss the matter further.

Fleet should be sent up to the Piræus to strengthen the hands of the Greek Government. He did not indicate any opinion of his own on the subject; but it seemed to him that when Mr. Erskine was deprived of his right-hand man, Mr. Herbert, it would have been well if he had been supported by the mature. judgment of Sir Alexander Milne. The police of the seas, formerly maintained by this country, could not be relaxed in any quarter of the world for any length of time without some disaster.

pre

SIR JOHN HAY said, he did not tend to give any opinion of his own; but it appeared from the despatches to be certain that if, when the brigands were encamped on the promontory of Oropos, Mr. Erskine had been able to send an English vessel with a view to the release of the captives, instead of a Greek gunboat, the lives of the prisoners would have been saved. ["Oh!"] Well, that was the purport, as it seemed to him, of the despatches. Mr. Erskine's despatches conveyed the impression that, as soon as the Greek flag was seen at sea on board their gunboat, while the Greek soldiers were drawing a cordon around the brigands by land, the brigands attempted to escape, and committed the crimes which had horrified all Europe. These miscreants naturally suspected that they were being surrounded, and had been betrayed. Had an English vessel been there no suspicion would have arisen, and the lives of those gentlemen would have been saved-there was no vessel, and those lives were sacrificed.

leave the Chair," put and agreed to. Question, "That Mr. Speaker do now

NAVY ESTIMATES. SUPPLY considered in Committee. (In the Committee.)

(1.) Motion made, and Question proposed,

granted to Her Majesty, to defray the Expense That a sum, not exceeding £779,090, be of Naval Stores for Building, Repairing, and Outfitting the Fleet and Coast Guard, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1871."

MR. ALDERMAN LUSK expressed a hope that the Government would not entirely abandon the contract system. There was a general impression that those who entered into contracts with the Government were not honest; but that, he believed, was not true. He knew men who, during the last two years, had honestly fulfilled their Government contracts at great expense to themselves, and they had, by their contracts, lost a large sum of money. He had himself seen the course of business at Somerset House. He never met a Government officer who was corrupt, or capable of taking advantage of his position; and it was only fair to the officers, and to those who did business with them, that he should say so. As to their transactions in oil, if the Government bought a wrong article, it was their own fault.

MR. CHILDERS said, he did not rise to reply to the hon. and gallant Member for Portsmouth, because he had, on two MR. SAMUDA said, there was noprevious occasions, given him an answer thing of greater moment than that the to similar questions. When the hon. Navy should be supplied with the best and gallant Member gave notice of his oil; because the extra money that it intention to call the attention of the would cost was nothing compared with House to the Suez Canal, and then, with- the mischief which would be done by out Notice, called attention to a different an inferior article. He hoped the hon. subject, it was exceedingly irregular and Member for Montrose (Mr. Baxter) very inconvenient to the Government in would be independent of criticism, and conducting the business of the House. do what was really best for the Navy. The hon. and gallant Member for Stam- The great curse of the present day was ford (Sir John Hay) had entirely mis- the desire to subordinate everything to read Mr. Erskine's despatch, which made price-a plan which much depreciated no allusion to there not being an English the general morality of commerce. The vessel in Greek waters. With respect Government had hitherto endeavoured to the Mediterranean Fleet, he could only to obtain contracts from persons of exrepeat what he had previously stated-perience and integrity, and it would be that the force had not been reduced, and ill-judged parsimony to institute a comthat the instructions to commanders re- petition of a fraudulent description. The

[Sir

best was certainly the cheapest, although | stated that the friends of the First Lord Manchester and Birmingham might look of the Admiralty and of the hon. Mementirely to price, and altogether disre- ber for Montrose were engaged in jobgard quality. bery, and that there was now more jobbery at the Admiralty than ever. JAMES ELPHINSTONE: Hear, hear!] The hon. Baronet had gone further, for he had said that commercial men below the Gangway were influenced in their support of the Government by their relations with the Admiralty. Now, he would say, in words that were justified by the highest authority, that such language was calumnious of Gentlemen on thatthe Ministerial-side of the House.

MR. BAXTER confessed that he was lost in amazement at the speech which had just been delivered. He had always thought his hon. Friend who had just sat down a candid and accomplished man, who never talked upon any subject on which he was not fully competent to deliver an opinion. His hon. Friend had told the Committee that the Admiralty were wrong in buying colza oil when sperm, which had been used for so many years, was so much better for lubricating purposes; but if the hon. Gentleman had listened to the explanation given to-day, he would have known that they had got the colza oil for illuminat-port Progress, in order that they might ing purposes. hear from the highest authority himself whether he had made any such statement.

MR. SAMUDA said, he understood the hon. Gentleman to state most distinctly that the Admiralty had substituted colza oil at £38 a ton for sperm oil at £134 a ton for lubricating the machinery.

MR. BAXTER said, he had never made any such statement. What he had stated was that the Department had been using sperm oil for illuminating purposes, and that he had substituted colza oil. He knew very well that for illuminating purposes at home they had long been using colza oil; but he did not trust his own judgment merely in the matter. He had sent samples of the colza oil and the sperm oil to the ships; and in every case except one the report was that the colza oil was superior, and in that one case it was said that both were equally good. He had stated also that for Gallipoli oil he had substituted Rangoon

oil.

MR. RYLANDS observed that it was most singular that the only return which the Government got for their efforts to promote the public good was an amount of badgering which was almost unparalleled. Representing an independent interest, he must say that the nation at large was very much indebted to the First Lord of the Admiralty and to his hon. Friend (Mr. Baxter) for their exertions to reduce expenditure, and he could not sit in his place without recording a very strong protest against the course which had been taken by hon. Gentlemen opposite. The hon. and gallant Baronet (Sir James Elphinstone) had

Mr. Samuda

SIR JOHN HAY rose to Order. The hon. Member had said he had the highest authority for the statement he had just made. He should move to re

66

MR. RYLANDS explained that what he did say was that the authority of the Speaker had been given that the word calumnious was not un-Parliamentary. The hon. Baronet had insinuated that his hon. Friend the Member for Montrose was making use of his position in Her Majesty's Government in order to buy portions of the Government stores at Dundee, a place with which he was intimately associated. That was a very serious charge, and when his hon. Friend rose and denied that he had bought oil there, he was surprised that the hon. Baronet did not at once get up and say that he regretted he had made a most unjust and unwarrantable charge.

SIR JAMES ELPHINSTONE said, he rose to throw some oil on the troubled waters. When any charge was brought against the Government they always had some friend at hand to rise and endeavour to get them out of the scrape, and on this occasion that friendly office had been rendered by the hon. Member for the minority of Warrington. What he had said was that the oil now used was deficient in lubricating and illuminating power; that it was very dirty, and clogged the engines. He had merely asked the question whether the oil had come from Dundee. ["No, no!"] The hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets (Mr. Samuda) and other good authorities had stated that vegetable oils would not do for lubricating the engines; and even if they could not get good animal oil for pur

poses of lubrication at less than £134 a |the hon. and gallant Member for South ton, it would be better to buy it than Durham for calling attention to that subinferior oil at £38. ject. He concurred with him in believing CAPTAIN BEAUMONT deprecated such that it would be very desirable to have discussions about so small a matter as some further experiments as to the oil, for he could not believe the Admi- power of resistance of the very thick ralty were buying oil without regard plates which it was intended to use in to quality, and introduced the question the construction of some of Her Maof iron plates. He observed that there jesty's ships. It seemed to him very had been no experiments as to the qua- doubtful whether they had sufficient melity of 12 inch or 14 inch plates, backed chanical power to exert the pressure reby timber and iron skin, such as was quired by rolling or hammering to probeing manufactured for the Glatton, the duce that tenacity and ductility-the Thunderer, and ships of the heavier necessary combination of softness and class. The target representing the water elasticity, and hardness without brittleline of the Hercules fired at in 1865 gave ness, which was required in iron plates satisfactory results for that time; but no which had to resist the impact of shot. conclusions could be drawn from those A very fair approximate law had been experiments to indicate the quality of recorded in the Report of the Iron Plate the plates of which he spoke. The only Committee, which seemed to hold good test to which the Glatton plates were up to plates of 9 inches in thicknesssubjected was that of being fired at by namely, that the resisting power of a a 7-inch service gun, with a 20-lb. charge plate seemed to increase in a ratio, which of powder, and as it had been found might be compared by the square of the that a small charge of 261b. from a thickness. Thus one plate of 4 inches 7-inch service gun had considerably da- in thickness and of good quality might maged the plates, grave doubts were be expected to resist as well as 16 plates raised as to whether these plates could of an inch in thickness and rivetted tonot be penetrated at close range. Cer-gether. It was of great consequence to tainly the experiments as yet made did not prove that the Glatton plates were sufficiently strong. An experiment at Shoeburyness, at which he was present, showed that a 15-inch rolled and hammered plate was defective, and it was generally believed a plate reduced by rolling and working from 20 inches to 15, was not as good in fibre as one reduced from 20 inches to 8. He would not pretend to offer a professional opinion on the subject; but he maintained that it was a wrong policy and a want of economy to put down so small a sum as £3,000 in the Estimates for experiments, and then to expend a large sum of money in placing plates upon the sides of our ships which had not been thoroughly proved. He sympathized with the Admiralty in the bullying they received in small matters, and assured them that what the House and the country wanted was the exercise of sound judgment in matters of larger importance. The subject he had broached involved thousands, to say nothing of the credit of the nation. In conclusion, he protested against large contracts being gone into without further experiment.

SIR JOHN HAY said, he thought the Committee ought to be indebted to

ascertain this accurately in plates of the great thickness which were about to be used; because, doubtless, where weight was of so much consequence as in naval architecture, it would be desirable, if possible, to obtain protection by one thick plate rather than by a laminated structure, which must be thicker and heavier, to produce the same resistance. But, until machinery exerting much greater rolling power was produced, he doubted if the same law of resistance would hold good in plates over 9 or 10 inches thick, as had been proved to exist in plates below that thickness. It would certainly be better to have two plates of 9 inches, whose quality they could depend upon, rather than one plate of 18 inches which, from deficiency in manufacturing power or from difficulty and irregularity in cooling, might not afford the same protection. thought that some further experiment was necessary in that matter, and it was a subject to which the attention of Her Majesty's Government might well be directed.

He

MR. SAMUELSON said, this subject was one of so technical a nature that it scarcely admitted of being made popular. The only course open to the

Government was to try what would not expected that the question would be the result of manufacture. Unless come on, or he would have refreshed his the Government could state that suffi- recollection, which he had not done cient experiments had already been within the last few days; but his immade, he strongly urged on them the pression was that up to 9 inches they necessity of not employing thick plates had experiments of the highest kind. to any large extent in the vessels they Above that-up to 14 and 16 inches— were building, until they had made care- he was not sure that resistance was acful experiments in testing the resistance cording to the square of thickness. Here of those plates. Otherwise they might they ought to have a certain amount of hereafter be greatly disappointed at the information which they had not. It was result. quite open to the consideration of the Admiralty whether there should not be experiments on a higher scale. All he would undertake to do on that particular point was that the Admiralty would confer with the scientific department of the War Office and consider what further experiments should be obtained on the subject. After all the discussion which had arisen he hoped they would now be allowed to take this Vote.

MR. MUNTZ quite agreed that nothing but trial, nothing but practical experience, could possibly determine this question. He regretted the personal attack which had been made on his hon. Friend the Member for Montrose (Mr. Baxter). It was lamentable to find an economical House, and particularly the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets (Mr. Samuda), representing an economical constituency, finding fault with his hon. Friend because he had done his best to introduce economy into the administration of the Admiralty. He thought that the hon. Member (Mr. Samuda) had gone out of his way to attack Manchester and Birmingham. Manchester could very well take care of itself; but in regard to Birmingham he could say that she had been taught that real economy consisted in buying the best article at as low a price as the best article could be obtained. He (Mr. Muntz) was not for cutting down and using inferior articles. With reference to oil it had been distinctly asserted that his hon. Friend the Member for Montrose had been buying colza oil from Dundee, and it was said that vegetable oil was not fit for machinery; but it was only an ignoramus that would say so. He sincerely hoped the Admiralty would persevere in the economical course on which they had entered.

MR. CHILDERS felt it was very agreeable, after a good deal of badgering for the last two nights, to get for a few minutes into quiet waters. A very interesting discussion had been commenced by the hon. Member for South Durham (Captain Beaumont); and after what had been stated by the high scientific authority of the hon. and gallant Officer opposite (Sir John Hay), he must admit it was quite true that at the present time they had not the information they ought to have with respect to iron plates of very great thickness. He had Mr. Samuelson

MR. LIDDELL said, he wished to say a few words before the Vote was taken. He always listened with great respect to everything that fell from his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Portsmouth (Sir James Elphinstone), because he was a man of great practical experience, and in everything he said there was always honesty and sincerity of intention. But he regretted very much the remarks which fell from him last night with reference to the coal trade. He said that the North of England coal trade had brought their influence to bear on the Admiralty to take their coal. Now it was perfectly true that they had not once but many times, and during many years, pressed on the Admiralty the advantage, to the efficiency and economy of the public service, of using a proper admixture of North country coal with Welsh coal, and he would say that the result of some experiments that had been very carefully conducted in the North was very favourable to such an admixture. He took this opportunity of thanking the Admiralty for following the advice given by the northern coalowners. Experiments had been conducted at Portsmouth, which, he believed, had terminated in successful results, likely to lead to a fair use of North country coal for steam vessels; and he was persuaded that when certain Returns he had moved for were laid before the House they would be found to be favourable to the admixture he had spoken of. He therefore hoped that the Committee