considering the questions of the hon. Baronet, he must in the first place state that, having received from him no notice as to what were the peculiar grievances he was about to bring forward, he feared he should not be able to reply in full to all his questions, the more so as no memorial from this class of officers is before the Admiralty. But by reference to the debate of last year he had been enabled to gather what he presumed was the purport of the complaints. He would take the questions seriatim, as they had been put to him. First of all, the hon. Ba

entering the navy, which, in addition to perfect competency and skill in engineering, and a knowledge of the properties of steam, embraced plane trigonometry, hydrostatics, mechanics, dynamics, and elementary chemistry, was quite equal to what was required of assistant-surgeons. He was encouraged to think that the Board of Admiralty were of opinion that the principle he advocated was a sound one; because by the Admiralty regulations, commanders and captains were allowed to count their time as sub-lieutenants, in order to qualify them to receive Greenwich Hos-ronet wished that inspectors of machinery pital pensions. He asked the same principle to be applied to the engineers which was applied to captains and commanders. There was another point on which conces gion would not increase the Estimates, while it would do away with a great deal of individual hardship. An increase of pay now took place at intervals of five years. What he ventured to suggest was that the increase, instead of taking place every five years, should be spread proportionably over that period. At present, if a man were compelled to retire shortly before he had completed twenty years of service, he would have a retiring allowance upon only fifteen years service, and the difference between retirement at twenty years' service and fifteen years was no less than £45

should be allowed to have increased half-pay. That question had been under the consideration of the Board, and no decision had been come to yet on the point. Secondly, the hon. Baronet asked that these gentlemen should be allowed to count the whole of their time. He could not well compare engineers with assistant-surgeons, chaplains, and naval instructors, who did enjoy that privi lege, because assistant-surgeons paid for their own education, which was an expensive one, and the same remark applied to chaplains and naval instructors. The hon. Baronet might probably say that some of these engineers were taken from private yards, and thus had paid for their own education; but all connection with the private trade had now ceased, and all engineers in There was therefore in the Royal Navy were called upon to pass hard-through

ship. The increase of pay to assistant-paid nothing for their education. This surgeons, which had formerly been every five years, now took place every four years; while to paymasters the period was also reduced. All he asked was that in these matters engineers should be placed in the same position with naval officers of corresponding rank. He would ask also why the names of naval engineers were not inserted in the Navy List? Even the engineers coming from the Mercantile Navy, and entering the Royal Naval Reserve, had their names inserted in the Navy List; but naval engineers were the only officers in the service whose names were not to be found in the Navy List. This was a very invidious distinction, which had given rise to a great deal of heartburning and unpleasantness. Naval engineers messed in the ward-room with officers, and they were fully entitled to have what he asked for them. He trusted the courteous disposition of the noble Lord (Lord Henry Lennox) would take their case into favourable consideration.

LORD HENRY LENNOX said, that in

being so, he thought that no aid could be granted them upon this point. As to the third matter, the hon. Baronet asked that the engineers should have an increase in their pay every three, instead of every five years. He could hold out no hopes of such an alteration in the rate of pay being made. It was not granted to any other class of officers. Then the hon. Baronet said that the engineers felt most keenly the implied slight offered to them by their names not appearing in the Navy List, and he requested to be informed of the reason for their being omitted. The hon. Baronet not having given notice of his intention to put a question upon this subject he could give him no distinct answer as to why the names of the lower grade of engineers did not appear there. The hon. Baronet, however, must be aware that the names of those in the upper grades of the engineers did appear in the Navy List. Having answered all the questions of the hon. Baronet, he must be permitted to point out to him that last year the pay of five in

spectors of engineers was raised by £100 | Sixthly, that the small steamers which a year; and that the pay of others in the took the liberty men ashore should be emsame branch of the service had been raised ployed to take men to the chapel ships. by £50. The present Board of Admiralty Seventhly, that when a man presented had also given to the engineers that which himself for entry to the navy, no question they had been so long anxious for-namely, should be asked as to his faith until he the rank of commanders after fifteen years' should be pronounced fit for service, and service. If the hon. Baronet required fur- that the religion should be added to the ther explanations upon the subject, he description of each seaman. Eighthly, would be happy to communicate with him that this description should accompany the by letter or otherwise, and to afford him man when he went into hospital, so that every information in his power. the chaplain might more easily know whom to visit. Ninthly, that when practicable, a Roman Catholic priest should perform the funeral service over members of that religion. Tenthly, that the authori ties of naval hospitals should request the Roman Catholic ecclesiastical authority at the spot to name a chaplain to attend the sick Roman Catholics, and that this

NAVY-ROMAN CATHOLICS.

OBSERVATIONS.

MR. O'REILLY said, he rose to call attention to the provision for the spiritual wants of Roman Catholics in the Royal Navy; and asked the First Lord of the Ad-person should have free access to the hos miralty, how far the recommendations approved of by Sir John Pakington in his Letter to Lord Derby, dated 1859 (see Parliamentary Paper, 10th February 1860, Navy) have been carried out? By the principle acted on of late years all de. nominations of Christians in the Royal Navy were to be treated as on an equal footing. The proportion of Roman Catholics in the navy had been 16 per cent, and was now 12 per cent. But while the total expenditure for religious instruction in the navy was £39,500, the allowance in respect of Roman Catholic clergymen was only £940, or less than 3 per cent of the whole. In 1859 a memorial in reference to Roman Catholics in the navy was laid before the Admiralty, and it was concerning the recommendations of Sir John Pakington upon this memorial that he wished to inquire. The first recommendation was, that when the Protestants were assembled for worship the Roman Catholics should be assembled separately, and prayers read by a Roman Catholic priest or officer. Secondly, that Roman Catholics should be assembled separately two or three times a week for instruction in their religion. Many of these recommendations could, of course, only be carried out when the ship was in harbour. Thirdly, that when a Roman Catholic was ill, he should, where it was practicable, be attended by a clergyman of his own persuasion. Fourthly, that Roman Catholics should, when in harbour, be as

sembled and marched to Divine service. Fifthly, that where a hospital ship was attached to the fleet, a Roman Catholic chaplain should form part of the staff.

pital. Lastly, that arrangements should
be made for performing Divine service and
reading prayers in hospitals. Further, he
wished to inquire into the position and pay
of the Roman Catholic clergy in the navy,
There were Roman Catholic chaplains at
Sheerness, Portsmouth, and Devonport;
their duties were such that they occupied
their whole time, and yet their whole re-
muneration was £120 a year. Practically,
these were permanent appointments, and
the amount of pay certainly was not
enough to permit these gentlemen to make
any provision for old age. He thought
that they were well entitled to a retiring
allowance. In other ports very small pay.
ments were made to Roman Catholic clergy-
men. Last year there was an entry in
the Estimates of £60 for Malta, but this
year there was none.
At Gibraltar and
Hong Kong there were no allowances. At
Bermuda, Jamaica, and the Cape of Good
Hope the allowance was £20; and at
Trincomalee only £10.
Protestant clergyman received £620 and
the Roman Catholic £30; and at Yar-
mouth £15. He would suggest that the
naval authorities should take into consi
deration whether the system adopted in the
army of payments per capita might not be
extended to the navy.

At Haslar the

LORD HENRY LENNOX said, heMR. SPEAKER said, the noble Lord was not at liberty to speak again, as he had already spoken in the course of this

discussion.

MR. OTWAY said, he knew that the engineer officers of the navy were most grateful for the benefits which had been

conferred upon them. They would regard it as a further boon to have their names inserted in the Navy List. He wished to put a question with respect to the pay of dockyard labourers, which he had no doubt the noble Lord (Lord Henry Lennox), whose able statement the other night he had beard with satisfaction, would be able to answer. He had always understood that the late Board had increased the pay of the dock yard labourers; and he wished to know whether the increase was to be confined to the class of labourers who received only 13s. a week, or whether the augmentation applied to the higher classes of labourers?

appointment of Roman Catholic chaplains. would be regulated, not by the importunities of hon. Gentlemen who professed the Roman Catholic religion, but solely by the exigencies of the service, in the hope that the men would be taught their duty to God and their Queen. He would now answer the points raised by the hon. and gallant Gentleman (Mr. O'Reilly). The recommendations issued in 1859 had been carried out as far as was practicable. The first question was whether the Roman Catholic seamen who entertained religious scruples about attending the service of the Church of England might absent themselves from its performance. That permission was already MR. WHALLEY said, he wished Roman granted; but as it was indispensable that Catholic priests to receive such a liberal perfect order and silence should be observed remuneration for their services to sailors in the ship during the performance of Divine in the navy as would render them more service, the men so absenting themselves amenable to the rules and to discipline than were obliged to remain in the mess room. their brother priests had been in regard to As to the boys assembling on board the services in prisons. But he desired to ships for religious instruction, he had to know whether the services of Roman call the attention of the hon. and gallant Catholic priests were to be appreciated by Gentleman to the fact that as the Protesthe importunity of their applications to the tant clergyman was always on board the Government, and by the influence they ship he could summon the boys and adexercised in that House, or were they to minister instruction to them at times which be regulated according to the exigencies would not only be convenient to himself of the service? He hoped the Admiralty but which would not interfere with the would consider how far the services of Ro- discipline of the service, while a Roman man Catholic priests would conduce to the Catholic chaplain could not fix certain interests of the navy and to the safety of the hours or certain days in the week without country. He agreed with the hon. Gentle- interfering somehow with that discipline mau (Mr. O'Reilly) that the remuneration which it was necessary to preserve. of Roman Catholic naval chaplains should hon. Gentleman asked whether Roman Cabe at least on as liberal a scale as the pay tholic priests were sent for when Roman of clergymen of other denominations. He Catholic seamen were dangerously ill. might remind the House, however, that That, he might say, was already the inmany clergymen of the Church of England variable practice where it was possible. No bad to live and maintain a respectable ap-orders, however, had been issued on the pearance on £80 or £100 a year; while, among the Dissenters, £100 or £150 was considered amply sufficient. In regard to Roman Catholic inmates of prisons, the attendance of the chaplains upon them was not compulsory under the Act of Parlia

ment.

LORD HENRY LENNOX said, that it as from no feeling of disrespect to the House that he had been deputed by his right hon. Friend the First Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. Corry) to reply to the questions which had been asked; but his right ton. Friend had only been in office a short time, and had been obliged to turn nearly the whole of his attention as yet to the mastery of details. He could assure the hon. Gentleman the Member for Peterborough (Mr. Whalley) that the pay and

The

subject, and the matter was, as a rule, left
to the humanity and good feeling of the
captain. With regard to the next question,
whether Catholic sailors were allowed in
harbour to attend their chapel and mass,
the hon. and gallant Gentleman had no-
thing to do but to turn to the printed in-
structions and see that those sailors, when
there was a Catholic officer, were marched
under his orders to the chapel where their
religious service was performed.
all the recommendations had been carried
out. In answer to the next question, whe-
ther chaplains should be appointed to the
hospital ships of the fleet, he might ob-
serve that there were no hospital ships, as
a rule, attached to the fleet. On the next
point the hon. and gallant Gentleman laid
considerable stress, labouring apparently

Thus far

under the impression that the recommen- stanced two places, Hong Kong and Malta, dation had not in this respect been carried as stations at which the Roman Catholic out. But in the case of ships at Plymouth priests received no pay. He was happy to Sound, Spithead, and Portsmouth, a small steamer was employed on Sundays to collect the Roman Catholic sailors, to carry them on shore, and after service to take them back to their respective ships. [Mr. O'REILLY: Will the noble Lord state when the practice was introduced?] He thought about eight or nine months since, but had taken no trouble to ascertain the date, regarding the fact as the all-important matter. The hon. and gallant Gentleman next asked whether persons on presenting themselves for entry into the navy were asked any questions about their religion, and whether Roman Catholic seamen taken to the hospital ship might not be placed in a separate ward, so that their minister might be able to attend better than he now could do to their spiritual wants. As to the first part of the question, the recommendation had been carried out in full, for no man was asked on entering the Royal Navy to what religion he belonged. The second suggestion it would be impossible to carry out, because the inmates of the naval hospitals were classified according to their diseases, and not according to their religion, and it was highly improbable that the whole of the Roman Catholics in a hospital would be afflicted with the same complaint. In answer to the next point, he would say that the funerals of Roman Catholic seamen were accompanied with the usual rites of their religion when vessels were in harbour, but with ships at sea, and no priests on board, such a thing was, of course, impossible. The Roman Catholic chaplain was permitted to read prayers to the sick on board, but he did not believe that there was any convenience for celebrating mass. Almost all the recommendations made in 1859 had been carried out by those who had succeeded his right hon. Friend (Sir John Pakington) at the Board of Admiralty. He confessed that the position of the chaplains at Plymouth, Devonport, and Sheerness was, to a certain extent, anomalous, and that they ought to have a pension on which they could eventually retire. These gentlemen devoted a great portion of their lives to ministering to the spiritual need of the sailors, and they were, he thought, entitled, if possible, to a favourable consideration of their claims. The next point touched on by the hon. Gentleman had relation to the salaries given to Roman Catholic chaplains on foreign stations. He in

undeceive his hon. and gallant Friend, for at Malta £110 were taken this year for the payment of the Roman Catholic priest; and at Hong Kong a sum of £33. Then the hon. and gallant Gentleman expressed his opinion that the Roman Catholic chaplains in the navy should be placed in the same position as those of the army. He was happy to inform him that the Rev. Mr. Connor, at Haulbowline, was receiving salary under the capitation grant. Origi nally, when his congregation was very small he refused payment on this scale, and Lord Clarence Paget, then represent. ing the Board of Admiralty, granted him an annual salary. Since then the numbers had increased, representations had been made which were felt to be perfectly reasonable, and the Board of Admiralty now in office had complied with Mr. Connor's request that he should be paid according to the capitation grant. The hon. Gentleman complained of the position of three chaplains sent to perform duties in various ports; but he must remember that they were on exactly the same footing as clergymen of the Established Church called on to officiate for small bodies of troops, and receiving exactly the same allowances. He had now answered seriatim the points put to him. He would only add that the right hon. and gallant Member for Huntingdon (General Peel), recently Secretary of State for War, had been first to take practical action in the direction of endowing Roman Catholic chaplains in the army, and to give practical proof of the respect in which their services were held. He should feel glad if it fell to the lot of the Board of Admiralty, of which he was a Member, to complete this act of justice to Roman Catholic chaplains in the navy by the grant of retiring pensions. In reply to the hon. Member for Chatham (Mr. Otway) he begged to say that the Establishment labourers, 885 in number, received 2s. 4d. per diem. There were 567 hired labourers of the first classs entitled to pensions who received 2s. 3d. a day. It was proposed to increase their pay 1d. daily, so as to bring them on an equality with the Establishment labourers. The hired labourers in the second class received only 2s. 2d. a day, and it was proposed that in the case of 2,142 men employed in the various dockyards 2d. daily should also be added to their pay, so as to bring them all up to