where we keep a frigate, two corvettes, a sloop, and three gunboats. Here we have two good grounds for prospective reduction. The first is that, at Bombay, the local Government are building Monitors for the defence of the harbour; and the second, that within the next year the new line of troop ships will be running for the conveyance of our soldiers between England and the East via Suez. Though not strictly vessels of war, they will carry our flag, and may be, if necessary, heavily armed. I think we may well reduce our force on this station to six vessels and 1,000 men; and, even then, I trust that pressure will be brought upon the Indian Government to bear some part of the cost of this force. I turn now to the Australian station. When I was there in 1856, our strength was 230 men; we have now there five ships with 1,100 men. To what cause is this increase attributable? Solely, so far as I am aware, to the New Zealand war, which is now entirely over. But two of the reasons which I assigned for the general reduction of these squadrons especially apply to this station: one is, that all the Australian colonies are now, I believe, connected by the telegraph; the other is the energy with which measures for naval defence are being adopted by the leading colony-Victoria; measures which I am glad to see that the present Admiralty, acting upon the views of their predecessors, are furthering; and which I believe will tend greatly not only to the strength of the navy, but to the increased attachment of the colonies to the mother take first the China, East India, and Aus- I come now to the East Indian station, The force on the Australian station may therefore very well, in my judgment, be reduced, say to three large corvettes: one to be stationed at Melbourne, one at Sydney, and a third at New Zealand; besides, if necessary, a surveying vessel. Our force on the station would still be about 750 men, or three times as many as we had there in 1856. The total effect of the reductions which I have proposed in the China, East India, and Australian stations, will be a decrease of 2,800 men, the difference between 6,500, our present strength, and 3,700, a number by 400 in excess of our force in 1856. I come next to the Cape of Good Hope station. There we keep a corvette, a sloop, and a receiving ship, with 450 men; and, considering the requirements of the station, I do not suggest any reduction. But the next station, the West Coast of Africa, involves considerations of consider able difficulty, with which I shall deal very cautiously. My noble Friend said "I, for one, should feel the greatest satisfaction if the moment should arrive when Her Majesty's present Advisers or any other Government should deem it to be consistent with the interests of humanity and of the public service to modify or remove altogether the African coast squadron."[3 Hansard, clxxxv. 1838.] I think I may interpret this language as meaning that the Government have under their consideration such a modification; and I will therefore limit my remarks to the simple expression of belief that, instead of the sixteen ships which, with the flag ship, now compose our force, we need only keep on the coast one corvette, eight despatch or gunboats, two small steamers, and two receiving ships, or altogether 1,000 men; thus effecting a reduction of 300, or including the flag ship, of 700 men. of which protects our commerce in the River Plate, and the other is the force which we maintain on the Brazilian coast, as a sort of rear-guard to our African squadron. All we require for the station is a force consisting of two corvettes, two gunboats, a despatch-boat, and a receiving-vessel, with 800 men instead of 1,100; and we should be thus saved the great expense of a flag ship, which I venture to say, except for the purpose of carrying a flag, is, on this station, utterly useless at the present time. I pass now to the Pacific Station, which is in two divisions; the northern under an admiral in an iron-clad, and the southern under a Commodore in a 31-gun frigate at Valparaiso. We have there, besides, three corvettes, four sloops, two gunboats, and a storeship; in all, twelve vessels. This force may, I think, be reduced to a frigate, two despatch vessels, two corvettes (one at Panama and the other at ValpaI come across the Atlantic to a far more raiso), and three sloops for the service of important station; our force on the North the coast and across to the islands; or American coast, and in the West Indies. altogether to eight instead of twelve vesIn the northern division, which has its sels. This would effect a saving of 1,000 head-quarters at Halifax, I propose no re-men-the difference between 2,700 and duction; but I would suggest, for the consideration of the Admiralty, whether the number of our ships kept in the West Indies could not be, with advantage to the service, very considerably diminished. It is too large for the police of those seas. It is utterly useless for war. Should we unfortunately be entangled in a war with the United States, there is not a ship in the West Indies which would not be obliged, in the emphatic language of my noble Friend, to "cut and run.' Well, Let me now recapitulate the changes we had on this station in 1846, 2,450 which we have suggested. In China, the men; in 1856, 4,350; and in the present East Indies, and Australia, we reduce year the number is 5,400. I propose 2,800 men, on the West Coast, 700; on to reduce the squadron, without touching the North American and West Indian sta the part of it kept on the North American tion, 2,400; on the South East Coast of coast, to 3,000 men, and the distribution America, 300; in the Pacific, 1,000; in which I would suggest is as follows:- all, 7,200 men. But we still leave everyan iron-clad flag ship, a smaller iron-clad, where, I believe, a force sufficient to prothree sloops, and three gunboats at Hali-tect our colonies and our commerce, to fax ; a sloop and two gunboats at Bermuda; restrain piracy, and to be at hand for a receiving ship, a sloop, and two gunboats general service. But that is not the whole at Jamaica; and two corvettes and two of our proposal. Instead of frittering away gunboats in the Gulf of Mexico, and at our force at these distant stations, we prothe other islands. In this way we should pose as a substitute a powerful squadron, effect a reduction of 2,400 men. which would be, I believe, very popular with the navy; and in suggesting which we are only recurring to the policy of former times. Our naval strength would be, in our opinion, greatly increased by the formation of a new flying squadron, with complements amounting in all to from 2,500 to 3,500 men, consisting of six or Coming now to the South East Coast of America, I find that we have at present, under a separate admiral's command, nine ships-that is to say, the flag ship, one sloop, six smaller vessels of different classes, and a receiving ship. The station consists, practically, of two distinct divisions, one 1,700. In passing, let me ask the Admiralty whether they have recently had under their consideration the propriety of abandoning the employment of Her Majesty's ships, both in the Pacific and on the other side of Mexico, in the conveyance of treasure. I believe the use of the navy for this purpose to be the remains of a vicious system which, as it is often the excuse for increased force, I hope will be put an end to. unem seven ships, some armoured and some not,, admirals on half-pay drawing £48,300; with nearly equal sailing and steaming 108 on the reserved list drawing £52.000; powers, with two flags (thus employing and 127 on the retired list drawing two more admirals), which, rendezvousing £55,400; in all, 317 unemployed admioff Lisbon, would be ready at a moment's rals whose pay amounts to £155,700. notice to be ordered by telegraph to any On the post captains' list there are 114 part of the world where an increase of our employed whose pay amounts to £85,800. permanent squadron might be required. But there are 180 on half-pay drawing It is of great importance that such a force £38,100; 80 on the reserved list drawing should be sent to sea at any moment with- £18,000; and 386 on the retired list out weakening the Channel or the Medi- drawing £93,700; or in all, 646 unemterranean squadron; and I will say no ployed post captains whose pay is £149,800. more at present in its favour, hoping that There are 128 commanders employed afloat the idea will be thoroughly discussed and whose pay is £51,700; and 65 employed weighed, both in the service and at the on shore in the coast guard whose pay is Admiralty. Taking the strength of this £23,700; giving a total of 193 employed new squadron at something over 3,000 commanders receiving £75,400 a year. men, and deducting that from the saving But of unemployed commanders there are which I have suggested of 7,200 men, it 214 on half-pay receiving £35,900; 78 will be seen that the total reduction pro- on the reserved list receiving £13,900; posed is 4,000 men. Let me repeat that 492 on a retired list receiving £63,600; I and my Friends near me throw out these and 256 retired as commanders from other suggestions tentatively and with diffidence, lists receiving £41,000; or in all, 1,040 and I hope that they will be well discussed retired commanders whose pay is £154,400. and criticised by gentlemen, whether in Of generals of marines 1 only is employed the service or connected with commerce, at £1,400 a year; but 42 are who have much more acquaintance than ployed at £26,500. To sum up all these we have with many of our foreign stations. ranks, there are employed 321, their pay I come now to the third and last ques- being £195.300; and unemployed 2,045, tion upon which I wish to address the costing £486,400. In other words, the Committee to day. I mean the state of case is this-if you name a commander, the navy lists. Nothing can be more un- the chances are 6 to 1 that he has nothing satisfactory than the position of the ques to do; if a captain, 6 to 1; if an admiral, tions connected with promotion and retire-24 to 1; and if a general of marines, 42 ment in the navy. Every year the Board of Admiralty is besieged by officers asking that something may be done to "increase the flow of promotion;" and the usual result is the formation of a new list. Let any one wade through the little blue book issued every quarter, and he will find that the number of these lists is so great as to have taken up all the letters of the alphabet; and I will venture to say that outside the Admiralty nobody, and inside it not half-a-dozen officials, really understand why they were created or what some of them mean. Now, it is high time that this question should be taken up, and that we should not postpone it till, in a financial point of view, bad times come-when any sudden change would be attended by great distress to many deserving officers. Let me say at once that in all questions of this kind I am not for reductions of pay, but of numbers; and to show what we have reached as to numbers, will the Committee bear with me while I read to them some figures which I think will startle them. On the admirals' list we have 13 employed, whose pay is £32,700. But there are 82 to 1. This is a state of things which I venture to say, when compared with the navy list of any other country in the world, or when judged by the rules of common sense, loudly calls for reform. But there is one, a very salient and marked case, which shows the impolicy of the present arrangements-I mean that of the younger post-captains. According to the navy list of the present quarter, there are 297 post captains on the active list, of whom 167 are of 6 years' standing, or less. Now, of these 167 only 35 are employed; in other words, it is about 4 to 1 that a captain, when posted, will have nothing to do for six years. But what does this mean? The average age at which an officer is posted is about thirty-five. Well, then, between thirty-five and forty-one, when a man is at his best, both as to physical strength and as to powers of command and organization, you turn round and tell him that he shall have nothing to do. This is a blemish, and I may say disgrace, to our system of administration, which absolutely requires the immediate attention of Government and of Parliament. Well, for these proposals I have made. I have made them in no unfriendly spirit; for although I do not agree in politics with Gentlemen opposite, I am disposed to give a general support to the present Board of Admiralty. I beg to move, but only as a matter of form, that the Vote be reduced by 2,000 men. Motion made, and Question proposed, "That 65,300 Men and Boys be employed for ending on the 31st day of March 1868, including the Sea and Coast Guard Services, for the year 16,200 Royal Marines."-(Mr. Childers.) evils what remedy do I suggest? All our formers. Perhaps the House will accept recent schemes for improving the flow of that suggestion as my apology for the promotion as it is called seem only to end in giving additional retirement to the upper ranks for the moment, but not in permanently preventing the "block," and the disappointment of the younger men. Take, for instance, the Order in Council of last year-the most liberal scheme of retirement ever proposed. I hear already rumours about the lists being clogged, and some new relief and consequent expense to the country being necessary. What we really want is some means of enabling younger men, who are tired of the service or unsuited for it, to leave it. When a naval officer reaches thirty or thirty-five, MR. CORRY said, that as he was not he knows pretty well whether he will ever concerned in the preparation of these Esdo any good in his profession. If not, or timates he hoped that the House would if he is tired of the service, the best thing not expect him to enter into all the details would be to get rid of him. But our policy to which the hon. Gentleman had referred. has been to give him a miserable half-pay, It was not possible for him to be familiar upon which he cannot live, but which pre- with all the views which had influenced vents him from obtaining employment his right hon. Friend (Sir John Pakingelsewhere. Instead of this, I would pro- ton) in the preparation of the Dockyard pose to buy him out with a sum of money Estimates, or that had guided the Cabinet down. The capital cost need not appear in the distribution of the seamen and main the Estimates, as his half-pay might be rines over the various home and foreign paid over to the Commissioners for the re- stations. But he desired to follow the hon. duction of the National Debt, who should Gentleman in some of the criticisms which be authorized by law to make the commu- he had offered to the House; and there tation. I believe that in this way not were some points on which he would give only should we get rid of a number of all the information in his power. The nominal officers who clog the lists and in- hon. Gentleman had complained of the terfere with the flow of promotion, but considerable increase in some of these Esthat by degrees we might bring down the timates, and had intimated his suspicion numbers of the superior ranks to some that they were not prepared with a due rereasonable proportion to the amount of gard to economy. He had no doubt but employment for them. We might, I hope, that his right hon. Friend (Sir John Pakreduce our admirals' list to 40; our post-ington) would be able to vindicate his own captains' to 180; and our commanders' to 300; and, retaining the present system of age-retirements as applicable to these ranks, we should insure greatly increased efficiency, and prospectively considerable economy. conduct in that respect. The hon. Gentleman had next adverted to what he alleged to be an erroneous statement that was made by his noble Friend the Secretary to the Admiralty (Lord Henry Lennox) in moving the Estimates, when he stated I have now, Mr. Dodson, discussed, at I that a reduction had been made in hope not too great length, the three ques- the number of the naval cadets. The tions which appear to me of the greatest hon. Gentleman argued that this was inimportance in these or in any other Navy correct, because the noble Lord had omitEstimates. I have pointed out the saving ted to add the second-class cadets, who which I think can be effected in the pro- ought to have been added, in consequence posed programme for shipbuilding, in the of the decision of the present Board of numbers of our foreign squadrons, and in Admiralty to keep up the rank of master the lists of our officers. Towards the end by the entry of second-class cadets, which of last Session, the Member for the Tower had been discontinued by the late Board. Hamlets (Mr. Ayrton) said of me, that I However this might be, and he had no was always ready to defend Admiralty mis- doubt that his noble Friend could satis deeds, and that I should do better to in-factorily explain it, he desired to take dicate new fields of research for naval re- the opportunity of saying that he heartily concurred in that decision, for he believed | larger sum of money than that now prothat nothing could happen more disastrous posed. The hon. Gentleman must know to the navy than the abolition of the rank that he (Mr. Corry) would be the last perof master. The maintenance of that rank son to keep back these dockyard works, was absolutely necessary in his opinion, as because it was in a great measure at well as in that of the vast majority of his instigation that they were undertaken. naval officers, to the safety of the ships He knew that they were not very popular belonging to the navy, and the late in the House; but if hon. Gentlemen were Board of Admiralty never made a greater only acquainted with the absolute necessity mistake than when they decided to abolish of making the dockyards suitable to the it. There was hardly a naval man in altered dimensions of ships of war, and the House who would not agree with conditions of shipbuilding, they would him in that. The hon. Gentleman had agree with him that no money could complained that the number of artificers be better laid out. The hon. Gentleman in the fleet was too small. He believed it had next proceeded to advert to the shipwas; but he could not concur with the hon. building charges in the Estimates, and had Gentleman that it would be wise to in- condemned the policy of building another crease their number at the expense of the ship of the class of the Inconstant before Royal Marines. He had felt it to be his that vessel herself had been tried. No duty two or three years ago to call the doubt, in ordinary cases, it was advisable attention of the House to the reduction to proceed in these matters with caution. which it was then proposed to make in the But it must be remembered that other nanumber of the coast guard and of the tions were building ships of this class in Royal Marines, for he considered that it far greater numbers than ourselves. Ho was most dangerous to diminish the strength agreed with the hon. Gentleman that the of those two most valuable naval reserves. American ships had not been so successful He was still of the same opinion. The hon. as was anticipated; but he thought, and Gentleman had next criticised the discharge had always thought, that it was essential of a certain number of female spinners for England to have a few ships of extrain Chatham Dockyard, a point of detail ordinary speed of course, not armourthat his hon. and gallant Friend (Sir John plated-for certain obvious purposes in the Hay), the Superintending Lord of the De- operations of war. He rejoiced, therepartment, would be able to explain satis- fore, that it was proposed to build anofactorily. The next cause of complaint ther ship of the class of the Inconadvanced by the hon. Gentleman referred stant. Two ships of this character were to the diminution in the Estimates this the very least we ought to have, and he year, as compared with the amount which hoped the new vessel would be constructed ought to have been proposed under the as soon as possible. The hon. Gentleman Treasury Letter of 1865. The Estimate had next adverted to the delay that had for Chatham would have been, accord- taken place in the building of the Hercules ing to the letter, £205,000 instead of and the Monarch. The present Board was £150,000, as proposed to be voted, and not to blame for that. The cause of delay £312,000 for Portsmouth, instead of in the case of the Hercules was, he be£228,000 for the extension of Chatham lieved, that some of her plates had proved and Portsmouth Dockyards. The Esti- defective, and that a considerable time mate for Chatham was £205,000 this was lost before other plates could be supyear, against £228,000 in the previous plied by the contractors; and the proone; and that for Portsmouth was gress of the Monarch had been impeded £228,000, against £312,000 last year. by an accident to the caisson of the dock in This diminution, however, was not in which she was being constructed, which any way to be attributed to any dis- had necessitated the suspension of the inclination on the part of the present work until the damage could be repaired. Board of Admiralty to push forward the But the portion of the Estimates which works in question. The fact was that, in the hon. Gentleman had most severely consequence of the commercial crisis of criticised was that which had referred last year, the late Board of Admiralty had to the intention to build a large number not been able to complete all the contracts of small vessels. Now, if there was one pro-some were even now incomplete, and posal in these Estimates more than another therefore it was impossible to spend with that had his (Mr. Corry's) entire approval advantage during the ensuing year a it was this one. For the last six years the |