of submitting these few observations on it. I only hope that some constituency will be wise enough to return Sir John Hopkins to Parliament, so that he may be able to bring forward there the valuable suggestions he has put before us to-day.

Rear-Admiral C. JOHNSTONE :-I rise to express the hope that it will not be considered, notwithstanding the large attendance here, that the different subjects have been adequately dealt with. The list our lecturer gave us is long and the subjects are most important, and many of them are burning questions. In fact, I am glad some of them have not been touched upon by previous speakers, as I think it will be quite insufficient for them to be discussed in the short period of ten minutes. I hope it may be considered rather that the list of subjects put forward by our lecturer will serve as texts for future lecturers and future discussions. It is to be regretted that we have not had of late years more lectures in this theatre on naval subjects. I think they have been very much neglected. When I think of what one used to have some years ago, namely, extremely interesting discussions on points - which had arisen, I feel it has been very unfortunate that such lectures have dropped out. I do not know whether the Council of the Institution set up rather a rigid standard of what a lecture should be, and for that reason have not been able to obtain lecturers; but that may be the case. However, it seems to me that the lecture is a secondary consideration, that is to say, the general nature of it, the subject of it, and the discussion that follows it, are the important matters. I think it would be better to get lecturers of not the very first order if a proper subject is brought forward and we are able to obtain an adequate discussion. I may just point out the important nature of the subjects which have been brought before us by the lecturer. The most important are: the question of a reserve of seamen; the system of employment and varying the employment of officers in general and at the Admiralty; the system of drafting petty officers and men, and the organisation, control, and working of the depôts; the defence of the military ports in the United Kingdom; the Marine force as a part of the Navy, its training and employment; the status of officers of executive and engineering branches, their training, duties, and command; I may say that I think the question of making engineer officers executive officers is very far short of dealing with that question. Then there are the training and the duties of the bluejacket, naval construction, etc. These are some of the more important questions which our lecturer has put before us, and I submit that they deserve much longer consideration. Each subject is worthy of a lecture and of long and careful discussion. Generally speaking, naval officers on active service are in constant employment, and they have not time to come here, and, therefore, perhaps it devolves to a certain extent on the retired officers to discuss these matters. Those officers who have only retired from the Service a few years may be considered to be in touch with these matters and entitled to give an opinion upon them and help with their advice. I should like to again express the hope that we may have more lectures on naval subjects in this theatre, and have a full discussion of these important matters which we are grateful to Sir John Hopkins for having brought before us.

Captain R. H. S. BACON, D.S.O., R.N. :-The only reason I rise is to draw attention to two paragraphs, as no one else has mentioned them, in case they should appear to go with our tacit approval, which I am sure they do not. The first deals with the point as to whether engineer officers should be called executive officers. I am quite certain that the opinion of the Service is anything but in favour of that suggestion. An executive officer, I take to mean an officer who assumes executive command on all occasions, and this, even according to the latter part of the paragraph, it is shown the engineers cannot. The chief engineer is incapable of performing the duties of captain, and if that is so, he cannot take command over the other executive officers on board; who in turn become captain of the ship in the absence of their senior officers. Suppose the chief engineer senior to the commander or first lieutenant, who is senior when the captain leaves the ship?

By the lecturer's own showing it cannot be the chief engineer, so that on some days he is senior and on others junior to the same officer. If so, his position is reduced to an anomaly. The thing cannot work on those lines. If he is not an executive officer under those conditions, why call him one at all? Or, if you do call him an executive officer, you must call the other a double executive officer. I see no reason why the two should be classed under the same heading. Until both branches are competent to do each other's duties, I see no reason why they should be called by the same name or wear the same uniform; it only produces confusion, and it is only a sop, a crumb, and it does no good. I am quite certain that every officer who is accustomed to punishing on board ship is of opinion that the less the number of people who punish the better, and there are none more of that opinion than the men themselves. Nothing creates more discomfort in a ship than to have two messes near to one another, in one of which a man gets seven days 10A for neglect of duty, and in the other only three days. The latter part of the same paragraph is most pregnant where it mentions the necessity for bluejackets going down into the stokehole to stoke. Who is going to punish them? The chief engineer? If a man gets punished in the stokehole by one man, and he is punished on the upper-deck by another, it will only produce discomfort. The officer who punishes should be he who has the least to do with the man at the time the offence was committed, and that generally is the executive officer of the ship. He investigates complaints from everybody in the ship, and why not from the stokehole? I cannot agree with the assumption that the power of punishment increases an individual's authority. I am quite certain it is the most disagreeable duty that the commander of a ship or the captain of a ship has to perform. It carries with it no authority. A lieutenant of a ship has got equal authority whether he punishes the men himself, or whether they are punished for him, provided he is backed up by his seniors; and I am quite certain that no one here, or in the whole Service, can bring a charge that the engineering staff is not backed up by the senior officers of the ship; and until it is proved that is the case, any alteration is a dangerous experiment. As regards courts-martial, surely the people who should sit on them are those accustomed to taking evidence and accustomed to dealing with bluejackets, marines, and stokers, which executive officers are; they deal with them every day in their messes and their various duties. Why should they not, as they do now, sit on the courts-martial? Taking the case of a ship's-steward's boy who hits a ship's corporal in the eye, is the court-martial more efficient if the paymaster sits on it? Or take the case of desertion on the part of a sick-bay attendant, is the case better tried for the doctor sitting? The suggestion is merely a sop to the individual, and the question whether it is for the good of the Service is neglected-that is the point. I am quite certain that out of the number of ideas which the lecturer has put before us there are many which we all agree with. But I am equally sure there are a thousand or more officers at sea who would only be too glad to be here to-day to record their views against the suggestions I have called attention to.

Commander W. F. CABORNE, C.B., R.N.R. :- Sir, unfortunately, as the lecturer has most truly said, the British mercantile sailor is a constantly decreasing quantity, and, consequently, the Royal Naval Reserve is more and more compelled to seek its recruits from among the ranks of our fishing population. With regard to the suggestion that “a portion of the crews of private yachts should be induced to form a reserve brigade, on the understanding that their drills should take place in the slack season," I may, perhaps, be permitted to point out that we already have a good many yachtsmen enrolled in the Royal Naval Reserve. As a proof of the truth of this statement, I may mention that the drill-battery at Brightlingsea was brought into existence, upon the recommendation of the late Sir George Tryon, mainly for the convenience of those particular men. Moreover, the men of the Royal Naval Reserve are at liberty to choose the season of the year that best suits them for undergoing their period of naval training afloat or their annual

drills. Under these circumstances, would not an attempt to form the yachtsmen into a distinct body introduce an undesirable element of competition with the existing force? At one time, honorary commissions in the Royal Naval Reserve were given to a number of yacht-owners, with the intention of inducing them to encourage the movement among their men; but I venture to think that that proceeding was a mistake, as few of them ever manifested any interest in its wellbeing; and I rejoiced exceedingly, as one who had strongly urged such a course, when the granting of honorary commissions-except to members of the accountant branch, who, within the last few days have been transferred to the active listceased some ten years ago, for I hold that the less there is of “honorary" about the auxiliary force to which I have the honour to belong, the better it will be alike for the country and for it.

Sir JOHN HOPKINS, in reply, said :-I will take the remarks of the speakers in rotation. Admiral Kennedy, together with other officers, objected to other than executive officers sitting on courts-martial, and they have given reasons for their opinions; but on the other hand, there are the views of the officers who I suggest might sit on courts-martial to be considered. Are the feelings of the engineers and of the doctors, and of the paymasters, or marines, or others concerned, not to be reckoned with? It may be entirely a question of sentiment, but sentiment governs us a good deal; and why a court-martial would suffer from having an impartial marine or an impartial doctor sitting on it besides the executive, I do not know. I see no reason why the executive should keep all this in their own hands; and though it may be a matter of sentiment, why not include these officers in courts-martial? They would not be out of place; they might be of assistance; and although somebody suggested they might be more down on their own cloth than any other member (which I admit), yet the other officers could temper any severity and might say, "We are six to one, and we cannot agree with you in wishing to give this man such a severe sentence," and so the milder punishment would rule. But as a matter of sentiment, I see no earthly reason why the officers suggested should not sit. No doubt the executive officer is a very able fellow, but I do not think the whole of the ability of the Service is concentrated in him. I look upon all the others as equally able in their respective lines. On the other hand, the idea was only put forward as a suggestion, and if there was any desire amongst any branch of officers to be mixed up in some way or another with the courts martial, or the punishment of their men, I should say, "Listen to them, and hear what they have to urge," and not say, “I am an executive officer, and you have no business to be amongst us" on these occasions. Sir Vesey Hamilton, who is always well worth listening to, I think rather went off the rails. He commenced about landing an army at Portsmouth. As our friend Mr. Thursfield said, "Who is going to run his head against Portsmouth?" If I wanted to land an army I should not go to Portsmouth to do it, and therefore the gentleman who would come down to command 70,000 men would not, I think, be required there. But it is very likely the enemy might make a feint against Portsmouth, and if they could draw those 70,000 men, and a general to command them, down there, they would be very well pleased, because then they would land somewhere else. However, what I maintain is that when the army comes to be landed at Portsmouth (presuming disembarkation there), then the military come in; but the defence of the port pure and simple is a naval question. Then Sir Vesey Hamilton talked about ships being tied up there. I tied no ships up there. The fleet is presumably away, and the defence of the home ports falls on the local defenders, whether ships, soldiers, or sailors, the torpedo-boats being at present in charge of the Admiral, the mines in charge of extemporised Engineers, and the soldiers in charge of somebody else. But if you put the whole thing under the Admiral, as other nations have done, I am of opinion we should be very much better served. That is only an opinion, and discussion is valuable as drawing forth views. With regard to Marine Light Infantry training at guns, everyone knows

they do, and that they do it very well. Why not, therefore, put a blue jacket on them, and make them all marine artillery? The rifle is no part of this business on board ship, and it seems an anomaly to train men to light infantry drill, and then say, "The greatest part of your use on board ship is to work a gun." You had better, therefore, make him a gunner, and call the whole corps gunners. Sir Vesey Hamilton said, “I do not advocate stopping their grog." Nor do I; but I say, give them more money for the grog, and they will stop it themselves. If you only paid a fair price for it, the grog would disappear. As to whether they would suffer in health or not, that is another pair of shoes. If they did, then the doctor must step in and recommend their grog being given back. But there is a good deal of grog sold, and a good deal drunk by people who ought not to drink it. The less grog there is drunk the better. You can ask Sir Vesey Hamilton, who has served in the Arctic, what they served out there when they were doing sledge work. Grog? No.

Sir VESEY HAMILTON :-Yes, at night time.

Sir JOHN HOPKINS :-Sir Vesey Hamilton will tell you they worked better and longer on cocoa and tea than on grog.

Sir VESEY HAMILTON :-We could not get our cocoa and tea always, but we could get our grog at any time.

Sir JOHN HOPKINS :--They are cleverer now, and the modern Arctic voyager recommends hot tea or cocoa and no grog, the stimulating effect of which soon wears off. Rear Admiral Henderson advocates different systems of training, and I fancy he wants to train them all on the same lines; but I think your first training must be for the special work they have to do, whether as stokers or seamen, then if you find you can afterwards utilise stokers for something else, you bring in the second training after they have mastered the elements of the first. Rear-Admiral Henderson did not agree to junior captains of depôts; he thought they had not experience enough in punishing men. All I can say is, that if a captain at the age of 45 cannot judiciously punish a man, I do not know when he can. He thought they would not deal temperately with the men; but I think the older you get the harder or easier you become. If you get harder you would not be temperate, and if you are too easy the fault is perhaps worse, so you had better have the happy mean of the younger officer. He did not agree with sailing storeships, I do not say I do; but we hear a good many officers say that the days of sailing-ships having gone by, the seaman has disappeared with them, and unless we accustom the men to sailing-ships they are not sailors and are not worth having, and that they have not learned the necessary lesson they used to learn, and that they are nothing more than gunners; whilst others maintain that you can train them properly in the ships they are in, and will thereby get the stamp of men you want. On the other hand, if there is a general desire to have sailors trained on sailingships, then put them in those ships. But I do not advocate it. I maintain they are better trained in the vessels they will have to fight in. Then with regard to advance in the size of battle-ships. I do not care about bigger vessels. If you look at the size of a battle-ship now, I think you have gone quite far enough, for the reason that the larger a ship gets the less you can control her movements within a given space. You will get them longer, and consequently less easy to turn, and you can't consequently get in and out of harbour so readily, nor in and out of dock, nor can you manœuvre so well, so there are many disadvantages in the bigger ships. But if the nation chooses to say, "We will without reference to money have so many new battle-ships," then I say have big ones; but if I had only a few millions to spend I would sooner have the number than the size, and, as stated in my paper, six improved "Barfleurs" rather than four "Formidables." It is all a matter of money. Our forefathers were satisfied with having a smaller sized battle-ship; they did not have all three-deckers; they recognised that money would only go a certain distance, and, therefore for their money they got more

Mr. Thursfield, with his great experience talked about the defence of the ports, and I think he rather agreed that the defence of the naval ports should be in the hands of the admirals. With regard to the speeds of ships, I think he has been got at by the Naval Construction Department who always argue in that way, saying that these foreign ships are stated to go so many knots; but they do not. But these speeds, which were taken out of my friend Lord Brassey's book, are in most cases taken by his compilers from the records of the absolute speeds of the ships at their trials, and you cannot get away from the fact that at Elswick the vessels I quote in my paper ran over, not a measured mile, but a measured 13 miles, and they have to keep up the speed of the trial both backwards and forwards in that 13 miles, and that is a great deal more than doing it over a measured mile. I am happy to say we are now doing the same thing, as we have a measured course at Devonport. You may take it for granted that if the foreigners build a ship which goes 23 knots an hour we ought to be able to do the same. It is no good saying, "Oh, they can do it on paper but cannot do it at sea," because we must remember that history repeats itself, and the French in the old days always beat us at shipbuilding, and any old naval officer will tell you that their ships sailed better than ours, and that they were better designed than ours. Then, with regard to the speed of colliers, he talked about a 20-knot collier. What for? There is no battle-ship which goes 20 knots; there is, in fact, no battle-ship whose continuous sea speed is more than a fraction over 16 knots, go as hard as she may. You may take any battle-ship to-morrow which has gone 18 or 19 knots over the measured mile, and if her average speed is more than 16 knots she will be a wondrous creation. All you want, therefore, is a collier of 16 knots speed. And when you get her of the mercantile type of that speed it means 16 blue-water knots. There is no measured mile standard in their case, they go so many miles an hour; but with all our ships the first ratio is the measured mile ratio, and nothing else, and from the measured mile results you are obliged to determine speeds, whether it is Elswick's, our own, or the French ships; you start off with the measured mile speed and quote this in all returns. I was glad to see Sir John Colomb get up, because he is always sticking up for his corps, but no one will stand up for them more than the naval officer. We are all delighted with the marine corps, and we only wish they were 50,000 strong instead of 18,000 or 19,000-or whatever it is. I know, on the part of the naval officer, there is every desire to do justice to the marines, and if we can bring them more with us and more amongst us so much the better. And I think if they were made all artillerymen, and given those appointments I have indicated, we should do better. General Moody thinks he can show us a way of getting 5,000 reserves if we call them marine reserves. Then, I say, call them marine reserves - let us have them. Anything we can get in the shape of a reserve we ought to get. No one will be more glad than naval officers to see those 5,000 men with us, no matter what they are called. Therefore, I would call them marine reserves with the greatest pleasure. He also talked of the Royal Marine Light Infantry being good gunners. So they are; there is no doubt about it. Nobody said they were not; anybody who knows anything about the matter knows that the marine light infantry gunner is almost as up-to-date in the absolute working of a gun as is a marine artilleryman. That being the case, why not call them marine artillery? I would give them a little more money, too. There is no question that the marine light infantryman is a good gunner. I do not suppose, if you take statistics in firing, that the marine gunner would be one whit behind the seaman gunner. Admiral Johnstone touched upon the importance of discussing these matters. I quite agree. I only brought forward this lecture for the sake of discussion. I do not think we have enough of it. We have room for some naval discussion monthly if only someone would furnish the text. I agree that in this case each point in itself is a subject for discussion. That brings me to Captain Bacon's view

of the smaller ships than by having all big ones.