SUPPLY.

Order for Committee read.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."

DEVONPORT ELECTION.-QUESTION. SIR JOHN PAKINGTON in rising, pursuant to notice, to call the attention of the Government to certain statements as to the manner in which Dockyard workmen who are Voters for the Borough of Devonport have been examined in the Dockyard

with reference to their intended evidence before the Election Committee for that before the Election Committee for that Borough, and to ask for explanation, said I am sincerely sorry that I am compelled by a sense of duty to ask the attention of Her Majesty's Government, and of the House, to the statements that have been laid before me with regard to certain proceedings that have been taken during the last few days in the borough of Devonport. I confess I had hoped that the day of political scandal and intimidation, or even of the suspicion of either in our dockyards, had passed away; and I very much hope that my noble Friend opposite (Lord Clarence Paget) may be able either to state that I have been misinformed, or to offer a satisfactory explanation with regard to the factory explanation with regard to the allegations that I am about to lay before the House. Sir, the facts to which I wish to draw attention are very simple, and I think I shall be able to state them in a

very few sentences. The first fact to which I wish to call attention is a telegram which I am informed was sent down by the Admiralty to the borough of Devonport last week. It is dated February 20, but it was not sent down to Devonport until the following day, the 21st. The wording of the telegram is as follows:

"Admiralty, Feb. 20, 1866. "Every facility is to be given for serving the Speaker's warrant on the workmen in the yard in the case of the petition against the sitting Members for Devonport.-For the information of the

officers."

I wish to ask a few questions relative to this telegram. In the first place, By whom was it sent?-by the noble Lord opposite (Lord Clarence Paget), or by Mr. Romaine, the permanent Under Secretary? and, if it were sent at all, it was sent by order of the First Lord of the Admiralty, or the Board? In the second place, I wish to ask to whom this telegram was sent ? I presume, and I do not think my noble Friend will contradict me, that no order would be

communicated to the officers or the workmen of the dockyard except through the medium of the Admiral Superintendent. I must inform the House that I know nothing personally of what has been going on at Devonport; but I am informed that the duties of the office of Admiral Superintendent of the dockyard were never more ably or more honourably performed than by Admiral Symonds, the present Admiral Superindendent. I am especially informed that no officer ever held the office of Admiral Superintendent of the Dockyard at Devonport who has more honourably and scrupulously observed the strict injunctions given against political interference in the yard. I therefore, Sir, desire to know whether the Admiral Superintendent was called upon to carry out this telegram?-because I am convinced, from what I know of this officer, that he would not have acted upon this telegram unless he had direct injunctions from head-quarters. I ask, then, to whom this telegram was sent ?-but the most important question I wish to put is this, Why was it sent at all? Why was it necessary for the Board of Admiralty, either through the Admiral Superintendent or any other agency, to interfere in the proceedings preliminary to the trial of the petition against the return of the Members for Devonport? Every voter who is a workman in the dockyard is a resident in the town of Devonport, and every such workman votes as a £10 householder; they are all easily accessible at their places of abode, which are perfectly well known; and therefore I wish to know what is meant by it when I am told that the Lords of the Admiralty have telegraphed that every facility is to be given for serving the Speaker's warrant? What facilities were wanted? How are the Speaker's warrants served in those boroughs where there happens to be no dockyard? How are they served in Devonport upon voters required as witnesses who are not workmen in the dockyard? As a matter of course in every case of a controverted election it is the constant practice to serve the voters with these warrants at their own houses. What reason was there, then, for telegraphing that facilities should be afforded in this particular instance for serving these warrants upon the workmen in the dockyard, instead of leaving them to be served at the voters' houses in the regular and ordinary course? This is the first point on which I wish to elicit information from my noble Friend. I now

pass to the manner in which the instructions of this telegram were carried out, The telegram, as I have stated, was sent either on Tuesday, the 20th, or Wednesday, the 21st, and on this day week (Thursday, the 22nd) I am informed that the messengers and principal officers of the yard were employed, early in the morning, in going round the yard with a list of the names of the men, and giving them to the inspectors and leading men, with directions for the men to attend in the sail-room at ten o'clock-the workmen here alluded to, some thirty or thirty-five in number, being workmen in the yard who had given their votes for the present Members for Devonport, Mr. Ferrand and Mr. Fleming, were on that day ordered by those officers to assemble in the sail-room of Devonport Dockyard. I understand that that sailroom is now used as a police-office by the Government police acting in the dockyard, On Thursday, the 22nd, at ten o'clock, these thirty or thirty-five dockyard workmen were taken away from the discharge of their duties-taken away from the work for which we are about to pay by our Votes in Supply-and were assembled in that police-office. The only persons at that time in that police-office who were not either policemen or workmen in the yard were first of all the town-crier, who, I understand, is a very warm political partizan, an attorney in the town, who is a solicitor for the petitioners, and a gentleman not known to the parties, but who, I believe, is an agent of the petitioners, and was sent down from London. Well, when these thirty or thirty-five workmen were brought together, one of them-for the sake of the men I had better not mention names-was called forward and subjected to examination by these hostile examiners. He was called upon to criminate himself. He was asked whether he had accepted bribes for his vote at the election, and when he denied any such illegality he was then cross - examined in an offensive and hostile manner as to his powers of memory, and even questioned, I believe, whether he recollected his own birthday. After this examination he was dismissed; and I am informed that the examination of the first man not turning out quite satisfactorily to the examiners, as soon as it ceased an inspector of police was called in who desired all the voters so assembled to go outside the building, which they did. Thereupon, the men were called in one by one, and singly exposed to the same system of hos

tile examination, cross-examination, and attempts to make them criminate themselves which had been adopted towards the first workman. These are the main facts as regards what took place on Thursday, the 22nd. I am informed that on Friday the same sort of scene was repeated. Some fifteen or twenty voters were brought together in the same place and served with the Speaker's warrant and I have heard that similar proceedings have taken place on subsequent days. Here, I must again ask, What reason was there for all that? What could have been the motive for bringing these voters to the police-office and thus calling on them to criminate themselves, under circumstances which, without at all wishing to prejudice the matter, I must say, unless they are fully explained, unavoidably inspire in one's mind the suspicion that the object was to intimidate and alarm these men? The warrants might have been served-it appears to me they ought to have been served-at their residences, after their hours of work were over. Instead of that, however, all these men-between thirty and forty on the Thursday, some twenty others on the Friday, and more I am told since thenwere taken from their labour, they were each absent from it, on an average, for an hour and a half-in some cases less, in others, as much as two hours; and this amount of labour of fifty or sixty men was withdrawn from the yard, and for what? To submit to a process which could have been more conveniently, and, as I contend, far more properly carried out at their own houses. There is another fact to be noticed, to which, however, I would not attach undue importance-namely, that one of the petitioners on whose behalf this telegram was sent, or on whose behalf these men were withdrawn from their work and brought to be examined in the police-office, is an official of the Board of Admiralty-a gentleman well known to all of us, I mean Mr. Phinn, who long held the office of Secretary to the Board of Admiralty, and is now their standing counsel. These, Sir, are what appear to me, to say the least, to be the most unusual circumstances connected with the manner in which the service of these warrants took place; and after all that has passed in former years-I hope the case will never arise again-I believe the House would feel that I should fail in my duty if, when these alleged facts were brought before me, I did not call upon the noble Lord opposite to give some explana

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My dear Lord Clarence Paget,-I send you copies of the orders under which I have acted, also of the applications made to and approved by me in obedience to the two orders, which contained the fore ordered that the people sought and applied same words, on workmen in the yard.' I therefor should assemble at the hour requested in a quiet part of the yard, instead of their being sought separately at their work

LORD CLARENCE PAGET: Sir, I am bound to say that the right hon. Gentleman opposite, in bringing this matter before the notice of the House, has not ac

companied his speech with any very strong remarks; but, on the contrary, he has made a temperate statement, and calls upon me to reply as to how far it is correct. I will, therefore, in a very few words explain all that I know of this transaction. The right hon. Gentleman first asks me whether I was cognizant of the telegram that was sent from the Admiralty to the Admiral Superintendent at Devonport. Well, what I am about to read to the House will show that it so happens that I was not cognizant of this transaction until it was brought to my notice by him. On Monday evening my right hon. Friend came to me in the lobby and said, "I find it necessary to give a notice for Thursday next, which I request you to read." This is the paper which he placed in my hands

"To call the attention of the Government to certain statements as to the manner in which

dockyard labourers, who are voters for the borough of Devonport, have been examined in the dockyard with reference to their intended evidence before the Election Committee for that borough, and to ask for explanation."

Now, thinking this looked serious, I asked my right hon. Friend whether he would allow me to retain a copy, in order that I might write to the Superintendent and inquire what had occurred. My right hon. Friend consented; and, accordingly, that evening I enclosed the notice in a note to the Superintendent, Admiral Symonds, asking for full information. I was pleased to hear my right hon. Friend give Admiral Symonds credit for being above acting on any political consideration whatever. I got a letter next day from the

Sir John Pakington

[Laughter.] Hon. Gentlemen no doubt think it very diverting; but I believe they will see that the course which the Superintendent took was the best for the public service. He goes on to say

"Where they saw the parties applying by Speaker's warrant, and were perfectly uninterfered with by their own officers. You have everything I can think of.—Yours faithfully, "T. M. SYMONDS."

And the Admiral makes a remark at the end of the letter which I commend to the attention of hon. Gentlemen on both sides of the House. He says

"Is not this much in favour of disfranchising dockyards ?"

On inquiry at the Admiralty I found that my noble Friend the Duke of Somerset had received a letter, which I will read to the House. It is dated from 43, Parliament Street, the 20th of February, and is from Messrs. Travers, Smith, and De Gex

"We have the honour to inform you that a petition has just been presented against the return of the sitting Members for the borough of Devonport. A large number of the witnesses who will be required to attend on the Speaker's warrants are employed in the dockyard, and the hours of

their attendance are very long. It would not be work for more than a few minutes in the case of necessary that they should be disturbed at their any witness, but it would be a matter of very considerable inconvenience and annoyance to the men, as well as of the utmost possible difficulty to ourselves as agents having the conduct of the petition, if it were necessary to find them at their

own residences after the hours of work. Under

these circumstances, we have to request that we tion to such a course being taken by the Demay be favoured (should there not be any objecpartment) with a letter addressed to the Port Admiral requesting that officer to afford our chief clerk facilities for serving the Speaker's warrants hours of work for that purpose. We believe we in the dockyard, and seeing the men during

are not wrong in saying that in an analogous case pending before the courts of common law where it would be necessary to serve a subpoena this facility would be given. We may mention that the Speaker's warrants went down by special messenger this morning, and we shall, perhaps, under these circumstances, be permitted to beg that our request may receive immediate attention.-We