314 Mr. F. J. Bramwell [Feb. 27, 



On tlie occasion of my previous lecture on this subject, I stated 

 my earnest desire that the Government would see fit to accede to that 

 recommendation of the Committee, although I trusted it was not 

 needed for the satisfaction of the service at large ; but the time that 

 has elapsed since that lecture, has brought evidence, that there were 

 many who needed, to re-assure them, the indisputable proof which the 

 double-loading could alone afford. 



I am glad to say, as we now all know, that this proof has been 

 given, and that the gun, after having been experimented with in the 

 modes which I shall have occasion to detail to you presently, was 

 finally double-loaded and fired ; and I for one desire to tender my 

 most sincere thanks to those in authority for having pursued this 

 course, and I hope that everyone in this room will feel that in thus 

 acting the Government were doing no more than they were bound to 

 do, bearing in mind the fact that officers and men must of necessity 

 carry out the orders given to them, wholly irrespective of the risk 

 attending upon their obedience. It seems to me impossible for any 

 right-thinking man to dissent from the proposition, that under such a 

 state of things it is the duty of those who are placed in a position of 

 authority — authority such that the orders they give cannot be dis- 

 puted — to satisfy those who are compelled to obey, and to convince 

 them by practical proof that in that obedience they incur no risk 

 arising from the imperfection of the weapons put into their hands. 



I hope that this expression of satisfaction will be general among 

 those whose opinion is worth having, because it is easy to see that 

 the time is coming when there will be those who will say, " Why was 

 this waste made of a valuable gun ? The Committee had stated the 

 cause of bursting. The members of it who were in England and its 

 Assessor said there is no doubt as to the result of the double-loading ; 

 and if this were so, and it was a foregone conclusion that double- 

 loading would burst the gun, why was the gun wasted ? " Probably 

 among these objectors will be found those who by that time will have 

 forgotten, as by this time they are beginning to forget, they ever 

 denied that double-loading could burst a gun, and asserted that the 

 bursting must have been due to some other cause. 



I once heard an eminent chemist, lecturing on the history of a 

 great discovery, say there were generally three stages through which 

 all new truths have to pass. First, It is absurd, and cannot be. 

 Second, Why should it not be ? — it is as likely as not. Third, Why 

 do you take up our time by labouring a conclusion with which every 

 sensible man must agree, and always has agreed. Or — shortly, " We 

 told you so." 



I have not the least doubt but that we shall find these or similar 

 remarks will be made in reference to the ' Thunderer ' gun explosion. 

 We know they have been made as regards the result of the experi- 

 ments on one of the suggested causes. Already the statement is, as 

 regards air spaces, " that nobody expected anything to happen from 

 them — the experiments were made to amuse the gallery." Wad« 



