TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 191 



and powerful as if we had expended an extra £1,500,000 in building similar ships 

 to those that exist, and £8,o(J0,000 for the remaining current expenses of the navy, 

 such as paying officers and men, provisions, repair and maintenance of ships, 

 &c. ; because if we double the effective power of each ship we double thereby the 

 effective power of each officer and sailor on board, and aU the other current expen- 

 diture, such as provisions, wear and tear of ship, &c., for it costs no more to repair, 

 man, and victual a good and efficient vessel than to do the same for a bad and 

 inefficient one. In the iirst case we double our effective power by an increased 

 expenditure of £1,500,000 annually ; in the other we only do it by an increased 

 annual expenditure of £10,000,000. The author then pointed out that the judi- 

 cious distribution of the money was of much more importance in obtaining great 

 results by a small expenditure than mere cheese-paring of aU the services without 

 regard to this important point. " It was with views similar to these that led Mr. 

 Seely and myself to devote our attention mainly to this element of expenditm'e 

 to make it effective, as otherwise aU else is ineffective. The weapon of war, 

 whether a ship or a gun, should be the best that human foresight and ingenuity 

 can devise ; aud expense on this head is, after all, but a secondary consideration." 



In evidence before ]\L". Seely 's committee the author had given numerous in- 

 stances occuiTing in past years, in which the repairs of ships had cost as much or 

 more than similar new ships. Now it was a rough rule with shipbuilders, that an 

 old repaired ship when repaired was worth about half as much as a similar new 

 ship. Hence arose a veiy large and worse than useless expenditure. The plan 

 that is now adopted to ob-\-iate any such iiseless expenditure is, when a ship 

 requires repairs to have an estimate of the probable cost of such repairs, and it is 

 then decided whether it is wise to repair it at all ; if not, she is sold or broken up, 

 it being -n-isely considered that the Iirst loss is the least. Bj^ being careful on 

 these points the Admiralty has more money to expend on new and efficient ships 

 without coming to Parliament for a grant, and we get money's worth for the 

 money expended. 



The paper then gave in detail an account of the working of Mr. Fellowes's new 

 scheme of Admiralty accounts, by which, for the first time, the unification of all 

 the Admiralty accounts had been efiected, so that the money as voted hj Parlia- 

 ment, and disbursed by the Treasury, could be clearly traced into its appropriation 

 to ships and services and manufactures ; so that the given cost of such ships and 

 services and manufactures actually balanced tlie sums disbursed by the Treasury 

 from the votes as granted by the House of Commons. 



The author then pointed out that fonnerly the whole of the dockyards at home 

 and abroad were ti-eated as one great Establishment, so that a ship costing really, 

 say, £80,000 at Devonport, and a similar ship built in the same year at Portsmouth 

 costing £120,000, would each be given as costing £100,000; so that the economy 

 of one yard was made to pay for aud to hide the exti-avagance of the other. 



Under the author s system, each dockyard and each manufactory was now treated 

 in the Admiralty accoimts as if it were the only dockyard or manufactory the 

 Government possessed, and each had to accoimt strictly. By these means com- 

 parisons were instituted which led both to economy and efficiency. 



By these and similar means tlie present Admiralty had been enabled greatly to 

 reduce the annual expenditure for the navy without at all decreasing our naval 

 effective power. 



The author concluded by recognizing the great efforts of Mr. Seely and other 

 members of the committee on naval monies and accounts, and by acknowledging 

 the aid and support he had received from Mr. Childers, Mr. "Baxter, and Sir 

 Spencer Robinson in can-ying out his plans and views. 



On the Ivjluence of Price upon the Cultivation and Consumption of Cotton 

 durinff the past ten years, emhracinr/ the period of the American War and 

 Cotton Famine. By TN'illiam B. Porwood, Vice-Pres. Liverpool Chamber 

 of Commerce. 



The author first drew attention to the position of our cotton supply in 1860, the 

 year antecedent to the American war, when our chief som"ce of supply was America, 



