160 REPORT—1868, 
engaged with Mr. Seely in investigating, unofficially, the various Estimates, 
Finance, and other accounts annually presented to Parliament, and more especially 
those of the Admiralty. 
A description of existing Admiralty accounts and of certain changes made from 
time to time, will be necessary for this purpose. 
In 1864 he commenced his investigations. He found the principal Admiralty 
documents annually presented to Parliament were,— 
1. The “ Navy Estimates ;” giving the monies required to be voted by the House 
of Commons for the whole Naval Service for the forthcoming year. 
2. Finance Accounts, called “ The Sayings and Deficiencies on the Grants, &c.,’’ 
which at the end of the financial year are published to show how much more or 
less than the amounts voted has been paid for the Naval Service. 
3. Accounts called “ Navy Ships” Accounts which profess to give the expen- 
diture on each ship building or repairing, and the total so expended during the 
past financial year. 
4, Accounts called “Navy Dockyards and Steam Factories” Accounts, which 
profess to give the expenditure in each of the 125 Dockyard “ Manufactories,” 
the 25 “ Factories,” and for the various conversions of timber at the saw-pits and 
saw-mills of each yard. These documents also profess to give the cost and the 
rate-book price of the several descriptions of articles made or timber converted at 
each of these manufactories, factories, saw-pits and saw-mills, The rate-book price 
of articles professes to be the previous year’s average cost of articles at the whole 
7 Home Dockyards. 
5. Navy Labour Charts, giving details of labour employed on each ship. [Not 
now published. } 
He found it difficult to ascertain correctly what items of expenditure the Admiralty 
had or had not included in their given cost of ships built and repaired. He there- 
fore went carefully through the Navy Estimates and Savings and Deficiencies 
Accounts from 1860-61 to 1863-64 (four years), and picked out, first, merely the 
amounts voted and paid for wages and ship-building stores bought, thinking the 
Admiralty must have at least included these. But he found that the amount he thus 
obtained exceeded the Admiralty given expenditure in ship-building and repairing 
by about two millions (£1,870,000) [see Hansard, Mr. Seely, March 2, 6, 9, and 
April 8, 1865, p. 705}. In other words, he ascertained that either the Admiralty 
stock of shine buildin stores had increased £1,870,000, or that £1,870,000 for 
wages and materials had been omitted from the Admiralty cost of ships built and 
repaired, or that both causes had operated to bring about this apparent deficit. He 
then picked out other items from tie “ Estimates ” and “ Savings and Deficiencies ” 
that he thought properly chargeable to ships built and repaired, such as wages of 
foremen, salaries of clerks employed in connexion with shipbuilding, &c., pensions 
to shipwrights and others, who in consequence of these respective pensions work 
for about 2s. a day less than other shipwrights, and found that these additional 
items amounted to £1,563,111 [see Hansard, Mr. Seely, March 6, 1865, pp. 1198- 
1199; also Navy Ships, ‘Frederick William,’ No. 538, Aug. 13, 1867, p. 27]. Early in 
Februury 1865 {see Hansard, Mr. Seely and Mr. Childers, March 2, 1865, pp. 1012- 
1018], Mr. Seely gave notice that he should bring the subject before the House of 
Commons, and at the same time he showed these calculations and results to 
Lord Clarence Paget, the Secretary, and to Mr. Childers, the Civil Lord of the 
Admiralty; and on the 2nd of March, and again on the 6th, Mr. Seely made speeches 
on the subject in the House of Commons. To the credit of Mr. Childers, he, as 
Chairman of a Committee of Admiralty officials then sitting, at once issued instruc- 
tions to include these omitted items in future Admiralty Accounts [see Navy Dock- 
yard Accounts, No, 465, 4th July 1865, p. 27]. Directly after, Mr. Fellows went to 
the Admiralty at the request of Lord Clarence Paget, Mr. Childers, and Mr. Seely, 
where he met Mr. Childers and others, and these calculations were examined and 
found to be correct; and the Admiralty Navy Ships’ Accounts for 1864-65, pub- 
lished in February 1866, No. 44, included for the first time these omitted items, 
and were consequently far more correct than all, preceding accounts; and in the 
Army Manufacturing Accounts for 1864-65, published 7th March 1866, No. 96, he 
found for the first time there are additional Balance Sheets, called No, 2, of all 
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