THE ROYAL ARTILLERY INSTITUTION. 
465 
HEAYY RIFLED GUNS. 
BY 
CAPTAIN HAIG, R.A., F.R.S. 
The prospect of another Armstrong-Whitworth gun competition 
affords a good opportunity for explaining the circumstances which have 
led to such a juncture, for defining a few of the broad issues of such 
a contest, and for examining the position in which the country now 
stands in the matter. 
The time has surely arrived when it is desirable at least to put an 
end to the personal nature of the contest as between Sir William 
Armstrong and Sir Joseph Whitworth. Various tribunals, differently 
constituted, have sat in judgment upon the performances of these 
favoured champions, and have recorded their opinions upon the various 
issues. So long has this duel continued, that every fresh opening of 
the question has now the character of an attack upon the competency 
of the legitimate advisers of the Government, who are thus put again 
and again upon their trial. The Ordnance Select Committee (in their 
Report, No. 4443, 9th January, 1867), appears to have been driven by 
a kind of despair, at the everlasting recurrence of the subject, into a 
recapitulation of the number of times that it had already been dis¬ 
cussed. They say, § 11 :— 
“It appears from a table given at pp. 295-7 of the Second Report of the 
Parliamentary Committee on Ordnance, that no less than twelve committees, acting 
under the authority of five Ministers of War, have had Mr. Whitworth’s system of 
rifling for small-arms or guns, or both, under special consideration since 1855. 
No one of these committees has been able to make such a report as to warrant 
the Government of the day in introducing his system. Por several years past it 
has obtained great notoriety, and been backed by great ability, energy, and 
influence, notwithstanding which not a single foreign Government, so far as the 
Committee can learn, can be said to have adopted it further than by the purchase, 
like our own Government, of a few experimental guns; and yet the system has 
been fully tried, not alone by those whom Mr. Whitworth appears to regard as 
prejudiced or incompetent judges in this country, but by experienced and able 
officers in almost every other.” 
The waste of money incurred by these repeated trials is bad enough, 
but is by no means the most serious evil which they produce. Our 
experimental staff and means, though large, are not unlimited; and if 
they are occupied by this one interminable question, others which 
would lead to a real advance in our knowledge must be postponed or 
altogether excluded; and so it may easily happen that, although our 
[vol. vi.] 61 
