466 
MINUTES OF PROCEEDINGS OF 
expenditure in artillery experiments far exceeds that of any other 
country, our actual progress may he less, and we may find ourselves 
distanced in the race for supremacy, not from any want of energy or 
means, but simply from the misdirection of our efforts. 
There is but one Royal Gun Factory, one long range where the 
accurate shooting of a gun can be tested, and but one convenient 
place for the conduct of iron-plate experiments, and these are all under 
the immediate control of the Secretary of State for War. 
The Admiralty are therefore dependent upon the War Department 
for their guns, and although they can make a demand for a special 
pattern to suit either a new class of ship or to accord with a newly 
adopted set of artillery theories, such demand is liable to meet with 
objections; as, for instance, that there is already a land service gun 
almost the same size as the one demanded, that it is most undesirable 
to multiply patterns, and so on. 
There is, in fact, a duality of administration as regards naval guns 
which cannot but tend to jealousy between the two Departments. 
It also opens two doors for the admittance of gun inventors who, if 
they fail to effect an entrance at one, do not fail to redouble their 
importunity at the other. It is known that in France, Prussia, and 
Italy inconvenience has arisen from a similar want of good under¬ 
standing between the naval and military authorities. 
It must not, however, be supposed that any difference of opinion 
exists between the professional advisers of the War Office and Admiralty, 
or between the officers of the navy and artillery, on the question of 
heavy guns; on the contrary, both services alike are satisfied with 
their heavy wrought-iron guns, from the gun of 6J tons weight to that 
of 25 tons. They further concur in condemning the Whitworth system 
in the most unequivocal manner and upon substantial grounds, which 
have been repeatedly brought to the notice both of the Lords of the 
Admiralty and the Secretary of State for War. Abundant evidence of 
their opinions may be gathered from the Parliamentary papers, entitled 
“ Correspondence respecting the Trials of the Whitworth Guns, &c. &c.” 
ordered to be printed 6th June, 1867. 
At pages 28-9 of this correspondence will be found a report by the 
Captain of the Excellent; at pages 24-6 and 32-3, reports of the 
Director-General of Naval Ordnance; at pages 6-7 and 10-16, reports 
of the Ordnance Select Committee; and at page 27 a report of the 
Director of Ordnance. All these reports point to the same conclusion, 
viz. that it is undesirable to make any further trial of the Whitworth 
system. 
In referring to our experience of the service guns, it will be impos¬ 
sible to enter into details. Such a record would fill volumes. 
These guns are still made substantially on the principles at first 
advocated by Sir W. Armstrong. Some alterations have been made, 
both in the method of rifling and in the number of pieces of which the 
gun is composed, but only such as have been suggested by the extended 
trials to which the guns have been subjected, and by increased expe¬ 
rience in their manufacture. Great credit is due to those who have 
been instrumental in introducing these alterations, but the guns are 
