royalty, the "right divine to govern wrong."
We cannot, from sheer lack of space to do them justice, enter fully into one case after another which we have examined, and from which it would be easy to show how persistent, during all the history of the Ordnance Department since the Crimea, has been the mode in which the system has proceeded of snubbing inventors of recommending them to apply to foreign Governments – of "declining to continue the correspondence" when the department is clearly in the wrong – of adopting improvements without in any way compensating those who introduced them, whether at home or abroad; until at last the department was reduced to depend entirely upon the inventive talent of a close corporation, and upon an indirect alliance with the Elswick firm – an alliance which in itself discourages all others from coming freely forward. Such is the department's knowledge of the actual state of the mechanical skill of the country, that they succeeded a year ago in inducing Lord Hartington, as their representative, to state that the inferiority of English steel manufacture was the excuse for their not having earlier adopted improvements which, years after it ought to have been done, they are now obliged to confess are necessary.
How scandalous a misstatement of fact this charge against our steel manufactures is, appears abundantly from the report of the United States Commissioners, who, after travelling over all Europe and then returning to Sir Joseph Whitworth's works, declare them to be without a rival in the world in this very respect – "a revelation," as they put it.
Moreover, it is transparent that the fact is here the same as the Commissioners say was the case with France under a similar system, – the manufacturers have not been encouraged to furnish supplies, and therefore their supplies have been inferior to what they would otherwise have been, though by no means so inferior as is represented in the words put into Lord Hartington's mouth. We have before us a letter from one of the Sheffield firms to the Master Cutler at Sheffield, in which it is stated that the largest ingots they have hitherto made "are about forty-five tons," far more than sufficient for any process of Woolwich manufacture; but they continue, "It was only the want of demand for heavy pieces which delayed our erecting appliances for making them." We do not know that, until the present system of obscurantism has been broken through, it would be safe to give the name of the firm from which we quote. But we entreat Lord Hartington to institute a searching inquiry into a matter in which he has been committed to most injurious statements against the manufacture of the country.
As an illustration of one particular error which is somewhat apart from others, and yet of the gravest consequence, we must refer to the case of Colonel Moncrieff. After a great deal of needless delay and unfair treatment, into which it would be beside our purpose to enter, that officer received for an important improvement a probably adequate remuneration. Some fair treatment was for a time forced upon the department by the pressure of public opinion, and by that only. But as soon as the adoption of his carriage had been decided upon in principle, when the public attention was being turned to other matters, the mode in
