THE COST OF THE NAVY.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1893, 18 March 1880, Page 3

THE COST OF THE NAVY.

Two Naval Blue-books have been issued, published by order of the House of Commons. One deals with manufactures and repairs in the Royal dockyards during the years 1877-8, and the other with shipbuilding and dockyard transactions during the same year. A comparison of the total direot expenditure on ships, excluding incidental expenses for plant, &c, with the expenditure for labour and stores under Votes 6 (for Her Majesty's naval yards at home and abroad) and 10 (for naval stores for the building and outfit of the fleet, and for steam machinery and ships built by contract), and with the total expenditure on naval services for the period from 1869-70 to 1877-8, shows that in the former year the expenditure was £1,964.339, the total amount of votes 6 and 10 £2,572,745, and the total amount of Navy votes £10,102,641; while in the latter year the amounts were respectively £3,991,867, £5,123,591, and £12,800,044. In the year 1871-72 the total expenditure on ships, including the indirect or incidental expenditure chargeable to them, was £2,105,211; in 1872-3 it was £1,771,891 ; in 1873-4, £2,589,408; in 1874-5, £3,011,379 ;in 1875 6, £3,097,074; in 1876-7, £3,439,589 ; and in 1877-8, £4,512,901. In taking these figures it must be borne in mind that in 1869-70 we had no fleet comparable to the one we now have.