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origin hereinafter enumerated:-Cotton yarns twisted, warped, or dyed, shall pay the duties imposed upon single yarns unbleached or bleached, with an addition of five centimes for twisted yarns, ten centimes for warped yarns, and fifteen centimes for dyed yarns, per kilogramme. The duty on stuff of wool mixed with cotton shall be twenty-two and a half per cent. until the 1st of October, 1863, and twenty per cent. until the 1st of October, 1864. During the continuance of the transitory system the importer may, at his choice, pay either one hundred and eighty francs the hundred kilogrammes, or the duties stipulated above. The duty upon printed cotton tissues shall be one hundred and fifty francs the hundred kilogrammes.

ART. XXIII.-It is understood that in case the present duty on the importation of foreign spirits should be maintained in the British tariff, the article relative to spirits which is contained in the treaty concluded between Belgium and France on the 1st May, 1861, shall not be applied to British spirits, so far as regards the reductions therein stipulated, until the 1st of October, 1865.

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ART. XXIV. The Ionian Islands being under the protection of her Britannic Majesty, the subjects and vessels of those islands shall enjoy, in the dominions of his Majesty the King of the Belgians, all the advantages which are granted to the subjects and vessels of Great Britain by the present treaty, as soon as the Government of the Ionian Islands shall have agreed to grant to the subjects and vessels of his Majesty the King of the Belgians the same advantages which are granted in those islands to the subjects and vessels of her Britannic Majesty: it being understood, that in order to prevent abuses, every Ionian vessel claiming the benefits of that treaty shall be furnished with a patent signed by the Lord High Commissioner of her Britannic Majesty, or by his representative.

ART. XXV.-The present treaty shall continue in force for ten years dating from the tenth day after the exchange of the ratifications. In case neither of the two high contracting parties should have notified, twelve months before the end of the said period, its intention to terminate the treaty, it shall remain in force until the expiration of a year dating from the day on which either of the high contracting parties shall have given notice for its termination. The high contracting parties reserve to themselves the right to introduce into the treaty, by common consent, any modifications which may not be at variance with its spirit or principles, and the utility of which may be shown by experience.

ART. XXVI. From and after the date fixed by the preceding article, the treaty of commerce and navigation of the 27th of October, 1851, shall cease to be in force.

Protocol of Conference held at the Foreign Office, July 23, 1862, between the Plenipotentiaries of Great Britain and of Belgium.

THE plenipotentiaries of her Britannic Majesty and of his Majesty the King of the Belgians, in proceeding to the signature of the treaty of commerce and navigation between their august Sovereigns, place upon record that they have agreed upon the following points:-1. That the declarations relative to the arrest of seamen deserters, dated the 4th of January, 1855, and the order in council bearing date the 8th of February, 1855, and published in the London Gazette, of the 13th of February, shall continue in force and validity, as if they had been inserted in the said treaty. 2. That

although the fishery convention concluded on the 22nd of March, 1852, between her Britannic Majesty and his Majesty the King of the Belgians, is provisionally maintained, it is under the reservation made by the Government of his Majesty the King of the Belgians, that they will again bring forward, in a future negotiation, the proposition relative to the reciprocal permission to fish within the marine territorial limit. In maintaining the said convention concluded on the 22nd of March, 1853, an exception to the stipulations of the treaty of commerce and navigation signed this day, is made in so far as regards the advantages which are or may be given in either country to the produce of national fishery. 3. With regard to sugar the Government of his Majesty the King of the Belgians reserve to themselves to renew their proposition that an agreement should be come to between Great Britain, Belgium, France, the Zollverein, and the Netherlands, for respectively bringing the duties upon raw and refined sugars imported from any one of those countries into the others to an equality with the taxes imposed upon the same productions of national origin, and for terminating simultaneously in those five countries the system of bounties on the exportation of sugar. The Belgian Government rely upon the support and co-operation of the Government of her Britannic Majesty for this

purpose.

Protocol of Conference held at the Foreign Office, August 30, 1862, between the Plenipotentiaries of Great Britain and of Belgium.

THE undersigned, in proceeding to the exchange of the ratifications of the treaty of commerce and navigation concluded on the 23rd of July, 1862, between her Majesty the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and his Majesty the King of the Belgians, have agreed to record in the present protocol the modifications in the said treaty arranged this day between them; and in consequence of which the following tariff is adopted :

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Above 65,000, free entry (weighing charge of 10 centimes) during the whole duration of the treaty. These modifications shall have the same force and effect as if they were textually inserted in the said treaty, and they shall come into operation from the 1st of October, 1862, the old duties continuing to be applied to the above-mentioned articles, as well as to the mixed tissues (Article XXII. of the treaty), up to that date.

DEFENCE COMMISSION.

Report of the Defence Commissioners, and of the Naval and Military Officers associated with them, with reference to the Proposed Fort behind the Plymouth Breakwater.

IN compliance with the instructions contained in your letter of the 5th instant, we have carefully considered whether it is advisable to proceed with the construction of a fort inside Plymouth Breakwater as recommended in our report of 7th February, 1860. The question referred to us embraces

two considerations:-First, the necessity of placing a fort on or near the breakwater for the defence of the anchorage; secondly, the position in which such a work should be placed. With regard to the first point, we would observe that although the works at Picklecombe, Staddon, Drake's Island, and the citadel bring a heavy fire to bear upon the channels leading to Plymouth Sound and Hamoaze, and command a certain portion of the Sound, a great part of that anchorage is not covered by the fire of those works, except at long ranges. A fort either on or near the breakwater, will, to a great extent, supply this deficiency, whilst at the same time it will bring a fire to bear on any ships that might take up a position outside the breakwater for the purpose of bombarding the dockyard, or firing into any vessels at anchor in the Sound. A fort so placed would also be in the best position for supporting floating defences, and for affording protection to any portion of our sea-going fleet seeking refuge under its guns.

With respect to the second consideration, the choice seems to be limited to three positions:-1st. A fort might be placed on each end of the breakwater. 2nd. It might be erected on the breakwater near its centre. 3rd. It might be placed in a suitable position inside the breakwater. Each of these plans has been already carefully considered. The first has much to recommend it. Forts on each end of the breakwater would bring a closer fire to bear on each channel leading to the Sound, and would command a large portion of the anchorage by a cross fire. It will be seen from the report of Messrs. Walker, Burges, and Cooper, engineers of Plymouth breakwater, addressed to the Under Secretary of State for War, and dated 21st June, 1861, that, before the recommendation of this commission was acted upon, this proposal was fully investigated. It appears that it would be necessary to lay the foundation of the eastern fort at low-water neap-tides, and that of the western fort at half-tide level, spreading them considerably to distribute the weight of the superstructure over a large area of the breakwater, and, in some places, extending the base below low-water mark. Moreover, the heavy seas which set in during southerly gales would break with great force against the walls of the forts, and thus produce increased action upon the existing "foreshores" by the recoil of the waves, rendering it necessary to secure the foot of the present paved slope by a buttress work of granite masonry dovetailed together vertically and horizontally. The expense of constructing foundations in the sea would, therefore, not be avoided by adopting this proposal, whilst the lower tier of guns in the works would lose much of their efficiency, even in moderate weather, owing to the wash of the sea up the gentle slope of the exterior side of the breakwater, the top of which is very little above the level of high water spring tides.

But the great objection to placing forts on the breakwater is, that the limestone rubble of which it is chiefly composed cannot be depended upon as a durable foundation for a superstructure of far greater weight than it was originally calculated to bear. This is shown by the subsidence which has actually occurred to the works on Cherbourg breakwater. These objections to the erection of a smaller fort at each end apply with greater force to placing a fort on the centre of the breakwater, its breadth being insufficient to receive the whole of the foundation, which would therefore be partly on the rock inside and partly on the break water; the difficulty of construction would thus be much increased, as the same mode would not be the most efficient for both portions, and the danger of subsidence of that part on the breakwater would still remain.

The site that has therefore been chosen for the erection of the work is on a portion of the shovel rock, inside and a little to the westward of the centre of the break water, and as close to its inner slope as practicable. The rock is comparatively level at this spot, and is covered with a thin deposit of fine silt. It has been carefully examined in a diving bell, and it has been found to be in every respect suitable for the foundation.

The outside of the fort will be within sixty yards of the breakwater, its area will be less than half an acre, and from its position it will not interfere with the anchorage of a single ship. On this point we have obtained the evidence of Commander Aylen, the Queen's harbour-master at Plymouth, who states that the site proposed is not available for the anchorage of ships of war, being so close to the breakwater that it would be unsafe to place a ship in such a position that she would swing over it.

It also appears in his evidence that a portion of the north front of the fort may be made available as a coaling dépôt, in which case one at least of the coal hulks now moored in the Sound might be dispensed with, and the moorings she occupies be appropriated to one of the ships of the fleet. The expense of the foundation of a work in the position we have recommended will be less than that of the two on the ends of the breakwater, and all danger of subsidence will be avoided; from its position it will be protected from the wash of the sea, so that the lower tier of guns may be placed as low as the top of the breakwater will allow; and communication with it will be practicable in all weathers. On consideration, therefore, of all the circumstances, we are of opinion that a work behind Plymouth breakwater is necessary for the defence of the Sound, and that the site on which it is proposed to erect it is the best that could be selected.

This report was signed by Harry D. Jones, lieutenant-general; George Elliot, rear-admiral; F. Abbott, major-general; A. Cooper Key, captain R.N.; J. H. Lefroy, colonel R.A.; James Fergusson, members of the Royal commission; and by Richard Collinson, captain R.N.; J. St. George, colonel R.A.; William S. Wiseman, captain R.N.; H. D. Harness, colonel R.E., associated members.

IRON AND WOODEN SHIPS.

Statement relating to the Advantages of Iron and Wood, and the relative cost of these Materials in the Construction of Ships for her Majesty's Navy. TAKING it for granted that it is essential for this country to possess a number of ships armour-plated, equal to that of any other Power, the first consideration must be with regard to such ships as we require, whether they shall be of wood or iron.

There are two important points involved in this consideration:-1. The nature of the material. Iron possesses these advantages over wood-an iron ship can be built of larger dimensions than a wooden ship, with no loss of strength; an iron ship has more rigidity and strength of structure, as a whole, than a wooden ship, though locally weak and liable to be penetrated by blows, which would fall harmlessly on a wooden ship; an iron ship has much greater durability in certain parts of the structure, indeed, in all parts where no wood is in contact with the iron, than a wooden ship; and after a lapse of years the iron frame would have suffered next to nothing as compared with a wooden ship. But against these advantages must be

set-the serious local weakness of the comparatively thin plates of which the bottom of an iron ship is necessarily composed; the danger, consequently, of getting on rocks in such ships; and the necessity which this weakness entails of constructing double bottoms, thwartship bulkheads, water-tight compartments, sluice-doors, &c., and various other complicated arrangements, which add both to the weight and cost of an iron ship; the rapidity with which the bottom of an iron ship gets foul, and the immense loss of all the ship's qualities that follows from the adhesion of marine zoophytes-no practical remedy has been found for this serious disadvantage; repeated docking and cleaning is the only palliative ;-the extreme uncertainty as to the quality of the material used, in fact the small quantity of really good iron of the best ship-building qualities that can be found in the market; the prodigious ravages caused by the splinters of iron when the plates are broken and smashed by shot; and the far greater facility with which iron ships can be pierced below their armour-plating by submarine guns than wooden ships; lastly, as the progress that may be made by artillery, and all destructive agents of warfare, is quite without a limit, the immense price paid in an iron ship for durability may not be an advantage, as new forms for ships of war may, before long, be absolutely requisite the iron ship of to day, for which so large a price has been paid, may not be the weapon we require to-morrow. It may prove, therefore, wiser and more economical to supply the wants of the moment by a cheaper and less durable structure, which at least is of the same quality as those with which we may have to contend. The most able designer of war ships in Europe, whose success has been so remarkable, M. Dupuy de l'Ome, is of this opinion, and constructs the ships that are to form the French line-of battle of wood in preference to iron.

2. The second point to be considered in this question is where and how the ships, whether of wood or iron, shall be constructed. If iron is the material preferred, we have the choice of either incurring a large outlay in our dockyards for the requisite plant, or of building by contract. In one dockyard only (Chatham) we can build in iron without any fresh expense. If, therefore, we take the other alternative, and build by contract, the folowing serious disadvantages attend upon our doing so. The first practical fact that comes before us is, that in no one instance have the contractors kept to their agreements with the Government, either as to time or cost. Though the cases are notorious, and will be found in a tabulated form annexed to this paper, I will quote one or two instances:-The Warrior was ordered on 11th May, 1859; the contractors agreed to deliver her complete in July, 1860. She was delivered on the 20th September, 1861, and not quite completed till the 24th October, 1861. The contractors agreed to build her for 210,225l., including extras. They claimed, and ultimately received, 254,7281. The Black Prince was ordered on the 6th October, 1859. The contractors agreed to deliver her complete on the 10th October, 1860. She was delivered in complete on the 18th November, 1861. She was not completed for some months afterwards by the artificers of the dockyard. The contractors agreed to build her for 230,2541. They have claimed for her 259,751., and part of this claim is still under consideration; she has, however, cost the Admiralty, up to this time, 249,751. In both of these ships, but more particularly in the Warrior, some delay was occasioned in completing the ships by the alterations made in the course of building. The Defence was delivered incomplete four months after the contractors' agree

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