Mr. Stansfeld, the member for Halifax, took the chair on
Wed- nesday last at a public dinner given by the Unitarians of Man- chester, after laying the foundation-stone of a Bicentenary Memorial Hall, and made a speech, in which he indulged his audience with a glimpse of the method by which he had hoped, had he remained in office, to curtail the manufacturing expenditure of the Admiralty. His idea was to make the heads of the manufac- turing departments give in estimates to the Government, as private firms do, for the repair and building of ships, and to identify their credit in Parliament and the country with their success both in keeping those estimates down to the standard of private contract, and also in keeping the actual expenditure within the estimated expenditure. Mr. Stansfeld did not expect to succeed as you could succeed with private firms, but he thought that in this way the pressure of self-interest might be brought to bear in favour of economy and efficiency.
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