Abstract
A PETITION signed by several men well known in the field of mechanical science and presented to the House, of Commons last week contains many points to which it is important that public attention should be directed. The memorialists state their belief that the system of heavy ordnance now in use and known as the Woolwich system is inefficient and dangerous, that, considering the increasing dependence of the nation for food supply upon its command of the sea, it is evidently unsafe to neglect any of the opportunities which the mechanical skill and manufacturing resources of the country afford for securing the best weapons of offence and defence for our fleet and our army; “that, having regard to the advances constantly being made by private manufacturers in this and other countries, and to the ordnance actually in use or in course of construction for the other Powers of Europe and America, your petitioners look with dismay upon the defects of the, English heavy guns, and they are of opinion that these defects seriously endanger our naval supremacy and our national safety.” Further the petitioners maintain that it is not right that the heads of the manufacturing department, which is in competition with outside manufacturers, should be the official advisers of her Majesty's Government as regards new inventions, and that the defects in our present system of ordnance arise and are likely to continue from the absence of independent criticism, and in consequence of the technical advisers of the Government being the same persons as those who either are or have been in charge of the manufactories responsible for these defects; that there are in existence several systems of ordnance superior to the Woolwich system, and that it is of national importance that private establishments for the production of arms of all kinds should be encouraged and should not be crushed by giving a virtual monopoly to the Government establishments, but that the private trade and the Government factories should rather serve as reserves to one another.
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The Woolwich Guns. Nature 22, 293–294 (1880). https://doi.org/10.1038/022293a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/022293a0