Parliament, without any disturbance of their functions or the work for
which they were originally constituted, the voluntary classification
of ships. Why should we not place in their hands such duties connected
with the ship herself as the regulation of load-lines, certification of
seaworthiness, if found expedient, and the supervision of all matters
of detail which Parliament may consider necessary, in the construction,
equipment, loading, and navigation of our ships? All these matters
would be much better done by a popularly elected board chosen from
merchant Shipowners and underwriters than by any Department of the
Government. In their hands might be safely placed the appointment of
surveyors: one Department of this new Board attending to the hull of
the ship, the other to her navigation, as at present; all these matters
being subject, of course, to such regulations as Parliament might
consider it expedient to impose, and represented in Parliament by the
President of the Board of Trade, or, in lieu thereof, by a Secretary of
State for Commerce, should that be desirable.
I merely throw out these remarks for consideration, being aware that
many obstacles, though few real difficulties, would require to be
overcome in carrying out some such re-organisation as I venture to
suggest. But whatever changes Ministers may consider most expedient
to adopt, they must not lightly tamper with the merchant fleets which
the skill and genius of our people have created, or with the position
they have achieved since relieved from those legislative enactments,
by which they were bound for more than two centuries. These fleets
are now the largest, and unquestionably the finest, in the world, and
instead of foreigners overstocking our own ports as was prophesied, we
now conduct the greater portion of the maritime commerce of foreign
nations.[313] It is, therefore, no idle boast to say, that while the
sun never sets on the dominions of our Queen, there is no ocean, no
sea, and, I might add, were it not for the exclusive policy of the
United States and of France, with a few other insignificant exceptions,
no lake, no river, where the British flag is not unfurled, and where
it does not shed its civilising and beneficial influence, over many
peoples of varied tongues, who might otherwise still be living in
darkness, if not in barbarism.
It behoves, therefore, our Statesmen to take care how they deal with
this great interest—made great by the freedom of our laws and by
the energy of our people; and, whatever further legislation may be
necessary, it is seriously to be hoped that Government will confine
its measures to their legitimate object; viz. the clear definition of
the legal duties and responsibilities of Shipowners, the maintenance
of lighthouses, buoys and beacons on our coasts, the general
regulations necessary for the proper conduct of maritime commerce, the
investigation into the true cause of all accidents at sea, and the
prompt punishment of all persons who wrongfully and wilfully violate
the law.
FOOTNOTES:
[267] This term had its origin in the early part of the present
century, when so many of H.M.’s 10-gun brigs, employed in carrying
the mails, or on other short services, were lost, especially on their
Atlantic voyages, that they got the name of “_coffins_.”
[268] See Appendix, No. 13, p. 634, where a list will be found of
the different Acts of Parliament which have been passed relating to
merchant shipping since 1849.
[269] See ‘History of Lloyd’s Register of British and Foreign
Shipping,’ Appendix, No. 12, p. 624.
[270] See _ante_, vol. iii. pp. 48 and 50.
[271] See Parl. Paper C. 630, 1872.
[272]
+---------------------------------------------------+
| WRECKS, &C., OTHER THAN COLLISIONS IN THE |
| UNITED KINGDOM. |
+-------------+-----------+----------------+--------+
| Year. |Total Loss.| Partial Damage.| Total |
+-------------+-----------+----------------+--------+
| 1856 | 368 | 469 | 837 |
| 1857 | 384 | 482 | 866 |
| 1858 | 354 | 515 | 869 |
| 1859 | 527 | 540 | 1,067 |
| 1860 | 476 | 605 | 1,081 |
| 1861 | 513 | 658 | 1,171 |
| 1862 | 455 | 695 | 1,150 |
| 1863 | 503 | 830 | 1,333 |
| 1864 | 386 | 653 | 1,039 |
| 1865 | 470 | 832 | 1,302 |
| 1866 | 562 | 876 | 1,438 |
| 1867 | 656 | 1,020 | 1,676 |
| 1868 | 527 | 841 | 1,368 |
| 1869 | 606 | 1,047 | 1,653 |
| 1870 | 411 | 730 | 1,141 |
| 1871 | 398 | 826 | 1,224 |
| 1872 | 439 | 1,110 | 1,549 |
| 1873 }| | | |
|Jan. to June}| 212 | 522 | 734 |
| +-----------+----------------+--------+
| Total | 8,247 | 13,251 | 21,498 |
+-------------+-----------+----------------+--------+
Annual average of 17 years, 472-11/17 total wrecks, and 748-13/17
casualties resulting in partial damage.
_Note._—In the above statistical statement no earlier date than
1856 is taken, as the machinery had not in 1855 being sufficiently
organised to ensure that nearly all the wrecks, &c., in that year were
reported; and there is reason to believe that some may not have been
reported in the years 1856, 7, and 8.
[273]
[Sidenote: Return of lives lost and saved between 1855 and 1873.]
The following table shows the number of lives saved, and the number of
lives lost on and near the coasts of the United Kingdom, 1855-1873.
-------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------
| LIVES SAVED. |
+------+----------+-----------+--------+------------+----------+----------+--------+
Year. | By |By Rocket,|By Luggers,|By Ships| By | By | By | Total |
| Life |and Mortar| and | and | Ships’ |Individual| other | Lives |
|Boats.|Apparatus,|Coastguard | Steam | own |Exertion. | means. | Saved. | Lives
| |Lines, &c.| and other | Boats. | Boats. | | | | Lost.[274]
| | | Boats. | | | | | |
-------+------+----------+-----------+--------+------------+----------+----------+--------+--------
1855-6 | 336 | 499 | 1351 | 489 | | 22 | | 2,697 | 485
1856-7 | 634 | 383 | 606 | 587 | | 21 | | 2,231 | 521
1857-8 | 120 | 149 | 683 | 244 | | 17 | | 1,213 | 539
1858-9 | 220 | 154 | 878 | 622 | | 16 | | 1,890 | 353
1859-60| 367 | 407 | 681 | 769 | 951[275]| 9 | | 3,184 | 1,647
1860-1 | 771 | 415 | 467 | 858 | 1,499 | 14 | 362[275]| 4,386 | 537
1861-2 | 322 | 415 | 371 | 919 | 1,425 | 27 | 396 | 3,875 | 884
1862-3 | 291 | 252 | 414 | 1,319 | 1,289 | 9 | 531 | 4,105 | 690
1863-4 | 472 | 256 | 424 | 1,533 | 1,465 | 10 | 439 | 4,599 | 620
1864-5 | 293 | 347 | 338 | 1,003 | 1,459 | 22 | 232 | 3,694 | 516
1865-6 | 480 | 490 | 462 | 1,000 | 2,195 | 7 | 374 | 5,008 | 698
1866-7 | 378 | 527 | 385 | 986 | 2,728 | 13 | 765 | 5,782 | 896
1867-8 | 377 | 310 | 843 | 1,060 | 1,902 | 6 | 660 | 5,158 | 1,333
1868-9 | 504 | 333 | 317 | 719 | 2,062 | | 561 | 4,496 | 824
1869-70| 532 | 354 | 383 | 714 | 2,067 | 8 | 443 | 4,501 | 933
1870-1 | 473 | 203 | 500 | 1,062 | 2,795 | 2 | 459 | 5,495 | 774
1871-2 | 403 | 293 | 265 | 990 | 1,737 | | 245 | 3,933 | 626
1872-3 | 548 | 715 | 582 | 647 | 1,888 | 6 | 388 | 4,774 | 590
-------+------+----------+-----------+--------+------------+----------+----------+--------+--------
Total | 7521 | 6502 | 9950 | 15,522 | 25,462 | 209 | 5855 | 71,021 | 13,466
-------+------+----------+-----------+--------+------------+----------+----------+--------+--------
[274] The figures in this column show the number of lives lost between
the 1st January and 31st of December in each year. The number of lives
lost during the first six months of 1873 is 728.
[275] No record kept for former years.
[276] We expended between 1555 and 1873 143,660_l._ (see ‘Wreck
Returns, 1874,’ p. 11) in providing apparatus for saving life, and
in rewards to individuals as well as awards of the National Lifeboat
Institution (apart altogether from the efforts of that noble Society,
about which see _ante_, note, p. 315), and Her Majesty was
graciously pleased (12th April, 1867) to issue her warrant instituting
two decorations, the “Albert Medal of the first class,” and the
“Albert Medal of the second class,” to reward brave men, who have been
conspicuous for saving life at sea or on the coast.
[277] The total number of vessels and their tonnage, including their
repeated voyages, that entered and cleared at the ports in the United
Kingdom with cargoes and in ballast from and to foreign countries
and British possessions for the year 1873 was 130,075, of 44,439,986
tons; the entrances and clearance coastwise with cargoes only, 332,148
vessels, of 40,632,014 tons. If I add to these the coasters in ballast
and those with the description of cargo of which no note is taken at
the Customs, as also the vessels frequenting the Channel, and bound for
Hamburg, Bremen, and the Northern ports of Europe, which do not enter
any of the ports of the United Kingdom, of which no return is kept,
it will be found that I have not over-estimated the number which now
annually pass along or frequent our coasts.—‘Navigation and Shipping of
the United Kingdom for the Year 1873.’ Presented to Parliament, 1874.
[278] This point involves many grave questions. Happily, men do not
altogether live for the purpose of making money—they have other and
far nobler objects in view. Some, indeed, but they are rare and
grand characters, live altogether for the benefit of mankind and the
progress of the human race. There are others who follow a business or
profession, not altogether because it yields them profit, but because
it affords them pleasure. Such is the case to a large extent in this
country. We are a seafaring people, and we pursue occupations in
connexion with it frequently as much for pleasure as for profit. We
enjoy the business of Shipowners, because it is natural to us, and
we take a delight in improving the forms of our ships. I have seen a
captain whose heart was in his ship, caress her!—yes, caress her, by
clapping the taffrail where he stood when she was performing her work
to his satisfaction, as if she had been a living thing, and heard him
exclaiming, “Go a-head, my beauty!” just as many persons may have
been heard extolling the performance of a favourite horse. Care must,
therefore, be taken not to interfere by _unnecessary legislative
enactments_ with what is not merely our business but our pride and
pleasure, or we may be driven, to the serious loss of the nation,
to seek other investments for our capital. We have now arrived at
that point where competition has become so close that if we tax our
Shipowners to any greater extent than they are now taxed, directly or
indirectly (interference with their affairs is the heaviest as well as
the most obnoxious of all taxes), we shall most assuredly drive their
ships from the trades in which they are now engaged, or compel them to
submit to the humiliation of seeking a Foreign register, and hoisting a
Foreign flag.
[279] See _ante_, p. 465.
[280] The year previous to 1873-4 was a much more disastrous one than
the year before it, as there were 728 lives lost in the six months
ending 30th June, 1873, which is in some measure accounted for by the
wreck of the ship _Northfleet_, when 293 lives were lost.
[281] See Parl. Paper, 214, 1875, pp. 4 and 11.
[282] As it has often been broadly stated that employment in British
ships is much more dangerous now than it was in 1836, when the first
Committee sat to inquire into the cause of shipwrecks, I may reply
that the most careful analysis shows that, while the losses were then
on the average of the three previous years 3·72 percentage of the
number of vessels (or rather of their tonnage) employed, they were for
the three years previous to 1873 only 2·95 per cent., although these
years were exceptionally fatal to ships laden with timber, grain, and
coal (see Appendix to ‘Commission on Unseaworthy Ships,’ pp. 780 and
791), arising from the enormous increase in the oversea trade of these
articles. For instance, while in 1861, 57,745,993 cwts. of corn were
imported, the imports in 1872 amounted to 97,765,298 cwts. The imports
of timber rose between the same periods from 3,358,589 to 4,949,786
loads; and the oversea exports of coals from 7,934,832 in 1861 to
13,198,494 tons in 1872.
[283] Lighthouses, 6 & 7 Wm. IV. cap. 79.
[284] Merchant Shipping Act Amendment Act, 16 & 17 Vict. cap. 131.
[285] Merchant Shipping Act, 36 & 37 Vict. cap. 85.
[286] Parl. Paper, C. 1152, 1875.
[287] However beneficial in its results, it may well be questioned
if any body of surveyors ought to be empowered at their pleasure,
without complaint, to thus retard trade and stop the ordinary course
of commerce; and I am disposed to question alike the policy and the
wisdom, as well as the necessity, of this regulation. There appear
to be now employed in these questionable operations, no less than
117 Government surveyors, “shipwrights,” and “engineers,” stationed
at different ports in the United Kingdom, twelve of whom are
retired officers of the Royal Navy, besides a good many so-called
“shipwrights,” who can have very little knowledge of the construction
of merchant ships or of their requirements.[288] In making these
appointments, the fact seems to have been overlooked that, at all
our ports, there are the surveyors of Lloyd’s Register, or of other
similar associations, whose services might have been utilised with
a great saving of public expenditure, and with, perhaps, greater
efficiency. Yet I read, to my astonishment, in the public journals not
long since a letter (6th August, 1875) from Mr. Plimsoll, addressed to
the President of the Board of Trade, in which, among much irrelevant
matter, he urgently recommends eighteen more surveyors to be appointed
by Government, at a salary of not less than 1000_l._ per annum. I
sincerely trust no such appointments will be made; but that Government
will direct its attention to other more economical and more efficient
modes of removing the evils of which Mr. Plimsoll complains, if indeed
they exist at all to the extent alleged. There is no use hiding the
fact that all such appointments must be filled, in a great measure,
through patronage, and that it would be impossible to find men, even
at the tempting salary named, competent for the numerous technical and
responsible duties that would be required of them. But if such men
could be found, are we to hand over the whole of the vast maritime
interests of this country, from the time the keel is laid to the
despatch of the ship to sea, to the supervision and control of a
certain number of Government officials, however competent? As it is,
the duties of the surveyors, already appointed, are too frequently as
ludicrous as they are questionable. I daresay Mr. Plimsoll must have
felt this when he recommended in his letter to Sir Charles Adderley,
that “we ought not to have less than four detaining officers in
Ireland, four in Scotland, and ten in England, and that the _minimum
average(?)_ salary should be 1000_l._ per annum.” Of course
he meant them to look after the officers already appointed as well as
after the ships; and that they should be “apart altogether from the
Permanent Secretary, and the Secretary of the Marine Department,” whom
he charges, in the same letter, without, by the way, one tittle or
shadow of evidence, with the grossest dereliction of duty.
[288] The staff of the Board of Trade, and its cost for salaries, in
1875 were as follows:—
---------------------------------------------------+-------+---------
| |Aggregate
Employment. |Number.| Salary.
---------------------------------------------------+-------+---------
| | £
In the Board of Trade and registry of seamen | 237 | 48,760
Examinations | 13 | 3,355
Mercantile marine offices | 237 | 24,416
Surveyors, emigration officers, tonnage measurers,}| |
recorders of draught of water }| 154 | 30,078
Nautical assessors | | 3,000
+-------+--------
Total | 641 | 109,609
---------------------------------------------------+-------+---------
[289] I feel no hesitation in giving, from the public journals, an
account of this most extraordinary and unusual scene, not merely as
an episode in the history of Merchant Shipping, but to explain the
circumstances under which the temporary Act now in force was passed at
the close of the Session of 1875:—
“Mr. CHARLEY asked the First Lord of the Treasury whether he could
hold out any hopes of being able to afford facilities for the third
reading of the Infanticide Bill in time to enable the House of Lords to
consider it this Session.
“Mr. DISRAELI said he thought he could hold out some hopes to the hon.
member. He felt some difficulty on Monday in stating the intentions of
the Government, but this arose from their desire to pass the Merchant
Shipping Bill this Session; but, finding it impossible to get through
the committee on the Agricultural Holdings Bill this week, they had
come to the conclusion to abandon the Merchant Shipping Bill. It had
been submitted to the Government that they might pass the Bill in
a modified form, but he declined to deal with the subject in that
fragmentary manner. All he could say was that they would take the
earliest opportunity of bringing forward the measure next Session.
“Mr. GOSCHEN, speaking on behalf of the shipping interest, expressed
his extreme regret that the Merchant Shipping Bill had been sacrificed
for the Agricultural Holdings Bill.
“Mr. PLIMSOLL earnestly entreated the Government not to consign
thousands of their fellow-creatures to an undeserved grave. There were,
he said, shipowners of murderous tendencies—(‘Order, order!’)—who had
frustrated the passing of the Bill by protracted debates. The secretary
of Lloyd’s had assured a friend of his that he did not know of a single
ship which had been broken up during the past thirty years because it
was worn out. The result was that hundreds of brave fellows were sent
to unhallowed graves by these speculative scoundrels—(cries of ‘Order!’
and uproar).
“The SPEAKER informed the hon. member that his remarks were out of
order. When the Merchant Shipping Bill, which was on the orders of
the day, came up for consideration he would have an opportunity of
addressing the House.
“Mr. PLIMSOLL said he would give notice that on Tuesday next he would
put a question to the President of the Board of Trade with reference
to certain vessels which had been lost, entailing a great sacrifice
of human life, and would ask whether those vessels were not owned by
Mr. Edward Bates, the member for Plymouth, or a person bearing the
same name. He should also have some questions to put, with respect to
members on the Liberal side of the House, for he was determined to
unmask the villains who sent these people to their death—(cries of
‘Order!’ and tremendous uproar).
“The SPEAKER said: The hon. member has used the term ‘villains.’ I
trust that he did not apply it to any members of this House.
“Mr. PLIMSOLL: I did, sir, and I shall not withdraw it.
“The SPEAKER: The conduct of the hon. member is altogether
unparliamentary, and I call on him to withdraw the language—(cheers).
“Mr. PLIMSOLL (excitedly): And I must again decline to withdraw it.
“In reply to a third interrogation by the Speaker, the hon. member
again declined to withdraw. The SPEAKER: The hon. member declines to
withdraw, and I must submit his conduct to the judgment of the House.
“Mr. PLIMSOLL, standing in the centre of the House, said he would
submit to the judgment of the House. Once more approaching the table,
holding a paper in his hand, said, ‘This, sir, is my protest,’ and was
proceeding to address the House, but in obedience to loud cries of
‘Order!’ he took his seat on the front bench below the gallery.
“Mr. DISRAELI rose and said that the conduct of the hon. member was
almost unparalleled.
“Mr. PLIMSOLL, jumping up and interrupting: ‘And so is that of the
Government’—(tremendous uproar).
“Mr. DISRAELI, continuing, said: I feel that it is my duty, as far as
I can, to uphold the dignity and honour of the House; for the conduct
of the hon. member has been not only violent, but so offensive, that
it is impossible for the House to pass it over. As the hon. member has
declined to withdraw the word used, it is my duty to move that he be
reprimanded by the Speaker for his disorderly and violent conduct—(loud
cheers).
“The SPEAKER said that according to the practice of the House the hon.
member for Derby would answer in his place, and then withdraw.
“Mr. PLIMSOLL retired to the bar, and as he reached it, turned round
apparently with the intention of saying something, but the members
there prevailed on him to pass out, and as he did so, he exclaimed:
‘You do not know the men as well as I do. This will cost the lives of
thousands.’ The hon. member then left the House.
“The Marquis of HARTINGTON rose and was about to address the House, but
was informed by the Speaker that the motion before the House was, that
the hon. member for Derby be reprimanded.
“The Marquis of HARTINGTON said he need hardly state that he should
support the motion—(cheers). It was evident that the hon. member was
labouring under great excitement, but he was not justified in using
the language he had employed. No doubt, when he had a little time for
reflection, he would see his conduct in a different light—(cheers).
“Mr. SULLIVAN said the scene they had witnessed was without precedent
in the House, but he appealed to the House to be indulgent to the
hon. member. He was aware that the hon. member was extremely ill, and
his state of mental excitement arose from his overstrained feelings.
Without seeking to justify the transgression of the hon. member, he
wished the House would allow him to have a week’s rest, by which
time he would be in a position to apologise for his misconduct. He
(Mr. Sullivan) held in his hands the documents which had wrought the
hon. member up to his present state of excitement, and for some time
past his friends had been caused the most serious uneasiness by the
deplorable state of his mind. If the House would afford him a few days’
rest, he would no doubt be able to set himself right—(cheers).
“Mr. DISRAELI then moved that the hon. member for Derby be requested to
attend in his place on this day week—(loud cheers).
“Mr. FAWCETT said that Mr. Plimsoll was at present in an extremely
painful state of excitement. He had gone out to him in the lobby, and
found him in the most lamentable condition. By great effort he had
persuaded him to take a walk in the open air—(great laughter). At the
end of a week there was little doubt that he would withdraw the violent
expressions he had used—(cheers).
“Mr. BASS, as the colleague of Mr. Plimsoll, offered his grateful
acknowledgments to the House for the course they had taken—(cheers).
“The matter then dropped.
“On the motion for discharging the Merchant Shipping Bill,
“Mr. BATES said that he wished, with the indulgence of the House,
to make a statement with respect to what had fallen from the hon.
member for Derby earlier in the sitting. All who had witnessed the
extraordinary exhibition would agree with him that the hon. member for
Derby was not responsible for his actions. With respect to himself
it was unfortunately true that he had lost during the last two years
five ships; but ships better found in every respect were never sent to
sea. They were all of them iron ships, and classed A 1. To himself,
personally, pecuniarily the loss was very severe, as he never insured
his ships for more than one-half or two-thirds of their market value.
That was not so much the matter; but he did deplore the loss of his
men, and his only consolation was that, as far as human foresight could
go, the ships were as good and as safe as man could make them. He felt
assured that the statement of the hon. member for Derby would be looked
upon by all, as he looked upon it, with pity—(cheers).
“The House shortly afterwards adjourned.”
Mr. Plimsoll subsequently apologised for his conduct to the House. But
it is much to be regretted, _on his own account_, that he neither
attempted to substantiate the charges he had brought against Mr. Bates,
nor asked leave to withdraw them.
[290] When the Bill was withdrawn there stood upon the orders of the
day of the House of Commons no less than 178 amendments to it, many
of them on subjects of great importance and difficulty, as well as of
great intricacy. See _Times’_ report of Mr. Disraeli’s speech at
the Mansion House, 4th August, 1875.
[291] ‘Unseaworthy Ships,’ 38 & 39 Vict. cap. 88.
[292] Already there seems to be a misapprehension. Mr. Plimsoll, as
would appear by the newspapers, has been spending his vacation on the
shores of the Black Sea and Danube, visiting the grain ports, and
instructing the masters of all vessels loading grain how to stow it in
accordance with the conditions of the new Act. That he is clearly of
opinion that inspectors should be appointed is evident from the fact
that he appointed forty of them! and that the Foreign Office approves
of what he has done! What next and next? But the Board of Trade, by the
correspondence which has been published, is of an entirely different
opinion, and maintains that the Act of Parliament gives no such power.
Nor does it! Nor should it! It is not the duty of Government to appoint
inspectors to see that its laws are carried into effect. I say nothing
as to the expense and impracticability of having surveyors at every
port in the world where a ship is to load grain; but, if such is the
meaning of the Act as applicable to grain ships, where is this sort
of legislation to end? Are we to have Government inspectors to see to
the loading of all our ships at home and abroad? And if so, why should
this new system not be applied to every branch of commerce? Nay, why
should it not extend into our houses? Surely heavy penalties would, in
the case of grain ships, be a much more effectual mode of enforcing
the conditions of the Act. Is there to be no end to the folly of
unauthorised individuals appointing surveyors to inspect the loading
of our ships abroad, or interfering with duties alone within the power
of the Executive Government? It is high time we put a stop to these
well-meaning, but Quixotic, proceedings.
[293] I cannot understand what is meant by the word “keep.” A ship
sails in a seaworthy condition, but an accident happens on the voyage
which _may_ render her “unseaworthy”: is the master, under such
circumstances, to put back to the nearest port for repairs? and if he
does not do so, and his ship is lost, it may be from causes wholly
different, is his policy of insurance to be invalid, and is he to be
responsible for any loss of life that may thus occur?
[294] In Mr. Plimsoll’s protest, which, as the rules of the House of
Commons would not allow him to present, he either threw upon the table,
or had dropped into the House from one of the galleries,[295] he says,
“I charge the Government that they are wittingly and unwittingly, for
they are both, playing into the hands of the maritime murderers inside
the House and outside the House to secure a further continuance of the
present murderous system.”... “I desire to unmask the villains who
sit in the House, fit representatives of the more numerous, but not
greater, villains who are outside the House.” I offer no comment on
this language. It tells its own tale of the state of mind of its author.
[295] The disgraceful scenes in the House of Commons could not have
arisen from Mr. Plimsoll’s momentary excitement, when the Government
announced the withdrawal of its Bill, but must have been premeditated,
as this carefully prepared protest too clearly shows.
[296] Mr. John W. A. Harper, Secretary to the Salvage Association. See
Question 8769, p. 311.
[297] See also evidence, W. J. Lamport, Question 5556, p. 192. With
regard to the question of overloading, Mr. Lamport made a remarkable
statement, which I do not hesitate to give at length, because it
differs entirely from an opinion prevailing at present in the public
mind.
The CHAIRMAN asked (Question 556): “From your knowledge of the
shipping in Liverpool during forty years, Do you think that there has
been a great deal of overloading?”—“Since it was intimated to me that
I was to be asked to give evidence in this room, I have been trying to
task my memory for cases in which when vessels had foundered or had
not been heard of, I myself had felt a reasonable suspicion that the
cause was overloading. I have not been able to bring to my recollection
a single instance of the kind. Now this result, I must confess, was a
little startling to myself, and in order to check it I spoke to the
overlooker of my firm, who is a man older than myself, who has had
longer experience than I have had, and who, from his outdoor business,
would probably hear of such things more frequently than I should. The
overlooker told me that he himself did not remember a single instance,
in which he had suspected that any vessel which had left the port of
Liverpool had been lost because of being overloaded.”
I may add, from my intimate knowledge of Mr. Lamport, which extended
over a period of thirty years up to his untimely death, that these
were no mere words of course. Indeed, the statement agrees with my
own experience; and, from the inquiries I have made elsewhere, there
are comparatively very few ships lost from overloading, except in the
coasting and short-voyage trades. In confirmation of this opinion, the
Commissioners, in their final report, state that “It is chiefly among
the small coasting vessels that any habitual overloading prevails,” and
“that there are a large number of ships in ballast annually lost, while
the losses from collisions show that the management and negligence of
sailors are not less disastrous than the carelessness of shipowners.”
[298] It appears to me to be a grave mistake to require the insertion
in the ship’s articles of the draught of water. These articles are an
agreement between owner, master, and crew, and are binding on all. How
can a drowned sailor’s family claim compensation for a vessel being
loaded to a draught the sailor himself agreed to?
[299] Mr. Gray, the Assistant-Secretary to the Board of Trade, stated
(Question 10,088) that the Board had received a letter from Mr.
Plimsoll, suggesting that the Department should employ the staff of
‘Lloyd’s Register’ to assist in the survey of certain merchant ships.
[300]
[Sidenote: Opinion of Mr. Charles McIver.]
In going carefully through the evidence taken before the Royal
Commission on Unseaworthy Ships, I cannot find that any witness
objects to the principle that no ship should be allowed to proceed
to sea that is unseaworthy, nor do I find that any Shipowner would
object to a survey of his ship for the purpose of ascertaining her
seaworthiness. Indeed, Mr. Charles McIver, of Liverpool, the senior
partner of the Cunard Company, and a gentleman of great experience,
though he does not class any of his ships for somewhat the same reason
as I have stated, considers it advisable that all ships should be
_classed_—not merely certified as seaworthy, but _classed_.
The Chairman (Question 9245, p. 331) remarked: “You said you would not
have any objection to have your vessels classed;” and then he asked,
“Do you think it advisable that all ships should be classed?—I think
so, from what I have seen in the last two or three years. If you will
allow me, I will give another reason. I once got nearly cast away in
an unclassed vessel about forty years ago. I was going to the States.
She was a wooden vessel. I had taken a passage in her along with my
sister, because I knew the captain of the ship. She was loaded with
steam-engines and coals. I shall not mention the ports or the owners,
because they are all dead and gone, the captain included. Off the
Azores we fell in with a gale of wind. It only lasted for twelve hours;
but, if it had lasted for twenty-four hours, she would have gone down.
The captain came to me, and said, ‘If I had known that she was as bad
as this, I would not have let you come.’ He said, ‘Her beams are away
from the sides.’ I said, ‘I know that she is making water very rapidly,
because it is coming out as clear as it went in,’ and they were pumping
every two hours, and so forth. Now, I do not mean to say that there
may not be culpability in the owner, but, sometimes, it is ignorance.
So it was in that case; they did not believe that the ship was as bad
as she was. My remark to the captain was, ‘When you go home you had
better throw up command of this vessel or you will lose your life.’ He
did so; but, in some way or other, he mixed up Mr. McIver’s name with
it. The owner said, ‘Mr. McIver is frightened.’ The captain said, ‘No,
he is not frightened, but he knows too much.’ He said, ‘I will give up
the ship.’ Now, to show you that I did not think that there was any
intentional culpability on the part of the owner, but simply ignorance,
or simply that they could do what I could not do, because I knew too
much, they gave that ship to the mate, and sent that vessel away in his
charge for a long voyage abroad, and she did it safely. The next voyage
she was never heard of. Now, any sort of classing, I think, would have
prevented that ship from going to sea.”
[301] Appendix No. 12, p. 624.
[302] The writer of a letter which appeared in the ‘Nautical Magazine,’
headed “‘Lloyd’s Register’ and the Great Steam Lines,” and which
was afterwards published separately (Pewtress & Co. London. 1872),
says, “It is very remarkable that the classing of large steamers with
Lloyd’s was nearly wholly omitted until 1870;” arising, I may add,
from the fact that the ‘Liverpool Register’ allowed, in such ships,
scantlings and arrangements of which Lloyd’s surveyors disapproved.
“But,” continues the same writer a little further on, “it is much more
remarkable that February 1870 is the date of Lloyd’s new rules, which
are, it is supposed, an abandonment of the principle and scantlings of
the old rules.” We have here exemplified in the most forcible manner
the evils of competing classification associations.
[303] Safety depends much more on the nature of the cargo, and
the manner in which it is stowed, than most people, or even some
shipowners, suppose. Dead weight, when stowed close and very low,
while it makes a vessel stiff—that is, “stand up” to a heavy pressure
of canvas, makes her roll in a calm when there is a heavy swell (like
the pendulum of a clock), to the injury of her spars and rigging, and,
not unfrequently, to roll her masts overboard. Railway and other bar
iron, which is now a very common description of cargo, should always be
stowed in a triangular form, and the heavier the bars the wider should
be the angles. Ores of every description, on an oversea voyage, should
be stowed in a boxed hold, or on platforms in the centre of the ship,
thoroughly blocked from the sides. In a word, the proper stowage of
a ship, whether as regards her form or the nature of her cargo, is a
science which has not been sufficiently studied.
[304] We must ever remember that although, since we relieved our
Shipowners of all the restrictions to which they were subjected by
the Navigation Laws, they have advanced above all other nations, the
shipping of many of those nations are now running them a very close
race. If we burden them with load-lines, which prevent them from
carrying as much cargo with safety as a foreign vessel would be allowed
to do—half a foot, or even three inches less depth may deprive them of
all their profit—or saddle them with charges for surveys and so forth,
already very heavy, and to which their competitors are not subjected,
we, in either case, drive them from the trade. We must further, if we
adopt the principle of a certificate of seaworthiness, recollect the
interests of a great number of small coasters, and carefully consider
if it would not _seriously_ affect them.
[305] See ‘Final Report of Royal Commissioners on Unseaworthy Ships,’
p. 15.
[306] The following graphic description of the state of too many of
our ordinary merchant vessels when they sail is so true that I do not
hesitate to transfer it to these pages. I do so with the hope that the
Legislature may direct its earliest attention to the improvement of
the lamentable state of things here described, and with the conviction
that the first step towards that improvement would be the abolition
of the system of advances to seamen: “The ship is about to leave the
dock, when the crew, generally of a very inferior description, are
brought on board, and, frequently, in such a state of intoxication that
they are worse than useless during that day, and the ship must anchor
for the night. Next day the motley crew commence work reluctantly, in
a thoroughly strange ship, under strange officers, and are strangers
to each other. The chief officer has the unenviable task of getting
them into order, not having a man that he can depend upon. Yet it is
from that strange crew he must select look-out men, helmsmen, and
leadsmen during the ten or twelve hours’ darkness of the following
night.”—Extract of letter from Captain H. A. Moriarty, R.N., to the
‘Nautical Magazine’ for November 1875.
[307] My readers should be informed that a premium of insurance on
chartered freight out and home is much higher in proportion, than if
insured out only, and then, after arrival at port of destination, home
only.
[308] Royal Commission on Unseaworthy Ships, Appendix to the Report No.
51, and Questions 11,516 and 13,072.
[309] See ‘Final Report,’ p. 16.
[310] See _ante_, p. 318, note, and p. 480.
[311] See _ante_, p. 321. The Merchant Shipping Act of 1854, which
is quite as large as the Merchant Shipping Code Bill, now ready, passed
through Committee in one forenoon sitting.
[312]
------+--------------------------------+------------------------------
Years.| Ships belonging to the British | British Steam Vessels Entered
| Empire at the end of each Year,| and Cleared in the Foreign
| 1850 to 1874 inclusive. | Trade in the United Kingdom,
| | 1850 to 1874 inclusive.
------+--------------+-----------------+--------------+---------------
| Number. | Tons | Number. | Tons.
1850 | 34,281 | 4,232,962 | 8,350 | 1,802,955
1852 | 34,402 | 4,424,392 | 7,059 | 1,980,473
1860 | 38,501 | 5,710,968 | 12,777 | 4,186,620
1862 | 39,427 | 6,041,358 | 15,201 | 5,239,493
1870 | 37,587 | 7,149,134 | 29,369 | 13,341,058
1872 | 36,804 | 7,213,829 | 35,570 | 17,430,029
1873 | 36,825 | 7,294,230 | 37,175 | 18,943,653
1874 | 36,935 | 7,533,492 | 37,606 | 19,408,527
------+--------------+-----------------+--------------+---------------
[313] See Appendix No. 14, p. 637. Tonnage entered and cleared in the
United Kingdom, United States, France, Holland, Norway, Prussia, and
Sweden, distinguishing between national and foreign ships from 1850 to
1873.
APPENDICES.
No. Page
1. CONVENTION OF COMMERCE BETWEEN GREAT BRITAIN AND FRANCE,
1826 563
2. LETTER FROM MR. W. S. LINDSAY TO LORD LYONS, BOSTON, U.S.,
1860 567
3. CORRESPONDENCE WITH THE FOREIGN OFFICE RESPECTING THE LIABILITY
OF BRITISH SHIPOWNERS IN THE COURTS OF THE UNITED
STATES OF AMERICA 571
4. LETTER TO THE EMPEROR OF THE FRENCH ON THE SUBJECT OF THE
NAVIGATION LAWS OF FRANCE, 10TH JANUARY, 1861 582
5. LETTER FROM M. FLEURY AND REPLY, 17TH AND 23RD JUNE, 1862 590
6. LETTER TO THE COMMERCIAL ASSOCIATION, LISBON, 28TH JANUARY,
1863 596
7. SUMMARY OF THE ACTS PASSED FOR THE REGULATION OF PASSENGER
SHIPS 600
8. PASSAGES OF CLIPPER SHIPS ENGAGED IN THE TRADE WITH CHINA 611
9. LOG OF THE SAILING SHIP ‘THERMOPYLÆ’ 613
10. STATISTICS OF TONNAGE BELONGING TO GREAT BRITAIN, UNITED
STATES, FRANCE AND HOLLAND, FROM 1821 TO 1874 618
11. EXEMPTION IN FAVOUR OF CERTAIN BRITISH SHIPS FROM LOCAL PORT
CHARGES IN 1852 620
12. HISTORY OF LLOYD’S REGISTER OF BRITISH AND FOREIGN SHIPPING 624
13. ACTS OF PARLIAMENT PASSED BETWEEN 1849 AND 1875, INCLUSIVE,
RELATING TO BRITISH SHIPS AND SEAMEN, AND OTHER PARLIAMENTARY
PAPERS REFERRING THERETO 634
14. TONNAGE OF SHIPPING ENTERED AND CLEARED IN THE UNITED
KINGDOM, UNITED STATES, FRANCE, HOLLAND, NORWAY, PRUSSIA,
AND SWEDEN, DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN NATIONAL AND FOREIGN
SHIPS FROM 1850 TO 1873 637
APPENDICES.
APPENDIX No. 1.
_Convention of Commerce between his Britannic Majesty and
the most Christian King, together with two additional Articles
annexed, signed at London, 26th January, 1826._
Article 1.—French vessels coming from or departing for the ports of
France, or if in ballast, coming from or departing from any place,
shall not be subject in the ports of the United Kingdom, either on
entering into or departing from the same, to any higher duties of
tonnage, harbour, lighthouse, pilotage, quarantine, or other similar
or corresponding duties, of whatever nature, or under whatever
denomination, than those to which British vessels, in respect of the
same voyages, are or may be subject, on entering into or departing from
such ports; and, reciprocally, from and after the same period, British
vessels coming from or departing for the ports of the United Kingdom,
or if in ballast, coming from or departing for any place, shall not be
subject, in the ports of France, either in entering into or departing
from the same, to any higher duties of tonnage, harbour, lighthouse,
pilotage, quarantine, or other similar or corresponding duties, of
whatever nature, or under whatever denomination, than those to which
French vessels, in respect of the same voyages, are or may be subject
on entering into or departing from such ports, whether such duties are
collected separately or are consolidated in one and the same duty, his
most Christian Majesty reserving to himself to regulate the amount of
such duty or duties in France, according to the rate at which they are
or may be established in the United Kingdom, at the same time, with a
view of diminishing the burdens imposed upon the navigation of the two
countries. His most Christian Majesty will always be disposed to reduce
the amount of the said burdens in France in proportion to any reduction
which may hereafter be made of those now levied in the ports of the
United Kingdom.
2. Goods which can or may be legally imported into the ports of the
United Kingdom from the ports of France, if so imported in French
vessels, shall be subject to no higher duties than if imported in
British vessels; and, reciprocally, which can or may be legally
imported into the ports of France from the ports of the United Kingdom,
if so imported in British vessels, shall be subject to no higher duties
than if imported in French vessels. The produce of Asia, Africa, and
America, not being allowed to be imported from the said countries, nor
from any other in French vessels, nor from France in French, British,
or any other vessels into the ports of the United Kingdom for home
consumption, but only for warehousing and re-exportation, his most
Christian Majesty reserves to himself to direct that in like manner the
produce of Asia, Africa, and America shall not be imported from the
said countries, nor from any other, in British vessels, nor from the
United Kingdom in British, French, or any other vessels into the ports
of France for the consumption of that kingdom, but only for warehousing
and re-exportation.
With regard to the productions of the countries of Europe, it is
understood between the high contracting parties that such productions
shall not be imported in British ships into France for the consumption
of that kingdom, unless such ships shall have been laden therewith in
some port of the United Kingdom; that his Britannic Majesty may adopt,
if he shall think fit, some corresponding restrictive measure with
regard to the productions of the countries of Europe imported into the
ports of the United Kingdom in French vessels, the high contracting
parties reserving to themselves the power of making by mutual consent
such relaxation in the strict execution of the present article as they
may think useful to the respective interests of the two countries
upon the principle of mutual concessions, affording each to the other
reciprocal or equivalent advantages.
3. All goods which can or may be legally exported from the ports
of either of the two countries shall on their export pay the same
duties of exportation, whether the exportation of such goods be made
in British or French vessels, provided the said vessels proceed,
respectively, direct from the ports of the one country to the other.
And all the said goods so exported in British or French vessels shall
be reciprocally entitled to the same bounties, drawbacks, and other
allowances of the same nature which are granted by the regulations of
each country respectively.
4. It is mutually agreed between the high contracting parties that in
the intercourse of navigation between the two countries the vessels of
any third power shall in no case obtain more favourable conditions than
those stipulated in the present convention in favour of British and
French vessels.
5. The fishing-boats of either of the two countries which may be forced
by stress of weather to seek shelter in the ports or on the coast of
the other country shall not be subject to any duties or port charges of
any description whatever; provided the said boats when so driven in by
stress of weather shall not discharge or receive on board any cargo, or
portion of cargo, in the ports or on the parts of the coast where they
shall have sought shelter.
6. It is agreed that the provisions of the present convention between
the high contracting parties shall be reciprocally extended and in
force in all the possessions subject to their respective dominions in
Europe.
7. The present convention shall be in force for a term of ten years
from the 5th April of the present year; and further, until the end of
twelve months after either of the high contracting parties shall have
given notice to the other of its intention to terminate its operation;
each of the high contracting parties reserving to itself the right of
giving such notice to the other at the end of the said term of ten
years, and it is agreed between them that at the end of twelve months’
extension agreed on both sides this convention and all the stipulations
thereof shall cease and determine.
8. The present convention shall be ratified, and the ratifications
shall be exchanged in London within the space of one month, or sooner
if possible.
In witness whereof, the respective plenipotentiaries have signed the
same, and have affixed thereto the seals of their arms.
Done at London on 26th day of January, 1826.
GEORGE CANNING.
WILLIAM HUSKISSON.
LE PRINCE DE POLIGNAC.
_Additional Articles._
Article 1.—French vessels shall be allowed to sail from any port
whatever of the countries under the dominion of his most Christian
Majesty, to all the colonies of the United Kingdom (except those
possessed by the East India Company) and to import into the said
colonies all kinds of merchandise (being productions the growth or
manufacture of France) with the exception of such as are prohibited to
be imported into the said colonies, or are permitted to be imported
only from countries under the British dominion; and the said French
vessels, as well as the merchandise imported in the same, shall not be
subject in the colonies of the United Kingdom to other or higher duties
than those to which British vessels may be subject, or importing the
same merchandise from any foreign country, or which are imposed on the
merchandise itself.
2. French vessels shall be allowed to export from all the colonies of
the United Kingdom (except those of East India Company) all kinds of
merchandise which are not prohibited to be exported from such colonies
in vessels other than those of Great Britain; and the said vessels,
as well as the merchandise exported in the same, shall not be subject
to other or higher duties than those to which British vessels may be
subject on exporting the said merchandise, or which are imposed on the
merchandise itself, and they shall be entitled, to the same bounties,
drawbacks, and other allowances of the same nature to which British
vessels would be entitled on such exportation. These two additional
articles shall have the same force and validity as if they were
inserted word for word in the convention signed this day. They shall be
ratified, and the ratifications shall be exchanged at the same time.
In witness whereof, the respective plenipotentiaries have signed the
same, and have affixed thereto the seals of their arms.
Done at London, 26th January, 1826.
GEORGE CANNING.
LE PRINCE DE POLIGNAC.
WILLIAM HUSKISSON.
A Treasury letter, dated 28th March, 1826, directs that French vessels
and their cargoes legally imported or exported on board the same,
according to the terms of the convention in the preceding pages, are
from 5th April, 1826, to be charged with such and like duties only
of whatever kind they may be that are charged on British vessels and
similar cargoes laden on board thereof, and in like manner the same
bounties, drawbacks, and allowances are to be paid on articles exported
in French vessels that are paid, granted, or allowed on similar
articles exported in British vessels. And the necessary instructions
are to be transmitted to the officers in the colonies for carrying into
effect the stipulations contained in the two additional articles of the
said convention respecting French vessels and their cargoes from 1st
October, 1826.
APPENDIX No. 2.
Boston, United States,
21st September, 1860.
MY LORD,
Mr. Hammond was good enough to read to me a letter which Lord John
Russell had addressed to your Lordship on the subject of my visit to
the United States. As reports have been current since then that my
visit to this country was one of a semi-official character, I may
remark that I am here merely in search of a little recreation after the
labours of the session. But as I am intimate with many of the leading
Shipowners and merchants of this country, Lord John Russell was pleased
to furnish me with copies of the correspondence which had passed
between our own Government and that of the United States with regard to
various maritime questions (to which, as your Lordship may be aware, my
attention has for some years been directed), in the hope that I might
be able to aid your Lordship in their settlement.
These papers I have studied on the passage to this place. I see they
deal with questions of very considerable importance to both countries;
but there are also others which equally impede our commercial
intercourse, and all these various questions are well worthy of
consideration, and should be adjusted as soon as possible. They are:—
1st. The rules of the road at sea and collisions.
2nd. Signal lights.
3rd. Limitation of Shipowners’ liability.
4th. The Foreign Deserter’s Act.
5th. The punishment of offences committed on the high seas.
6th. The settlement of disputes between the masters of ships and their
crews in foreign ports; and the extension of the use of our shipping
offices to the vessels of the United States.
There are, besides these questions, others of a much more difficult
and delicate character, such as belligerent rights of sea, the
coasting trade of the United States, and the registration in America
of British-built ships, all of great political as well as commercial
importance, and therefore I fear my services in their solution can
be of little value. It is, however, my intention to enter into
conversation bearing upon all these questions with the leading
merchants and Shipowners to whom I am known; and with the Presidents
of the Chambers of Commerce of this and other places, including New
York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Portland, and various seaports in the
New England States to whom I have letters of introduction. I shall at
least ascertain their views, and may thus be enabled to pave the way
to the settlement of some of those questions. And if I find that their
views can be brought into harmony with those entertained by our own
Government, I shall endeavour to prevail upon the different bodies to
memorialise their Government on the subject.
My first, and I fear imperfect, impressions in regard to the questions
I have named may be briefly stated as follows:—
1st. _The rules of the road at sea._—I think these rules should
be the same for the vessels of all nations. Different opinions prevail
in regard to our own rules; but, though they differ from the old
maritime law (acted upon by almost every other nation and at times
by ourselves), and are an improvement upon it, the decisions in our
Admiralty Courts are too often conflicting. Our rules, as a whole, are
perhaps, however, more satisfactory than those of any other. But be
that as it may, it would be most desirable if all nations would agree
to adopt one and the same rule of road at sea, and would tend greatly
to the safety of life and property.
2nd. _Signal lights._—Our recent regulations in regard to lights
have answered very well, and have been adopted by the owners of
steam-vessels belonging to the United States. The application of these
rules to sailing vessels is all that is now necessary, and is very
desirable.
3rd. _The limitation of shipowners’ liability._—This is a
question of great importance, and the laws in regard to it are in an
unsatisfactory state. May I refer your Lordship to the evidence taken
last session before the select committee on merchant shipping on this
subject, and to their report? From the correspondence I have read I
think the Government of the United States might be induced to adopt
the principles laid down in that report. If so, it might then (as the
laws of each country are similar) be mutually arranged by a convention,
or otherwise, to place our ships and those of the United States
respectively, on an equal footing with regard to claims raised in the
courts of either country in respect of any loss of life or personal
injury arising from collisions at sea, so as to limit such claims to
the same extent in each case, and also that the mode of procedure shall
be as provided by the laws of the country where the claim is made.
4th. _The application of our Foreign Deserter’s Act to the ships of
the United States._—As your Lordship is aware, the United States
Government has positively declined to become a party to this Act,
because it contains the words “not being slaves,” which were inserted,
I believe, after the Bill was introduced. Now it appears to me that
there is no necessity for these words. The Act is meant to deal solely
with voluntary agents, who, having of their own free will entered into
an agreement, break it at foreign ports. I think the case would be met
if instead of the words “not being slaves” there were substituted the
following words—“seamen who have voluntarily engaged themselves in, or
apprentices duly indentured to, the sea service.” I question if there
are any cases on record where slaves have been shipped as seamen to
English ports.
5th. _Offences committed on the high seas._—Your Lordship cannot
fail to be aware of the unsatisfactory state of the law in regard to
these offences. Why, _on the representation of the ministers or
consuls_, should the courts of England and of the United States not
have jurisdiction over offences committed on board of vessels of the
respective countries? I ask this question because I can at present see
no objection to the principle I have ventured to lay down, though the
mode of putting it into practice would require some consideration, and
could best be dealt with by the legal authorities of the two countries.
The same may be said with regard to the settlement of disputes between
masters and crews in the ports of either country.
6th. _The extension of our shipping offices to the vessels of the
United States._—If the Government of the United States would
not agree to establish similar offices and a machinery somewhat in
accordance with our own (I see no reason why such offices which have
answered so well in England should not be adopted), then we might
stipulate that all British seamen entering the service of American
Shipowners in the ports of Great Britain should be engaged before
our shipping masters, and we might grant to American shipowners the
privilege of engaging _all_ the seamen their vessels required
(when in any of the ports of Great Britain), through the medium of our
offices, on the same conditions as our own shipowners now engage their
seamen. This would pave the way to an international arrangement, and
tend to abolish the system of crimpage which still prevails to a great
extent in our ports, and is alike injurious to the interests of British
and American shipowners.
Though belligerent rights, the coasting trade, and the admission of
British-_built_ ships to American registration are difficult
questions for me to deal with, involving as they do the policy of the
respective nations bearing upon other interests than those of commerce,
I may remark that it is easy of proof in regard to the two latter that
the policy of the United States, while it is unjust towards England,
is injurious to the people of America, and contrary to the principles
laid down by their own most eminent statesmen in their intercourse with
other countries. Nevertheless, I fear the Government of the United
States will not be disposed to make concessions unless we are prepared
to make a _bargain_ with them. With that object in view, I think
if we agreed to relieve the shipowners of the United States from the
charge of light dues on our coast (which have been the source of great
complaint), and also from compulsory pilotage as recommended in the
merchant shipping report; provided they opened to us the trade between
their eastern and western ports, _viâ_ Panama and round Cape Horn,
if not prepared to throw open entirely their coasting trade, some
progress might be made. The Government of the United States might also
be induced to make some concession with regard to the registration of
British-built ships, for through the want of _iron screw_ vessels
(which cannot be produced at as moderate a price in the States) they
are fast losing the most valuable portion of the trade between England
and this country. And their coasting trade (especially that on the
inland lakes) is not developed to one-half the extent it would be
if the Shipowners of America were allowed to own the description of
vessels I have named. They are also losing the share they once had of
the Newfoundland fisheries from the fact that we can produce in the
colonies vessels adapted for that trade at 25 per cent. less cost than
they can build and equip similar vessels.
I daresay your Lordship can form little idea of the hindrance to
commerce and the constant irritation the questions I have named create
on both sides of the Atlantic; and I hope by holding intercourse
with the people of this country to pave the way, as I have said, for
the settlement of at least _some of them_. With that object I
shall take notes of the opinions entertained by the members of the
different Chambers of Commerce and Boards of Trade throughout this
country, and also the views of those members of the government whom
I may meet, and which I shall forward to your Lordship, and if you
think any satisfactory results are likely to follow, you may then deem
it desirable to communicate with Lord John Russell, with a view of
entering into formal negotiations with the Government of the United
States. I have for many years anxiously desired to see settled these
various questions, considering their settlement of great importance to
both countries; and if I can, in the way I propose, aid your Lordship
in this good work, my long promised visit to this country, though made
with no such object, will not be made in vain.
I am, my Lord,
Your faithful and obedient servant,
(Signed) W. S. LINDSAY.
To His Excellency LORD LYONS,
H. B. Majesty’s Minister,
&c. &c. &c.,
Washington.
APPENDIX No. 3.
Foreign Office, 21st September, 1866.
SIR,
I am directed by Lord Stanley to acknowledge the receipt of your
letter of the 31st ultimo, in which you call his Lordship’s attention
to the state of relations existing between this country and the
United States with regard to the Navigation Laws; and in expressing
to you Lord Stanley’s thanks for this further communication, I am to
inform you that the same has been referred to the Board of Trade,
whose observations thereupon will be communicated to you as soon as
their answer shall have been received; and the delay in receiving
their report is the reason for your letter not having been sooner
acknowledged.
I am, Sir, your most obedient humble servant,
E. C. EGERTON.
To W. S. LINDSAY, Esq.,
Manor House, Shepperton.
Foreign Office, 26th September, 1866.
SIR,
With reference to my letter of the 21st instant, I am directed by
Lord Stanley to state to you that his Lordship is fully alive to the
importance of the points on which you have urged that a satisfactory
understanding is desirable with the United States, but that since the
date of your letter to Lord Lyons of the 21st of September, 1860, the
first two of the seven questions enumerated in it have been settled by
the adoption of one uniform system of rules of the road, and of lights
to be carried at sea by maritime nations generally, including the
United States.
As regards the third question, viz., the limitation of shipowners’
liability, the Lords of Trade have pointed out to Lord Stanley that
the law of this country has undergone some modification since 1860.
By the Merchant Shipping Acts Amendment Act, 1862, the limit of such
liability was readjusted, and the limitation was extended to foreign
ships in cases arising in British courts concerning matters within
their jurisdiction.
Inasmuch, however, as this extension was not made specially for the
benefit of foreigners, but with the view of establishing a just
and uniform rule of law, no steps were taken to secure reciprocal
legislation in foreign countries.
If the law at present in force in the United States is liable to the
same objection as the law formerly in force in this country, and is
found to be attended with the inconveniences which were experienced
here, it may be presumed that the United States Government will
probably find it for their interest to amend it in a similar sense and
on similar grounds; but Lord Stanley sees no reason at present for
opening special communications with that Government on the subject.
With respect to the remaining four questions alluded to in your
letter, I am to state to you that the matters to which they relate are
under consideration.
I am, Sir, your most obedient, humble servant,
E. C. EGERTON.
To W. S. LINDSAY, Esq.,
Manor House, Shepperton.
Manor House, Shepperton, Middlesex,
29th September, 1866.
MY LORD,
I have to acknowledge receipt of your letters of 21st and 26th inst.,
and I am glad to learn that two of the questions to which I ventured to
direct your Lordship’s attention have, since 1860, been settled in a
satisfactory manner.
As regards the third, viz., the limitation of shipowners’ liability,
may I trouble you with an extract herewith[314] from the ‘New York
Herald’ of 10th October, 1860, as the question is therein, I think,
correctly stated. Since then I am aware that there has been an
amendment in our law relating to the liability of Shipowners; but it
would appear from the communication you have received from the Lords
of Trade that while we have extended the limitation to foreign ships
in cases arising in British courts, we have overlooked altogether the
still more important part of the question so far as this country is
concerned, and that is the unlimited liability of British shipowners in
cases arising in foreign courts. If such is the fact, then we, I fear,
have neglected a favourable opportunity of inviting foreign nations
to place our ships in their courts on the same terms as we had placed
their ships when thrown into our courts. Had we done so, I think the
Government of the United States would have readily met us in so just
and reasonable a request.
Considering, then, the position in which British shipowners would be
placed if an action was raised against them in foreign courts for the
recovery of claims arising through a collision at sea, your Lordship
will perceive that this is not a question in which foreigners alone are
interested, for we have given them all they asked in our courts, but
one which deeply affects the interests of British subjects, and which,
now more than ever, requires adjustment by special communication with
the United States and those other countries where the responsibility of
British shipowners is still unlimited. Since we have conceded all they
require, it may be found more difficult now to obtain the necessary
alterations in their law than it would have been at the time to which
my previous communications referred; but I daresay that when the
justice of our claim is represented, steps will still be taken to grant
in their courts the same limitation of responsibility to our Shipowners
as we have granted to their Shipowners in our courts.
I am gratified, to learn that the other questions are under
consideration, and
I remain, my Lord,
Your most obedient humble servant,
W. S. LINDSAY.
To the Right Hon. Lord STANLEY, M.P.,
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs,
&c. &c. &c.
Foreign Office, 3rd October, 1866.
SIR,
I am directed, by Lord Stanley, to acknowledge the receipt of your
letter and its inclosure of the 29th ultimo, respecting the liability
of British shipowners in suits arising in foreign courts out of
collisions at sea; and I am to acquaint you in reply, that Lord Stanley
will not fail to give this question due consideration, and will
communicate with you further on the subject after he has consulted the
Lords of the Committee of Privy Council for Trade.
I am, Sir, your most obedient humble servant,
E. C. EGERTON.
To W. S. LINDSAY, Esq.
Foreign Office, 14th November, 1866.
SIR,
With reference to your letter of the 29th September last regarding
the laws of the United States and of other foreign countries, with
regard to the liability of British shipowners in cases of loss by
collisions at sea, I am directed by Lord Stanley to inform you that
his Lordship learns from the Lords of Trade that, by the common law of
this country, and by the maritime law, as administered in our Admiralty
Courts, the Shipowner was formerly personally liable to the whole
extent of his fortune for any damage done by his ships through default
of his servants. The legislature, however, long since passed statutes
limiting the liability, and the limitation, with some variations, still
continues.
It was, however, held that the statutes being municipal laws, did
not affect cases where foreign ships were concerned, and where the
collision or casualty happened on the high seas, but that such cases
must be governed by the general maritime law of the world, which was
assumed to be the same with our common law. This was, perhaps, too
hastily assumed, inasmuch as most maritime countries adopted the
principle of limiting the Shipowners’ liability much earlier, and to a
greater extent than Great Britain.
The consequence was, that if a collision happened between two British
ships, the British law of liability applied, and whichever might be in
fault, the liability was limited. On the other hand, if a collision
happened between a British and a foreign ship on the high seas, or
between two foreign ships on the high seas, and the case came into our
courts, then whichever was in fault, the liability was unlimited.
This law was unequal, but in no way specially injurious to the
foreigner. The British ship, if in fault, was equally liable with the
foreigner; and as the British ship is generally to be found at home,
and as the British shipowner resides here, the British shipowner being
thus more likely to be the defendant, was likely the more often to
suffer.
The law was consequently altered by making the limitation of liability
apply in all cases coming into our courts, whether the ships were both
British or both foreign, or one British and one foreign.
And as the change was simply an improvement of our own law, and
conferred no especial advantage upon foreigners, it was not thought
necessary or desirable to delay it for the purpose of obtaining similar
changes when desirable in the laws of foreign nations.
I am, Sir, your most obedient humble servant,
JAMES MURRAY.
To W. S. LINDSAY, Esq.
Manor House, Shepperton, Middlesex,
28th November, 1866.
MY LORD,
I received in due course your Lordship’s letter of the 14th inst.,
which does not, however, appear to me to touch the main point of my
previous communication, viz., the unlimited liability to which our
Shipowners would still be subjected in cases of collision arising in
various foreign courts. For instance, if one of our Transatlantic steam
ships engaged in the conveyance of our mails came into collision—a very
possible event—with one of the numerous steam vessels owned in the
United States, freighted with passengers, cargo, and specie, of great
value, the consequences, under the existing law of that country, might
prove not only most disastrous to the owners of the British ship, but
also very detrimental to the public service.
As I understand the law of the United States, the owners of our mail
steamer, if at fault, would be responsible to the full extent of
their means for all the loss the owners of the American steamer had
sustained; if so, the result would be the seizure of the British
steamer whenever she reached an American port; and, possibly, if the
loss sustained was very great, the seizure of all the vessels in port
belonging to the same owner, and thus our mail service for the time
might be suspended.
It is to this grave contingency I am anxious to direct your Lordship’s
attention, in the hope that you may see the urgent necessity of taking
such steps as you may deem most expedient to induce the Government of
the United States to place our vessels in their courts on the same
footing in regard to the limitation of liability as we now place the
owners of their vessels in our courts.
I am, my Lord, your most obedient humble servant,
W. S. LINDSAY.
To the Right Hon. the Lord STANLEY, M.P.,
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs,
&c. &c. &c.
Board of Trade, Whitehall,
25th February, 1867.
SIR,
With reference to your letter of the 29th September, 1866, addressed
to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and to previous
correspondence upon the subject of the law of the United States as
affecting the liability of the Shipowner in cases of loss by collision
at sea, I am now directed by the Board of Trade to transmit to you the
accompanying copy of a despatch and inclosures received through the
Foreign Office from her Majesty’s Minister at Washington upon this
subject.
I have the honour to be, Sir,
Your obedient servant,
THOMAS GRAY.
To W. S. LINDSAY, Esq.,
Manor House, Shepperton.
(Copy.—M. 1268.)
Washington, 23rd January, 1867.
MY LORD,
In reply to your Lordship’s despatch, marked “Commercial No. 7,” of
the 14th November last, on the liability imposed by the laws of the
United States on Shipowners in cases of collision, I have the honour to
enclose copy of an opinion of Mr. Carlisle, the legal adviser of this
Legation.
Your Lordships will gather from it that the principle of limited
liability has been adopted by the laws of the United States, and is
applied in the Federal courts. But the injured party may apply to a
State court if the defendant is within its jurisdiction, and bring
an action on the case, and it is doubtful whether such a court would
limit the measure of damages by the principles contained in the Act of
Congress.
I have, &c.,
(Signed) F. W. A. BRUCE.
To Lord STANLEY,
&c. &c.
(Copy.)
Washington, 22nd January, 1867.
SIR,
I have the honour to return herewith the papers in relation to the
question of the liability of Shipowners in cases of collision.
The only Act of Congress touching the subject is that of March 3rd,
1851, which in its third section limits the liability in such cases. A
copy of this section is enclosed herewith. This language is explicit
and comprehensive, making no distinction on account of the nationality
of the ship; nor have I been able to find that such a distinction has
been suggested in any adjudicated case under this statute.
For my own part I entertain no doubt that the limitation of liability
which it prescribes would be held in all _courts of the United
States_ as applying equally to foreign as to American ships.
The Courts of Admiralty are, by the constitution of the United States,
exclusively of the Federal Government. If therefore the remedy in cases
of collision were exclusively in Admiralty Courts, the Act of 1851
would completely cover the question.
But there is a remedy at common law, which is open to the injured party
at his election. He may maintain his action on the case, which is a
transitory action, wherever he can find the owner of the offending
vessel, in the same manner and to be determined by the same principles
as if the plaintiff’s coach or his person had been injured by a
collision occasioned by the unskilful driving of the defendant’s coach.
Such an action may be brought in any court of general jurisdiction in
any of the States of the Union; and it may be doubted whether this Act
of Congress would be available to limit the measure of damages in these
courts, though undoubtedly a convention between Great Britain and the
United States, with a proper Act of Congress to carry it into effect,
would accomplish the object.
I have, &c.,
(Signed) J. M. CARLISLE.
To Sir F. BRUCE, S.S.B.,
&c. &c. &c.
(Copy.)
_An Act to limit the Liability of Shipowners and for other
purposes._
(Approved March 3, 1851.)
SECTION 3.—_And be it further enacted_, That the liability of the
owner or owners of any ship or vessel for any embezzlement, loss, or
distinction by the master, officers, mariners, passengers, or any
other person or persons of any property, goods, or merchandise shipped
or put on board of such ship or vessel, or for any loss, damage, or
injury by collision, or for any act, matter, or thing, loss, damage,
or forfeiture, done, occasioned, or incurred without the privity or
knowledge of such owner or owners, shall in no case exceed the amount
or value of the interest of such owner or owners respectively in such
ship or vessel, and her freight then pending.
IX. Statutes at Large, ch. xliii., page 635.
(M. 1266.)
Manor House, Shepperton, Middlesex,
26th February, 1867.
SIR,
I have to acknowledge receipt of your letter of yesterday’s date, with
copy of a despatch and inclosures, received through the Foreign Office
from her Majesty’s Minister at Washington. By these documents it would
appear that the laws of the United States of America, so far as regards
the responsibility of British Shipowners in their courts, are the same
as they were in 1860, and that, practically, our responsibility is
there still unlimited. This is a very unsatisfactory state of things,
and, as I have already explained to the Secretary of State for Foreign
Affairs, might produce the most disastrous results to some of our
Shipowners in their intercourse with the United States. I, therefore,
trust that the Board of Trade may be induced to use its best efforts to
obtain as soon as possible a convention, whereby our ships frequenting
the ports of the United States may, so far as regards responsibility,
be placed upon the same footing as we have now placed in all our courts
the vessels belonging to that country.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
W. S. LINDSAY.
To the ASSISTANT SECRETARY,
Marine Department, Board of Trade.
(M. 1766.)
Board of Trade, Whitehall,
6th March, 1867.
SIR,
I am directed by the Board of Trade to acknowledge the receipt of your
letter of the 26th ultimo, stating, with reference to the question of
the liability of British Shipowners in the United States, that that
liability appears to be practically unlimited, and trusting that this
Board may take steps to obtain complete reciprocity.
In reply, I am to point out to you that the principle of limited
liability has been adopted in the Federal Courts, and is applied in all
the Federal Courts of the United States—_i.e._ in all Admiralty
and Vice Admiralty Courts, to foreign as well as American ships.
It seems true, however, that an injured person may possibly maintain
an action against the owner of an offending vessel in a State Court,
and it must depend on the law of each State in that case, whether the
measure of damages would be limited. But not to mention the difficulty
of first ascertaining, and procuring the alteration of the law of each
State, it is to be observed that to maintain such action the owner of
the offending vessel must be found within the jurisdiction of the State
Court. This, in fact, amounts to a practical limitation, seeing that he
has all the advantages of limited liability so long as he keeps away
from the United States, or is not to be found within the jurisdiction
of the court in question.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
THOMAS GRAY.
To W. S. LINDSAY, Esq.,
Manor House, Shepperton, Middlesex.
(M. 1766.)
Shepperton, Middlesex, 14th March, 1867.
SIR,
I have to acknowledge receipt of your letter of the 6th inst., but
it is very little satisfaction to know that the principle of limited
liability is applied in all the Federal Courts of the United States
to British Shipowners, whilst in all the State Courts of that country
their responsibility is altogether unlimited. To say that they have the
advantages of limited liability, so long as they keep away from the
ports of that country, is to suggest that if we wish to avoid unlimited
responsibility, we must renounce our carrying-trade with America.
The Board of Trade would also appear to be under the impression that
there is so little chance of any serious claim ever being made, that
the alteration of the law of the States is of little consequence to us,
and that it is not worthy of the trouble it would involve; but a case
in point has just come under my notice which signally illustrates the
force of the remonstrative observations I have ventured to make.
The screw steam-ship _Keder_, belonging to Messrs. G. and I.
Burns, of Glasgow, and their partners, sailed from New York 31st
August, 1864, and on the following day came into collision with the
_Czarina_, an American barque, of from 500 to 600 tons, which had
on board a cargo of sulphur, shumac, and fruit. The _Czarina_
was abandoned in a sinking state. As the evidence shows that the
_Keder_ was not to blame, the owners of that vessel hoped that
nothing more would be heard of the matter; but only a few days ago they
received a letter from Sir Edward Cunard, their correspondent at New
York, stating that he had just been called upon to give bond for one
hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars, on account of the cargo of
the _Czarina_, and adding that he had also been called upon to
give bond for the vessel, though the amount in the latter case is not
mentioned. It is estimated that the value put on the _Czarina_
and cargo will be something like 40,000_l._ Supposing the
_Keder_ to be in fault, her liability, according to British law,
would be restricted to 8_l._ per ton of her own gross tonnage,
viz. 14,264_l._, whereas, according to the law of the State of New
York, she may be held liable in this case for 40,000_l._, being
more than double her value; and if the _Czarina_ and cargo had
been more valuable than they are stated to be, the liability of the
owner of the _Keder_ would of course have been correspondingly
increased. In a word, _it would have been practically without
limit_.
I am aware that there may be some difficulty in obtaining an alteration
of the law, but this ought not to be any obstacle when the interests
at stake are so very large and of so grave a character. If the proper
representation is made, I think the Government of the United States
cannot now hesitate to place our vessels in _all_ their courts
on the same terms as we have recently placed their vessels in all our
courts, and if the executive is prepared to enter into a convention,
having that object in view, it will no doubt be confirmed by Congress.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
W. S. LINDSAY.
To the ASSISTANT SECRETARY,
Marine Department, Board of Trade.
_Note._—This correspondence was not at all satisfactory
to me, but as I was then in a very precarious state of health,
I sent copies of it to Mr. John Burns, whose firm (the Cunard
Company) was more deeply interested in the matter to which it
refers than any other. He followed it up with his usual energy and
ability, and through his exertions the responsibility of British
Shipowners has now been limited in the _States_, as well as
in the Federal Courts of the United States of America, to the same
extent as the Shipowners of that country would be held liable in
an action, through loss at sea by collision or otherwise, brought
against them in this country. See Parliamentary Papers, ‘British
Ships in American Waters,’ No. 236, 17th May, 1871; and ‘United
States Liability of Shipowners’ Collision,’ No. 173, 18th May,
1874.
W. S. L.
APPENDIX No. 4.
(Copy.)
(Inclosure in No. 53.)
MR. LINDSAY to HIS MAJESTY THE EMPEROR OF THE
FRENCH.
Paris, 10th January, 1861.
SIRE,
In accordance with your Majesty’s desire, expressed at the interview
with which you honoured me this morning, I may here recapitulate the
facts which I then brought under your notice.
In the early part of last session of Parliament I brought under the
consideration of the House of Commons the following resolution:—
“That an humble address be presented to her Majesty praying that she
may be graciously pleased to enter into negotiations with the Emperor
of the French with the view of making a treaty for the reciprocal
abrogation of all discriminating duties levied upon the vessels and
their cargoes of either of the two nations in the ports of the other,
and for procuring such alterations in the Navigation Laws of France as
may tend to facilitate the commercial intercourse and strengthen the
friendly relations between England and France.”
That resolution received the unanimous approval of both Houses of
Parliament, and was submitted for your Majesty’s consideration through
his Excellency Earl Cowley in the usual form. And, now I have to thank
your Majesty very cordially for granting me an audience together with
his Lordship, so that I might explain more fully the object of that
resolution in its relation to the maritime commerce of France. Sire,
the Navigation Laws of France may be divided into five distinct heads:—
1st. The coasting trade, which is confined entirely to French ships,
all other vessels entering it being, I believe, liable with their
cargoes to confiscation, with the exception of Spanish vessels employed
on a particular branch of that trade.
2ndly. The colonial trade, that is, the trade between the colonies and
possessions of France and the mother country, which is also confined
entirely to the ships of France.
3rdly. The foreign trade, as, for instance, the trade between France
and America, or between France and the Brazils, and other foreign
countries, which is confined to the ships of France and those of the
respective nations with which France has entered into treaties of
reciprocity.
4thly. The direct trade with England, which comprises commerce carried
on between the ports of Great Britain and the ports of France. This
trade is confined to the vessels of England, and France, and the ships
of the respective countries are, with some slight exception, placed on
the same footing in the ports of either country.
5thly. The direct trade between France and the colonies and possessions
of Great Britain, which, practically, is confined to the ships of
France, as the differential duties, to which I shall hereafter refer,
on nearly every article of produce are so high as against English ships
that they are prevented from entering the trade.
Now, it is a remarkable fact that in those branches of trade where
French shipping is placed in competition with the shipping of other
nations, it is making more progress than in those branches of trade
where it is protected, at an enormous cost to the people of France.
Indeed, the French shipping employed in those carefully protected
branches of commerce has, as appears by the returns, in some instances
actually declined. But this state of things is not confined merely to
the shipping of France. It has been so throughout all time and with
all nations. I shall endeavour to illustrate this to your Majesty by
reference to the official returns of the progress of shipping belonging
to my own country. Going as far back as 1720, I find that there cleared
outwards from the ports of Great Britain, 430,000 tons of British
shipping.
In 1810 the clearances amounted to 1,600,000 tons.
Ten years afterwards, in 1820, they had only increased to 1,670,000
tons, but in 1850 they had reached 4,700,000 tons.
That increase, however great, is nevertheless small when compared with
the increase which took place after Great Britain, in 1850, swept away
the last remnants of her Navigation Laws, and threw open her ports
unreservedly to the ships of the world. In 1858, the clearances of
British ships outwards employed in the over-sea trade, to which these
returns alone have reference, reached 6,400,000 tons.
Thus it appears that in ninety years of the closest protection, when
we guarded our ships with the most unusual care, and protected them
in every branch of our trade to the detriment of our revenue, and
by increased taxation upon the people, our shipping increased only
1,170,000 tons; whereas, in thirty years of partial free-trade,
during which we entered into treaties of reciprocity with almost
every nation, our shipping increased 3,000,000 tons, and in eight
years of perfect free trade, that is, from 1850, when our Navigation
Laws were entirely repealed, our shipping increased 1,740,000 tons,
or, in round numbers, 600,000 tons more than it increased in ninety
years of the closest protection. But it may be well to compare the
relative progress of French and British shipping. By comparing the
tonnage owned by the respective countries in 1838 and 1858, your
Majesty will find that in the last twenty years France has increased
her sailing vessels by 370,000 tons, and her steam ships by 50,000
tons. But England, during the same period, has increased her sailing
vessels by no less than 2,800,000 tons, and her steam ships by 400,000
tons. Thus the Shipowners of England, who are left to depend upon
their own energies and their own resources, are moving onwards at a
rate eight times greater than that of the Shipowners of France, who,
by means of protection, are taught to depend upon the State instead
of upon themselves and upon the vast natural resources which their
country affords. It is a mistake to suppose, as many persons do, that
France has not facilities for carrying on a great maritime commerce.
Her seaboard is almost as great as our own; she has no less than 150
leagues of coast in the Channel, 130 leagues on the Atlantic, and
90 leagues of coast on the Mediterranean. Along her seaboard there
are many fine harbours, some of them easy of access, and at points
convenient to the great markets of the world. I need hardly mention
the position of Havre as affording great facilities for carrying on a
large commerce with the United States and the continent of America,
generally, nor that of Marseilles, in its contiguity with India, and
the vast commerce of the East. But allow me to direct your Majesty’s
attention to a remarkable contrast which may be drawn between two great
branches of the trade of your own dominions. While your shipping is
comparatively at a standstill, your special commerce is increasing
with considerable rapidity, for I find that in ten years, from 1827 to
1836, the increase was 10,000,000 francs; from 1837 to 1846, 15,000,000
francs, but from 1847 to 1856 the increase was 22,000,000 francs in
that particular branch of commerce, which is confined entirely to
the produce and manufactures of France. To carry on this important
and steadily increasing trade your Majesty is obliged to depend very
materially upon the shipping of other countries, for I find that in
1858, while the total entries at French ports amounted to 4,162,000
tons, no less than 2,550,000 tons consisted of foreign shipping.
It is hardly possible to conceive the amount of money which the people
of France are annually paying in, as it appears, a vain attempt, to
encourage its shipping: I use the word “vain” because it is clear, if
the experience of other nations, or the experience of your own nation
is of any value, that all the money paid to “encourage shipping” is
actually lost, for French ships, with all this protection, do not
increase at the same rate as other nations, or at the same rates in the
branches of your own trade, where they are guarded with unusual care,
as they do in those branches where they are thrown into competition
with the shipping of other countries. It would be impossible to
ascertain the loss the people of France annually sustain, directly
and indirectly, through the operation of its Navigation Laws. I have,
however, analysed it in one small branch of trade. In 1858, there
cleared from the Island of Mauritius, 180,000 tons of shipping.
The trade which that island carries on with France is, through the
operation of the differential duties, confined to the vessels of
France. In a word, they have a monopoly of it. Analysing the commercial
circulars issued at that island, I find that the excess of freight paid
at the Mauritius to French ships for “a market,” or for the ports of
France, amounted in that year to 300,000_l._ more than the people
of England paid for a similar quantity of sugar imported from the
Mauritius.
I have mentioned to your Majesty the differential duties still
in force, but which in practice are unproductive to the revenue,
because, as you will see by the following scale, they are so great
that merchants are prohibited from shipping in any other than French
bottoms. For instance, sugar pays a duty of 68_s._ per 100
kilogrammes if imported in French vessels, but 84_s._ if in
English, from any of our colonies and possessions. Coffee in French
ships is charged 48_s._ per 100 kilogrammes, and 84_s._ if in
English vessels. Tobacco, if imported in French ships, pays 4_s._
per kilogramme, but double that duty if imported in English vessels.
Other articles, the produce of our Eastern possessions, are taxed in
somewhat similar proportions, so that your Majesty will see that your
merchants and manufacturers are thus practically prohibited from using
any other than French vessels to convey whatever produce they may
require from the colonies and possessions of Great Britain.
Your Majesty has just concluded a Treaty of Commerce with England,
which I feel certain will benefit alike the people of Great Britain and
of France, and no doubt develop the trade of the respective countries
to a far greater extent than many persons suppose; above all, it cannot
fail to strengthen the friendly relations now happily existing between
the Governments of the two countries, and which I most sincerely trust
may long continue. That treaty will, however, be seriously clogged in
its operations, unless there is a change in the Navigation Laws of
France. I shall endeavour to show how.
The produce and manufactures of France will not, in all cases, be paid
for either in coin or by the produce and manufactures of Great Britain,
but in many instances by the produce of India, Australia, and Canada.
Yet, by the French Navigation Laws, that produce which your own people
require, cannot be imported into France in the ships belonging to those
parties who buy the produce and the manufactures of France. No nation,
as your Majesty is well aware, can produce all that is necessary to
employ, to feed, and to clothe her own people. All nations must, to a
greater or less extent, depend upon other countries for those necessary
articles of existence. France, to keep her people employed, must have
the wools of Australia and the timber of Canada, as well as various
descriptions of raw materials which India alone affords, or produces
in greater abundance and at lower prices, than other countries.
Nevertheless, the Navigation Laws of France prevent those articles
which are required for the very existence of the people of France from
being imported in the ships of the country whose possessions produce
them. India, as your Majesty is aware, has, within the last two years,
become virtually, since the abolition of the charter of the East India
Company, an integral part of the British Empire: therefore I trust
your Majesty will see the justice as well as the policy of at least
placing the shipping of England and France engaged in that trade on
the same footing as they have been for many years in the trade between
those two countries. Such a change would entail no loss of revenue,
nor would it, I conceive, require more than your Majesty’s decree to
effect. This change, in my humble judgment, is indeed necessary on even
more urgent grounds than the development of the Commercial Treaty which
has recently been concluded. The shipping of the world has just passed
through an ordeal of great depression. The losses which Shipowners
of all countries have sustained during the last four years have been
so great, that capital has, to a considerable extent, ceased to flow
in that direction, so much so that, by returns now before me, I find
that the tonnage built during the year 1860 in the United States, in
Canada, in New Brunswick, in Norway, in England, and in other great
producing countries, falls far short of what it was either in 1859, or
in any one of the previous years of depression. But, on the other hand,
the general commerce of the world has, during that period, increased
enormously. For instance, by our Board of Trade returns, the imports of
cotton into Great Britain, which amounted to about 8,000,000 cwt. in
the eleven months ending November 30, 1859, exceeded 10,000,000 cwt. in
the eleven months ending November 30, 1860.
I need not call your Majesty’s attention to the vast increase in the
imports of grain, or to the remarkable increase in the exports of
manufactures, or to the greatly extended consumption of coal at remote
stations. In a word, while the bulky articles which require ships
for their conveyance to distant parts of the world have enormously
increased, the shipping of the world has been comparatively stationary
during the past year, and the many losses and disasters at sea during
1860 have tended materially to diminish the already scanty supply of
shipping necessary to conduct the oversea trade of the world. All this
will, without doubt, right itself in time, but it will take one year,
if not two years, to do so. In the mean time, it might so happen that
the artisans of France may be thrown out of employment for the want of
French ships to bring them those raw materials necessary to keep them
employed; or, what will amount to nearly the same, the increased cost
to the manufacturer of the raw material, through the laws of France
compelling him to bring it in her ships, might be so great that he
would be unable to compete in price with his rivals in other countries,
and, consequently, be obliged to close his mills or his workshops, as
the case might be, for want of remunerative employment.
Might I, therefore, venture to impress upon your Majesty the
desirability, I may even say the necessity, of at least placing the
carrying-trade between France and the possessions of Great Britain on
the same footing as it now exists between the mother countries. Your
people would be immense gainers by this change, and your Shipowners
would not suffer, for, independent altogether of the facts which I have
stated in regard to the advantages which they, as carriers, derive
above all others from the policy of Free-trade, there will be for the
next twelve months at least ample employment for the shipping of all
nations. I cannot close this, I fear too lengthy a letter, without
calling to your Majesty’s attention a remarkable instance of the injury
which even the Shipowners of that great maritime country, the United
States, sustain by protection. While in 1856, 1857, and 1858, the
tonnage owned in England increased 335,000 tons, the tonnage of America
in those same years actually decreased 67,000 tons.
In a recent visit which I made to that country, I did not fail, in
the many opportunities afforded me, to impress upon its Shipowners
that they were more interested in the removal of all barriers to free
intercourse than any other class of the community; for, as those
barriers which they still maintain along their coast retard their
commerce, and consequently limit the exchange of the different articles
produced in the various districts, the employment of their vessels must
necessarily be more curtailed than it would otherwise be if greater
facilities were afforded for the transmission of those articles which
one district produces in greater abundance than another.
To those maritime questions I have long devoted my attention, and I
have often been struck at the circuitous course which ships, by the
laws which nations adopted, have been obliged to follow. The ocean was
meant to be free to mankind, but one nation by its laws dictates the
course which the ships of other nations must follow; another nation,
by way of retaliation, lays down the only course which it will allow
its competitors to adopt. Thus we see ships, for instance, allowed to
follow one track with cargo, but compelled to return by the same track,
in ballast. We see the wool which your own people require, instead
of being imported, as it ought to be, direct from Australia to the
ports of France, sent, by the Navigation Laws of France, to the ports
of England, and from thence imported at greatly enhanced prices to
the consumers. It is the same with the produce of India. Those lines
of steamers belonging to England, which run weekly from Calcutta and
Bombay, and all the great ports of the East to Great Britain, passing
Marseilles and the other seaports of France, are not allowed to land,
for the use of its people, the very articles of which they may be in
urgent want. All experience has proved that while those restrictions do
great injury to the commerce of all nations, they inflict the largest
amount of injury upon the people of the nation that imposes them.
The feeble efforts of so humble an individual as myself, may be of
little avail in the removal of those pernicious restrictions, but I
will never cease those efforts till the ocean, which was meant for the
use of mankind in general, is as free as the waves which roll over
it, and the gale which hurries them along. And if your Majesty would
grant me your powerful aid by making one step in the direction I have
so imperfectly ventured to point out, I feel that other nations will
follow the example of a Sovereign so enlightened and so exalted, and
thus I may live to see the object I have so anxiously in view crowned
with success.
I have, &c.,
(Signed) W. S. LINDSAY.
APPENDIX No. 5.
(Translation.)
Inclosure 1 in No. 73.
M. Fleury to Mr. Lindsay, M.P.
Londres, 17th June, 1862.
SIR,
The ‘Moniteur’ of the 2nd of May last published a report submitted to
the Emperor by the Minister of Agriculture, Commerce, and Public Works,
relative to the state of the French mercantile marine and the law by
which it is governed.
In conformity with the suggestion of this report, which has been
approved by his Majesty, the _Conseil Supérieur_ of Commerce is
instructed to prosecute an inquiry for the purpose of furnishing the
Imperial Government with the data which it needs in order to enable
it to judge between the diversity of opinion which has arisen on this
grave question.
In the inquiry, as in that which has been presented on the reform of
our Customs legislation, it will be advantageous that the principal
maritime places in Foreign States should be represented, and the
statements of their representatives heard side by side with those of
French merchants and Shipowners. This is why the Minister of Foreign
Affairs invites me to inform those principally interested here that
the _Conseil Supérieur_ will begin its sittings about the 10th of next
month.
M. Thouvenel adds that in case, as he hopes, the merchants of London,
appreciating the importance of the questions to be raised in this
inquiry, will express their intention to respond to the invitation
of the French Ministry, I should communicate their names to him,
so that he may invite them to present themselves at the Ministry
of Agriculture, Commerce, and Public Works, Department of Foreign
Commerce, Rue de Tarennes 78b. M. Rouher will take the necessary
measures that they may be summoned before the Upper Council with all
due promptitude.
I think, Sir, I cannot do better than communicate this invitation
to you, requesting you to inform me whether it will be agreeable to
you to accede to it yourself. I shall, moreover, be much obliged by
your communicating with the merchants or Shipowners in the City, and
forwarding to me the names of such as may wish to take advantage of
it. I shall take care to let you know later the precise date when the
sittings of the Council will open.
Believe me and the _Conseil Général_,
FLEURY.
(Copy.)
Inclosure 2 in No. 73.
Mr. Lindsay, M.P., to M. Fleury.
8, Austin Friars, London, 23rd June, 1862.
SIR,
I have read with no ordinary interest the letter you did me the
honour to address me on the 17th instant, and I shall be happy
to forward the object your Government has in view by every means
in my power. So far as I am concerned, you have merely to name
the time when my presence is again required in Paris. In regard
to other witnesses, the publication of your letter to me would
enable you to obtain a greater amount and variety of evidence than
could possibly be obtained through my own unaided exertions. I am
glad your Government has decided upon an open inquiry, for thus
all the important facts bearing upon the subject can be brought
to light. The knowledge of these facts will greatly facilitate
the inquiry about to be instituted. For instance, I dare say
your Shipowners think (as our Shipowners thought in 1849) that
any material relaxation of the Navigation Laws of France would
ruin them. The arguments used against the repeal of our laws in
1849 were very plausible, but not very profound; for what are the
facts? The repeal of our Navigation Laws came into operation on
the 1st January, 1850; the aggregate tonnage of the merchant navy
of the British empire at that time was 4,232,962 tons. It had
risen from 2,681,276 tons in 1815. So that the increase, under
the guardian care of the State, had in the previous thirty-five
years been 1,551,686 tons. That increase was then considered
very great; and, as we could not look into futurity, much stress
was laid upon the argument that if protection were removed from
British shipping, any increase would in future be monopolised
by the ships of foreign nations. But the Legislature had other
interests to consider besides that to which I belong. Protection
was, therefore, swept away, and Shipowners were left to depend
upon their own exertions, instead of depending upon the State.
Their desponding was great, but so far from being “ruined,” they
are richer now than ever they were at any former period, if I
may judge of their wealth by the extraordinary increase of our
shipping. On the 1st January, 1860 (ten years after all protection
had been removed), we owned 5,710,968 tons. Thus, in ten years
of Free-trade our increase was about as great as it had been in
thirty-five years of protection; but the increase in the amount of
business carried on in British ships is even more remarkable. Here
are the facts:
In 1842, there were entered and cleared at our ports of British
shipping 6,669,995 tons; 1850, 9,442,544 tons; 1861, 15,420,532
tons; the increase being 2,772,549 tons during nine years of
protection, and 5,977,988 tons during eleven years of Free-trade.
In 1812 we built 129,929 tons of shipping; in 1849 only 117,953
tons. In 1850, we built 133,695 tons, and in 1861, 310,900 tons;
showing an annual decrease between the former periods of 11,976
tons, but an annual increase between the latter of 177,205 tons.
The reason of these extraordinary results is obvious. Shipping is
not the parent, it is the child of commerce. If your Government
apply to its merchant shipping the principles we have adopted,
you will find that the results will be very much the same, for
these principles are applicable to all countries. Shipping has no
creative power in itself, like land, or manufactures, or minerals;
it depends, entirely, upon other interests for its existence. If a
country produced what was necessary for its own wants and no more,
it would not require any ships. If France had no commerce with
other countries, and no trade along its own shores, there would
be no employment for its shipping in its own trade. Now, though
France has, I daresay, within herself the means of producing what
other nations require to nearly as great an extent as the United
Kingdom, and, though she requires as much or even more from other
countries than we do, yet her sea-borne commerce is very limited
as compared with her resources and her powers of consumption.
Turning to the ‘Tableau Général du Commerce de la France,’ I find
that, in 1860, the entrances and clearances with cargoes only
in your foreign and colonial trades, and the entrances in your
coasting trade, including the ships of France and of every nation
trading with her, amounted to 9,773,865 tons, whereas, in the same
year, it required 37,841,329 tons of shipping to transport the
cargoes which entered and cleared from the ports of the United
Kingdom. But, curiously enough, though the ships of all nations
are allowed to enter our ports (and our consumers invite them to
do so), there was, in 1860, in our foreign trade, only 4,294,444
tons of foreign shipping with cargoes as against 5,760,537 tons
of British shipping; whereas, in your foreign trade, in the same
year, there was 2,348,261 tons of foreign shipping with cargoes as
against 1,663,615 tons of your own.
It is, thus, evident that any restriction you impose on the
freedom of intercourse with other countries, while it curtails the
operations of your merchants, likewise enhances the price of the
raw material to your manufacturers; and while it increases the
cost of the commodity to your people, curtails the employment of
your Shipowners. But, even if those restrictions and differential
duties (which you still maintain without any advantage to the
revenue) benefited your Shipowners, which they do not, why should
your merchants and manufacturers, and landowners and farmers, and,
above all, your hardworking people, be made to suffer, so that
your Shipowners might be enriched? So long as all the producing
classes were protected, the Shipowners might have had some right
to say that, as they were obliged to pay, for the benefit, real
or imaginary of others, enhanced prices for all articles of
consumption, they were consequently entitled to some compensating
protection; but, since the recent relaxations of the French
tariff, and, now that the producing classes are exposed to the
competition of other countries, these classes have unquestionably
a right to insist on free navigation.
No doubt your Shipowners will consider, as ours did, that their
class was entitled to claim peculiar privileges, because the
merchant service is the legitimate nursery of the seamen for the
navy necessary for the protection of the State; but we have 20,000
more seamen now in our merchant service than we had in 1849. Free
intercourse with other countries gave increased employment to our
shipping, and therefore we required more seamen. So it will be
with your country when you adopt a similar policy.
But, however fallacious the arguments have proved which were used
against the repeal of our Navigation Laws, it is hardly possible
to conceive anything so pernicious and absurd as the law itself
which you still maintain. By way of illustration, may I direct
your attention to the line of steamers trading between Southampton
and the various ports in India, _viâ_ the Mediterranean?
These vessels pass Marseilles every week laden with articles of
which your people may be greatly in want, but the differential
duties which the laws of France levy are so high on these articles
(because they happen to be in English ships) that they cannot
be landed, consequently they are carried through the Straits of
Gibraltar, and across the Bay of Biscay to Southampton, and from
thence by rail to London, and there shipped in either English
or French bottoms to some port in France. Could anything be
more absurd? The price your people pay for this folly is well
illustrated by the startling fact that in 1860 France imported
from the United Kingdom 8,000,000 lbs. of silk, 4,000,000 lbs. of
coffee, 16,000,000 lbs. of wool, and 116,000 cwt. of cotton, not
an ounce of any of these articles having been produced in this
country.