Chapter XVII (3)

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.