tion. Six of the boats belonging to harbour authorities in the United Kingdom are subsidized or paid for, to some extent, by the Board of Trade out of the Mercantile Marine Fund. For the purpose of saving life from shipwreck, there were, at the end of June, 1873, on the coasts of the United Kingdom, 286 sets of rocket and mortar apparatus, wholly provided and paid for by the Board of Trade out of the Mercantile Marine Fund; and there were, at the same time, 263 lifeboats. Of these lifeboats, 232 belonged to the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, and 31 to harbour authorities, beachmen, &c.* There were, also, 537 stations supplied with Captain Ward's cork life-jackets. These lifejackets are for the coastguard to wear, with the object of giving them more confidence when going off to a wreck in the coastguard boats. There are now 7 volunteer life brigades and 150 volunteer life companies, which have been formed for the purpose of enabling persons residing on the coasts of the United Kingdom to acquire a knowledge of the rocket apparatus, and of the method of using it in case of shipwreck, independently of, or in co-operation with, the coastguard and receivers of wreck. A list of the brigades and companies in the United Kingdom, showing the strength of each on the 30th June, 1873, will be found in Table 50 of the return. Table 53 gives a list of places in the United Kingdom where the storm-signals are hoisted on receipt of a telegram from the Meteorological Office; also a list of places supplied with fishery barometers. In April, 1867, Her Majesty, by warrant under the Royal Sign Manual, was pleased to institute two new decorations, to be styled respectively, "The Albert Medal of the First Class," and "The Albert Medal of the Second Class," in lieu of the decoration instituted in March, A copy of the warrant instituting these decorations is appended to this Report. Since the date of this warrant, 7 medals of the first class, and 12 medals of the second class, have been awarded. In addition to pecuniary rewards, the following presentations have been made by the British Government during the first six months of the year 1873, for saving life, viz. :-4 barometers, 13 gold watches, 7 telescopes, 17 binocular glasses, 7 gold medals, 16 silver medals, 2 silver wine jugs, a silver tankard, and a double-barrelled rifle. In the same period, the under-mentioned Governments have presented the following rewards to masters of British vessels and others, for saving the lives of foreigners : [* We ought specially to mention that the lifeboat at Ramsgate was generously presented to the Board of Trade by the Royal National Life Boat Institution; and that the Board of Trade, and not the Institution therefore, pay for its exercises and services out of the Mercantile Marine Fund. It would be absolutely useless were it not that one of the steam tugs always takes it out. The Mercantile Marine Fund (i.e., the shipowners) pay expenses of both tug and lifeboat and their crews.-ED.] Dutch, 1; German, 2; Italian, 7; Spanish, 6; United States, 3-Total, 19. In addition to the above rewards, the French and the United States Governments presented their thanks to British subjects for services rendered to seamen belonging to their respective countries.-Marine Department, Board of Trade, July, 1874. 46 B Y" THE TRADE IN FLIMSY STEAMERS. flimsy steamers," we do not now mean steamers that are badly built, or made of bad materials; but that class of vessel intended for the smoothest water and the lightest possible draft, appropriate constructions when on their own waters, but meriting all of execration or sneer there is in the word flimsy," when they appear on ocean waves amongst seagoing vessels. This country has sometimes done a roaring trade in such light steamers. When the voyage to their destination is a long one, and exposes them to all the violence of ocean storms, the risk is very great, unless by temporarily strengthening the hull for the voyage out, a degree of solidity of structure in keeping with that voyage, and unsuitable for the intended station be imparted to the vessel. Upon whom shall the responsibility of this risky, but profitable, trade be placed? Shall the Legislature, at a nominal charge, but enormous. cost, provide a staff of officers to settle for those engaged in such ventures exactly how near to the wind they may sail in lightness of scantling? Yes! say the school, whose password is interference; Yes! they say, survey every vessel! On the Government be the onus of every unseaworthiness; and on the Government rest the odium of every interference there would be, necessarily or unnecessarily, with this hitherto legitimate trade. We have all along advocated a free-trade policy, without grandmotherly supervision. If a manufacturer uses a two-ton crane to lift a ten-ton weight, and, in the operation, by the failure of the machine, the workmen are killed, the manufacturer knowing that he had used a two-ton machine to do a ten-ton machine's work, would be judged by a jury of his countrymen to be guilty of the death of these men, and the dread of the verdict of manslaughter is found to be so all-powerful, that it is rarely such a misdemeanour is committed. We will not yield to anyone in our feeling of sympathy for sailors who, at all seasons, but especially during the gales which have for some weeks been committing such havoc on our coasts, are exposed to "the peril of waters, winds, and rocks." It is because we wish them to be effectually protected that we have always said, and still mean to say, leave the shipowners to do their own work themselves, and hold them responsible, just as is done on shore, when life or limb is lost, by failure of the appliances specially provided for the workman's use. The propriety of the policy we have advocated is likely to be soon decisively proved by the issues of a series of important Board of Trade inquiries that are this winter, without any interval, occupying the assessors. The Chusan, the first of the light-built craft we have to notice is presented to us by a shipbuilding firm of the highest eminence, as a vessel they considered fit to be sent to sea. Suppose the law of universal inspection to be enforced; to be workable, the officers must not be vexatiously interfering with respectable builders. The builders of the Chusan are of high standing, the vessel was of peculiar construction, of great beam and great length with what was represented as special compensation for longitudinal strength in the shape of longitudinal bulkheads, and fore and aft a lattice girder at each side, the full depth of the vessel. At the inquiry, it was shown by the Board's surveyors that that strength was inadequate, and that by an error in detail the value of this compensating construction was rendered almost nil. The Board of Trade might, with some satisfaction, point to the report of their officers as evidence of the ability of their staff, and the public might be led to believe that if such surveyors were employed to examine all the " flimsies," the risk of loss of life by such vessels would be greatly diminished. We dissent from this conclusion in toto. It is very easy to report on a vessel that is already wrecked, about which there exists no longer presumptive belief that she is really seaworthy; but we very much doubt whether these same gentlemen would have been so decisive in their statements of want of strength, if the vessel, broken in two, had not been before their eyes. Board of Trade officers might have been misled in the same way as the builders were, and if they had passed the vessel, their certificate would have gone a far way to shelter the owner. In what we are saying, we know we are in opposition to these surveyors, whose competency we do not mean to question, but we have yet to learn that Board of Trade surveyors at the small salaries they receive can really be, at all the ports, better men than the practical members of such firms as that of the builder of the Chusan, and we do not doubt that that firm had every confidence in the Chusan for her voyage. The flimsiness of this vessel was not, however, the direct cause of her loss. The unmanageableness of the vessel through stress of weather in narrow waters, the leeway made being unknown and of unprecedented amount through the omission of a specified false keel, was the proximate cause of the loss of the ship. The public are no doubt indebted to the Board of Trade officers who pointed out these defects, but the public must not be led away by that feeling to suppose Board of Trade officers any more likely to have such a vessel made safe because they had inspected her, than a shipowner and a shipbuilder who are bound by the courts of their country to establish, in the event of accident, that their responsibilities were fully and fairly discharged in the construction and equipment of the vessel. The omission of the false keel led to an error of judgment on the part of the pilot; but, as the vessel was mechanically capable of keeping off the coast, and was only driven thereon by carrying a miscalculated amount of port helm, the loss of the vessel is, therefore, not traceable directly and necessarily to her construction, and no Board of Trade survey, in our opinion, would have secured a more seaworthy Chusan. Government surveys in a country with a popular Government must work to a minimum scantling-they must ask always something less than the utmost that could be demanded; and if a Board of Trade scantling for "flimsies" were to be issued and certified, it would only be tolerated if about 20 per cent. flimsier than any respectable firm would at present dare risk to send to sea. So much for the Chusan; a previous survey would not necessarily have improved her. Vessels built under special survey of Lloyds and of the Liverpool Book have, after all, been unseaworthy when sent to sea, and through that unseaworthiness some have become total losses on the first voyage, while others have had to be nearly rebuilt before a second voyage could be undertaken. It is by our experience of these Registry Surveys that we condemn the pclicy of substituting a professional for a personal responsibility in the protection of life at sea. Unless some self-interest as powerful as that of ownership or of personal responsibility supervene, the routine inspections of the best surveyors inevitably gravitate towards perfunctoriness, and perfunctoriness at its best, which is all that can be required of the most conscientious surveyor, would be no protection whatever against the latent defects of exceptional construction. To the Chusan there is a sister vessel, and it may be urged that she will be made stronger. We do not doubt that. But she will be still stronger by there having been no preliminary Government survey on the first vessel. The Government surveyor would have been hampered by his first report, and, we care not who may be offended by our remarks, the opinions of all technical surveyors and witnesses are, in our minds, very much the creation of circumstances, and we never yet met one who would not try to justify a report to which he had previously committed himself. In declaring the Chusan to have been not seaworthy for the voyage on which she was despatched, these gentlemen were at liberty to state unbiassed opinion. If they had previously certified her as seaworthy, would there not have been a twist in their judgment? The passenger steamer Mary, a vessel 212 feet by 25 feet by 8 feet 6 inches, that broke in two in the Bay of Biscay on the same day that the Chusan broke on the rock at the entrance to Ardrossan Harbour, is the next vessel that presses before us for consideration. The reports obtained by the Board of Trade on the construction of the Mary unanimously assert that this steamer was unseaworthy, and apparently without one saving clause in her construction. A previous survey-say the universal survey school-would have prevented her being sent to sea; but that is just what a previous survey did not do, for she was surveyed by a most conscientious and highly-experienced professional man, and pronounced by him to be seaworthy, and of even more than ordinary strength for her class. This opinion was formed under circumstances much more likely to secure a staunch seaworthiness than would obtain in the merely official discharge of Government duties. On the correctness of that surveyor's certificate, those whose agent he was were ready to stake, and did actually stake, ten thousand pounds. Is it not highly absurd to suppose, as the inspectionists' school would have us believe, that if that surveyor had only been paid out of the consolidated fund, and only a small salary, instead of double the amount by business men, under whose eyes he worked, and who were either to gain a little or to lose a great deal by his action, then he would have seen quite differently, and his certificate would have been true as Holy Writ. We have a little confidence in the general efficiency of some Government departments; but we should be sorry to be carried away by such overweening partiality for Government work as these universal survey-panacea advocates are possessed by. The self-protection of the owner and of the underwriter are the legitimate protection of the sailor; but if the owner seeks his protection only in an unconditional policy, and if the underwriter seeks his protection only in higher premiums, what is there left for the sailor, whose family gets neither premiums nor policies? Let the Courts decide that a policy upon an unseaworthy vessel covered by extra premium, instead of by added strength, is forfeited by both the owner and the underwriter. This is our panacea for unseaworthiness. Where reasonable grounds exist for doubting the seaworthiness of a ship that has been lost, let the sum covered by insurance be paid into Court, and when the owner proves that his vessel was seaworthy when he despatched her, then pay him the money; but not till then. Insurance policies, as a protection against "the peril of waters, winds, and rocks," are necessary, but they ought not to be tolerated in a civilised country as protection against the perils of defective construction. We believe in undivided responsibility, and, therefore, we will not recommend that a large staff of surveyors should be appointed to furnish owners of flimsy steamers with official certificates "of more than ordinary strength," as they would certainly do. We have often said let these ship |