[201] An Act for compensating the families of persons killed by accident 9 & 10 Vict. c. 93; the Merchant Shipping Act 1854; the Merchant Shipping Amendment Act (1855); the Passenger Act (1855); and the Chinese Passenger Act (1855).
[202] The following were the Members of the Committee:—Mr. Milner Gibson (then President of the Board of Trade), Lord Lovaine (now the Duke of Northumberland), Mr. (now Lord) Cardwell, Mr. Thomas Baring, Mr. Crawford, Mr. Francis Baring, Mr. Somes, Mr. Gore Langton, Mr. George William Bentinck, Mr. Wilcox, Mr. Liddell (now Lord Eslington), Mr. Francis Russell, Mr. Hugh Taylor, Mr. Alderman Salomons, and Mr. Lindsay.
[203] Though the Foreign Office is admirably administered, and was brought into a state of high perfection in all its details by Mr. (now Lord) Hammond, there can be no doubt that it is very ineffective in its dealings with foreign nations on nearly all commercial matters. Perhaps, this would be remedied if the Diplomatic and Consular Service were amalgamated, or even if it was permitted for gentlemen in the Consular to rise to the Diplomatic Service. I was strongly impressed with this idea when serving as a member on the Consular Committee of 1856-57; but my colleagues on that Committee were generally of a different opinion. Unquestionably our diplomatists are gentlemen in every sense of that word, and, as a rule, distinguished scholars, but they lack that description of knowledge which is expected from the representatives of by far the greatest commercial and maritime nation in the world. The time is fast approaching when this may prove a serious obstacle to our further progress. As times now go, we are a workshop or we are nothing. I respect rank and envy learning; but these will not feed the rising and increasing generations, who are to fill our vacant places.
[204] That Portugal gained nothing by her restrictive policy those of my readers who care to know may see by referring to a letter which I addressed by request of its President to the Commercial Association of Lisbon, when there in 1863. See [Appendix No. 6], p. 596.
[205] Since 1860 the law has been altered so far that the responsibility of foreign ships in our courts is limited on the same conditions, and to the same amount, as British ships, and these are now limited in the States, as well as in the Federal Court of the United States.
[206] When I visited the United States after Parliament rose that session (1860), the question of responsibility was one, to which, with others, I invited the attention of the Shipowners of that country at various meetings, with their chambers of Commerce and Boards of Trade, which were frequently held in public. As the whole of these questions refer directly to merchant shipping and seamen, I have given in the [Appendix] of this work, No. 2, p. 567, a copy of a letter I addressed to Lord Lyons on my arrival in Boston (U.S.), which embraces the whole of them, as also a subsequent correspondence which I had in 1866 with our Foreign Office (see [Appendix No. 3], p. 571), on the subject of the then unsatisfactory state of our relations with America, with regard to the responsibility of British Shipowners when sued in their State Courts. I have the less hesitation in giving this correspondence as it has not hitherto been published, and as some of the questions in my letter to Lord Lyons still wait solution.
[207] Since 1860 all passing tolls have been abolished, while most of the local charges have either been modified or swept away, but not, however, without a hard struggle, or without the payment of a large grant of public money to compensate the persons, corporations, or companies who held “vested interests”—a grant much greater, I think, than they were entitled to receive.
I remember when Mr. Lowe, in his capacity as Vice-President of the Board of Trade first brought in this measure, in the Session of 1856, he exclaimed, in reply to demands of an exorbitant character which were made on the ground of certain clauses in some very ancient deeds, What care I for your musty charters! or words to that effect. You could almost see the hair raising the hats from the heads of a number of old members who held all their property under musty charters. But though Mr. Lowe was not very far wrong so far as regards some of the monstrous claims made under ancient charters, and would I daresay, if he had had his own way, not have paid the claimants one-half the amounts they received, the expression was so appalling as coming from a member of Government, that Lord Palmerston at once saw that, after what Mr. Lowe had said, it would be impossible then to pass the Bill, and with his usual tact referred it to a Select Committee, to which I shall presently refer.
[208] 24 & 25 Vict., cap. 47.
[209] This was one of the most difficult and intricate questions any minister ever had to deal with. And for that reason these charges, to which I shall again refer, were not finally dealt with until 1867.