If we take the last five years from 1869 to 1873-4 inclusive, we find the total number of wrecks and casualties of vessels of every kind, arising from all causes and including collisions, amounted to 8952, giving an annual average of 1791; the average loss of life in these vessels during the five and a half years, including the disastrous half-year 1873, being 755 per annum. Although no return is kept in minute detail of the approximate cause of these disasters, we learn from the wreck register, that in the year 1873-4, 381 were from collisions, and 1422 from wrecks and casualties other than collisions; 346 were wrecks, &c., resulting in total loss; and 1076 partial damage more or less serious. Of the total losses, 128 happened when the wind was at “force 9 or upwards” (a strong gale), and they are classed as having been caused by stress of weather; 93 from inattention, carelessness, or neglect; 30 from defects in the ship or equipments (and of these thirty, 19 appear to have foundered from unseaworthiness); the remainder seem to have arisen from various other causes. Of the 1070 casualties, 525 arose from stress of weather; 180 from carelessness; and 91 from defects in equipments; and the remainder from various other causes. In 1873-4, there were, on or near the coasts of the United Kingdom, 165 wrecks and casualties to smacks and other fishing vessels, which are included in the above returns, and in these, 76 lives were lost, while 195 lives were lost in vessels of the collier class.
More details required.
These returns are, no doubt, very valuable as far as they go, and have become more so since they were extended to the loss of all British ships, and, where practicable, to the cause of the loss. But the class of the vessel, whether built of wood or iron, and the draught of water when she left her last port, might be added to advantage. Nor should we omit the familiar S.S. to distinguish steam from sailing ships. However, they amply show that no charge can be justly made against either the Government or the Legislature of any dereliction of duty in their endeavours to save the life of all persons who “go down to the sea in ships.” Nor can we charge the people of this country with any callousness or want of sympathy for the seafaring portion of the population. The number of Acts of Parliament passed in recent years, and the grants of public money voted for the purpose of saving life, are an answer to all such charges; while noble private institutions, like the Shipwrecked Mariners’ Society, the Lifeboat Establishments, the Royal Alfred Asylum, besides various other charitable associations for the benefit of seamen, testify in this respect to the liberality of the public.[282]
Improvement in lighthouses, buoys, and beacons.
Harbours of Refuge.
Nor have the lights, beacons, and buoys on our coast, all tending materially, as they do, to save life, been neglected. On the contrary, while we have greatly reduced the charges, we have increased the number and highly improved the quality of our lights. By the Act passed in 1836,[283] a number of lighthouses, which formed part of the hereditary estate of the Crown and had been allowed to get into the hands of private persons, were transferred to the Trinity House, provision being made for reducing the exorbitant tolls previously levied. By an Act of 1853,[284] the expenditure of the Trinity House on lighthouses, and that of the Scotch and Irish lighthouse boards, was subjected to the control of the Board of Trade, and, since then, the reduction on the charges for lights, buoys, beacons, &c., has been fully 75 per cent. Nor has the question of Harbours of Refuge been overlooked; for, besides the construction of various national harbours, large sums of public money have been advanced at a low rate of interest for the improvement of local harbours, expressly for the benefit of merchant ships and seamen, and these, while facilitating commerce, have, in no small degree, tended to the safety of life and property.
Indeed, so anxious has Government been to rectify any shortcomings in legislation, which might tend to the loss of life, or inflict a hardship on seamen, that the Bill of Mr. Fortescue (now Lord Carlingford), passed in 1873,[285] contained not merely clauses about “load-lines” and “clear sides,” but a provision giving seamen a claim for compensation when, having been detained on a charge of desertion, the ship, upon survey, was shown to be unseaworthy. This Act further contains a provision, strengthening the power of the Board of Trade to detain unseaworthy ships, whereby that “Board are enabled to act of their own accord, and without complaint from without,” the result of which has been that, up to the last return,[286] out of the 474 vessels detained and surveyed by the Board of Trade under this Act, 435 have been on the report of their own officers, and 39 only on complaints made ab extra.[287] To these facts I may add, as having a very important bearing on the opinions I have hitherto ventured to express, that only 24 out of the 474 vessels were detained because they were overladen; and that, out of these, not a single vessel detained was alleged to be overladen on information given by the crews, notwithstanding the encouragement they had to become informers against their employers. This power to detain is extended to cases of overloading and improper stowage or imperfect loading, and the conditional orders of release are of a very elaborate character, while the provisions concerning payment of expenses, and the mode of appeal, are made far more full and explicit.
This Act further gives power to vary the requirements contained in the Merchant Shipping Act of 1854 with regard to boats—requirements, I may add, which it had been found practically impossible to comply with. It likewise contains a clause, which ought to have been the law long since, making it criminal (though the dictates of humanity, it had been thought, were in themselves sufficient), in a master, after collision with another vessel, not to stand by and render assistance. In the same statute, a code of signals of distress has been adopted and very properly enforced, as well as a general code of pilot signals.
Many losses having occurred from spontaneous combustion of coal on board ship, Government, in 1874, appointed, on the recommendation of Lloyd’s Committee, a Royal Commission, under the chairmanship of Mr. Childers, to inquire into this subject, but this Commission has not yet concluded its labours.
Extraordinary scene in the House of Commons on the withdrawal of the Merchant Shipping Bill, 1875.