The Act further provides that every British ship shall be marked permanently with lines on her sides showing the position of her decks.
It also provides that the owner of every foreign-going British ship shall, before clearance outwards from any port in the United Kingdom, mark upon her sides a maximum load-line, and shall insert the distance between this and the deck marks in the entry outwards at the Custom House and in the agreement with the crew.
The Act further stipulates that every contract with a seaman shall imply an obligation on the part of the owner and his agents to use all reasonable efforts to make and keep[293] the ship seaworthy. The effect of this clause is to give the seaman or his family a remedy against the owner. But it does not extend to damage or loss of life caused by the act of a fellow seaman other than the master.
Happily it is not necessary, in reviewing the recent changes in our Mercantile Marine Laws, to notice those personal matters which have unfortunately been raised in the course of their discussion, except to express regret that Mr. Plimsoll in dealing with a subject of such great public importance should have made grave assertions and charges alike against Government and private individuals, too many of which he has not merely entirely failed to prove, but has neglected to withdraw.
Had Government been persistently neglectful of its duty in its endeavours to mitigate the loss of life and property at sea, there might have been an excuse for some of these charges, especially if it had neglected necessary legislative enactments.[294] But such has not been the case. On the contrary, Parliament of late years, while producing some excellent measures, has interfered far too much with the details of the affairs of individuals connected with Merchant Shipping: and, though yielding for the moment to a popular cry, Mr. Disraeli may well have had reasonable doubts whether further legislation might not, so far from lessening, tend to increase those dangers and disasters which must ever attend the navigation of the ocean.
Propriety or not, of further legislation considered.
Having, however, officially announced his intention to review the whole subject, and to consider it in all its bearings, I venture to invite the attention of my readers to the more important points now pending. They are: a compulsory load-line, and the production of an official certificate of seaworthiness by all ships before they are cleared at the Custom House.
Compulsory load-line.
Mr. J. W. A. Harper’s evidence.
So far as regards the proposed compulsory load-line, a very competent and intelligent witness who gave his evidence before the Royal Commission on unseaworthy ships, says,[296] “I think nothing could be more serviceable and nothing more excellent than to obtain and, if it were possible, enforce a load-line; but I also think there is nothing more impossible. A load-line, do what you may, is the opinion of an expert. How can you, by authority, enforce the opinion of an expert? I have had before me,” he continues, “a great many proposals for ascertaining load-lines for ships. Some of them are very ingenious. By the best of them you may get, with considerable accuracy, the cubical displacement of the empty ship, the displacement of the cargo, and so you may arrive at the cubical space left in the ship available for floating. And getting that you get a valuable and useful fact for some objects. But the supreme difficulty remains untouched, viz., What ought the floating capacity to be? I cannot imagine it possible to enforce by any Government intervention a rule which must depend in every individual case upon the opinion of an expert.”