“MISSING" VHSSELS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 703, 30 December 1909, Page 2

“MISSING" VHSSELS.

In referring to the probable causes of the' disappearance of many British ships, Mr Edward Noble * a (author of “The Grain-carriers ”) ~Sm in an article in a Manchester news-' ! “ paper, reviews the losses for the . ! :• last twenty years. Taking thie • * period of 1886 to 1906, during which tramp vessels, both steam and sail, multiplied enormously,' - he says, that 11x4 ships were listed : as “ missing,’? and he estimates the number of officers and seamen who perished at 15,892. In one , year as many as 101 ships mysteriously disappeared, -but in other years as few as 26 vessels failed to put in an appearance at their . destination. Mr Noble condemns Jj the practice of sending old vessels - m to sea, laden with heavy cargoes, and declares that very many ' ■ vessels are under-manned. The surveys, he asserts, are ineffective ajjH and absurd, and he complains of the action of the authorities in . permitting deck cargoes. “ Not one tithe of the vessels which pass through our dock gates are sur- ’ veyed in any sense at all,” he says, “ and a little more than a year ago we wiped out by a stroke of the pen the -legislation for which ’ PHmsoll fought, and in the place of it set up the law of Mr LloydGeorge.”' , ’