THE MERCHANT SHIPPING BILL, FACTS AND FIGURES.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 6, Issue 1751, 2 August 1884, Page 4

THE MERCHANT SHIPPING BILL, FACTS AND FIGURES.

The following are the more impor i tant extracts from Mr Chamberlain's < four hours speech on the Merchant | Shipping Bill: Black Sheep in Every Trade. i Mr Chamberlain's allegations were, . he said, that there were black sheep in the shipowning as in any other trade, and that it was the duty and interest of good shipowners to discountenance their practices; and further, that a law which enabled a man to make a profit out of the loss of his ship and crew was not correct in policy. What he objected to was that under the present system of insurance an owner might convert the loss of his ship into a gain to himself. It was significant that certain shipowners acknowledged that where the owners were self-insurers fewer ships were lost. Pointing in the same direction was an advertisement issued by the National Steamship Company, to the effect that they took the risk of insnrance on each of their snips to the amount of £IOO,OOO. and this gave to their passengers the best guarantee for safety. A Shipowner Loses 11 Ships out of 12, Referring to a meeting of fifty-nine delegates who denounce the Bill, he said that the forty-seven shipowners among them had in five years lost sixty-five ships and 377 lives; and nine of them had in the same time lost thirty-five ships and 177 lives. One shipowner who at the meeting at Liverpool dramatically stamped on the Bill at the end of his speech, had actually lost eleven ships out of the twelve which he owned, The Loss of Life Increasing. The object of Mr Chamberlain's speech was to show that the loss of life at sea i 3 excessive, and that it is due to causes which are more or less preventable, and that the state of the law and the practice of the trade tend to relax ordinary motives for cars and afford a temptation to negligence. Notwithstanding tho gloomy predictions of the shipowners as to the effects of past .legislation, tho shipping had increased in a marvellous way: since 1862 the tonnage had increased from 6 millions to 17, and there would be nothing but satisfaction to express, were it not for the excessive loss of life. 36,000 gone to the bottom in twelve years. In the twelve years past as many as 36,000 men were lost. Of the wholo number employed one in six has lost his life in the service. If wo take twenty-four years, the average working life of a sailor, one in three has actually perished by a violent death, Instead of the loss of life increasing, it ought to have diminished, considering the improvemeut in harbors, in lighthouses, and in the means of saving from wrecks. A Terrible Record, Much of this loss of life might, he contended, have been prevented had proper precautions been taken. Contrary to the. law, steamers go at an immoderato rate of speed in fogs. Mr Rothery, the Wreck Commissioner, states that many casualties may have been due to the expressed or implied instructions of the owner that the captain should make a quick passage. And in the opinion of Lloyd's Committee, collisions are mainly due, in some ,part, to undormanning. While the tonnage between 1871 and 1882 increased by 20 per cent,, the number of men employed decreased from 218,005 to 211,000, A part of this diminution is, however, due to the introduction of Bteam and other machinery. Mr Chamberlain compared sixteen vessels of 15,000 tons and employing 600 sailors, with sixteen others of 20,000 tons and employing ouly 366 sailors, Dealing with ships which are put down as missing or ashaving foundered, in which there has been a loss of 1,569 lives the Wreck Commisioner reports that half the cases of loss brought bafore him were due to causes for which the owuers were responsible. The Chief Causes of Loss of Life. Three captains who sit as assessors in this Wreck Commissioners' Court, have been consulted, and they state that a great many ships as at present loaded are doomed to founder if they meet with a succession of gales, which experience shows we must expect; and that if an owner were to give the master proper means for ensuring safety, and were to make the safe prosecution of a voyage the first consideration, there would be fewer losses, Mr Chamberlain then quoted the evidence of several shipowners as showing that the chief causes of the disasters are overloading, under-manning, and overinsuring, As to the over-inßuring ships, there was, he said, overwhelming testimony that it was not rare; and the over-insurance of freight was almost universal, VALUE AND INSURUNCE. Referring to thorecent los 3 of the ship State of Florida, he said that when the news of the loss came, the value of a share in this ship went up in a few days from 72s 6d to 100s, people thinking that the loss of the ship was going to bo a gain to the owners. When there was subsequent news of a collision, and consequently a possible liability, tho value sank again to 77s 6d. He had taken a list of twenty three-ships belonging to different owners, and had them valued by skilled underwriters, The mean of the valuations waß £420,000, while the insurance value put) on them was £560,000, or 29 per cent more, Among other instances he mentioned a list of of which £144,000 is the value as offered for sale j whicq they were insured with a company for £172,000. Among many vessels mentionod by him was one lost the other day with all hands, a 8 to which the Court of Inquiry held that she was overladened, She was insured for £32,004, being £3,500 over her original cost, and £10,005 above her actual value. But the worst cases were, he said, those of "Single Ship Companies/' usually got up by " managing owners," who are in reality financial speculators. As Appeal to Public Opinion. But Mr Chamberlain said he did not

charge any shipowner with deliberately sending his ship to sea to drown the sailors for the sake of gain. The allegation was that, unless it were made out to be distinctly the interest of owners to take every precaution, becansß it was an essential feature in the case that it could not be said about any particular precaution that it would infallibly save life. In the course of his speech, Mr Chamberlain expressed his readiness to refer to the administiation of tho Board of Trado to a Royal Commission. A ftor stating tho concessions ho was willing t8 mako in the bill, Mr Chamberlain said;—"l am entirely. in tho hands of tho country. lam powerless to do anything without tho hearty 'goodwill of all classes in the country. Unless I am assured of the support of tho shipowners, having regard to the time of tho session, to tho pressure on the time of the House, and especially on the time of the Government, it will not be possible for me to carry this matter forward with any hope of success. Unless there is this common consent, the mattor must be postponed, which would be to my great regret. But the responsibility will not rest with me,"