SIR CHARLES ADDERLEY said, the last speaker was mistaken in supposing that either of the alternatives in the present proposal was identical with that of the Government regarding the load line. The Government had not proposed either that the load line should be sanctioned by Government or submitted to the Board of Trade for record. They proposed that a voluntary load line should on every voyage be fixed by the owner of the ship, and that this load line should be described in the form of entry outwards, and in the articles of agreement with the crew and in the official log-book; but care was studiously taken that the Government should have nothing to do with fixing or accepting the load line. It was intended to be a sort of contract between the owner and the crew, that the owner did not intend to load beyond it, and that if he did, it would amount to absolute fraud.

MR. SAMUDA appealed to the hon. Member for Pembroke to withdraw the Resolution, and in Committee to propose the second part of it. It must be apparent that the remarks contained in the first part of the Resolution became entirely useless when they were apart from the words which the hon. Member had agreed to expunge. The two proposals which they had come down to the House to discuss were antagonistic to each other. One might be termed, for the sake of argument, the load line of the hon. Member for Derby, which it was impossible to adopt, and the other was the load line of the shipowners, which might be adopted with advantage. He agreed, however, with the Chancellor of the Exchequer that the second part of the proposal of the hon. Member for Pembroke could not be accepted pure and simple, but it was valuable if taken into consideration with other matters. The owner's line, when re

than that recorded by the Board of Trade officers, the owner would have departed from the conditions he entered into with the passengers and crew, and he would be liable for it if, in his greed for gain, the ship was lost or wrecked. The marking of a load line, however, would not save a single life, and he would vote against the proposition of the hon. Member for Pembroke. Nothing could be more absurd than the idea that those who voted against that proposition voted in favour of consigning people to death. The Government had promised to take into their consideration the expediency of dealing with the question of insurance in such a way as to compel shipowners who insured their ships to be themselves interested to the extent of one-third or one-fourth in the policy. If that was done they would themselves act as a sort of police to guard and protect their own property. That, he believed, was the only means of preventing the loss of life at sea, and would do more to preserve life than could be effected by any army of surveyors, or any regulations with reference to overloading or deck cargoes. He had long lived in the hope that such a plan would be adopted by the Legislature. He thought the House would do well to pass the Bill of the Government with the Amendments of hon. Gentlemen as to grain cargoes and deck cargoes. The question about marking a load line would require a great deal of consideration, for if the Legislature simply passed a law requiring the marking of a load line, or were even induced to adopt the proposition of the hon. Gentleman the Member for West Norfolk, many shipowners would immediately endeavour to evade the law by altering the construction of their ships. He could see no necessity for pressing the Amendment of the hon. Member for Pembroke, and hoped the House would go into Committee on the Bill as soon as possible.

MR. MAC IVER hoped the hon. Member for Pembroke (Mr. Reed) would not press his Motion to a division, because he (Mr. Mac Iver) could not help feeling that the House would be asked to decide the question of load

He thought that, in most instances, shipowners and captains might reasonably be allowed to load their vessels as they pleased; but that the responsibility of determining a load line should be placed upon the shipowner, and that a public record of what was intended would operate as an effectual check in regard to overloading. This had always been his view, and was expressed in the load line clause which he suggested by way of Amendment upon the former Government measure. He desired again to press this view on the right hon. Gentleman who had charge of the present Bill, in the hope that he could see his way to the adoption of what some people would regard as a compromise, but a compromise which he (Mr. Mac Iver) thought was not merely a temporary, but, perhaps, a permanent solution of the load line difficulty. The proposal could do no harm in the meantime, and a year's experience would show whether anything further in the direction recommended by the hon. Member for Derby (Mr. Plimsoll) was necessary or desirable. But he (Mr. Mac Iver) had more faith in the prevention of overloading by placing reliable evidence in regard to the facts within the reach of all interested, than by anything in the nature of hard-andfast rules.

MR. E. J. REED said, he felt that, as a division was desired by the House, to take it at that time, even if it were successful, would delay the Bill. He therefore would withdraw his Amend

ment.

THE CHAIRMAN said, he would suggest to the hon. Member that the present was not the most opportune moment to introduce the Amendment which he had moved.

MR. RATHBONE said, he had no desire to take a course which was out of Order or in any way to delay the progress of the Committee. His sole object was to settle the principles upon which the House wished the Government to proceed before the details of the measure came to be considered. Before officers were appointed to discharge certain duties the Committee ought to decide what the officers would have to do. They ought to lay down certain principles, and then lay down the lines on which those principles were to be carried out. The hon. Member for Pembroke (Mr. E. J. Reed) had given Notice of certain Amendments with regard to deck cargoes, but the effect of some of those Amendments would be very injurious. One of those Amendments provided that when the load line was once marked, it might be altered on giving notice to the Registrar, and there was nothing to prevent that alteration taking place just before the sailing of a vessel. Then, with respect to deck cargoes, the clause relating to them might have this effect. A ship might leave Calcutta with a cargo worth £250,000. Every arrangement might be perfectly in order and strictly according to law; but if the captain at some intermediate port should take in a case of goods and place it on the main deck, he might by that simple act vitiate the insurance and ruin the owner, and the shippers of the cargo would have no claim on anyone but the owner who had been thus ruined.

THE CHAIRMAN said, the hon. Member was out of Order in referring to Amendments which were not under con

sideration.

MR. RATHBONE said, that, in addition to the fact that a great many blots existed in the Bill as drawn, it was clearly impossible in the short space remaining of the present Session to pass a detailed measure dealing with a vast mass of technical details. He thought on the whole that the Government would

do well to postpone dealing with deck cargoes and load lines until next Session, and to employ the interval in making such inquiries as would render it easy to arrive at a satisfactory settlement of the question, and meet the regulations upon the subject existing in foreign countries. If they did so, he would do

his best to assist them in the matter.

SIR CHARLES ADDERLEY, while thanking the hon. Gentleman for the assistance he tendered, said, he could not accept the Amendment, for the reason that he did not think it would be advisable at that particular stage to enter upon a general discussion of the Bill, or to anticipate the new clauses which would be proposed while the Bill was in Committee. For himself, and speaking in his capacity of President of the Board of Trade, he confessed he should be afraid to assume the responsibility of drawing up regulations to meet such difficult points as deck cargoes and the loading of grain. He appealed to the hon. Gentleman to proceed first of all with the proposals of the Government as embodied in the Bill, and then to introduce any new proposition which he might think desirable.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

MR. EDWARD JENKINS moved, as an Amendment, in page 1, line 6, to insert after "order," the words "in the form of Schedule A to this Bill annexed." The Government were asking arbitrary powers almost without precedent-the Bill, indeed, might be called the Merchant Shipping Coercion Bill-and he thought it was only right that the Government should state to the House the form of instructions under which the new surveyors of the Board of Trade to be appointed under the Bill were to act, what the number of the surveyors was likely to be, and what would be the probable amount of their salary. He held that some such Amendment was absolutely necessary. It was also essential that rules should be laid down for the guidance of the surveyors, and that they should not be left to act entirely upon their own discretion. Properly defined rules would not only be a guarantee against any abuse of power on the part of the surveyors, but they would also be a guarantee to the country that the Board of Trade intended to carry

out the extreme powers for which they were asking, honestly, and not allow them to remain in abeyance.

Amendment proposed, in page 1, line 6, after the word "order," to insert the words "in the form of Schedule A to this Bill annexed."-(Mr. Edward Jenkins.)

MR. SHAW LEFEVRE thought the demand reasonable. He should like exceedingly to know what class of persons were to be appointed as surveyors, and what would be their pay. He did not intend to reflect upon the surveyors of the Board of Trade. They did their duty to the best of their ability, but in common with the hon. Member for Derby (Mr. Plimsoll), he very much doubted whether they were exactly the right class of persons to whom to entrust such extreme powers as those proposed. It was a very serious responsibility to give to unknown persons the right, on their own responsibility, to stop ships which they thought were unseaworthy. Very few persons ought to have such a vast power vested in their hands.

SIR CHARLES ADDERLEY pointed out that the Amendment of the hon. Member for Dundee (Mr. Jenkins) merely proposed that the order issued by the Board of Trade for the appointment of the surveyors should be in a special form, which was hardly a matter of much moment, neither was it possible to say what the intended form would consist of. The Government intended to appoint officers authorized to detain ships suspected of going to sea in an unseaworthy or dangerous state; but it was equally impossible to say how many of those officers would have to be appointed, what would be their salary, or from what class they would be selected. These were all questions which would have to be determined by circumstances. This much, however, he could say, that it was the intention of the Government to place them in all the principal ports of the Kingdom, and, as his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer mentioned the other day, Lloyd's had already in the handsomest manner offered the Government the assistance of some of their own men. Although it was impossible as yet to state what the exact qualifications of the new surveyors would be, he believed they would be

MR. GOSCHEN, in spite of what had been said by the President of the Board of Trade, expressed a hope that before the Committee finished the Bill, the right hon. Gentleman would give them an approximate idea of the number of ports and the number of officers they intended to appoint, in order that hon. Members might form some idea of the scope of the measure.

MR. T. BRASSEY contended that the powers given under the Acts of 1871 and 1873 were amply sufficient to accomplish all the objects contemplated even by the hon. Member for Derby. He held that no further legislation was required. The difficulties which remained related not to legislation, but to administration. What was wanted at all the large ports was a high officer acting for the Board of Trade—a man of high social position, of great experience, capable on the one hand of acting as the friend and sympathizer of the seamen, and on the other as the adviser of the shipowner. Six or seven had been stated as the probable number of these superior officers; but on considering all the circumstances of the case, he had arrived at the conclusion that 12 were necessary, and he hoped the Government would not be niggardly in the matter of salaries. With respect to subordinate officers, they might be appointed to less important places.

MR. MAC IVER said, he would press the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade for more definite information, because it was not a pleasing prospect for shipowners to have their property and the lives of their crews handed over to nobody knew whom, with powers to do nobody knew what. High-class surveyors, specially appointed, might afford some reasonable relief to the permanent officials of the Board of Trade; but the new surveyors should have their headquarters in London, and there ought not to be too many appointments, or they would fail to get the right men. The Act of 1873 had done a certain amount of good, but it had been almost exclusively enforced against the poor man's ship, to the destruction of the coasting trade of the country. Increased powers were not required by the Board of Trade. What was required was that the existing powers should be more

SIR ANDREW LUSK said, he intended to support the Government Bill as it was brought in. This was no mere Party question, and ought not to be made one. Government had been compelled by public opinion to bring in the Bill, and it was the duty of those who had special knowledge of shipping to support the Government. For his own part, he did not see how the Government were to do much more than the Bill promised. It was all very well to talk theoretically upon so complicated a subject, but what was wanted was the advice of good sound practical business men, who knew really what they were doing. The determination of the number and the selection of the surveyors must be left to the Government, who could be called to account next year if they abused their powers. He hoped the hon. Member for Dundee (Mr. Jenkins) would not press his Amendment.

MR. ROEBUCK was of opinion that the Government itself had not gone about this matter in a businesslike manner, and he characterized the Bill as having the aspect of despotism, and as nothing less than despotism, in respect to the power which it gave to the Board of Trade. An uncertain number of un

known men were to be appointed surveyors. There were to be no rules laid down for their conduct or guidance. Any one of the lot might, upon his own individual opinion and responsibility, and because he thought danger to life might be involved, stop a ship from sailing. That, he repeated, was nothing more nor less than a piece of despotism. Who were these men to be? Did they expect to get first-class men for such a service? Was a man likely to lay aside his other business in life for one year in order to serve under the Board of Trade? Could they offer them large enough salaries to induce them to do so? He was afraid they could not, and the result would be the appointment of mere third-class men. And what would happen then? Why it might be that a merchant had a large ship with a valuable cargo about to sail upon a distant voyage. Well, one of these surveyors, who might possibly see some gain to himself by taking the action,