Such is the general drift of the Commissioners' Report. 'The
answers given this week • to questions in Parliament „show* that there is urgent need. for some kind of reform. The President-of the Board of Trade (Sir C. Adderley) replied on Monday to .Mr. Hamond that the Board of Trade had declared two ships, called the Parga ' . and 'Western Ocean,' as unseaworthy ; that the Parga' had been released on the owner's .,R3peal. by the order of the City of London Court, on the report of the Court's own.surveyors (not the surveyorsof the Board of Trade); .and that the Western-Ocean'. had been released-on the report of the. Board of Trade's,ewn.-surveyor, that "so far as he could see, without having the: vessel opened out, she was in fair oondition, and fit to proceed on- her voyage." Compensation was paid for -the detention ,of both weasels, and "the Board• of Trade have received a -report :from Lloyd's that both vessels have dis- -appeared, with all hands,— may be, by collision,—but the cause not -known." -When Sir C. Adderley adds, -as he did -on Tuesday, that in. eleven months 294 vessels had been detained for defects in their hull, and equipments, of which only 13 •were released, and. the other 281 either repaired or broken up, while -eleven more were detained -for overloading and their cargoes lightened, and when, nevertheless, in spite of all this, such strange incidents as the fate of the Parga ' and ' Western Ocean' are re- ported, it cannot be'wondered at that the popular feeling about the state of the Mercantile Navy is one of profound distrust. The sooner the Reportof the Commissioners is embodied legislation, the better.
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