MR. PLIMSOLL AT LIVERPOOL.
MR. PLIMSOLL has perhaps disappointed his opponents by the moderation of his speech at Liverpool. Whether he has, or has not, demonstrated the necessity of a compulsory survey of sea-going ships, it cannot be said that he has carried the controversy out of the region of argument. After the report of Lloyd's Committee, it will hardly be contended that the proportion of classed ships lost is as great as that of un- classed ships. Objectors will probably fall back upon abstract considerations, such as the danger of lessening the responsi- bility of shipowners, the impropriety of giving such large powers to private Associations, and the injury done to trade by the transfer of unclassed ships to foreign flags. We are un- able to see that any one of these objections has any real weight. What is meant by the responsibility of a shipowner for an unclassed ship ? The phrase must either stand for the fear of punishment in the event of the ship being lost, or for a supposed repugnance to the thought of having its loss upon his conscience. Scrupulous shipowners usually get rid of the latter burden by selling a ship as soon as it has ceased to be seaworthy. At least Mr. Plimsoll maintains that the trade of ship-breaker has almost come to an end, inasmuch as no ships are now broken up. The former burden is almost imaginary. He must be a very nervous man to whose imagination the news of one of his unclassed ships being wrecked suggests the idea
of a criminal trial. The argument against transferring responsibility from private owners to inspecting bodies is only valid on the assumption that the owner has better means of determining when a ship has ceased to be seaworthy than Lloyd's surveyors. As a matter of fact, the only difference between him and Lloyd's surveyors is that, while they are im- partial, he is directly interested in keeping the ship at work as long as possible. The reason for effecting a given purpose in a particular way is that it cannot be effected, or cannot be so well effected, in any other way, and supposing that shipowners knew the condition of their ships very much better than other people, so that many ships which would pass Lloyd's surveyors would be condemned by a conscientious owner, there would be much to be urged in favour of leaving matters to their discre- tion. A compulsory survey, it might be said, would allow many ships to go to sea which ought to be detained, while, on the other hand, many ships which, if their owners had been left to themselves, would have been detained would be sent out on the faith of the surveyor's report. It is perfectly well known, however, that this is not a true description of the facts. The only means of ascertaining whether a ship is seaworthy is by surveying her, and in conducting the survey private owners enjoy no advantage over public bodies. Both have to take the word of an expert. The only difference is that if the report be made to Lloyd's, it will be known to the sailors as well as to the owner ; whereas, if it be made to the owner, it may, if un- favourable, be kept to himself, and the sailors will be none the wiser. But then it is argued, if you transfer the responsibility from the shipowners to the surveyor, there will be no one to punish if the ship is lost. The answer to this is-that the discovery of some one to punish is not the supreme end of legislation. If it is possible to prevent the punishment from being incurred, the legislator's object will be all the better served. If every owner of a ship which has been sent out in an unsea- worthy condition, and has been wrecked, could be sentenced to imprisonment, we should, it is true, be nearer our object than we are at present, inasmuch as a certain per-centage of rotten ships would be kept at home. But we should not be so near it as under a system of compulsory survey,inasmuch as a certain per-centage of rotten ships would still be sent to sea, in defiance of law. Indeed, it is plain that some rotten ships must go to sea and be lost, in order to make the sanction of any effect. Until some ship- owners had served their time in prison, there would be nothing to deter other shipowners from committing the same offence. Surely to allow sailors to drown in order that shipowners may go to gaol is to set an exaggerated value on penal legislation. We hope we shall not be considered unreasonably sentimental if we declare that, provided sailors are not needlessly drowned, we had just as lief that shipowners remained at large.
The objection to investing a private Association like Lloyd's with powers of compulsory survey may at first sight seem to be more serious. It is not denied that such a survey must, to some extent, interfere with trade. Whatever be the legal effect given to it, whether a ship which has been condemned is no longer allowed to go to sea, or whether she will still be allowed to go to sea if sailors, knowing her character, can be found to run the risk of serving in her, a certain per-centage of ships which are now in use will, under the proposed system, be broken up, and the profits of their owners, whether from trade or insurances, will be reduced in proportion. Ought so large a power to be committed to anything short of a Government department? We do not profess to have considered the reasons in favour of a compulsory survey being conducted by the Government rather than by Lloyd's, or by Lloyd's rather than by Government. For our present purpose, it is enough to say that if any serious objection can be alleged against Government intervention in the matter, we see no harm in the work being done by Lloyd's. Mr. Plimsoll very fairly quotes the cases of the Inns of Court and the College of Surgeons. The trade of a country, im- portant as it is, is not more important than the administration of the law or the practice of medicine. Yet no man is ad- mitted to take part in either of these great functions until he has undergone a compulsory survey at the hands of one of these private and irresponsible bodies. It is a characteristic feature of English policy that so long as any public work is done and well done by a private body, it is willingly left in their hands, and it is only a fair extension of this principle that, when a work which has hitherto been only a private matter is to be recognised as public, it should not be taken away from the private body which has hitherto done it, and done it well. If experience should show that some change is required in the constitution or machinery of Lloyds' Register Committee, it can easily be effected. If it were wished to surround a call to the Bar with greater restrictions, it is highly improbable that Parliament would deprive the Inns of Court of the powers they at present possess in this respect. All that it would do would be to define more precisely the course which the Inns of Court ought to take. The plan on which Lloyd's Register Committee has been constructed seems te-make it singularly free from the demerits of similar bodies in other countries. There is no capital invested in the survey, and no dividends are declared out of the fees. Consequently it is alto- gether unlike those foreign Registers which are, says Mr. Plimsoll, "trading concerns, owned by one man, dependent upon custom, anxious to attract business, and careful to make a profit." Lloyds, as an authority for the survey and classifi- cation of ships, had its origin in the desire of the Underwriters to get trustworthy information as to the vessels upon which they were asked to issue policies of insurance. Out of this grew the present great system of registration. A private association which has been so long and so successfully engaged in the survey of ships has a fair claim to recognition when the ex- tension of the system which it has originated is under con- sideration.
There remains the plea that if compulsory survey and regis- tration are introduced, so that the owners of ships which are re- ported to be unseaworthy arc no longer allowed to send them to sea, or at all events, can no longer compel their crews to abide by their contracts, the ships which are thus con- demned will be registered under foreign flags, to the mani- fest injury of English trade. The pertinacity and assurance with which this argument is urged by men of high char- acter is the best possible evidence of the demoralising influence which the present state of the law exercises. Let us suppose that the question at issue related to the prevention of such atrocities as those which were proved by the Trades- Union Commission to have been practised at Sheffield. What
would be thought of a workman who objected to any impedi- ment being placed in the way of Broadhead and his associates, on the score that if they were hindered from committing murder they would go to some other country, and English industry would be injured by the loss of so much skilled labour ? Certainly, the answer promptly and universally given would be, that if trade could only be kept alive by conniving at crimes of this kind, it must be allowed to die. The gain to English com- merce derived from good workmen in the country would be more than outweighea by the injury to English morality involved in according impunity to murder. The difference between this imaginary case and the case against compulsory survey of ships, so far as it rests on the alleged injury to trade, is only a differ- ence of degree. It is not denied that some black-sheep among shipowners are in the habit of sending ships to sea with the full knowledge that they will probably be lost, and with the further knowledge that their loss will be due to their own un- willingness to incur the cost of either repairing them or break- ing them up. It does not matter whether these black-sheep are few or many; it is enough that they exist, that the law, as it stands at present, does not prevent them from making money in this way, and that Mr. Plimsoll's object is so to alter the law that it shall in future prevent them from doing so. These black- sheep among shipowners are as much guilty of homicide as Broadhead was, and if it would have been immoral to connive at murderous rattening lest the prohibition of• it should injure trade, it must be equally wrong to connive at the despatch of unseaworthy ships lest the prohibition of it should injure trade. The arguments used by Mr. Rathbone and others would exclude from the Statute-book a whole department of protective legislation. Why does the law insist upon the walls of houses being built of a certain thickness ? To be sure, without such a law, they might, perhaps, fall down as soon as their owner had recouped himself for his outlay; but why are personal considerations of this kind to be attended to in the case of houses, if they are disregarded in the case of ships ? Why is not adulterated food suffered to be sold ? A good deal of capital is invested in it ; bat the law in this instance chooses to disregard this fact, and decrees that any one who sells food so adulterated as to be injurious to health shall be liable to punishment. Yet adulterated food does not do half or a quarter the mischief that rotten ships may do. So, again, with the sale of poisons. The trade in them might be a good deal brisker, if no hindrances were interposed in the way of distributing them. There is something unreasonable in saying to a druggist, "You must not sell that bottle of laudanum or strychnine, because it may be used to destroy life," and standing by unmoved while a shipowner sends ship after ship to sea in a condition which, except by a miracle, must inevi- tably destroy life. If we are to go on allowing rotten ships to go to sea, to the certain destruction of a large proportion of their crews, because, if we prevent murder being done under the English flag, it will continue to be done under foreign flags, and English trade will not get the benefit of it, let us, at least, be consistent, and apply the same theory in every department of legislation. At present, greedy shipowners have a monopoly. Other traders who would equally like to fill their pockets at the cost of a few lives, now and then, are prevented from start- ing in the race. We submit that if murder is to be condoned, when it is done in the course of business and in the interest of trade, it should be equally condoned on land and at sea.
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