§ MR. NORWOODasked the Vice President of the Board of Trade, Whether he will state the reasons why the British and Foreign Wreck Registers for 1866 have not yet been printed and delivered to the Members of this House; and, whether the version of the British Wreck Register that has appeared in the newspapers has been communicated to the press by the authority of the Board of Trade; and, if not, whether he will state by whom it was communicated, or by what means it got into the papers?
§ MR. STEPHEN CAVEThe Wreck Registers have usually been delivered to Members much earlier in the year. This year much additional work has been thrown upon the Marine Department of the Board of Trade, to which the task of compiling the Register is committed, in connection, with the preparation and passing through Parliament of the Merchant Shipping Acts Amendment Bill, as well as in framing regulations for carrying its provisions into effect after it had become law. There has been an unhealthy time in the office, temporarily depriving it of some valuable services; and lastly, the Foreign Wreck Register, which was first added to the British Wreck Register last year, has been made more complete at the expense of much additional labour. These are the causes of the Register being issued later than usual. It is in the printer's hands, and will, I hope, be delivered to Members this week. But in truth the postponement even to the autumn of the publication of the Wreck Register, of the year before very much impairs its value, and it is very desirable that it should appear by March at the latest. Mr. Gray, the Assistant Secretary of the Marine Department, who, as the hon. Member knows almost as well as 508 myself, is not a man to raise difficulties or to shrink from work, informs me that this cannot be done without additional hands, and it is absolutely impossible, owing to the way in which the Board of Trade is cramped for room, much to the detriment of the public service and of the health of the clerks, to obtain the required assistance. No version of the Wreck Register has been communicated to the press by authority of the Board of Trade. It would, in my opinion, be irregular and hardly respectful to send for publication Returns ordered by the House before they are ready for delivery to Members. The early publication of the substance of many of these Returns in the papers is a great public convenience, but the communication of imperfect information is obviously calculated to mislead. I believe that in this instance blame has been cast upon the Office by a portion of the press for carelessness in issuing incomplete Returns, when, in point of fact, one of the causes of delay has been anxiety to make the Register as complete as possible. The Secretary of the Lifeboat Institution has been in the habit of obtaining assistance from the Board of Trade in the preparation of a portion of his Report. This is derived from a crude and imperfect version of what appears in a complete form in the Register. This communication, the strict propriety of which may, perhaps, be questioned, and which costs no little time and labour, is made to him for one purpose only. The use of it for any other would be a breach of confidence. But, of course, when the report of the Institution comes out, as it has done this year, before the issue of the Wreck Register, that information becomes public property, and a fresh complication arises owing to the Register being referred to in the Report, as if it had been already published. Arrangements have been made in the Office to prevent for the future the premature and unauthorized publication of Returns ordered by the House. In this particular instance, provided we can obtain space equal to our rapidly expanding work, I hope that an earlier issue of our own Register will be the solution of the difficulty.