§ MR. GRIEVEasked the President of the Board of Trade, What agreement, if any, has been come to between the Board of Trade and Lloyd's Committee on the subject of Chain Cables and Anchors; and whether he will produce the Correspondence which has passed on the subject?
§ MR. CHICHESTER FORTESCUEsaid, in reply, that one of the main objects of the Bill before the House was to take care that, if the system of public testing of chain cables and anchors were prolonged by the renewal of the Act expiring next June, this testing should be in reality a public testing, and should be in public hands. With that view he communicated with the Committee of Lloyds, asking whether they would be prepared in the public interest to undertake the management 1416 and responsibility of public testing machines in cases where no local body might be prepared to take them over from the present joint stock companies who had set them up. Lloyd's Committee answered that they considered the Bill a good Bill, and that they would be ready to assist in effecting the object he had described in all cases where no local body could be found for the purpose, and that they would be prepared to enter into arrangements with all companies now owning these testing machines. Such arrangements had accordingly been virtually concluded in respect of the testing machines at various places in Staffordshire, and the Committee stated that they were ready to enter into similar arrangements at Sunderland, Glasgow, Bristol, and other places. Of course, wherever local bodies could be found, as at Birkenhead, to undertake the management of these machines, the intervention of the Committee would not be necessary. His great object had been to promote as far as possible the erection and maintenance of public testing machines in public hands in as many places as possible, so as to be most convenient to the shipping interest. With respect to the Correspondence, he should be happy to lay it on the Table.