PERSONAL EXPLANATION. (Hansard, 13 November 1884)

§ MR. MACIVER
I ask the permission of the House in order that I may make a personal explanation. I am sorry that I do not see the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Chamberlain) in his place, 1591 because I gave public Notice of my intention to make this statement, and I had hoped that it would have been convenient for the right hon. Gentleman to have been present. If he were present, I should ask him, after the statement I am about to make, to withdraw, completely and unreservedly, the whole of what he said on Tuesday last in regard to myself. [Mr. CHAMBERLAIN here entered the House.] As the right hon. Gentleman is now in his place, I will conclude the very few words I wish to address to the House by a request to the right hon. Gentleman to withdraw, completely and unreservedly, all that he stated in reference to myself on Tuesday last; to omit entirely my name from the Return in which it has been inserted by the Board of Trade, in connection with the lost steamer Stromboli, which did not belong to me; and to recall altogether the Parliamentary Return No. 258, in which those names now appear. I shall also ask him to omit the name of the steamer Thessaly from any proposed further Return with reference to lost ships. It will be in the recollection of the House that the right hon. Gentleman stated, positively and repeatedly, that the steamer Thessaly was a constructive total loss. At that time I ventured to contradict the right hon. Gentleman; but I think that now I need do no more than read two telegrams from sources which will be entirely satisfactory to the right hon. Gentleman himself, and which will show to him, beyond any kind of question, that I was right. The first of these telegrams is from Mr. Richard Lowndes, the well-known average adjuster at Liverpool, who has been professionally concerned in connection with the Thessaly's accident of five years ago, and who knows all about the matter. He has sent the following telegram to me— Your statement was correct. The Thessaly was not a constructive total loss. The steamer was floated and proceeded to her destination, and was repaired there. The next telegram which I have is from Glasgow, where the steamer was insured. It is from Messrs. Bennett, Brown & Co., the well-known insurance brokers there. They have forwarded this telegram to me this morning— You are quite right. The Thessaly was not a loss, and the Underwriters only paid for her repair. I think I need not trouble the House 1592 further in regard to the Thessaly; but I submit that I have some right to ask the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade to withdraw unreservedly every word he has said about that vessel, in regard to which I have a further telegram announcing her safe arrival at St. Vincent on Saturday last. Under these circumstances, I think I have a right to ask the right hon. Gentleman to recall and omit entirely my name from the Parliamentary Return No. 258, in which it is inserted, in connection with the lost steamer Stromboli, notwithstanding what I have said in this House. Anyone who looks at page 6 will find my name inserted as a delegate, although the right hon. Gentleman knows that I was not a delegate, and that, as regards the Stromboli, I had nothing whatever to do with her for some four or five years previous to the disaster. I have only to thank the House for the kindness with which it has listened to me, and to call upon the right hon. Gentleman to withdraw absolutely and completely the whole of what he said.

§ MR. CHAMBERLAIN
I am sorry that I did not hear the opening remarks of the hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. MacIver); but the fault rests with himself in not having given me Notice that he intended to raise the question. I understand that he complains of an answer which I gave to a Question put by him on Tuesday, which he says was inaccurate and which he asks me to withdraw. Now, I should like at once to say that I made a technical mistake in describing the Thessaly as a constructive total loss. ["Oh!"] I repeat that it was a technical mistake only, that I was misinformed in the description I gave of the Thessaly as a constructive total loss. ["Oh, oh!"] Yes; a technical mistake only. I was speaking, of course, from information which I had received, and I believe I was wrong in describing the Thessaly as a constructive total loss. That, however, does not affect the general question in the slightest degree. But, having said so much, I have no other word to withdraw from the statement which I made, and I cannot accept the invitation which has been made to me by the hon. Member. The Thessaly was removed from the Register, and was described as a loss in a letter which the hon. Member himself wrote to the Department, in which he stated that 1593 the vessel had been stranded, and had been removed from the Register in 1877. In these circumstances, in my opinion, she was correctly described as a loss. It is perfectly true that after this very serious accident she was got off the rock upon which she had been wrecked, her crew having been previously removed from the wreck, and that, having been repaired, she is, no doubt, now in service. But that fact does not in the least degree alter the accuracy of the statement which I made. With regard to the Stromboli, I have only to repeat what I said yesterday. I do not understand that anything which the hon. Member has said has impeached the accuracy of my statement. I may add a little to the statement which I made the other night. On the second reading of the Merchant Shipping Bill, I stated that certain picked men in the shipping trade—59 in number—who had been selected as a deputation at a large meeting, and who must, therefore, be taken to be among the best and most honourable men in the trade, and against whose character not a word was to be said, had lost a considerable number of ships, and that attendant upon that loss there had been a considerable loss of life. Lot it be understood that I do not bring any accusation against any of those gentlemen as owners of these vessels. I was only stating the extent of the losses, and I have no knowledge that, in any one of these cases of loss, any blame attached to the owner. I was only quoting the fact to show that, where such a terrible loss took place in connection with the ships of the picked men of the trade, the trade as a whole had no right to contend that it should be removed from criticism, and have no legislation applied to it, such as is applied to other and less-favoured trades. That being so, anyone who finds his name mentioned in that list will know that it is included with those of the first shipowners of the country, and he has no right to complain, or to believe, that any personal accusation is made against him. In making that statement I was anxious to avoid personal allusions, and, therefore, I did not give the names of the 59 gentlemen in question. I only gave the aggregate number. The names, however, were demanded, and I was compelled to furnish them in a Return which 1594 was moved for by the hon. Member for Sunderland (Mr. Storey), and which I could not refuse to give. I had, in that Return, to show how I obtained the aggregate I had given. The name of the hon. Member's (Mr. MacIver's) brother, or some other relative—Mr. C. MacIver—appeared as the owner of the Stromboli, which was lost, and the hon. Member himself was at the meeting. Mr. C. MacIver was undoubtedly the owner of the ship; the Stromboli was undoubtedly lost; and, with the exception of having treated the Thessaly as a constructive total loss, whereas she was a stranded vessel, I have nothing to withdraw, and I do not see what the hon. Member complains of.

§ MR. MACIVER
I hope the House will extend its indulgence to me for a few minutes longer. I will say nothing more about the Thessaly, because the telegrams which I have read to the House put that matter right; but I want to refer to the Stromboli, and to read a sentence from the Return to which I have alluded. I obtained this Return in the Vote Office to-day; and I quote from it these words— Note.—Since Mr. Chamberlain's speech, inquiries have been continued in cases where any doubt existed, and the facts appear to be as follows:—49, not 47, of the delegates and Members of Parliament who attended the Cannon Street meeting owned ships in their own names. The 69 ships belonged to 29 of these 49 shipowners"— and so on. A list is given in the Return which purports to be the names of these delegates and Members of Parliament, and also a list of the ships and number of lives lost, and among the names of the delegates and Members of Parliament I find my own included. The House, I presume, will believe me when I say that I did not attend the meeting as a delegate, unless being Member for Birkenhead—a shipping constituency—would constitute me a delegate. I attended the meeting simply as a shipowner. If hon. Members will refer to the Return, they will see that on page 6 my name is mentioned in connection with the loss of the Stromboli. I cannot express, in Parliamentary language, what I think of the right hon. Gentleman's statement with regard to the loss of the Stromboli, in connection with which my name undoubtedly appears in this Return. The Stromboli did not belong to me. I have only one word more to say before I sit down. I 1595 think it is unfair to attribute blame to me for the use of my name by other persons, which use of it I cannot prevent.

§ MR. SPEAKER
The hon. Gentleman is perfectly entitled to make a personal explanation; but he is not entitled to enter into debate.

MR. MAC IVER
I have no wish to debate the matter. I merely desired to explain that the employment of my name by those who call themselves "D. and C. Mac Iver" is without my consent, and that I would stop it to-morrow if I could.

MR. MAC IVER
said: I wish to give Notice that, on Friday next, I shall again ask the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Chamberlain), If he will at once withdraw and cancel the Parliamentary Return No. 258, so far as relates to connecting me with the lost steamer Stromboli, and also to omit entirely my name and that of the steamer Thessaly from any other Return relating to lost ships?