HC Deb 12 January 1894 vol 20 cc1467-8
MR. MACDONA

I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury if he is aware that the Hydrographic Office of America reports on 9th January instant that in 1893 there were nine collisions with derelict vessels in the Atlantic, in consequence of which one vessel was sunk off Nova Scotia and three seriously damaged, and that the Hydrographic Department reports that these derelicts are responsible for many disasters, and that it is probable that the new White Star steamship Naronic was lost on her last voyage from England to America by a collision with one of them; and whether he will take immediate steps to lessen the danger by urging on masters of vessels to report to the Government the positions in the Atlantic in which they have seen these derelicts floating about, so that the Government may he enabled to forward the information to the Meteorological Society, with the request that the position of these derelicts may be indicated upon the charts published by the Meteorological Society, and so be of use to sailors and passengers between here and America?

THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. W. E. GLADSTONE,) Edinburgh, Midlothian

Her Majesty's Government are in communication with the United States Government on the question of the destruction of derelict ships, and we await their reply. Being in that condition, the matter will not be lost sight of either by the Foreign Office or by the Board of Trade. Her Majesty's Ambassador at Washington has been instructed by telegraph to obtain the pending reply as early as may be.