§ MR. T. P. O'CONNOR (Liverpool, Scotland)I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that 913 on board the steamship Arabian, of Liverpool, the crew are housed in rooms which do not allow a man of ordinary stature to stand upright; whether he is aware that the acting principal officer of the Surveyors' Department in Liverpool had his attention drawn to this fact, and with what result; and whether any ship built before the passing of the Crew Space Act of 1867, and registered in the United Kingdom, is exempt from the conditions laid down in the said Act?
§ THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE (for Mr. RITCHIE)The attention of the officers of the Board of Trade at Liverpool was called to the crew space of the vessel referred to, by the local secretary of the Sailors' and Firemen's Union in April last. It was found that, although the average height of the space was more than 5ft. 6in., portions of it were of less height. The Act does not specify any particular height, and as the Arabian was built before the present regulations were laid down, and as the entire cubic and floor space provided per man are considerably more than the Act requires, the Board did not think they would be justified in calling upon the owners to reconstruct the forecastle. No ship is exempt from the conditions laid down in the Act.