§ THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. C. T. RITCHIE,) CroydonI ask the House for leave to bring in a Bill to amend the law with regard to the provision for the payment of certain expenses under the Merchant Shipping Act, 1894, and with regard to the levying of light dues. The Bill which I announced is intended particularly to carry out the main recommendation of the Committee which has considered this subject. The two great alleged grievances which shipowners had had with regard to the Mercantile Marine Fund have been, first, that the dues were levied upon an unreasonable scale, and in an illogical manner, and that the system was no longer applicable to the existing condition of things. The second set of reasons with regard to the matter was that the money that was raised for the lighthouse dues, was not appropriated entirely for that purpose. Well, there are two grievances which the Committee to which I refer suggested ought, to be remedied, and we propose to remedy them in the manner suggested by the Bill. We propose to break up the Mercantile Marine Fund into its component parts, and to create a lighthouse fund, to which all the dues levied for light purposes will go, and that money will be paid out only for the purposes of the lights themselves, to support and maintain lights and lighthouses. Well, Sir, this necessitates the placing upon the Estimates all the existing charges borne by the Mercantile Marine Fund for mercantile marine offices, and for other charges which it is not necessary for me to pro into in detail. Suffice it to say that if the Bill passes, in future there will be none of the lighthouse revenue devoted to any other purpose but the support of lights and lighthouses. Then, with regard to the system of levying dues, we abolish altogether the present extremely illogical and unsatisfactory system of levying dues, and we adopt, the suggestions and recommendations of the Committee to substitute for the system a tonnage system. These, Sir, 154 are the main provisions of the Bill. Of course the right hon. Baronet will not expect me to enter into any detail with regard to it, but I think we have endeavoured to carry out the suggestions we have made.
MR. GIBSON BOWLES (Lynn Regis)I do not know whether the Bill will be in the bands of the printer by tomorrow morning, probably not, but in the meantime I should like to ask if the right, hon. Gentleman can inform us whether the Bill also deals with the matter of exemptions, which has always been a very sore point to yachts and vessels of the Royal Navy. As to the rest of the Bill, I think we fought for years for restricting the expenditure of the duos to lights and lighthouses, and we are very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for this Bill.
§ THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADEThe Committee did not suggest that Her Majesty's Navy should be charged light dues. In fact they negatived the idea, and it is not proposed to make any charge with regard to the Navy, but we do propose to make a charge for yachts. I beg to ask for leave to bring in the Bill.
§ Leave was granted, and the Bill was read the firs time; to be read a second time upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 102.]