§ As amended (by the Standing Committee), considered.
§ *MR. SPEAKERThe new clauses standing in the name of the President of the Board of Trade, although they appear on the Notice Paper for the convenience of Members, cannot properly be taken today, because notice of them has not technically been given. Notices should have been handed in to the clerks at the Table before the House rose for the autumn. That was not done, but by my instructions they have appeared on the Paper to-day, although technically they cannot be taken.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOUR (City of London)On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, is it in order to ask you by what possible course we are to be in a position to discuss the Government's new clauses?
§ THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE, Carnarvon Boroughs)Upon that point, Mr. Speaker, I ask leave to make a statement. Many of these clauses are in respect of matter which has arisen since the House adjourned. One of them is put down at the request of the Canadian Government, and this only reached me a fortnight or three weeks ago. I have a now clause to meet their case, and the others are concessions made to shipowners. There is only one of them, I think, which will be controversial. I suggest that we should proceed now with the Amendments, four-fifths of which are concessions made to shipowners, and that then the Bill should be recommitted in respect of the new clauses when they can be fully discussed.
§ MR. AUSTIN TAYLOR (Liverpool, East Toxteth)Do I understand we are now to discuss new clauses other than the clauses moved by the Government?
§ *MR. SPEAKERthe hon. Member for Elgin and Nairn is the only Member who complied with the rules by giving notice before the House rose on 4th 63 August. He is therefore entitled to come first.
§ MR. A. WILLIAMSON (Elgin and Nairn)said the clause which he proposed was rendered necessary by a decision of the Court of Admiralty which occurred at the time the Bill was being considered in Committee. The shipowners' liability had been limited by Act of Parliament under the Merchant Shipping Act, 1894, to a sum of £8 per ton. But by this recent decision a vessel chartered by a firm of con tractors, who manned her with their own servants, injured another vessel, and consequently the contractors had a claim made upon them, but although they were owners in one aspect of the law, their liability was not limited under the Act of 1894. As an illustration they might take a line of coasting vessels trading from London to Liverpool, each vessel being of 1,000 tons register, and worth £10,000. Let them suppose that this line of steamers, being short of a vessel, owing to some reason or other, chartered a vessel to make up their fleet, manned her with their own crew, sent her to London from Liverpool in the usual way, and she had the misfortune to sink a large Atlantic liner in a fog or through the negligence of the captain or officers. Under this decision, the charterer of that vessel would be liable to the full extent of the damage, which might involve the ruin of the man. Had he been the owner his liability would have been limited to a sum of £8 per ton. That was a manifest injustice. He hoped the President of the Board of j Trade would accept the clause as a necessary protection for the charterers of vessels which it was intended they should have.
New clause—
In Sections five hundred and two to live hundred and nine of the principal Act shall be read so that the word 'owner' shall be deemed to include the word 'charterer.'"—(Mr. A. Williamson.)
§ Brought up and read the first time.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the clause be read a second time."
§ THE SOLICITOR-GENEUAL(Sir W. ROBSON, South Shields)said this was a difficulty which had only recently arisen 64 owing to a decision of the Court of Admiralty, which was somewhat of a surprise to those concerned in shipping matters. The point was quite simple although very technical. A shipowner was entitled to certain benefits by way of limitation of his liability where his ship had caused damage to another ship. He was not to be held responsible beyond a stated amount estimated upon the tonnage of the ship, which could not exceed, on the whole, £15 for each ton. The clause which conferred upon the owner that privilege, in using the word "owner" had not extended the phraseology so as to include persons who were not in fact and truth owners. For instance, a charterer had been held to be entitled to the benefit of the law in this respect although he was not an owner in the exact legal nomenclature. Under the recent decision the charterer, who was, in fact, only a temporary owner of the ship, would be deprived of that benefit. To sum the matter up shortly, he thought that the law relating to the temporary owner of a ship should be in accord as far as possible with the law relating to the permanent owner of the ship, at any rate, so far as the public were concerned. For that reason the Government adopted the clause suggested and had but one objection to it. His hon. friend had used the word charterer. There were; many kinds of charterers, and with many of them there was no question of this liability arising. The clause was only intended to deal with the case of charterers who wore temporary owners and who were working the ship and merely using it for carrying their cargo. He therefore suggested that there should be added after the word "charterer" the words "to whom the ship has been demised."
§ *MR. HOUSTON (Liverpool, West Toxteth)agreed with the expressions of the Solicitor-General, but pointed out that the limitation suggested was of a somewhat dangerous nature, because it only applied in the case of a ship which had been demised to the charterer. He thought the decision was not a question of a time charterer altogether, and hoped the Solicitor-General would reconsider the matter. Why should it be limited to-a demised ship? They were constantly having new precedents, and it would be well for the matter to be settled now.
§ *MR. AUSTIN TAYLORheld that unless it could be shown that damage would be done to some interests by leaving the words as wide as the mover of the clause desired, it would be far better to leave them as they were.
§ MR. BRODIE (Surrey, Reigate)said it would be a great impediment in the way of business if the words suggested by the Solicitor-General were not added to the Amendment. It was quite impossible for any merchant or business man chartering a ship simply for the carriage of cargo from one British port to some Colonial or foreign port to go into all the questions of the liabilities which might arise under the Bill. At present a merchant who chartered a vessel knew that he was going to pay a certain price for that vessel to do certain work, and his liability would there end. The shipowner who was working the ship, employing the crew, and arranging the details, should be the individual liable.
§ MR. DAVID MACIVER (Liverpool, Kirkdale)did not think the lion. Member who has just spoken had any acquaintance with shipping matters, otherwise he would not have made the speech he had. The surprise decision in the Law Courts affected the liability of charterers in a way that nobody ever conceived possible before. The new clause was intended to meet their difficulty, and to put the charterers in the position in which the Solicitor-General said they ought to be. As to the suggested addition of the Solicitor-General, no useful purpose was to be served by adding the words.
§ *MR. CAIRNS (Newcastle-on-Tyne)pointed out that from a shipping business point of view there was much to be said in favour of what had been advanced by the hon. Member for Reigate. There was what is known as the net form charter, which was quite uncommon nowadays—in which the charterer appointed the crew and captain, and therefore assumed all the liabilities of navigation. Then there was the common form of charter to which they were accustomed every day and which the last speaker had perhaps forgotten, where the charterer hired from the owner the vessel along with the crew and the captain, and therefore the owner remained liable for the acts of navigation. It was important that the 66 House should be made acquainted with these distinctions. He thought the Solicitor-General was following the right course in limiting the clause to cases where the vessel was demised to charterers.
§ Clause read a second time.
§ SIR W. ROBSONthen moved the Amendment he had suggested. The Government were desirous of meeting the views which shipowners and charterers had put forward. It was not a question of one side desiring to do what was unwelcome to the other side. They desired to remove a grievance, which fell only upon the class he had described, namely, those charterers who had taken demise of a ship. It did not fall upon the ordinary charterer, because-he chartered only to carry goods. There was only one form of charterer who came under any liability at all, namely, a charterer to whom a ship had been demised. It was by no means desirable that the word "charterer" should be left in the Bill without any limitation indicating the class to whom it was intended to apply. The words covered the exact grievance and prevented the use of phraseology which went beyond it.
§
Amendment proposed to the proposed new Clause—
To leave out the word 'charterer,' and insert the words 'any charterer to whom the ship is demised.'"—(Sir W. Robson.)
§ Question proposed, "That the word 'charterer' stand part of the clause."
§ MR. HOUSTONopposed. There were he said, two forms of time charter. One was the net form of charter, where the charterer hired a ship and provided the captain and the whole crew, who therefore became his servants, and this was a clear case of demise to the charterer; and the other was the Government form of time charter, where the owner of a ship hired the whole ship to the charterer with the captain and crew. Was the second case a demise to the charterer? He thought the decision lately given, which had reduced a new state of affairs, was with regard to a Government time charter.
§ SIR W. ROBSONsaid that the second form of charter referred to, namely, a charter where there was no demise and 67 the owner of the ship retained control of the crew and paid them, and, indeed, was still working the ship, was not a form of charter under which any liability could fall upon the charterer.
§ *MR. HOUSTONpointed out that the captain had to obey the orders of the charterer, and was responsible for the servants whom he paid. He would accept the Solicitor-General's Amendment if it was made quite clear that in all these cases the charterer incurred no responsibility.
§ SIR W. ROBSONsaid that in the second case the captain and crew were not under the orders of the charterer so far as navigation was concerned. They might be as to the port to which the vesssel was to be taken. There being no responsibility so far as navigation was concerned there could be no liability. He assured the hon. Member that the clause was fully considered, and if there was any possible chance of the charterer coming under any liability the Government would attend to the matter.
§ *MR. HOUSTONWill the House of Lords and the Court of Appeal so construe the clause? If the Solicitor-General will give me his assurance that they will accept his dictum, I have nothing further to say.
§ MR. BONAR LAW (Dulwich)said the subject concerned shipowners a good deal, and the view he took agreed with that expressed by the Solicitor-General. He thought the words of the Solicitor-General embraced the class they desired to protect.
§ Question put and negatived.
§ Proposed words inserted.
§ Clause, as amended, added to the Bill.
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEI move the next Amendment, in order to give the House an opportunity of reversing the decision arrived at by the Committee by A small majority. It is proposed to apply the provisions with regard to load lines to foreign ships in British ports. If they arrive at a British port over-loaded they will be subject to the same regulations and the same law as are 68 applicable to British ships. It was sought to extend this legal responsibility to a foreign vessel if overloaded in a British sense at a foreign port, and she was to be punished on arrival at a British port. I think that is putting the legal responsibility on foreign shipowners too far. It might lead to complications. I quite admit that foreign ships in British ports ought to be subject to British law, but it is carrying it too far if you fine a foreign shipowner for an offence which he commits in his own ports, and I do not think the House will agree to it. It might lead to retaliation upon British ships. I am certain it will create ill feeling, and there is no real justification for it. All that we can reasonably demand is that when they arrive here they must comply with our demands. I therefore beg to move.
§
Amendment proposed to the Bill—
In page 1, line 11, to leave out the words 'and on all voyages with cargo to.'"—(Mr. Lloyd-George.)
§ MR. BONAR LAWsaid he was very sorry that the right hon. Gentleman had tried to upset the decision of the Committee. After listening to his speech he was quite at a loss to understand what were the grounds on which he based that decision. He had said that the matter was not one of sufficient importance to justify the course taken by the Committee. One of the main objects of the Bill was to got equality of treatment between foreign and British ships in our ports. One of the grievances of British shipowners was that foreign ships were permitted to carry cargoes into our ports which British ships wore not allowed to do. If the Amendment was carried the advantage of that part of the Bill would be illusory. As the Bill stood now British and foreign ships in our ports were to be treated on exactly the same footing as regards loading. If the Amendment of the Government were carried it would mean that every foreign ship trading to our ports might be overloaded to the full extent of the coal which she consumed on her voyage. What did that mean? Let them take a relative instance. An ordinary tramp steamer 5,000 tons register, carrying a cargo of grain from America, would burn 100 tons of coal. The Amendment meant 69 that a foreign ship engaged in that trade could carry 400 tons more cargo than was permitted to a British ship. That was an enormous advantage, because the extra 400 tons was clear profit. Such a ship made a good many voyages in the course of a year, and he thought it would be found that a foreign ship at the end of the year would make a handsome profit while a British ship of the same tonnage and engaged in the same trade might make a loss. Nobody wanted British shipowners to be at this disadvantage. The right hon. Gentleman, whom he would like to congratulate on the way in which he had dealt with the Bill outside the House, had shown by his speeches that his desire was to meet legitimate grievances. Why did he propose this Amendment? He was afraid of foreign complications. This very subject was very carefully considered by the Committee, who came unanimously to the decision that they might risk carrying out this proposal. That Committee included two hon. Gentlemen who were now members of the Government. He was told it was against international law, but how could that possibly be when we were doing precisely the same thing now, and when the right hon. Gentleman proposed precisely the same thing in another clause of the Bill? We now prevented by law a foreign ship engaged in the timber trade bringing a deck load of timber into this country except under the same conditions as a British ship. We clearly carried out the principle under the existing laws.
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEsaid the hon. Member was not quite accurate. The offence was a continuous offence. We could not fine a foreign vessel so long as it kept out of territorial waters. We prosecuted foreign vessels which broke our laws in our territorial waters.
§ MR. BONAR LAWsaid he was very glad of that interruption because he thought he could show that that was not the principle of this amendment. That was the law at present with regard to timber ships. But let them take the other analogy. The right hon. Gentleman proposed to make foreign ships bringing grain to our ports liable to exactly the same conditions as were held 70 to apply to our ships, and he said the difference was that he punished the ship here because she was in the condition she was when she arrived here: he did not punish her because of the way she was loaded abroad. But if the right hon. Gentleman looked at the question carefully he would find that was not so. But even if it was so, by the wording of his own Act the right hon. Gentleman would fine that ship because she was not loaded according to the conditions which he had laid down. Upon the right hon. Gentleman's own showing the difference did not exist, because we controlled these ships, not in order that they might be safe upon reaching territorial waters, but in order that they might be safe when crossing the water. There was still another analogy. Foreign nations at the present moment did exactly the same as we proposed to do. The United States of America would not allow emigrants to be taken into America unless they were put on ships in foreign ports according to the regulations which the United States had laid down. The right hon. Gentleman might say it was the way in which they arrived, but if the shipowners put their ships right when they entered territorial waters the United States would still insist that they should fulfil their conditions. Here was one injustice to British shipowners which the light hon. Gentleman was anxious to put an end to. It was only the beginning and it infringed a certain principle, but it was a principle which the right hon. Gentleman was infringing himself. The question was so plain that he was certain if it was loft with the House to decide the matter according to the merits they would accept the decision arrived at upstairs. The proposal as it now stood was carried by the Committee with the assistance of a supporter of the Government. It was simply a business question, a question of detail, and no one could possibly say, if the view of the Government was not carried, that it was a Party defeat or a Party triumph. There was only one other consideration, but he hoped it would influence the House, though he felt it was a delicate matter. He was greatly interested in this Bill, because if the right hon. Gentleman claimed to be its father he (Mr. Bonar Law) might claim to be its grandfather, as he was Chairman of two Committees which had to consider it, and his only desire was to make it a good 71 Bill. If any foreign Government did take offence the right hon. Gentleman would be able to say "I tried to prevent this being done, but the House of Commons was determined that in this country foreign ships should be treated neither better nor worse than British ships."
§ MR. AUSTIN TAYLORregretted that the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down should have referred to any Party spirit, because the Grand Committee came to its decision not by a majority of one, but by a larger majority which was quite independent of Party, and the decision was arrived at solely on the merits of the case. He had listened carefully to the speech of his right hon. friend and had hoped there would be something more in the way of justification for the overruling of an Amendment which was sanctioned in its principle and form by a Grand Committee after full discussion, and with a full sense of its responsibility. He quite endorsed the arguments which had been brought forward by the last speaker, arguments which he thought were quite conclusive as to the merits of this question. The whole object of this Bill from the shipowner's point of view was lost unless some successful attempt was made to put foreign vessels on the same footing in British ports as British vessels. In some quarters there seemed to be an apprehension that this was a Shipowner's Endowment Bill. There never was such a mistake. This was a Bill for the regulation of an industry which always had been regulated and not always to the advantage of the shipowners. The Select Committee which sat in 1905 stated in regard to this very point—
In practice, foreign ships are frequently overloaded on voyages to the United Kingdom; they are also overloaded to a certain extent on voyages from this country; and the fact that, they are not marked may in some cases assist them in escaping detection. The load line fixes the limit to which it is safe and prudent to load, and the rules by which it is determined can at any time be modified to meet altered conditions. We do not think it will be unreasonable to require foreign ships to observe a loading limit when entering as well as leaving our ports, and to prescribe that they shall be marked with a load line.The necessity of making foreign ships conform to our load line when leaving British ports was accepted. It was part of the existing law. They could be detained if overloaded, and therefore the 72 whole object of this Bill, so far as the load line was concerned, of enforcing safety, if it were thought desirable to I enforce the safety of foreign vessels trading with these shores, was lost, unless we insisted that they should not arrive here if they were allowed to leave the port of origin in an unfairly loaded condition. He did not think it was necessary to add to the technical arguments used with such precision by the hon. Gentleman opposite. It was obvious that a foreign vessel arriving from America loaded to her marks must have had an advantage over our vessels of some 400 tons. Without regard to Party or economic or fiscal ideas he thought the whole House could unite in saying that in British ports foreign vessels should be in the same position, no bettor and no worse, as British vessels. He did not know what might be the risk to which allusion, had been made as regards foreign complications, but one thing which might have escaped the right hon. Gentleman was that under this Bill he had a general dispensing power, and that if this clause was inserted it would be possible for him, if a foreign Government had a legitimate complaint, to use his power to exempt any vessel which it might be desirable to exempt. With that weapon in his hand the right hon. Gentleman would be quite safe, and the Government would be none the worse off for having a weapon of this kind in their armoury, not for the purpose of starting a commercial war, but in order that they might be able to say to a foreign Government that their trading vessels were treated no better and no worse than vessels trading under our own flag. He thought all shipowners regretted extremely that his right hon. friend had felt it necessary to reverse the decision of the Committee, and if his decision was challenged he should go into the lobby against it.
§ MR. HAVELOCK WILSON (Middlesbrough)said that when this Bill was before the Committee he supported the shipowners upon this point, but he was now inclined to modify his views. He thought the right hon. Gentleman had made out a very good case. He did not think the hon. Member for Dulwich was right with regard to the deck loads of timber on foreign vessels 73 being penalised in our ports. It would be quite immaterial with regard to a foreign vessel whether the load line was submerged or not. If a foreign vessel left a foreign port bound for the United Kingdom, and the shifting boards and feeders were not in proper order, it would not be possible for that vessel to put thorn right at sea; therefore she would arrive in port in a defective condition, and consequently would be liable under this Bill. The British shipowners seemed very anxious to have protection from foreign competition in this matter, and they complained that foreign ships wore able to come into our ports and have some advantages. Later on the House would be dealing with foreign seamen, and he hoped then that the British ship owners would be ready to extend the same protection to British seamen that they were now seeking for themselves. Later on when this point was being discussed, no doubt the same hon. Members who wanted to penalise foreign shipowners would be screaming out against anything that would interfere with the employment of the lowest kind of foreigners who competed with British sailors. If they were going to have fair play in this matter let them have it on both sides. As the President of the Board of Trade had already pointed out, this might lead to very serious complications. He supported the shipowners upstairs but they ran away from him on another important point. His mind was quite open on this point, but he would want stronger arguments than had yet been brought forward to induce him to vote against the right hon. Gentleman's Amendment.
§ SIR ROBERT ROPNER (Stockton)said the President of the Board of Trade had promised that this question should have fair treatment and consideration as far as shipowners were concerned. He was glad to say on behalf of shipowners that they thought the right hon. Gentleman had shown that he intended to deal fairly with shipowners. He had said that the object of this Bill was to place foreign shipowners in exactly the same position as English shipowners. That being so, he could not see why he was endeavouring to alter the Bill to the disadvantage of the British shipowners. He asked that foreign shipowners as far as this matter of loading was concerned 74 should be put in the same position as British shipowners in this country. If the right hon. Gentleman persisted in his Amendment it would undoubtedly lie carried, but he appealed to him to deal fairly with British shipowners. This was a very serious question indeed. Foreign ships frequently arrived in our ports in such a condition that they must have been very much overloaded when they left foreign ports. Consequently they had arrived hero barely complying with our present load line. This was a very serious matter indeed, because all nations were now competing very keenly for the carrying trade of the world, and if British ships were to be penalised to that extent even in our own country what could we expect The President of the Board of Trade had said that if this clause were not amended there would be retaliation by foreign countries. They had in the past heard far too much about retaliation, but every shipowner knew that all foreign countries had been trying their best to take our carrying trade from us and to treat their own ships more favourably than ours, and he was surprised to hear any such fears as those which had been expressed by the right hon. Gentleman. Whatever could possibly be done in that direction had already been done, and there was not the slightest foundation for fear of any such retaliation by any ship-owning country in the world, for they could not do any more. He had had the honour of meeting the representative of a large foreign firm in this city, and naturally he took the opportunity of asking him, if any legislation passed which might damage the trade of his country, what he would advise his own country to do. His reply was—
If you treat our ships in the same way as your own we shall have no reason to find fault, and we should take no steps whatever to do anything to harm your trade or to retaliate in any way.Therefore he appealed to the right hon. Gentleman to reconsider his proposals. After all, this Bill was seriously considered by the Grand Committee, who unanimously decided to adopt this clause. [Cries of "No."] What was the use of sending a Bill to a Grand Committee and, after they had recommended a thing almost unanimously, trying to upset their decision? The hon. Member for Middlesbrough had pointed 75 out that the hon. Member for Dulwich was not quite accurate in what he said, but after all this was a question of principle, and if they interfered with regard to measurements of timber on the deck it was the same principle as interfering with the weight, and therefore an argument of that description must necessarily fall to the ground. He did not share the fears of the President of the Board of Trade, and he appealed to the right hon. Gentleman to withdraw his Amendment and not stand opposed to the interest of the shipowning industry.
§ *MR. CAIRNSsaid that this clause, when it was before the Grand Committee, was nothing like unanimously agreed to; in fact it was carried by a small majority in the absence of the President of the Board of Trade. The hon. Gentleman opposite had appealed to the House for fair play. The House of Commons was always open to appeals of that character, but when they spoke of fair play surely they meant to do unto others as they would be done by. There was not a nation in the world that applied such a condition as this to British ships. The hon. Member for Dulwich had referred to emigrant ships, but he could not point to a single instance where, with regard to cargoes or with regard to free board, they had such a regulation enacted against them.
§ MR. BONAR LAWsaid that might be so, but the reason was that no foreign nation had a load line so stringent as ours.
§ *MR. CAIRNSpointed out that the load line of this nation would be more stringent after the passing of this Act, He could tell the House of the case of a 5,000 ton vessel bought from England by German owners, which under the German freeboard carried 200 tons less than under the British freeboard. How could they enforce this provision? It could not be done and if they passed it to-day it would be absolutely a dead letter. How could they penalise a foreign ship loaded in Argentina to proceed to Las Palmas for orders whose destination might be any port in Europe? The same difficulty applied to a vessel coming from America to Cork for orders? By this proposal they were beginning a kind of legal 76 enactment which they had never had before, and he trusted that upon this matter the President of the Board of Trade would put his back to the wall and would refuse to become an "agent provocateur" to the whole world and so incite foreign nations to make reprisals against British shipping.
§ MR. BOWLES (Lambeth, Norwood)I said the point before the House seemed to be an extremely simple one and ought to be considered very shortly. According to British regulations and our present Acts of Parliament and the rules of the Board of Trade, if a British ship overloaded in any part of the world and came into any of the ports of this country with a load line which showed that she had overloaded in the original port of loading, although when she entered our waters her load line was in proper order, nevertheless she could be fined by the Board of Trade regulations because she overloaded at the port from which she originally started.
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEBut a British ship overloading in a foreign port would not be allowed to leave.
§ MR. BOWLESsaid he was well aware that unless she obtained permission from the Consul she could not leave, but there was no doubt that British ships coming to our ports had been penalised for coming in a condition which plainly showed that although when they entered the port they were not overloaded, they had originally loaded too deep. The t question was whether foreign ships were to be subjected to the same regulations as British ships. He understood; that the object of this Bill was to put British shipowners upon an equality with foreign shipowners, and that was what the President of the Board of Trade was anxious to do. It was not disputed that if the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman was carried, British ships in their competition with foreign ships would be placed at a disadvantage, and the right hon. Gentleman had said that he could not remedy that admitted inequality because it would lead to retaliation by foreign nations. If that were so, it was a very strong argument which ought to receive their earnest consideration, but he failed to understand how the right hon. Gentleman could use that argument 77 unless he totally misunderstood the pro visions of Clause 3, which contained regulations of a far more stringent character than any contained in Clause 1, which were to be enforced regard to a foreign ship which loaded in a foreign country and then came to the United Kingdom. Under Clause 3 a foreign ship which came here with a cargo of grain, for example, was subjected to two sections of the Merchant Shipping Act of 1895, and she was bound, under the clause, to give to the Customs Officer, who remitted it to the Board of Trade, an exact statement of what? Of the state of the ship; what her draught was and her clear side at the port of final loading. What was the object of that statement? The Board of Trade would, of course, deal with that statement as if it were the statement of a British ship. By Clause 3 of this Bill it was perfectly clear that conditions wore imposed upon foreign ships quite as stringent and quite as likely to excite the anger of foreign Governments as any of the liabilities which were suggested in the clause under discussion. He could not see why the right hon. Gentleman desired to pass this Amendment, anxious as he was to put British ships upon an equality with foreign ships. Why did he leave this admitted and undoubted inequality exactly as it stood at the present time? How, in view of Clause 3 which imposed more onerous restrictions, could he declare to the House that he dared not do what he wished should be done, simply because foreign Governments would be so angry at the imposition of the very restrictions and precautions which he himself was imposing upon their ships if they were engaged in carrying grain? For his part he had not yet heard any serious defence of this Amendment, and he agreed with the majority of the Committee upon the matter. If a division was taken he would he forced upon clear grounds of ordinary fair play and equity, and in the interests of the intention of the Hill itself, to resist this Amendment.
§ *MR. HOUSTONhoped the President of the Board of Trade would accept his assurance that he did not rise to criticise this Bill with any feeling of hostility, but the reverse. He was ready to admit that the right hon. Gentleman had been actuated by a spirit of justice and fair 78 play in dealing with this matter. For intelligence, industry, and effort to fulfil the high duties of his office few Presidents had done better than the right hon. Gentleman. No one would question that the President of the Board of Trade possessed great intelligence, but could he not see that he was making two laws for foreign ships, one for sailing ships, and the other for steamers? When a sailing ship loaded a cargo of grain in a Colonial or a foreign port and came into a British port, if she was deeper than she ought to be, being an English ship, the right hon. Gentleman would deal with her; but then he should remember that that ship had not been consuming any coal for bunker purposes and had not been lightening herself on the way as a steamer would. Therefore she left the port of loading in the same condition as that in which she arrived here. It was, however, different in the case of the steamer, which might load very much deeper at her loading port but would lighten by consumption of her bunkers on her passage to a British discharging port, arriving with a proper amount of freeboard. He thought the right hon. Gentleman must see the difference, and he was surprised, with all the intelligence which characterised him in every other direction, that he had not noticed this point before. Among the many virtues possessed by the right hon. Gentleman was that of courage; his visit to Birmingham proved that. He was surprised that the right hon. Gentleman whom, notwithstanding his mistaken ideas in some directions, he looked upon as a typical Briton, possessing so much courage, should appear to be so afraid of foreign competition and retaliation. He did not wish to traverse the ground which had been covered by the hon. Member for Dulwich and other speakers, but unquestionably the foreigner, if and when he could, would impose all the restrictions he possibly could upon British ships the only reason the foreigner did not do so at present was that he required our tonnage to carry his goods. Germany was building up very rapidly a large mercantile marine, and when she had done this, did they mean to tell him the t she would not close her ports to British shipping? Speaking as he did for the owners, not of tramp steamers, but of liners, he might say that they were affected very little under this Bill. They 79 were not concerned so much with the question of deadweight cargoes, and therefore he could speak with greater freedom than a tramp shipowner who was directly affected by this Bill. With regard to foreign sailors he had quite recently taken out the number of foreigners employed in the whole of his fleet, and it did not amount to 2 per cent., and those men were picked up abroad through the desertion of the British seaman. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would accept his assurance that he approached this matter in quite a friendly spirit. He much appreciated the fair, just, and painstaking way in which the right hon. Gentleman had dealt with the whole subject. He trusted, however, that he would not press this Amendment, but would accept the clause as it passed through the Grand Committee.
§ MR. SUMMERBELL (Sunderland)said that this was not a question between English and foreign shipowners or between free trade and protection; the all important question was the saving of life and limb, and they ought all to be agreed upon that point. If, to protect the lives of the sailors, it was right to have a certain load line with regard to ships going from British ports, he contended that it was equally right to have the same safeguard in regard to vessels coming into a British port. He could not see any difference upon this point between vessels coming into a port and vessels going out of it. Of course he knew the question of complications was an important matter, but the right hon. Gentleman opposite did not press this point sufficiently strongly to warrant anyone changing their opinion in the direction that he had indicated to-day. So far as he was personally concerned, he should have no hesitation in voting against the Government on this matter.
§ SIR W. ROBSONthought the hon. Member who had just spoken failed to appreciate the fact that if any foreign vessel came here showing her load line submerged, she could be punished according to our laws for all those offences which came within our jurisdiction. We could deal with all vessels, either foreign or English, if they came within our jurisdiction, if the load line was submerged. What was suggested was that, although a foreign vessel might enter 80 one of our ports with her load line above the water, yet inferences might be drawn as to the quantity of cargo or bunker coal she carried when she left the foreign port and that we should punish her owner, not for the condition of the vessel in our port, but for her condition outside our jurisdiction. That was the case with which they had to deal. The principle of the Government Amendment was broad and simple; it was a well-known principle of international law, and such laws were very dangerous things to set at defiance. If there was any well-established principle it was that a nation must confine the law relating to its own subjects to its own territorial jurisdiction, or to its own subjects beyond that jurisdiction. No nation must assume to punish the subjects of a foreign State for an offence committed against the laws of that nation outside its own jurisdiction. That was the root principle of the Government proposal. Let them see how it applied. He thought there had been some unintentional exaggeration on the other side. Reference had been made to the possibility of owners submerging the load line in their own ports and then raising the load line so as to enter our ports in accordance with our load line regulations. They were told that foreign owners derived great advantage from this. The hon. Member for Dulwich put that point. He wondered at the undisputed supremacy of British shipping if we had been carrying on our business by giving foreigners an enormous advantage. It was said that they were carrying extra tonnage as against the English shipowners. It did not seem as yet to have done us very much harm. They were told that foreigners had in this matter done their worst, and that now they could do no more, so that we had reached the full limit of the advantage which the foreign competitors could get. They were asked to draw an inference as to the condition of a vessel at the port of loading. That was a most difficult and dangerous thing to do. First of all, they were invited to punish an offence not committed within our jurisdiction, and secondly, to punish the offence founded on most uncertain inferences. How could they know with such certainty as the criminal law required the condition of the vessel at the port of loading? The evidence must not only be reasonable and probable, but they must have, before applying a 81 criminal law, positive certainty. How could they be sure? British vessels wore followed by British law wherever they went. British vessels, he must assume, did not overload at foreign ports. An hon. Gentleman opposite said that they did. If they did so they would come under the law in an inconvenient manner which he need not indicate. If foreign vessels were supposed to have overloaded how was the inference arrived at? Nobody knew in what water they loaded. [An HON. MEMBER: The log will show.] He did not know that they could always rely upon the log. He had had a great, deal to do with ships' logs, and he had had to object to them because they were always in favour of the owners. They could not be sure of the water in which a ship was loaded, and they could not be sure of the quantity loaded, or where she was loaded. If she loaded in fresh water she rose about two inches in salt water There were various considerations which would make it most difficult to found a prosecution. It was not desirable that an offence committed outside our jurisdiction should be prosecuted within our jurisdiction when we had no proper means of proof in regard to the alleged offence. These were strong reasons, and they were reasons which would be urged by foreign Governments against the course the House was invited to take by the Grand Committee. There was no occasion to provoke retaliation, and there was no doubt at all that if we proceeded to infringe some of the well-known principles of international law it would lead to international protests and controversy, and he ventured to think that the game was not worth the candle. Hon, Members opposite said that there would be no such thing. He said there were certain to be such protests. The hon. Member for Dulwich had said, "You do it in other matters," giving as instances the shifting of grain cargoes and the loading of dock cargoes. In each of these cases the offence was gathered from what was seen in the port when the foreign ship arrived and when the cargo was in such a condition as to show that the proper conditions had not been observed. That was an offence against our law, and we punished it because it was discovered in an English port. He thought one hon. Member had said that the cargo might be shifted on the voyage. He should not like to be on board ship 82 where there was re-shifting of a grain cargo at sea. The hon. Member also said that a deck cargo might be got rid of before getting into the port. If that was so why should they ever load it? The Government did not depart in substance from the principles of international law on which they took their stand. These considerations appeared sufficient to justify the desire of the Government to stand by the clause. It was more than a mere trade question. If it were merely a trade question the Government would desire to meet the shipowners, but it was a matter involving other considerations. It involved a question of international law which it was very much to the interests of England to maintain in all its foreign relations.
§ *MR. DAVID MACIVERwished to say how heartily he concurred with the hon. Member for Sunderland in the thoroughly sensible speech which he delivered. If this were a matter of law no layman would for a moment venture to enter into argument with the learned Solictor-General. His ability as a lawyer was unquestioned and unquestionable. But he would like to ask any shipowner whether he ever heard such a complete exhibition of ignorance as was afforded by the speech just delivered. Any shipowner would confirm absolutely what had fallen from the hon. Member for Dulwich. It was perfectly easy to calculate how many tons of coal would be consumed on a voyage by a steamer coming to this country. There was no practical difficulty, whatever might be the legal point involved. It could be done, and where there was a will there was a way. As to retaliation, did the Solicitor-General mean to say that he had had information from foreign Governments that if we altered our regulations they were going to do something violent to us? He believed it was an exaggeration on the part of the Solicitor-General. He believed there had been no such communication. In years long gone by he had required to consider the application of the laws of the United States to our ships. What the Americans then told the Cunard Company, with which at the time he was connected, was this: "We do not care at all about your English law. You are trading with 83 the United States, and when you come here you must comply with the United States regulations." The Solicitor-General said that it could not be done. But the principle was already applied by us in regard to grain and deck cargoes, and foreign countries also applied their regulations to us as they were perfectly entitled to do, and as we ought to be able to do so by this Bill. The extent to which ships really owned by British shipowners were now sailing under foreign flags was considerable. In connection with the port of Liverpool he could give the names of at least half a dozen firms of high standing, each of which had a considerable portion of their fleet sailing under foreign flags. What would their position be? They would be able to load these ships under foreign flags more deeply than their own precisely similar ships under the British flag; and it was a perfectly anomalous and wrong position. The hon. Member for Stockton, who had had considerable experience, assured him that there was no such thing as a general German load-line. Now as regarded this Bill. The President of the Board of Trade rather assumed the position of desiring to protect British shipowners against themselves. Would the right hon. Gentleman permit the shipowners to say that they knew how to manage their own business, and how their interests were affected? What was the key of the position? The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade desired to be fair; but in this matter he did not seem to be his own master. He could not conceive that the President of the Board of Trade himself believed in the Government method. The right hon. Gentleman knew as well as he did that, although the Solicitor-General might be right if the question at issue were entirely one of law, that from a business point of view the story which he had told to the House was absolute nonsense.
§ MR. EVELYN CECIL (Aston Manor)said he wanted to know where they stood. The opinion given by the President of the Board of Trade was, as the hon. Member for Dulwich had said, not the opinion of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Local Government Board, nor that of the Select Committee which sat in 1905, of which the Parliamentary Secretary was a 84 Member. That Committee unanimously reported against the present Amendment of the Government. Nor had they heard the opinion of the Financial Secretary to the Treasury who, perhaps, with more discretion than the hon. Member for Dewsbury, had absented himself from this debate, but whose opinion had been equally strongly expressed against that of the President of the Board of Trade. The hon. Member for North Monmouthshire agreed to the Report of the Select Committee of 1905, which decided in favour of the clause as it stood before the Government proposed this Amendment. He thought it just as well to recall what took place in the Grand Committee. It had been represented that this matter was only carried by one or two votes. He had looked into the record and found that the Ayes wore twenty-two and the Noes fourteen; and of those twenty-two, no less than sixteen were Members who generally supported the Government. That was extremely important as showing that there were two sides to this question; and he thought it was rather unfortunate that after the very able speech of the hon. Member for Dulwich, the Government should persist in the Amendment without any change of any kind. After all, what they desired was equality of treatment for British and foreign ships, and the paramount reason for that was the safety of human life. If they were going, by this Amendment, to allow ships which ran some risk in endangering human life to start from foreign ports with complete impunity, they were belying their own principles, and not doing their utmost to enforce this question of safety as they ought to do. After all, there was a dispensing power in Clause 70, and if serious difficulty should arise, no doubt that dispensing power could be used. But if they ran away from their own principles in regard to load-line regulations they would never get foreign nations to adopt those load-line regulations which they so much desired, and that would be much to the detriment of our own trade. Bearing in mind this dispensing power, and that two members of the Government were of opinion that ships over-loading in a foreign port should be subject to a fine when they came here, he thought they were more likely to secure an international load-line if they 85 adhered to the clause as it stood than if they refrained from passing it merely through four of foreign retaliation.
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEsaid he had not the Report of the Select Committee by him, but he had consulted his hon. friend the Member for Dewsbury, who told him that he never agreed to anything of the kind, but, on the contrary, that he protested against it. He was assured that the Report did not bear out the interpretation given by the hon. Gentleman.
§ MR. EVELYN CECILsaid he apologised to the Parliamentary Secretary of the Local Government Board if he had misrepresented him. This was a matter of importance, and he thought it was very important that the House should not be left to merely official guidance on this matter. He thought that the shipowners of the country had a right to give their opinion upon it, and that it was desirable that the hon. Member for Dewsbury should say a few words on the subject. He did not believe foreign complications would arise if they declared their opinion in regard to over-loading. He thought they would go a step further towards inducing foreign nations to accept our view of the safety of human life, and to adopt an international load-line, which had been admitted to be so desirable, if the Government Amendment was not accepted.
§ MR. ASHLEY (Lancashire, Blackpool)said the Solicitor-General had declared that they could not expect this House to pass a law to punish an alien for an offence not committed in this country. That, however, was not the position taken up by the High Court Justiciary sitting in full bench in Edinburgh some time ago, for that Court punished the Swedish master of a Swedish ship for an offence committed outside the three mile limit.
§ SIR W. ROBSONthought the question was whether the three mile limit was surrounded by the coast of the main land.
§ MR. ASHLEYsaid he believed it was laid down by the High Court of Justiciary that we had the power to make regulations punishing offences committed within that area.
§ MR. JENKINS (Chatham)asked whether it was not the fact that, under the new regulations, the load line for British ships had been lowered to a depth of 12½ inches from the original load line. He had personally watched both British and foreign ships going out of ports of the United Kingdom, and he was inclined to believe that the foreigners took a great deal more care, in so far as the lives of crews were concerned, than British shipowners. He was sure that this winter when British ships were crossing the Western Ocean in wintry weather, it would be a serious reflection on those who recommended that British ships should be submerged to such an extent as the Board of Trade allowed. He was, however, convinced of the international difficulty in regard to this matter, and for that reason he was going to vote with the Government on this occasion.
§ *MR. COURTHOPE (Sussex, Rye)said that if this Amendment was carried, the Government would be in a very curious position. In the first place they would have gone back from the position they took on the First Reading of the Bill—that British and foreign ships should be treated alike in our ports. In the second place, they would have placed a statutory disability on British ships as compared with foreign ships, although he knew it was said that that had been done before. In the third place, which was worst of all, it would put forth to the world that the only reason why we were treating foreigners' ships better than our own was that we were afraid. Surely the British Government when they felt that their proposals were just and right, need not be afraid of any foreign power. He should think that the Imperial Parliament of Great Britain need not submit to paltry considerations such as those which had been laid before it.
§ *MR. R. DUNCAN (Lanarkshire, Govan)said the question turned principally upon a question of fact, namely, whether or not it was difficult to find out what was the state of loading of a ship when she left the foreign port. The Solicitor-general had said that one could not find out what the loading of a vessel was when she left the foreign port, but he, as a practical engineer, assured the House that there was no difficulty whatever in 87 so doing. There was no difficulty in the case of a sailing ship if she did note call at any port on her way to this country, as she arrived here practically as she was when she left the foreign port. The steam vessel, it was true, arrived in a different condition from that in which she left her port of loading, but even there there was practically no difficulty whatever in telling what was the state of the vessel at the time she was loaded. The right hon. Gentleman had declared that he was sincere in his desire not to give protection to foreign vessels, and he congratulated him upon his sincerity. But if he was sincere in his desire not to treat the foreign vessel better than the British, there was no difficulty in making regulations that would carry out what he desired. A further question which concerned the prestige of the Government arose at this point. They were not dealing with a majority in Committee of twenty-two against fourteen, but with a Government majority of sixteen against fourteen on the other side. The facts that he had advanced were strong facts which could not be got over. He thought they were all of opinion that when statements of fact were made they should truly, represent facts, and he repeated that the arguments which had been advanced on the other side did not displace those statements of fact. On the contrary, right hon. and hon. Gentlemen on the other side had accepted their facts, and they had reason to contemplate with satisfaction the way in which they had dealt with them and with their arguments.
§ MR ARNOLD-FORSTER (Croydon)said that not one of the categorical statements made by his hon. friend the Member for Dulwich had been impugned up to the present time. He did not know whether all the hon. Members present had followed the course of the discussion from the beginning, but the hon. and learned Solicitor-General, he might remind the House, had claimed to have adduced very strong reasons against those which had been brought forward by his hon. friend the Member for Dulwich. What were those reasons which had been advanced by the hon. and learned Solicitor-General? Not one them stood as a valid reason against the arguments which had 88 been brought forward by the Opposition. They had been told that under the Government Amendment preference would not be given to foreign ships to the extent of 300 or 400 tons of coal on the single voyage, but his hon. friend had shown that if the coal consumed on ship for the single trip was taken—the coal consumed not on the long voyages but on the shorter voyages—the argument simply resolved itself into this—they were not quibbling about 300 or 400 tons of coal but about the principle—that, taking the case of a ship on the round voyage, by the Government Amendment preference would be given to the foreign ship to the extent of 300 or 400 tons of coal on each voyage. As his hon. friend had shown, on the round voyages, therefore, this was an immense bonus to foreign ships. That argument, which was made early in the discussion, had not been displaced and still stood. They had been told that it was the intention of the Government to save life by these load line conditions, but they were further told that when they were face to face with this international difficulty with regard to incoming ships they could not make that argument effective. That argument did not, it appeared, stand at all. There was not one single valid argument advanced by the President of the Board of Trade or by the Solicitor-General that could be taken into account. Under Clause 3 it was provided that these provisions should so apply that an offence could be committed in a foreign country, and it was not essential, as contended by the Solicitor-General, that the offence should be continued in one of our own ports. That was perfectly clear. A ship might discharge a portion of her cargo in a foreign port, and if that ship came here she might under Section 3 as it was drawn be held liable for an offence committed in a foreign port. But they were told now that they could not possibly trace the offence I to a foreign port and that there were no means of finding out whether the offence had been committed abroad or not. His hon. friend the Member for Liverpool had stated what everybody knew perfectly well, that it was possible to detect this by calculation. They had heard the suggestion made, in regard to these calculations, as to whether the vessels 89 were loaded in salt or fresh water, but that did not seem to have any application, because British ships might be loaded in salt or fresh water, and the same difference might occur. The same considerations would apply to the vessels of different nations whether they loaded in fresh or salt water. Then they were told that they did not know what happened to a vessel in the course of a voyage. But, as his hon. friend the Member for Liverpool, pointed out, they all knew perfectly well what happened, because they had the ship's log. He thought the hon. and learned Solicitor-General took the technical objection that the ship's log was not evidence.
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEIn certain cases it is not.
§ MR. ARNOLD-FORSTERsaid everybody knew that that was so, but the ship's log could be quoted in regard to the expenditure of 300 or 400 tons of coal, and there was not a port in England in which they could not test the amount of coal which the vessel had on board. There was no port in England where they could not fix the reduction in the quantity of coal on board and ascertain the actual condition in which the vessel left the foreign port. But there was another question. They were told that it was impossible for the owner of a foreign ship to comply with our regulations because he would not know to what port the ship was destined. But an hon. Member speaking on behalf of the shipping trade had said there was no difficulty on that point. It had been pointed out that there were a number of places like Madeira at which such ships would have to touch and at which they would have to comply with our regulations, of which they had no knowledge. That sounded very plausible and very reasonable, but how did it correspond with the provisions of the Bill? Was it not the fact that no foreign grain ship under this Bill was to be affected adversely? He was in Falmouth a little time ago and saw fifteen great grain ships, only two of which were British, waiting for orders, and if the contention of the hon. Member was right, and the provisions of Section 3 were applied to the foreigners, they should be inflicting an intolerable hardship upon the foreigners because they did not 90 know our regulations. In addition to all this he thought the international reason which had been raised was only a bogey. If it was not a bogey, if it was a reality at all which they had to face, it had been disposed of by the hon. Member for Liverpool and other hon. Members on that side of the House. They had shown that that argument had gone, and therefore they had not to face the argument that other nations would be so unreasonable as to enforce upon this country regulations other than those which we were enforcing upon our own shipping. He did not think we should be wise to penalise our own shipping because we were afraid of any such consequence. They were told that this load line question was so important as affecting safety of life that they must impose very severe penalties upon every British ship that came into a British port, and upon every British ship that came out of n British port; but while they were to penalise British ships coming into a British port under certain conditions, they were not to penalise foreign ships. They knew that regulations of this kind limited trade, limited cargo, and had the effect of driving trade out of British ships into foreign ships, but they were told that the object of these regulations was to ensure the safety of life at sea. The moment, however, international difficulties appeared, questions in regard to the safety of life were not insisted upon, and they gave away the principle in regard to incoming ships and applied it only to out-going ships. They were dealing with what was said to be an offence, and the point of international law which the Solicitor General talked about was not the real point the point was whether they were going to allow these shipowners to jeopardise the lives of the men in their employ who started out upon these voyages. He failed to see that there had been one valid argument from start to finish advanced by the President of the Board of Trade or the Solicitor-General in support of the position which the Government were taking up. One more argument had been advanced. They were told that this was the position which found favour by a majority of one upstairs. That was entirely erroneous. It found favour by a large majority, and by a majority which, for the purposes 91 of this particular issue might be said in regard to a large proportion of it to be composed of hon. Members on the opposite side of the House, who naturally would have a tendency to support the view of the President of the Board of Trade. He thought he had made good his case that they had come back to the principles laid down in the speech of his hon. friend the Member for Dulwich, and that they were now going to act in the face of the decision of the Committee upstairs, in the face of the warm declarations of the President of the Board of the Trade on the introduction of the Bill, and that upon a perfectly illusory ground they were going to set aside provisions for the safety of life on ships coming to our ports.
§ *THE SECRETARY TO THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. RUNCIMAN, Dewsbury)said the right hon. Gentleman had overlooked the fact that this Bill did enormously improve the position of the British ship-owner and that the foreign ships in our ports would be prevented and stopped altogether from leaving them overladen. He had also overlooked the fact that we were applying other regulations for the safety of vessels. When the right hon. Gentleman said they were giving away the whole case, he was not gauging accurately what he was talking about. At the end of the Report of the Committee would be found a long list of foreign vessels which arrived in British ports overladen, and were observed by the Board of Trade. In that long list there was absolutely not a single vessel which left her port with 400 tons more aboard than she could have carried if she had been subject to British regulations. In each of the cases where a vessel arrived at a British port seriously overladen the new Bill would have caught it in the British port. The first case in the list was of a vessel leaving a foreign port 405 tons overladen and arriving at a British port 215 tons overladen. Under the Bill she would have been caught on arrival in the British port and penalised accordingly. There was only 180 tons in question and not 400.
§ MR. BONAR LAWsaid that Mr. Howell, the representative of the Board of Trade, pointed out in giving the evi- 92 dence that the class of boats which the Board of Trade had given there must be for relatively short voyages, and if the hon. Member took the last ten cases mentioned in the list he would find that even in those short voyages exactly half were overladen under the conditions of the Bill.
§ *MR. RUNCIMANWhen the hon. Gentleman used the figure 400 he was, as he often is in the matter of figures, strictly inaccurate.
§ MR. BONAR LAWWhat I said was that a tramp steamer carrying about 5,000 tons coming from America would burn about 400 tons. Am I wrong?
§ *MR. RUNCIMANsaid he had looked carefully through the list and he did not see the case of a single vessel from an American port which was caught by the Board of Trade or was observed by them. Those cases from his personal knowledge did not occur in the American trade. There had been no serious complaint of foreign vessels arriving from America being seriously overladen. When the hon. Gentleman quoted the American case he was going outside the range of practical experience. The next case was that of a vessel which was 570 tons overladen in a foreign port, and 310 tons overladen when she arrived in the British port. Here again the Bill would have caught the master and punished him. The next case was that of a vessel 370 tons overladen in a foreign port and 255 tons overladen on arrival in the British port. There again under the Bill it would have been caught. They could go through the whole range of those cases and see that there was not a single case where there had been 400 tons difference between the amount she would have been able to load under the British flag and the amount she could load under the foreign flag. He would give the hon. Gentleman the reason why foreign grain and timber trade vessels could not come under his 400 figure. These vessels carrying wood, cotton, grain or phosphate, were not so constructed nowadays as to come across with sufficient bunkers for the passage and be just above their Plimsoll mark on arrival and yet leave if margin of 400 tons. For that reason if 93 for no other it was absurd to quote the American case as justifying the claim put forward. That was one statement of the hon. Gentleman which he refuted. The second was the suggestion that the Report really included the words which they now sought to strike out of the Bill. The words in the Report wore—
We recommend that power be given to the Government to apply by Order in Council in the ports of the United Kingdom.He remembered those words particularly because he was strongly against their insertion, as also was the evidence of the Board of Trade. If these words were of such great importance why did not the hon. Member put them into the Report he drafted?
§ MR. BONAR LAWsaid he was astonished at the hon. Gentleman misunderstanding the meaning of those words, which were—
We recommend that power be given to the Government to apply in the ports of the United Kingdom.Where else could they apply them? They were able to apply them only to those ships because no other ships came within their jurisdiction. They wished to apply the British rules as to the load line to merchant ships of any country which did not comply with the rules as to loading in precisely the same way as British boats. They specifically recommended that every ship which entered our ports should be subjected in every respect to the same laws as British vessels.
§ *MR. RUNCIMANhad no doubt the words they now sought to exclude from the Bill were not meant to be inserted, and after the evidence given before the Committee he would have voted against their being inserted in the Report. If the words wore so important it was a great pity the hon. Member did not make them clearer. This was a matter largely of expediency. He suggested that those who represented the shipping industry in the House should not complicate affairs abroad for British shipowners. There was no reason why they should not take with gratitude all that the Bill gave the shipping industry. The point raised was a trivial one. In the list given by the Committee it meant only an average of sixty-six tons of 94 bunkers. The matter was really infinitesimal compared with the great question they were now discussing, and hon. Members would be well advised not to dwell upon it longer.
§ MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN (Worcestershire, E.)said the hon. Gentleman had concluded his speech with a reference to the great question they were now discussing. After listening to him he was at a loss to know what great question the hon. Gentleman was now discussing, but if he might without offence suggest it to the hon. Member, a little more courtesy to those who had not been discourteous would facilitate the debate.
§ *MR. RUNCIMANsaid he was not and had no intention of being discourteous.
§ MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINsaid he was glad to hear the hon. Gentleman's disclaimer, but he thought when the hon. Member saw, as he would, exactly what he had said, he would find he had used words that went beyond his intention. As to the Amendment itself, the allegation of the hon. Gentleman was that no serious case of overloading of the kind that would be excluded by these words had been observed by the Board of Trade or had been recorded in the schedule of the Report. The reason why it was not observed or reported had been explained by the Chairman of the Committee. But if it were true that this danger was an infinitesimal danger as the hon. Gentleman had said, and that ships wore not overloaded in that way, what became of the objection of the Solicitor-General to the inclusion of the words? The Solicitor-General objected to the inclusion of the words because they were going to penalise foreign shipowners and punish them for doing nothing. The hon. Gentleman had destroyed the case which the Solicitor-General had built up with such elaboration. But surely the case was already destroyed by the Government words in Section 3. They were absolutely unable to show that they would not do in Section 3 what they were now begging the House not to do in Section 1. His hon. friend beside him had not failed to recognise all the improvements the Government wore making by 95 the Bill. They recognised them and welcomed them gladly, but they did desire to urge the Government not to whittle away their own good work. Here was a provision inserted by the Grand Committee in consonance with the objects of the Bill, carrying out the same object, the fundamental object of the Bill, the protection of life at sea, and guaranteeing the British shipowners against competition carried into British ports on lines they were not allowed to pursue. Here was a provision strictly germane to the objects of the Bill, carrying out those objects, filling up the gap left by the Government, and exactly parallel with other provisions in the Bill as introduced by the right hon. Gentleman, on which occasion he said he thought a Bill of that kind ought to be moulded by a Grand Committee and not by the desire of the Government. The right hon. Gentleman had left the matter with full liberty to the Grand Committee to mould the Bill. The Grand Committee had acted with the liberty granted to it. It had improved the Bill, largely with the assistance of the right hon. Gentleman's own supporters. He made an appeal to the right hon. Gentleman. Lot him leave his supporters free to exercise their judgment as they were left to exercise it in Grand Committee. If the right hon. Gentleman did that he had no hesitation in saying they would insist on these words being retained.
§ MR. JOYCE (Limerick)said that while he had no desire to see foreign ships penalised, he had no desire whatever to see the foreigner get undue protection in his endeavour to compote with British shipowners. The argument that day had to a large extent circled round the question of the load line, and it was only when those arguments were in progress that he became informed that the British shipowners at present had undue preference as against the foreign shipowners. [Cries of "Where?"] They would see before he finished. The lute Government before they left office appointed a Committee to go into the question of "load line," with the result that now British ships had been freed
§ so much from the old Plimsoll line that 2,000,000 tons in excess of the existing regulations had been carried. He had seen a British tramp steamer trading in winter time across the Western Ocean on which the Plimsoll mark had been raised seven inches, and he understood there were some steamers on which the freeboard was decreased by twelve inches, which meant at least 170 tons. He was credibly informed that the class of vessels that took advantage of this were vessels that were ships of twelve years old and upwards. He had his doubts whether this winter would not tell a tale, and whether lives would not be lost; if they were lost, through ships being overloaded according, to Act of Parliament, then the guilt should be brought home to those who appointed that Committee, and appointed it quietly and privately without the knowledge of the House. Although he was altogether in favour of putting the British ship and the foreign ship on a footing of equality, taking the debate on the whole, he must vote in support of the Government on this occasion.
§ MR. MUNRO FERGUSON (Leith Burghs)said some difference of opinion, had arisen with regard to the wording of the Report of the Load Line Committee. His recollection was certainly that the question of bunker coal was very closely considered by the Committee, and in his own mind, there was no doubt that the difficulty of putting on restrictions was too great to be faced. He certainly would have been very glad if it had been possible to secure the objects which some hon. Gentlemen had been, aiming at, but he thought the recommendation applied to vessels in British ports without extending to ships of other nations in foreign ports. That was his interpretation of it, and he was clear in his own mind that the Committee were very generally of opinion that it was impossible to enforce the regulations.
§ Question put.
§ The House divided:—Ayes, 90; Noes, 313. (Division List No. 320.)
99| AYES. | ||
| Acland-Hood,Rt.Hn.SirAlex.F. | Balcarres, Lord | Beach, Hn. Michael Hugh Hicks |
| Anstruther-Gray, Major | Banbury, Sir Frederick George | Bignold, Sir Arthur |
| Arnold-Forster, Rt.Hn.HughO. | Banner, John S. Harmood | Bowles, G. Stewart |
| Boyle, Sir Edward | Hill, Sir Clement (Shrewsbury) | Smith, Abel H.(Hertford, East) |
| Bridgeman, W. Clive | Hills, J. W. | Smith, F.E.(Liverpool,Walton) |
| Bull, Sir William James | Houston, Robert Paterson | Smith, Hon. W. F. D. (Strand) |
| Campbell, Rt. Hon. J. H. M. | Kenyon-Slaney, Rt.Hn. Col. W. | Starkey, John R. |
| Carlile, E. Hildred | Keswick, William | Staveley-Hill, Henry (Staff'sh. |
| Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H. | Kimber, Sir Henry | Summberbell, T. |
| Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) | Lane-Fox, G. R. | Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester) |
| Cecil, Lord R. (Marylebone, E.) | Law, Andrew Bonar (Dulwich) | Talbot, Rt.Hn.J.G.(Oxf'dUniv. |
| Chamberlain,Rt Hn.J.A.(Worc. | Liddell, Henry | Taylor, Austin (East Toxteth) |
| Coates, E. Feetham (Lewisham | Long, Col. Charles W.(Evesham | Thomson, W. Mitchell- (Lanark |
| Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H. A. E. | Lowe, Sir Francis William | Thornton, Percy M. |
| Collings,Rt.Hn.J.(Birmingham | Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. Alfred | Tuke, Sir John Batty |
| Cooper, G. J. | MacIver, David (Liverpool) | Turnour, Viscount |
| Courthope, G. Loyd | Magnus, Sir Philip | Valentia, Viscount |
| Craik, Sir Henry | Marks, H. H. (Kent) | Vincent, Col. Sir C. E. Howard |
| Dalrymple, Viscount | Meysey-Thompson, E. C. | Williamson A. |
| Dixon-Hartland, SirFredDixon | Mildmay, Francis Bingham | Wilson, A. Stanley (York,E.R.) |
| Doughty, Sir George | Morpeth, Viscount | Wilson, Hon. C.H.W.(Hull, W.) |
| Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers- | Nicholson, Wm.G.(Petersfield) | Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton) |
| Duncan, Robert(Lanark,Govan | Parker, Sir Gilbert(Gravesend) | Wolff, Gustav Wilhelm |
| Fell, Arthur. | Pease, Herbert Pike(Darlington | Wortley, Rt. Hon C. B. Stuart- |
| Finch, Rt. Hon. George H. | Percy, Earl | Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George |
| Forster, Henry William | Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel | Younger, George |
| Gardner, Ernest (Berks, East) | Ropner, Colonel Sir Robert | |
| Gibbs, G. A. (Bristol, West) | Rothschild, Hon. Lionel Walter | TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Mr. Samuel Roberts and Mr. Ashley. |
| Hambro, Charles Eric | Rutherford, W. W. (Liverpool) | |
| Hardie, J.Keir(MerthyrTydvil) | Salter, Arthur Clavell | |
| Hay, Hon. Claude George | Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert | |
| Hervey, F.W.F.(BuryS.Edm'ds | Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.) | |
| NOES. | ||
| Abraham, William (Cork, N.E.) | Burns, Rt. Hon. John | Edwards, Clement (Denbigh) |
| Abraham, William (Rhondda) | Burnyeat, W. J. D. | Edwards, Enoch (Hanley) |
| Acland, Francis Dyke | Buxton, Rt. Hn. Sydney Charles | Edwards, Frank (Radnor) |
| Agnew, George William | Byles, William Pollard | Elibank, Master of |
| Ainsworth, John Stirling | Cairns, Thomas | Ellis, Rt. Hon. John Edward |
| Alden, Percy | Cameron, Robert | Erskine, David C. |
| Ambrose, Robert | Carr-Gomm, H. W. | Esmonde, Sir Thomas |
| Astbury, John Meir | Causton,Rt.Hn.RichardKnight | Evans, Samuel T. |
| Atherley-Jones, L. | Chance, Frederick William | Everett, R. Lacey |
| Baker, Sir John (Portsmouth) | Channing, Francis Allston | Faber, G. H. (Boston) |
| Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight) | Cheetham, John Frederick | Fenwick, Charles |
| Barker, John | Cherry, Rt. Hon. R. R. | Ferens, T. R. |
| Barlow, Percy (Bedford) | Churchill, Winston Spencer | Ferguson, R. C. Munro |
| Barnes, G. N. | Clarke, C. Goddard | Field, William |
| Beauchamp, E. | Clough, W. | Fowler, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry |
| Beaumont, W. C. B. (Hexham | Clynes, J. R. | Freeman-Thomas, Freeman |
| Bell, Richard | Coats, Sir T. Glen(Renfrew,W.) | Fuller, John Michael F. |
| Bellairs, Carlyon | Cobbold, Felix Thornley | Fullerton, Hugh |
| Benn, W.(T'w'rHamlets,S.Geo. | Corbett,C.H(Sussex,E.Grinst'd | Gibb, James (Harrow) |
| Bertram, Julius | Cotton, Sir H. J. S. | Gill, A. H. |
| Bethell, J. H.(Essex, Romford) | Cowan, W. H. | Gladstone,Rt.Hn.HerbertJohn |
| Bethell, T. R. (Essex, Maldon) | Cox, Harold | Glover, Thomas |
| Billson, Alfred | Craig, Herbert J.(Tynemouth) | Goddard, Daniel Ford |
| Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine | Crombie, John William | Greenwood, G. (Peterborough) |
| Black, Arthur W.(Bedfordshire | Crooks, William | Griffith, Ellis J. |
| Boland, John | Crosfield, A. H. | Guest, Hon. Ivor Churchill |
| Bolton, T. D.(Derbyshire,N.E.) | Crossley, William J. | Gulland, John W. |
| Boulton, A. C. F. (Ramsey) | Dalziel, James Henry | Gurdon, Sir W. Brampton |
| Bowerman, C. W. | Davies, David(MontgomeryCo.) | Hall, Frederick |
| Brace, William | Davies, Ellis William (Eifion) | Harcourt, Rt. Hon. Lewis |
| Bramsdon, T. A. | Davies, M. Vaughan-(Cardigan | Hardy, George A. (Suffolk) |
| Branch, James | Davies, Timothy (Fulham) | Harmsworth, Cecil B. (Worc'r) |
| Brigg, John | Davies, W. Howell (Bristol, S.) | Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale) |
| Bright, J. A. | Delany, William | Harwood, George |
| Brodie, H. C. | Dewar, Arthur (Edinburgh, S.) | Haslam, James (Derbyshire) |
| Brooks, Stopford | Dewar, John A. (Invernesssh. | Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth) |
| Brunner,J.F.L.(Lancs., Leith) | Dickson-Poynder, Sir John P.) | Hazel, Dr. A. E. |
| Brunner, Sir John T.(Cheshire) | Donelan, Captain A. | Hedges, A. Paget |
| Bryce,Rt.Hn.James(Aberdeen | Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness | Helme, Norval Watson |
| Buckmaster, Stanley O. | Dunn, A Edward (Camborne) | Hemmerde, Edward George |
| Henderson, Arthur (Durham) | Marnham, F. J. | Runciman, Walter |
| Henderson,J.M.(Aberdeen,W.) | Mason, A. E. W. (Coventry) | Rutherford, V. H. (Brentford) |
| Henry, Charles S. | Massie, J. | Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland) |
| Herbert, Col. Ivor (Mon. S.) | Masterman, C. F. G. | Schwann, C. Duncan (Hyde) |
| Herbert, T. Arnold (Wycombe) | Menzies, Walter | Schwann, Sir C.E.(Manchester) |
| Higham, John Sharp | Micklem, Nathaniel | Scott, A.H.(Ashton-under-Lyne |
| Hobart, Sir Robert | Molteno, Percy Alport | Sears, J. E. |
| Hobhouse, Charles E. H. | Mond, A. | Seddon, J. |
| Hodge, John | Montagu, E. S. | Seely, Major J. B. |
| Holland, Sir William Henry | Montgomery, H. G. | Shackleton, David James |
| Hooper, A. G. | Mooney, J. J. | Shaw, Rt. Hon. T. (Hawick B.) |
| Hope,W.Bateman(Somerset,N. | Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen) | Shipman, Dr. John G. |
| Horridge, Thomas Gardner | Morley, Rt. Hon. John | Sinclair, Rt. Hon. John |
| Howard, Hon. Geoffrey | Morse, L. L. | Smeaton, Donald Mackenzie |
| Hudson, Walter | Morton, Alpheus Cleophas | Snowden, P. |
| Hyde, Clarendon | Murnaghan, George | Soames, Arthur Wellesley |
| Idris, T. H. W. | Murray, James | Soares, Ernest J. |
| Illingworth, Percy H. | Myer, Horatio | Spicer, Sir Albert |
| Jacoby, James Alfred | Nicholls, George | Stanley, Hn. A. Lyulph (Chesh. |
| Jenkins, J. | Nicholson, Chas. N. (Doncast'r | Steadman, W. C. |
| Johnson, John (Gateshead) | Nolan, Joseph | Stewart, Halley (Greenock) |
| Johnson, W. (Nuneaton) | Norman, Henry | Stewart-Smith, D. (Kendal) |
| Jones,Sir D. Brynmor(Swansea | Norton, Capt. Cecil William | Strachey, Sir Edward |
| Jones, Leif (Appleby) | Nussey, Thomas Willans | Stuart, James (Sutherland) |
| Jones, William(Carnarvonshire | Nuttall, Harry | Sullivan, Donal |
| Jowett, F. W. | O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny) | Taylor, John W. (Durham) |
| Joyce, Michael | O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.) | Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe) |
| Kearley, Hudson E. | O'Doherty, Philip | Thomas, Sir A. (Glamorgan, E.) |
| Kekewich, Sir George | O'Donnell, C. J. (Walworth) | Thomas, DavidAlfred(Merthyr) |
| Kelley, George D. | O'Grady, J. | Thomasson, Franklin |
| Kennaway, Rt.Hn. Sir John H. | O'Kelly, James(Roscommon,N | Thorne, William |
| O'Malley, William | Torrance, Sir A. M. | |
| King, Alfred John (Knutsford) | O'Mara, James | Trevelyan, Charles Philips |
| Kitson, Sir James | Parker, James (Halifax) | Verney, F. W. |
| Laidlaw, Robert | Partington, Oswald | Vivian, Henry |
| Lamb, Edmund G. (Leominster | Paul, Herbert | Wadsworth, J. |
| Lamb, Ernest H. (Rochester) | Paulton, James Mellor | Waldron, Laurence Ambrose |
| Lambert, George | Pearce, Robert (Staffs. Leek) | Walker, H. De R. (Leicester) |
| Lamont, Norman | Pearce, William (Limehouse) | Wallace, Robert |
| Layland-Barratt, Francis | Philipps, Col.Ivor (S'thampton) | Walsh, Stephen |
| Leese, Sir JosephF.(Accrington | Philipps, Owen C. (Pembroke) | Walton, Sir John L. (Leeds, S.) |
| Lehmann, R. C. | Pickersgill, Edward Hare | Walton, Joseph (Barnsley) |
| Lever, W. H. (Cheshire, Wirral) | Price, C. E. (Edinb'gh, Central) | Ward, John (Stoke upon Trent |
| Levy, Maurice | Price, Robert John(Norfolk,E.) | Ward, W.Dudley(Southampton |
| Lewis, John Herbert | Radford, G. H. | Wardle, George J. |
| Lloyd-George, Rt. Hon. David | Rainy, A. Rolland | Wason, John Cathcart(Orkney) |
| Lough, Thomas | Raphael, Herbert H. | Wedgwood, Jusiah C. |
| M'Laren, H. D. (Stafford, W.) | Rea, Russell (Gloucester) | Weir, James Galloway |
| Mackarness, Frederic C. | Rea, Walter Russell (Scarboro' | Whitbread, Howard |
| Maclean, Donald | Redmond, John E.(Waterford) | White, George (Norfolk) |
| Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J. | Rees, J. D. | White, J. D. (Dumbartonshire |
| Macpherson, J. T. | Rendall, Athelstan | White, Luke (York, E.R.) |
| MacVeagh, Jeremiah (Down,S; | Renton, Major Leslie | Whitley, J. H. (Halifax) |
| MacVeigh, Chas. (Donegal, E.) | Richards,Thomas (W'Monm'th | Whittaker, Sir Thomas Palmer |
| M'Crae, George | Richards, T. F.(Wolverh'mpt'n | Wilkie, Alexander |
| M'Hugh, Patrick A. | Richardson, A. | Williams, J. (Glamorgan) |
| M'Killop, W. | Rickett, J. Compton | Williams, Osmond (Merioneth) |
| M'Laren, Sir C. B. (Leicester) | Ridsdale, E. A. | Wills, Arthur Walters |
| Macdonald, J.M.(Falkirk B'ghs | Roberts, G. H. (Norwich) | Wilson, Henry J. (York, W.R.) |
| M'Micking, Major G. | Roberts, John H. (Denbighs.) | Wilson, J. H. (Middlesbrough) |
| Maddison, Frederick | Robertson, Rt. Hn. E.(Dundee) | Wilson, P. W. (St. Pancras, S.) |
| Mallet, Charle E. | Robertson, SirG.Scott(Bradf'rd | Winfrey, R |
| Manfield, Harry (Northants) | Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside) | |
| Mansfield, H. Rendall(Lincoln) | Robinson, S. | TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Mr. Whiteley and Mr. J. A. Pease. |
| Markham, Arthur Basil | Robson, Sir William Snowdon | |
| Marks, G. Croydon (Launceston | Rowlands, J. |
§ MR. HARMOOD-BANNER (Liverpool, Ever ton) moved an Amendment with the object of extending the provisions of the Bill to British India and the 100 Crown Colonies. He expressed his gratitude to the President of the Board of Trade for his most excellent measure and for so well receiving the representations of 101 those who were interested. At the same time he ventured to hope that the measure would be extended throughout the British Empire, appreciating as they did the fact that it was a great measure of safety. He had not included in the Amendment a reference to the self-governing Colonies, not because he did not believe that those Colonies should be included, but because he thought that on representation they would be only too pleased to come into a joint regulation with ourselves and to join in the measures of safety now proposed, and also because he thought they might safely leave to the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies one measure which he could bring forward in the Colonial Conference which he believed would be heartily welcomed by all. It would be much better if they left that matter to the Conference than to attempt to pass any Resolution to impose a clause which the Colonies might consider an interference with their principles of government. He had not, however, omitted a reference to the Crown Colonies or British India in the Amendment, because he hoped that there existed in the minds of the right hon. Gentlemen who occupied the front seat opposite that unity of purpose and design as regarded the general safety of the British Empire which ought to exist, and that these provisions which came before the House in the form of Bills and had been duly discussed and accepted as principles ought to be universal. Therefore, he thought they might consider that when the President of the Board of Trade brought forward a measure of inestimable boon to those who sailed on the seas, he had the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies and the Secretary of State for India with him in approving such a measure of general utility. When they had accepted this principle of general utility for the saving of life he thought they might rightly and properly say to them, "If you consider it right and proper for the United Kingdom, we ask you to accept and extend it to British India and to the Crown Colonies," all of whom, he thought, were subject to what this House might pass as measures containing principles of safety. Therefore, he did ask the House to establish the principle of safety by including the Amendment. Further, he asked that they would add to this clause our splendid dependency of India, so that, as regarded British ship- 102 ping, while there would still be loft the self-governing Colonies, which, he hoped, the Under-Secretary to the Colonies would bring into this general measure, there would be no other part of the British dominions which would not be subject to the great principle of safety embodied in this Bill. He looked to the hon. Member below the gangway for his approval and that of his followers. There was no doubt that on a question of money we should in this case place the British shipowner on an equality with the foreign shipowner he was an unfortunate shipowner himself, and he must say that he considered he was deserving of every consideration. On the question of money undoubtedly the British shipowner was very heavily handicapped. When a British steamer went from Rangoon or some other port of a British dependency, and a German ship sailed from the same port to Antwerp or some other foreign port, there was a difference of 10 per cent., so that on a freight of 15s. a foreigner could quote 1s. 6d. per ton loss and yet make the same amount as the British shipowner. Therefore, naturally the shipowner at the foreign port got a great advantage. So that if they accepted this principle they would be putting the British shipowner into a better position. But he did not ask them to consider the question of £ s. d. The great point they had to look at was life against filthy lucre. They ought to put life upon the highest elevation, and if they could, by an Act, Amendment, or Resolution of this House increase the number of sailors able to sail in safety, he thought they had a right and a compulsion upon them to do it. Further, unless there was some strong objection as regarded the powers of this House to deal with the Crown Colonies and India they ought to accept the position of saying that what was good for the United Kingdom was good for India and the Colonies; and he hoped that they would at all times, as far as possible in this great Empire, consider the principles of safety before the principles of money.
§ SIR GEORGE DOUGHTY (Great Grimsby)seconded the Amendment. It seemed to him that what was good enough for the United Kingdom should certainly be good enough for any of our Crown or self-governing Colonies. The 103 Crown Colonies, to which the Amendment applied, had a very large shipping exchange with the United Kingdom, and if it were necessary for ships using British ports to have a load line, surely it was also necessary that the ships that used the ports of our Crown Colonies should be under similar obligations. He should think the House of Commons would be very wise if they endeavoured to apply the provisions of this Bill wherever possible throughout the King's dominions, because it was many years before they could expect or hope to have another Merchant Shipping Bill, and he suggested to the President of the Board of Trade that he now had a great opportunity—an opportunity that would probably not present itself to him again—of making his magnificent measure very much more serviceable than it otherwise could be, by applying it to these particular dominions. It represented an advantage of something like 10 per cent, to the ships. He thought they should endeavour, in this House at least, to claim equal rights for all persons using and having the advantage of British ports. That was common ground upon which they should try to work out this question. Why should the House of Commons, above all others, be ready to give foreign ships a 10 per cent, advantage over English ships? He was very much delighted when he found his right hon. friend the President of the Board of Trade was considering the question of protecting British interests in any form when he admitted the necessity of a load line being applied to foreign ships coming into British ports. By accepting this Amendment and applying the same law to the Crown Colonies, the House would apply this principle of equal justice. He hoped the President of the Board of Trade would give this question kindly and generous consideration, and that notwithstanding all the great ability of the learned Solicitor General they would not have any necessity for a legal argument on the question, because, after all, the Amendment only proposed to extend the provision to the Crown Colonies, and if the matter was left to the good judgment of the President of the Board of Trade he believed it would be adopted. Personally he was sorry that the Amendment did not go further. He thought it should have gone the whole length of including the self-governing Colonies, but, as his 104 hon. friend said, this would be considered at the Colonial Conference among a multitude of other things. He was content to second the Amendment.
§
Amendment proposed—
In page 1, line 12, to leave out the words 'United Kingdom,' and insert the words 'British Isles, or in British Isles, or in any Crown Colony.'"—(Mr. Harmood-Banner.)
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEdid not differ from the hon. Member who moved this Amendment in his contention that probably it would be desirable that this Bill should apply to India and the Crown Colonies. But his difficulty with regard to the Amendment was this. The hon. Member was endeavouring by an Amendment proposed on the Report Stage of the Bill to establish a new precedent of a very grave constitutional kind. He proposed that we should legislate here for India and the Crown Colonies. Now that would be a great departure from former practice. He thought that up to the present, as the hon. Member knew perfectly well, the Viceroy in Council legislated for India, and in regard to the Crown Colonies legislation was by means of Ordinance. So far as the Merchant Shipping Laws were concerned they had hitherto pretty well followed the legislation passed in this House. It was not for him to express an opinion as to what they should do, but he should think that they would follow the legislation which we passed. The Government could not accept an Amendment of this sort; there would be protests from India and all the Crown Colonies. His hon. friend had said that he should have extended it to the self-governing Colonies. That would have boon a most dangerous thing, and he was surprised that such an Imperialist as he was should have suggested it. He would, however, bring the matter to the notice of the Colonial Office and the India Office. He trusted the hon. Member would be satisfied with that promise, and not press the Amendment.
§ MR. HAVELOCK WILSONsaid he had an open mind on this question, as he had on that which had just been discussed. He spent about half a day trying to get the shipowners to rally to his support to carry this Amendment, and not one of them had the courage to support him in Committee. As a matter 105 of fact, seeing that he could not got any support, he had to withdraw in Committee the very Amendment the hon. Member for Liverpool was now moving. He was glad that the hon. Member looked upon this matter as one involving the safety of human life and the protection of seamen. He hoped that view would be carried through all the other clauses of the Bill. There was a clause which prohibited the engagement of foreign seamen in this country unless they could speak our language. That was to save life. He hoped that that clause would be made to apply to our Colonies, and that it would have the support not only of the hon. Member but of the shipowners. If it was good to save life by this means when engaging men at ports in the United Kingdom, it was only common sense to suppose that it would be a good thing to save life in this way when engaging foreign seamen in foreign ports. He should like the hon. Member to support him in that. He had no doubt that the President of the Board of Trade would do his best for them in this matter. He was going to give him some consolation. The self-governing Colonies would deal with the question sooner or later. As a matter of fact, he believed they were considering the matter now. He hoped he had the support of hon. Gentlemen representing shipping interests in asking that all the clauses in the Bill which had for their object the safety of the lives of men should be made applicable not only to the United Kingdom, but to our Colonies, and to places abroad generally.
§ MR. WYNDHAM (Dover)said they had all heard with lively satisfaction that the President of the Board of Trade was in full sympathy with the object of the Amendment. The right hon. Gentleman had promised to communicate with the Ministers who represented the great Empire of India, and the British Colonies, whether self-governing or Crown Colonies, and he believed that the method the President of the Board of Trade had suggested was preferable to the method of direct legislation in this House. His hon. friend who moved the Amendment himself felt that it would be unusual and inexpedient for the House to legislate in respect of the self-governing Colonies. At the Colonial 106 Conference there would be an opportunity of conferring on the matter, and that would be more in accordance with precedent. The self-governing Colonies should be loft to decide this matter for themselves. With regard to the great Empire of India and our Crown Colonies, we were in a kind of perpetual conference with them. The Secretary for India was always able to confer with the Government of India, and he thought it was inexpedient for the House of Commons to attempt to legislate directly for the great Empire of India.
§ MR. CLAUDE HAY (Shoreditch, Hoxton)said the President of the Board of Trade in stating that the Amendment raised a great constitutional question had forgotten what passed upstairs, for they had just heard from the hon. Member for Middlesbrough that he moved an Amendment in Committee which was almost identical with that now before the House.
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEHe withdrew it.
§ MR. CLAUDE HAYsaid that did not alter the point. The question was raised in Committee, but the right hon. Gentleman spoke as if this was the first time the matter had been brought within his ken. They were all obliged for the courteous reception of the Amendment, to which they attached very great importance. He hoped the communications made to the India Office and the Colonial Office would not have the same fate as so many communications had had, namely, to find a happy resting place in the pigionholes of the Department to which they were addressed. He hoped it would not be long before they were able to ask the right hon. Gentleman to lay on the Table of the House the opinions of the Crown Colonies and of the Government of India, and to state what steps he proposed to take in accordance with those recorded opinions on this great matter.
§ *MR. AUSTIN TAYLORsaid that as far as this Amendment aimed at uniformity in the shipping laws of the British Empire it had his support. In Committee he had moved that a certain step towards uniformity should be taken, namely, by enacting that no 107 Colony should by internal legislation affecting trade conflict with the general maritime law of this country. But lie did think after what his hon. friend had said that this was not a convenient moment for discussing principles of this kind. It might be convenient that he should say at this stage of the proceedings that, having got rid of one of the most contentious matters so far as the shipping interests were concerned, the Amendments which remained on the paper, some put down by the Government and others standing in his name, were not contentious Amendments. The history of this Bill had been one of give and take. While reserving perfect liberty of action in the case of the new clauses which did contain highly contentious matter, he was able to say that the Amendments which remained wore, if not matters of bargain between the shipping interests and the Government, at any rate not matters that wore more than what might be considered fair give and take.
§ *MR. DAVID MACIVERsaid he had very great sympathy with this Amendment, lie was surprised to hear his hon. friend the Member for the Everton Division describe himself as a shipowner. The hon. Member might have had the misfortune to own shares in ships, but he could not regard him as a shipowner so far as the management of shipping was concerned. If he had been concerned in the management of ships he would not have given such a glowing panegyric to this Bill. He was perfectly certain that the shipowners would not agree with what his hon. Friend had said about it. There was another point that he wished to speak about. It was said that British shipowners were an easy first as compared with foreigners and that the Board of Trade returns showed they were more than holding their own in the commerce of the world. He would like hon. Members who believed that to be the case to take up the advertisement sheet of The Times newspaper and see how foreign ships competed with British ships in Indian and Colonial ports, lie would like them to go to Leadenhall Street and see——
§ *MR. SPEAKERThese matters are not relevant to the Amendment before the House.
§ *MR. DAVID MACIVERmaintained that these foreigners would be still further enabled to enter into unfair competition with British shipowners if this Bill passed in the shape proposed by the Government. There was a very real unfair competition in our Indian and Colonial ports between British and foreign ships, and unless foreign and British ships were to be placed on equal terms, and unless the advantages which the foreign ships at present enjoyed in these ports were taken from them, our supremacy, already threatened, would soon be a thing of the past. He supported the Amendment.
§ MR. HARMOOD-BANNERasked leave to withdraw the Amendment. He thanked the President of the Board of Trade for the expression of his views; and he understood the right hon. Gentleman would bring the subject before the Secretary of State for India and the Secretary of State for the Colonies.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§
LORD R. CECIL (Marylebone, E.) moved to leave out Clause 3. He desired to enter a, protest, as he had had to do on previous occasions, against the form of legislation which the Bill so largely adopted. In fact, this clause gave a very good example of the kind of thing which was done repeatedly. It asked the legislature to read into this Bill provisions from previous legislation without any indication of the effect of that legislation. They had had a discussion on an Amendment moved by the hon. Member for Elgin and Nairn, and he was sure that not one single Member, except perhaps a lawyer or a shipowner, had the slightest conception of what was meant by it. It was impossible for hon. Members of this House to pretend to know what, in these circumstances, they were doing. Why should not hon. Members be put in a position in which they could apprehend what was laid before them? He submitted to the Government that the very least they could do was to print and circulate the Act which it was proposed to amend alongside the Amendment proposed. Then they could turn to the old Act itself and see the effect of the proposed changes. He ventured to say that no Member not actually connected
109
with shipping knew what was the effect of the first four lines of this clause—
And also to the provisions of Section 454, so far as that section provides for the delivery of the notice mentioned therein to the proper officer of customs in the United Kingdom, and the master, agent, or owner of the ship, shall be liable accordingly.
What idea did that convey to any hon. Member not familiar with the subject? He submitted that that was not a proper form of legislation, and he asked the Government very seriously to consider whether something could not be done to make in these cases proposed amending legislation intelligible.
§ *MR. CARLILE (Hertfordshire, St. Albans)seconded the Motion. To an ordinary layman a clause such as this was, he said, entirely unintelligible Consolidation of all the Acts referring to a particular subject seemed to be urgent, so as to do away with all legislation by reference. Most of them wore quite unable, from want of time, to look up all the various provisions referred to in previous Acts of Parliament; and it was most desirable that there should be placed in their hands in some convenient form, the provisions to which reference was made in the amending Bill.
§
Amendment proposed—
In page 2, line 10, to leave out Clause 3.
§ Question proposed, "That Clause 3 stand part of the Bill."
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEsaid he quite agreed with the noble Lord that it was very undesirable to legislate by reference, but it was almost inevitable under present Parliamentary conditions. This was one of the difficulties felt by every Government; but he was sure that the members of the late Government would admit that the practice of legislation by reference had increased very considerably under their régime. [OPPOSITION cries of "Oh, oh."] He had watched their proceedings with considerable scrutiny. [An HON. MEMBER on the OPPOSITION benches: "You were the justification."] If the noble Lord would look further he would see that they had done a great deal in this Bill to simplify and codify the law in regard 110 to the shipping of grain cargo, and they were doing the same thing in regard to timber loading on ships. There were many Bills more open to the criticism of the noble Lord than the present. All that the clause said was that the precautions to be taken under the Act of 1904 against the shifting of grain cargo in British ships should apply to foreign ships. He did not see how it was possible to put that in a better and clearer way than it was done under the present Bill; but generally he agreed with the noble Lord as to the undesirability of legislation by reference.
§ *MR. STUART WORTLEY (Sheffield, Hallam)thought that his noble friend might have put his case more strongly even than he had. The noble Lord might have gone further when he said that the Legislature was by this system of legislation by reference asked to read into a new measure provisions from previous Acts of Parliament. It was not the Legislature alone that had to do so, but the Judicature also. In the House they had some means of arriving at what was meant by the Bills they passed, but the Judicature had not. That was one of the inexorable conditions under which they worked; but there was a method of relief—by consolidation—and he wished to know whether hon. Gentlemen opposite had any intention of trying to got that improvement. The Government were at the present moment considering and elaborating measures for the amendment of the rules of procedure of this House, and what better opportunity could they have for facilitating the passage of a non-controversial consolidating measure?
§ SIR JOHN BRUNNER (Cheshire, Northwich)welcomed the noble Lord's Amendment. The noble Lord was a pupil of his father's in this matter. He had before reminded the House of the excellent advice given by the late Marquess of Salisbury of the evil effect of legislation by reference. He greatly regretted that the noble Lord had been overcome by the soft sawder of the President of the Board of Trade, and he hoped the noble Lord would soon got the advantage of a lighter place and not let the right hon. Gentleman out of it until they had dealt with this matter.
§ SIR GILBERT PARKER (Gravesend)suggested that the Acts quoted and the Amendments proposed should be printed in juxtaposition for the use of Members. The changes to be made would then be understood by everyone who ran and read. Would the right hon. Gentleman give them an assurance on that point?
§ LORD R. CECILsaid he was somewhat impressed by the argument that it would not be right to strike out Clause 3. He thought it was a valuable clause, and with the permission of the House he would withdraw his Amendment, although he was not in any way mollified by the soft sawder of the right hon. Gentleman.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ LORD BALCARRES, in formally moving to omit Clause 5, which provided that the Act should come into operation on 1st October, 1908, or such other day, not being more than twelve months later, as the Board of Trade might appoint, said it would be a great convenience to many persons in the country and around him if the President of the Board of Trade would make some general statement as to when it was probable that the Act would be brought into operation.
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEsaid that if the hon. Member looked at the Bill he would find that it would come into operation at different times. He could not make a general statement at this stage, but he was willing to consider the question of making one later.
§ LORD BALCARRES, regretting that the right hon. Gentleman could not make a more precise statement, withdrew his Amendment.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ LORD R. CECIL moved to leave out the words in Clause 6, "under stress of weather or for repairs." He did not understand the purpose for which those words were put in. The clause provided that nothing in the foregoing provisions of this part of the Act should affect any foreign ship not bound to a port in the United Kingdom which came into any port of the United Kingdom under stress of weather or for repairs, or for any purpose other than the purpose 112 of embarking or landing passengers, or taking in or discharging cargo or taking in bunker coal. The danger of putting in these words was that they would confine the general words of the clause to occasions of a different character from those which were mentioned in the general words. If it was not desired to confine the general words, then these particular words were unnecessary, and if it was desired to confine the general words, then some such words, or others with a similar purpose, should be inserted in other portions of the Bill.
§ *MR. SPEAKERDoes any hon. Member second?
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEI do not object to the Amendment.
§
Amendment proposed—
In page 3, line 4, to leave out the words 'under stress of weather or for repairs.'
§ Amendment agreed to.
§
Amendments moved—
In page 3, line 18, to leave out the words 'to foreign ships.'"—(Mr. Lloyd-George.)
In page 3, line 19, after the word 'Act' to insert the words 'to all foreign ships."'—(Mr. Lloyd-George.)
§ Amendments agreed to.
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGE moved the omission of Clause 9 for the purpose which the noble Lord had impressed upon him of moving a new clause later on in order to consolidate the Act.
§ Amendment agreed to.
§ LORD R. CECIL moved to leave out Clause 11, which seemed to him most objectionable, because it said that only seamen with a sufficient knowledge of English to understand the necessary orders should be employed upon British ships. It seemed to him that this clause would be perfectly illusory in effect. Anybody who had watched the proceedings of seamen in a foreign port would understand that foreigners gave each other the word of command in English. It was nothing unusual in Normandy, for instance, to hoar one foreign gentleman who did not understand English say to another gentleman who 113 also did not understand English, "stop." The effect of the clause was that as soon as a seaman had mastered enough of the English language to know the words of command, he could serve. The position that a seaman on board a British ship should be really familiar with the English language was intelligible, but the present clause was illusory, and he moved its omission.
§ SIR WILLIAM BULL (Hammersmith)seconded.
§
Amendment proposod—
In page 5, line 12, to leave out Clause 11."—(Lord R. Cecil.)
§ Question proposed, "That Clause 11 stand part of the Bill."
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEwould not have thought that the noble Lord could have got any support for his motion, because if there was one section of the Bill which upstairs and on the Second Reading was supported, and also by the Royal Commission, it was this one.
§ SIR GILBERT PARKERquite agreed that on the Second Reading and in the Committee there was a strong feeling that this clause should be passed because of the danger to life owing to the fact that foreign seamen did not understand the words of command in time of danger. This was shown by a report just issued by the Department of which the right hon. Gentleman was the head. He strongly urged the noble Lord to withdraw his Amendment, because the clause had been the result of long agitation in this House, and among those who understood that this precaution meant the safety of human life in the mercantile marine.
§ LORD R. CECILthought his hon. friend had entirely misunderstood him. He objected that the clause would not carry out what was intended. If it was necessary to have someone on the ships to secure that the seamen should have a competent knowledge of the English language it was easy enough to enact that, but let the House know exactly what they were legislating. He would not, however, put the House to the trouble of a division on the matter.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
114
§
Amendment proposed—
In page 5, line 14, after the word 'Port' to insert 'in the British Isles or.'"—(Mr. Lloyd-George).
§ The Amendment agreed to.
§ SIR ROBERT ROPNER (Stockton) moved to insert at the end of the clause, "this clause shall only apply to sailors, and not to engineers, firemen, cooks, or stewards." The House would immediately observe the drift of the Amendment. In the original Act the word "seamen" included every man I on board, and if this clause was passed without their saying exactly what they meant by it it would apply not only to seamen but to men who had nothing to do with the navigation of the ship, but who were engaged down below. The whole object of the clause was simply to insure that navigation should be made more secure in future so far as the men who were navigating the ship understanding the orders given to them were concerned. He quite agreed that the ordinary seamen ought to understand the orders given, and therefore he did not object to the clause itself, but he thought the clause should explain that it only referred to deck hands, to the actual sailors, and not to men working down below such as firemen, cooks and stewards. If a captain engaged a cook or steward who could only talk French it did not matter, and it could not affect a fireman who also worked below. He hoped the House would agree with him that some such explanation as this was required. He bogged to move.
§ MR. EVELYN CECIL, in seconding the Amendment, said there was a great deal in what his hon. friend had said. It was necessary that the word "seamon" should be defined, because otherwise it might include all sorts of persons who had nothing to do with the navigation of the vessel. He believed on men-of-war French cooks were employed, and on many merchant vessels German waiters were used. He did not know that there was any special necessity for their use, but the object of the clause was the safety of navigation, and they ought to legislate with that object, and not to include in the scope of the clause persons who had nothing to do with navigation. It could not be said 115 that cooks and stewards had anything to do with the primary object of navigating the ship, and therefore he did not think that this clause should be loft as uncertain as it was, but that some definition such as had been suggested should be inserted.
§ MR. SPEAKERrose to put the Amendment.
§ SIR ROBERT ROPNERBefore you put the Amendment, Sir, may I amend it by leaving out "engineers"?
§
Amendment proposed—
At the end of Clause 5 to add 'This clause shall only apply to sailors, and not to firemen, cooks, or stewards.'"—(Sir Robert Ropner.)
§ *MR. AUSTIN TAYLORthought the alteration which the hon. Baronet opposite had just made in the Amendment he had proposed, at almost the eleventh hour, showed how extremely difficult it was to define the particular class of person on board ship who was concerned with its navigation. He was sorry his hon. friend did not bring this point out in the Committee upstairs, because there they had all these points fully discussed. The whole matter was thoroughly thrashed out, and finally this clause was settled in its present form. And while he quite agreed with the hon. Gentleman opposite that it did seem an anomaly to suggest that the navigation of a ship could be in any sense dependent on its cook, he thought if this House attempted now to discriminate and say to what department of a ship the safety of its navigation could be confined, it was taking a stop which at all events created extreme difficulty. Speaking from the shipowners' point of view he desired to say quite frankly that though they never wanted this clause at all, and though it would give a great deal of trouble to the shipowners, yet the clause having emerged from the Committee in the form in which it now was they were content with it. He could not support an Amendment of this kind.
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEsaid he could not accept any Amendment which would limit this clause. He did not think there was anyone on board ship of whom it might not be said that in emergencies he contributed to the safety of the vessel. 116 He should have thought of all men on board a ship the man who it was most important should understand the orders given was the cook, upon whom the comfort of the passengers, if not the safety of the ship, so much depended. It was difficult to discriminate. It was important that everybody should understand the orders, and he thought the words recommended unanimously by the Committee were necessary, and that it would be a great mistake on the part of the House to try and fine down this clause.
§ MR. HAVELOCK WILSONwas rather surprised that the hon. Baronet the Member for Stockton should have endeavoured to water down this clause, which if anything required strengthening instead of weakening. He was pleased that his hon. friend should have admitted that it was only right that everybody should understand the order given, because that brought the last part of the clause into operation. When it came to manning the boats every man should be able understand the language. Firemen with others had their stations in the lifeboat, and it would be a fine thing to have firemen in a boat who could not understand the language—men drawn from the list given in the Return issued by the Mercantile Marine Office at Cardiff, a list comprising Austrian s, Brazilians, Chilians, Chinese, Danish, Dutch, Germans, Greeks, Portuguese Russians, Scandinavians, Swiss, Turks, Japanese, and others. That list showed that the percentage of foreigners over British seamen was something like 65 per cent. The hon. Baronet had been very strong on the competition to which the poor shipowner was subject from the foreign shipowner, but what about the competition to which the poor sailors were subjected? Were they not to be taken into consideration? He had heard the hon. Baronet say in this House, on this Bill, that foreign seamen did not affect the case at all. But a Return from the Mercantile Marino Office at Cardiff this year showed that in cases where the wages were £3 15s. a month the number of foreigners engaged on British ships was 820, and the number of British was 1,359, but when the wages were down to £3 5s. a month the number of foreigners engaged was 1,013, and the number of British only 348. 117 Did not that prove very clearly that it was in consequence of lower wages that these men were employed? The objection that the hon. Baronet had to a clause of this kind was that the shipowners might be prevented from employing the lowest class of alien.
§ SIR ROBERT ROPNERI do not object to the clause at all.
§ MR. HAVELOCK WILSONsaid that other hon. Members on the Committee would remember perfectly well that the hon. Baronet made a strong stand against it, and after being defeated he now wanted to water the effect of the clause by saying the fireman should be left out. He was surprised the hon. Baronet should argue in that line, because what was the position of a fireman in the stokehold of a ship? The engineer was in the engine room a considerable distance away, and he wanted the fireman to open the smoke-box door. How was he to convey that order unless he had a man who understood? Had he to leave the engine room to do the work himself? If so he was neglecting a very important duty by leaving his engines at a critical moment, perhaps, when he might be ordered to go full speed or half speed astern. The objection to this clause was that it did not go far enough. He thought it ought to apply to the Colonies. Here was an opportunity for those hon. Gentlemen who believed in giving protection to British labour. They might move an Amendment to say that this clause should apply to British ships engaging crews in the self-governing Colonies and otherwise, because there the colonial law could not possibly come in conflict with this, as they were dealing with British ships under the Imperial Act. What the House had done now with regard to this clause would go a long way to prevent loss of life at sea. There was no mistake that ships had been lost in consequence of having men on board who could not understand our language. He remembered a case not more than two years ago, where six lives were lost in consequence of the chief officer having to leave the bridge to go to the main deck to explain to the foreigners, who were of three different nationalities, what he wanted them to do, and whilst he was 118 absent from his post the vessel ran into a small fishing boat and six lives were lost. A good many people had sought to exclude foreigners entirely from British ships. He had never supported that, but he said that if the foreigner came into our service he should be competent, and a man could not be competent who did not understand the orders given on his ship. In Germany they would not allow any foreigner to be employed on a Gorman ship who could not speak and understand German. If they thought that was necessary in Germany, surely it was about time that in Great Britain, seeing the enormous increase of foreign seamen on our ships, such a clause as this should be passed into law. It would be beneficial. It would not injure the shipowners. Shipowners had an unlimited supply of British labour. A request would be made to the Government to give a grant of money to solve the unemployed problem, whereas on board our own ships could be found employment for at least another 50,000 men, which would go a long way to solve the unemployed problem if they could have the co-operation of the shipowner. Nor would it cost any more in wages. They could, have them at the ordinary price; they could have them now, and he recommended shipowners in this House to take the matter into serious consideration this winter, to see if they could not do something to provide employment for the many thousands of men who were now unable to obtain work in our ports. He hoped this clause would be put into effect, his regret being that they had to wait for one year before it could come into operation. He thought it ought to come into use forthwith.
§ MR. BONAR LAWappealed to his hon. friend not to press the Amendment now before the House. There were two very good reasons. One was that this proposal was the unanimous recommendation of the Committee presided over by the late Sir Francis Tuke. It was one of the best Committees that ever sat, and was representative of the interests connected with shipping. The subject had been considered by all the large shipowning bodies in this country. Whether they liked it or not he could not say, but they had all accepted the proposal made by the Government, and 119 it would be a mistake to press for more than their representatives had asked for.
§ *MR. HOUSTONsaid that, speaking as a British shipowner, he was pleased the President of the Board of Trade had resisted this Amendment. In fact he should have liked him to have gone a great deal further, and said that British subjects should be employed to the exclusion of foreigners. He thought it was a step in the right direction, and the President of the Board of Trade deserved to be complimented on his truly British instinct in connection with this Bill. The right hon. Gentleman was a Protectionist of the right sort, and he was entirely in accord with him in protecting British industries and British labour. This Amendment would lead to great confusion and might result in great danger. Very often the fireman was called upon to do work in connection, if not with the navigation of the ship, at any rate with the navigation of the ships' boats. It was true that foreign seamen might appeal to a certain class of shipowners and might be employed as cheap labour in competition with foreign ships; but speaking as an owner of liners, he was sure he was expressing the sentiment of similar owners in saying that they would prefer to employ British sailors.
§ MR. CLAUDE HAYwas quite sure his hon. friend after listening to the appeals would withdraw his Amendment, which, in his humble opinion, struck at the root of the Bill, and defeated what they all had at heart, namely, the desire to increase the number of British seamen on British ships. He desired to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he would give an assurance that he would include within the representation to be made to the Colonial and India Offices the desirability of India and the Crown Colonies adopting the provisions of this clause. It was really part and parcel of his previous undertaking, but, at the same time, unless they have some definite undertaking on the subject, they did not quite know where they were.
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEI will consider that.
§ SIR ROBERT ROPNERsaid that with the permission of the House he would like to withdraw his Amendment.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§
Amendment proposed—
In page 5, line 23, to add the words, 'Provided that where the seaman has been allowed to sign an agreement after the date on which this section comes into force, and is discharged before a superintendent or other officer, the superintendent or officer shall note the fact on his certificate of discharge in manner directed by the Board of Trade, and a superintendent or other officer shall not under this section refuse to allow a seaman who holds a certificate so noted to sign an agreement, unless the superintendent or officer considers that there are special reasons for the refusal, and in that case he shall make a special report of the matter lo the Board of Trade.'"—(Mr. Lloyd-George.)
§ Amendment agreed to.
§ MR. ASHLEY (Lancashire, Blackpool) moved an Amendment to Clause 15, to provide that passengers should not be carried on any deck below a deck on which cattle were carried. The object of the right hon. Gentleman's clause was, he believed, that no passengers, whether steerage or cabin, should be carried on more than one dock below the water line. If the clause were carried in its present form, that intention would be frustrated, because if they were allowed to carry passengers on a deck below the main dock, the same insanitary conditions would practically prevail on the deck below the water line as would exist on the second deck below the water line of an ordinary ship. He understood that at the present time when passengers were carried on the first deck of a cattle boat, the conditions were so insanitary and disagreeable that he was sure it would not be the wish of this House, that such a state of things should be allowed to continue.
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEasked the hon. Gentleman whether he had any case in his mind as that which he referred to?
§ MR. ASHLEYsaid a friend of his who came over in one of those boats, had stated that the cattle were carried on what was called the main deck, and in fact, he himself was on the deck below that on which the cattle were, which meant that the only air that could be got into the deck where the passengers slept, was through a deck crowded with cattle.
§ MR. CHARLES WILSON (Hull, W.)asked if the hon. Member would kindly 121 name the boat? [Cries of "Why?"] Because, so far as most of them in the trade knew, there were no ships which carried passengers under cattle decks.
§ MR. ASHLEYsaid if there were no cases, there could be no objection to inserting these words to make quite sure. He begged to move his Amendment.
§ MR. HAVELOCK WILSONseconded the Amendment. He knew of ships where cattle were carried upon the upper dock, and all the foul air from the cattle came down into the steerage part of the vessel amongst the passengers. Certainly the quarters for the crew were below the level of the cattle, and anything that could be done to alter this state of things ought to be done, because it was extremely unpleasant for sailors and firemen to have to live close to cattle.
§
Amendment proposed—
In page 6, line 20, at end to end the words 'or on any deck below a deck on which cattle are carried.'"—(Mr. Ashley.)
§ Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEdid not think the mover of this Amendment had made out any case showing that the state of things which he wished to put an end to had any existence at all. Therefore, he failed to see how the insertion of these words would be of any use. He did not think they ought to insert superfluous words in this way.
§ MR. CLAUDE HAYthought the right hon. Gentleman was in error in saying that the matter was not one worthy of attention. His hon. friend who moved the Amendment had satisfied himself as to the case he had made out, and his view was supported by the hon. Member for Middlesbrough who was known to the whole House as an authority on the necessities of a sailor's life. Why should the case made out not be accepted, simply because his hon. friend had not given the names of the ships to which he had alluded and the particular voyages? To receive his hon. friend's statement in that way made the, debate unreal and troubled the House 122 with a lot of unnecessary details. He sincerely hoped his right hon. friend would reconsider this matter.
§ LORD R. CECILdid not think the Government wore treating the House quite fairly in this matter. The case which had been brought forward by the hon. Member for Blackpool had been corroborated by the hon. Member for Middlesbrough, and yet the right hon. Gentleman said that no case had been made out because the names of the ships had not been given. If hon. Members said that certain things had taken place that was a prima facie, case that it was true, and it was not right for a Minister of the Crown to say that because names were not given a case had not been made out. That kind of treatment could not facilitate the progress of the Bill, and if his hon. friend went to a division on his Amendment he would support him.
§ MR. AUSTIN TAYLORsaid that after listening to the speeches in favour of this Amendment he gathered that what was objected to was the presence of passengers below a dock carrying cattle which was below the water line. ["No, no."] If the hon. Member meant that no vessel which carried cattle in the open was to be allowed to carry passengers, then he was asking the House to insure something in the Bill which certainty ought not to be put in without the fullest consideration. Perhaps it would surprise the mover of this Amendment to hear that bad air went up and not down. Therefore, if the cattle were in the open on the upper dock no ill effects could result to the passengers below. He hoped the House would look at this matter from a practical point of view, and not hastily adopt an Amendment which had no justification, and which would prevent some of the best lines of steamers such as the "Cunard" and the "White Star" lines, which were well known for their comfort and convenience, from carrying a few cattle on deck for the purpose of feeding the passengers on board.
§ MR WOLFF (Belfast, E.)said that when the hon. Member for Middlesbrough talked about the nuisance of carrying cattle in the open on the upper deck he must have had in his mind the 123 cargo Channel steamers, because they carried the cattle on the same level as the sailors living in the forecastle; but with reference to any ships which regularly carried passengers, to say that they wore to have no cattle on the upper deck, was a very strong and a very serious Amendment to make. The hon. Member who moved this Amendment did not seem to have much knowledge of the working of ships. The carrying of cattle on the upper deck could do no harm to the passengers below, and it would be a strong measure to inflict a hardship of this kind upon shipowners to meet a case which was not of any importance. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would not accept the Amendment.
§ MR. HAVELOCK WILSONdesired to clear up what seemed to be a misapprehension. The ships he referred to were those carrying cattle on the main deck near the forecastle of the men on board, and very often where the passengers wore carried at the fore end of the ship. In such cases the cattle pens could not be cleaned out until the end of the voyage, and when the wind was at the stern the whole of the smell and nuisance came down into the place where the people had to live, and that was a state of things that ought not to exist.
§ Question put.
§ The House divided:—Ayes, 91; Noes, 244. (Division List No. 321.)
125| AYES. | ||
| Abraham, William (Cork, N.E.) | Forster, Henry William | Parker, James (Halifax) |
| Acland-Hood,Rt.Hn.SirAlex.F. | Gardner, Ernest (Berks, East) | Rawlinson, J. Frederick Peel |
| Ambrose, Robert | Gibbs, G. A. (Bristol, West) | Redmond, John E. (Waterford) |
| Anson, Sir William Reynell | Gill, A. H. | Richards, Thomas(W.Monm'th |
| Balcarres, Lord | Glover, Thomas | Richards, T. F. (Wolverh'mpt'n |
| Banner, John S. Harmood- | Hardie,J.Keir (MerthyrTydvil | Richardson, A. |
| Barnes, G. N. | Hay, Hon. Claude George | Roberts, G. H. (Norwich) |
| Beach, Hn.MichaelHugh Hicks | Henderson, Arthur (Durham) | Rutherford, W. W. (Liverpool) |
| Beckett, Hon. Gervase | Hervey,F.W.F.(BuryS.Edm'ds | Salter, Arthur Clavell |
| Boland, John | Hill, Sir Clement (Shrewsbury) | Shackleton, David James |
| Bowerman, C. W. | Hudson, Walter | Smith, F.E.(Liverpool,Walton) |
| Boyle, Sir Edward | Jenkins, J. | Staveley-Hill, Henry (Staff'sh |
| Brace, William | Jowett, F. W. | Steadman, W. C. |
| Bridgeman, W. Clive | Joyce, Michael | Sullivan, Donal |
| Bull, Sir William James | Kelley, George D. | Summerbell, T. |
| Carlile, E. Hildred | Kenyon-Slaney,Rt.Hn. Col.W. | Taylor, John W. (Durham) |
| Cave, George | Kimber, Sir Henry | Thorne, William |
| Cecil, Lord R. (Marylebone, E.) | Lane-Fox, G. R. | Thornton, Percy M. |
| Clynes, J. R. | MacIver, David (Liverpool) | Tuke, Sir John Batty |
| Coates, E. Feetham(Lewisham) | Macpherson, J. T. | Valentia, Viscount |
| Collings, Rt.Hn.J.(Birmingh'm | MacVeagh, Jeremiah (Down, S. | Vincent, Col. Sir C. E. Howard |
| Courthope, G. Loyd | MacVeigh, Chas. (Donegal, E.) | Ward, John (Stoke upon Trent) |
| Dalrymple, Viscount | M'Hugh, Patrick A. | Wardle, George J. |
| Delany, William | M'Killop, W. | Wilkie, Alexander |
| Donelan, Captain A. | Mildmay, Francis Bingham | Williams, J. (Glamorgan) |
| Doughty, Sir George | Mooney, J. J. | Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton) |
| Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers- | Morpeth, Viscount | Younger, George |
| Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness | Murnaghan, George | |
| Duncan,Robert(Lanark,Govan | O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny) | TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Mr. Ashley and Mr. Havelock Wilson. |
| Esmonde, Sir Thomas | O'Doherty, Phillip | |
| Fell, Arthur | O'Kelly, James (Roscommon,N | |
| Finch, Rt. Hon. George H. | O'Malley, William | |
| NOES. | ||
| Abraham, William (Rhondda) | Barlow, Percy (Bedford) | Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine |
| Agnew, George William | Beauchamp, E. | Black,ArthurW.(Bedfordshire) |
| Ainsworth, John Stirling | Beaumont, W. C. B. (Hexham) | Bolton, T.D.(Derbyshire,N.E.) |
| Alden, Percy | Bell, Richard | Bottomley, Horatio |
| Allen, A. Acland(Christchurch) | Bellairs, Carlyon | Boulton, A. C. F. (Ramsey) |
| Asquith,Rt.Hn.HerbertHenry | Benn.Sir J.Williams(Devonp'rt | Bramsdon, T. A. |
| Astbury, John Meir | Benn, W.(T'w'rHamlets,S.Geo. | Branch, James |
| Atherley-Jones, L. | Bertram, Julius | Brigg, John |
| Baker, Sir John (Portsmouth) | Bethell, J. H. (Essex,Romford) | Brodie, H. C. |
| Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight) | Bethell, T. R. (Essex, Maldon) | Brooke, Stopford |
| Barker, John | Billson, Alfred | Brunner,J.F.L. (Lancs., Leigh |
| Brunner, Sir John T.(Cheshire) | Hooper, A. G. | Rea, Russell (Gloucester) |
| Bryce, Rt.Hn.James(Aberdeen | Hope, W. Bateman(SomorsetN. | Rea, Walter Russell (Scarboro' |
| Buchanan, Thomas Ryburn | Houston, Robert Paterson | Rees, J. D. |
| Burns, Rt. Hon. John | Howard, Hon. Geoffrey | Rendall, Athelstan |
| Burnyeat, W. J. D. | Hutton, Alfred Eddison | Renton, Major Leslie |
| Byles, William Pollard | Idris, T. H. W. | Ridsdale, E. A. |
| Cairns, Thomas | Illingworth, Percy H. | Roberts, John H. (Denbighs.) |
| Campbell-Bannerman, Sir H. | Jardine, Sir J. | Robertson,Rt. Hn. E. (Dundee) |
| Causton,Rt.Hn.Richard Knight | Johnson, John (Gateshead) | Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside) |
| Cheetham, John Frederick | Johnson, W (Nuneaton) | Robinson, S. |
| Cherry, Rt. Hon. R. R. | Jones, Leif (Appleby) | Robson, Sir William Snowdon |
| Clarke, C. Goddard | Jones, William(Carnarvonshire | Rogers, F. E. Newman |
| Cleland, J. W. | Kearley, Hudsen E. | Rose, Charles Day |
| Clough, W. | Kekewich, Sir George | Rowlands, J. |
| Cobbold, Felix Thornley | Kitson, Sir James | Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland) |
| Corbett,C.H(Sussex,E.Grinst'd | Laidlaw, Robert | Schwann, C. Duncan (Hyde) |
| Cory, Clifford John | Lamb, Ernest H. (Rochester) | Schwann, Sir C.E. (Manchester) |
| Cotton, Sir H. J. S. | Lambert, George | Scott, A.H. (Ashton under Lyne |
| Cowan, W. H. | Lamont, Norman | Sears, J. E. |
| Cox, Harold | Layland-Barratt, Francis | Seddon, J. |
| Cremer, William Randal | Leese, Sir JosephF.(Accrington | Shaw, Rt. Hn. T. (Hawick, B.) |
| Crossley, William J. | Lehmann, R. C. | Shipman, Dr. John G. |
| Dalziel, James Henry | Lever, A. Levy (Essex,Harwich | Silcock, Thomas Ball |
| Davies, David(MontgomeryCo. | Levy, Maurice | Simon, John Allsebrook |
| Davies, Ellis William (Eifion) | Lewis, John Herbert | Sinclair, Rt. Hon. John |
| Davies, Timothy (Fulham) | Lloyd-George, Rt. Hon. David | Smeaton, Donald Mackenzie |
| Davies, W. Howell (Bristol, S.) | Lough, Thomas | Snowden, P. |
| Dewar, Arthur (Edinburgh,S.) | Lupton, Arnold | Soares, Ernest J. |
| Dunn, A. Edward (Camborne) | Lyell, Charles Henry | Spicer, Sir Albert |
| Edwards, Clement (Denbigh) | Lynch, H. B. | Stanger, H. Y. |
| Edwards, Enoch (Hanley) | Macdonald, J.M. (Falkirk B'ghs | Stanley, Hn.A. Lyulph(Chesh.) |
| Edwards, Frank (Radnor) | Mackarness, Frederic C. | Stewart, Halley (Greenock) |
| Elibank, Master of | Maclean, Donald | Strachey, Sir Edward |
| Erskine, David C. | M'Crae, George | Straus, B. S. (Mile End) |
| Evans, Samuel T | M'Laren, Sir C. B. (Leicester) | Stuart, James (Sunderland) |
| Everett, R Lacey | M'Laren, H. D. (Stafford, W.) | Taylor, Austin (East Toxteth) |
| Faber, G. H. (Boston) | M'Micking, Major G. | Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe) |
| Fenwick, Charles | Maddison, Frederick | Thomas, Sir A. (Glamorgan,E.) |
| Ferens, T. R. | Mallet, Charles E. | Thomas, David Alfred(Merthyr |
| Ferguson, R. C. Munro | Mansfield, H. Rendall (Lincoln) | Tomkinson, James |
| Fiennes, Hon. Eustace | Markham, Arthur Basil | Torrance, Sir A. M. |
| Freeman-Thomas, Freeman | Marks, G. Croydon (Launceston | Trevelyan, Charles Philips |
| Fuller, John Michael F. | Marnham, F. J. | Verney, F. W. |
| Fullerton, Hugh | Mason, A. E. W. (Coventry) | Vivian, Henry |
| Gibb, James (Harrow) | Masterman, C. F. G. | Wadsworth, J. |
| Gladstone, Rt. Hn.Herbert Jn. | Menzies, Walter | Walsh, Stephen |
| Goddard, Daniel Ford | Micklem, Nathaniel | Walters, John Tudor |
| Gooch, George Peabody | Molteno, Percy Alport | Walton, Sir John L. (Leeds, S.) |
| Grant, Corrie | Montague, E. S. | Walton, Joseph (Barnsley) |
| Greenwood, G. (Peterborough) | Morse, L. L. | Ward, W.Dudley(Southampton |
| Grey, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward | Morton, Alpheus Cleophas | Wason, JohnCathcart(Orkney) |
| Griffiths, Ellis J. | Murray, James | Waterlow, D. S. |
| Guest, Hon. Ivor Churchill | Myer, Horatio | Wedgwood, Josiah C. |
| Gulland, John W. | Napier, T. B. | Weir, James Galloway |
| Gurdon, Sir W. Brampton | Newnes, F. (Notts, Bassetlaw) | White, George (Norfolk) |
| Hall, Frederick | Newnes, Sir George (Swansea) | White, J. D. (Dumbartonshire |
| Harcourt, Rt. Hon. Lewis | Nicholls, George | White, Luke (York, E. R.) |
| Harmsworth, Cecil B. (Worc'r) | Nicholson, Chas. N. (Doncast'r | Whitehead, Rowland |
| Hart-Davies, T. | Norman, Henry | Whitley, J. H. (Halifax) |
| Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale) | Nussey, Thomas Willans | Whittaker, Sir Thomas Palmer |
| Haslam, James (Derbyshire) | Nuttall, Harry | Wiles, Thomas |
| Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth) | O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.) | Williams, Osmond (Merioneth) |
| Haworth, Arthur A. | O'Grady, J. | Wills, Arthur Walters |
| Hazel, Dr. A. E. | Paul, Herbert | Wilson, Hn. C.H.W. (Hull, W.) |
| Hedges, A. Paget | Pearce, Robert (Staffs. Leek) | Wilson, P. W. (St. Pancras, S.) |
| Hemmerde, Edward George | Pearce, William (Limehouse) | Winfrey, R. |
| Henderson, J.M.(Aberdeen, W | Philipps, Col. Ivor (S'thampton | Wolff, Gustav Wilhelm |
| Henry, Charles S. | Pickersgill, Edward Hare | |
| Herbert, Col. Ivor (Mon., S.) | Price, C. E. (Edinb'gh, Central) | TELLERS FOR THE NOES— |
| Higham, John Sharp | Price, Robert Jn. (Norfolk, E.) | Mr. Whiteley and Mr. J. A. Pease. |
| Hobhouse, Charles E. H. | Radford, G. H. | |
| Holland, Sir William Henry | Raphael, Herbert H. |
§ MR. AUSTIN TAYLOR moved as an Amendment to add words to Clause 23, providing that if any seaman wilfully wasted or destroyed any provisions furnished in accordance with that section, he should be liable on summary conviction to forfeit out of his wages a sum not exceeding one day's pay for each offence. The Bill, he said, for the first time imposed upon shipowners a compulsory scale of provisions to be furnished daily to the crew. The shipowners raised no objection to that, and the scale agreed upon was one which he thought had generally been accepted as fair and reasonable. It had been very much discussed, and all interests had been consulted, and he understood that on the whole this scale of provisions was considered fair and reasonable. The Amendment was simply designed to secure that the sailor should not wilfully waste or destroy any of the provisions served out to him under this scale. He did not say for a minute that the general body of sailors would waste or destroy the provisions served out to them, but no doubt there were cases in which a sailor was careless or wilful in the matter of the treatment of the provisions served out to him, and it was desirable that some check should be put upon him by an Amendment of this kind. He thought it was very reasonable that where provisions were to be served out day by day to the general body of men it should be clearly understood that they were not served out for the purpose of waste or destruction, but to be used for the legitimate purpose for which they were intended. He begged to move.
§ MR. HARMOOD-BANNERseconded the Amendment.
§
Amendment proposed—
In page 9, line 7, at the end to insert the words, 'if any seaman wilfully wastes or destroys any provisions furnished in accordance with this section, he shall be liable on summary conviction to forfeit out of his wages a sum not exceeding one day's pay for each offence.'"—(Mr. Austin Taylor.)
§ Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
§ MR. HAVELOCK WILSONhoped the House would reject this proposal. In his 128 opinion it was a very mean proposal indeed. The stale of provisions which the hon. Member referred to was spoken of as being a very generous scale. He reminded the hon. Member that it was below the scale recommended by the Committee that sat to inquire into the subject. Lord St. Helier's Committee recommended a more generous scale than this, and it was agreed to by the three shipowning representatives who sat on the Committee, but in consequence of the pressure which the shipowners brought to bear on the Board of Trade the seamen had lost their bacon and their tomatoes. He would point out that the food provided according to the scale was part of the man's wages. It was part of his agreement. If he did not get the food he would get more wages. If then that was part of his wages, what right had the shipowner to come in and interfere with what belonged to the men? The shipowner's duty was to provide what the law said the seaman should have, and what right had the shipowner to say "Although that belongs to you, you must hand it back, or I shall have you punished?" In the Navy there was a provision scale, and if the men could not consume what was given out they could hand it back, and get a corresponding allowance. He would ask the hon. Member whether, if a man got a pound of bread and only consumed half a pound, he would be willing to allow the man a tin of sardines. He was on board a sailing ship once, and they left the Mauritius for a three and a half months passage. The pork and beef supplied to the crew was such towards the end, that when they got the food from the galley they were glad to get it overboard. In that case, if the law had been as proposed by this Amendment, the captain could have taken note that the food was thrown overboard, and at the end of the passage the men would have been brought before a magistrate, and part of their wages deducted. He hoped the hon. Gentleman would not press the Amendment. He was surprised that the hon. Member for Liverpool had gone back on his good intentions. He talked in the early part of the evening of his sympathy with seamen, and now he was proposing to put the men in jail when they leak with their own food in their own way. He hoped the Board of Trade would not for a moment entertain the idea of accepting the Amendment. If a seaman 129 got forty pounds in provisions there might be ton pounds of it bone. There was no provision made that they would get beef. The meat supplied had often considerable bits of bone. He thought the owners went in search of bony bits. He hoped there would be no difficulty in
§ disposing of this Amendment in the right way.
§ Question put.
§ The House divided:—Ayes, 28; Noes, 261. (Division List No. 322.)
131| AYES. | ||
| Acland-Hood,Rt.Hn.SirAlex.F | Hutton, Alfred Eddison | Thornton, Percy M. |
| Balcarres, Lord | Law, Andrew Bonar (Dulwich) | Tomkinson, James |
| Boyle, Sir Edward | Paul, Herbert | Wilson, Hn. C. H. W.(Hull,W.) |
| Corbett,C.H.(Sussex,EGrinst'd | Raphael, Herbert H. | Winfrey, R. |
| Cory, Clifford John | Rea, Russell (Gloucester) | Wolff, Gustav Wilhelm |
| Davies, David (MontgomeryCo. | Rees, J. D. | |
| Elibank, Master of | Rendall, Athelstan | TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Mr. Austin Taylor and Mr. Harmood-Banner. |
| Ferguson, R. C. Munro | Ropner, Colonel Sir Robert | |
| Forster, Henry William | Rutherford, W. W. (Liverpool) | |
| Fuller, John Michael F. | Staveley-Hill, Henry (Staff'sh.) | |
| Houston, Robert Paterson | Thomson,W.Mitcheill- (Lanark) | |
| NOES. | ||
| Abraham, William (Cork, N.E.) | Cleland, J. W. | Hart-Davies, T. |
| Abraham, William (Rhondda) | Clough, W. | Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale) |
| Agnew, George William | Clynes, J. R. | Haslam, James (Derbyshire) |
| Ainsworth, John Stirling | Coates, E. Feetham(Lewisham) | Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth) |
| Alden, Percy | Collings, Rt.Hn.J.(Birmingh'm | Haworth, Arthur A. |
| Allen, A.Acland (Christchurch) | Cotton, Sir H. J. S. | Hay, Hon. Claude George |
| Ambrose, Robert | Courthope, G. Loyd | Hazel, Dr. A. E. |
| Astbury, John Meir | Cowan, W. H. | Hedges, A. Paget |
| Atherley-Jones, L. | Cremer, William Randal | Hemmerde, Edward George |
| Baker, Sir John (Portsmouth) | Crossley, William J. | Henderson, Arthur (Durham) |
| Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight) | Dalrymple, Viscount | Henderson,J.M.(Aberdeen, W.) |
| Barker, John | Dalziel, James Henry | Henry, Charles S. |
| Barlow, Percy (Bedford) | Davies, Ellis William (Eifion) | Herbert, Col. Ivor (Mon., S.) |
| Beach, Hn.Michel Hugh Hicks | Davies, Timothy (Fulham) | Higham, John Sharp |
| Beaumont, W. C. B. (Hexham) | Davies, W. Howell (Bristol, S.) | Hill, Sir Clement (Shrewsbury) |
| Beckett, Hon. Gervase | Delany, William | Hobhouse, Charles E. H. |
| Bell, Richard | Dewar, Arthur (Edinburgh, S.) | Hooper, A. G. |
| Bellairs, Carlyon | Donelan, Captain A. | Hope,W.Bateman(Somerset N. |
| Benn,SirJ. Williams(Devonp'rt | Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness) | Howard, Hon. Geoffrey |
| Benn,W.(T'w'rHamlets,S.Geo. | Duncan, Robert(Lanark,Govan | Hudson, Walter |
| Bethell, J. H. (Esses,Romford) | Dunn, A. Edward (Camborne) | Idris, T. H. W. |
| Bethell, T. R. (Essex, Maldon) | Edwards, Clement (Denbigh) | Jardine, Sir J. |
| Billson, Alfred | Edwards, Enoch (Hanley) | Jenkins, J. |
| Black, ArthurW.(Bedfordshire) | Edwards, Frank (Radnor) | Johnson, John (Gateshead) |
| Boland, John | Esmonde, Sir Thomas | Johnson, W. (Nuneaton) |
| Bolton, T. D.(Derbyshire,N.E.) | Evans, Samuel T. | Jones, Leif (Appleby) |
| Bottomley, Horatio | Everett, R. Lacey | Jones,William(Carnarvonshire) |
| Boulton, A. C. F. (Ramsey) | Fell, Arthur | Jowett, F. W. |
| Bowerman, C. W. | Fenwick, Charles | Joyce, Michael |
| Brace, William | Finch, Rt. Hon. George H. | Kearley, Hudson E. |
| Bramsdon, T. A. | Fullerton, Hugh | Kekewich, Sir George |
| Branch, James | Gardner, Ernest (Berks, East) | Kelley, George D. |
| Brigg, John | Gibb, James (Harrow) | Kimber, Sir Henry |
| Brodie, H. C. | Gill, A. H. | Kitson, Sir James |
| Brooke, Stopford | Gladstone, Rt.Hn.HerbertJohn | Laidlaw, Robert |
| Brunner, J.F.L.(Lancs., Leigh) | Glover, Thomas | Lamb, Ernest H. (Rochester) |
| Brunner, Sir John T.(Cheshire) | Goddard, Daniel Ford | Lamont, Norman |
| Bull, Sir William James | Gooch, George Peabody | Layland-Barratt, Francis |
| Burns, Rt. Hon. John | Grant, Corrie | Leese, Sir JosephF.(Accrington |
| Burnyeat, W. J. D. | Greenwood, G. (Peterborough) | Lehmann, R. C. |
| Byles, William Pollard | Grey, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward | Lever, A. Levy (Essex,Harwich |
| Carlile, E. Hildred | Griffith, Ellis J. | Levy, Maurice |
| Cave, George | Gulland, John W. | Lewis, John Herbert |
| Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) | Gurdon, Sir W. Brampton | Lloyd-George, Rt. Hon. David |
| Cherry, Rt. Hon. R. R. | Hall, Frederick | Lough, Thomas |
| Clarke, C. Goddard | Harmsworth, Cecil B. (Worc') | Lowe, Sir Francis William |
| Lupton, Arnold | Parker, James (Halifax) | Sullivan, Donal |
| Lynch, H. B. | Pearce, Robert (Staffs., Leek) | Summerbell, T. |
| Macdonald, J.M.(Falkirk B'ghs | Pearce, William (Limehouse) | Taylor, John W. (Durham) |
| Maclean, Donald | Pease, Herbert Pike(Darlington | Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe) |
| MacVeagh, Jeremiah (Down, S. | Philipps, Col.Ivor(S'thampton) | Thomas, Sir A. (Glamorgan, E. |
| MacVeigh, Chas. (Donegal, E.) | Pickersgill, Edward Hare | Thomas, David Alfred (Merthyr |
| M'Crae, George | Price, C. E.(Edinburgh,Central | Thorne, William |
| M'Hugh, Patrick A. | Price, Robert John(Norfolk,E.) | Torrance, Sir A. M. |
| M'Killop, W. | Radford,G. H. | Tuke, Sir John Batty |
| M'Laren, H. D. (Stafford, W.) | Rea, Walter Russell (Scarboro' | Turnour, Viscount |
| M'Micking, Major G. | Redmond, John E. (Waterford) | Verney, F. W. |
| Maddison, Frederick | Renton, Major Leslie | Vincent, Col. Sir C. E. Howard |
| Magnus, Sir Philip | Richards, Thomas (W.Monm'th | Vivian, Henry |
| Mallet, Charles E. | Richards, T. F. (Wolver'mpt'n) | Wadsworth, J. |
| Mansfield, H. Rendall (Lincoln | Richardson, A. | Walsh, Stephen |
| Markham, Arthur Basil | Ridsdale, E. A. | Walton, Joseph (Barnsley) |
| Marks, G. Croydon (Launcest'n | Roberts, G. H. (Norwich) | Ward, John(Stoke-upon-Trent) |
| Marks, H. H. (Kent) | Roberts, John H. (Denbighs.) | Wardle, George J. |
| Marnham, F. J. | Robertson, Rt. Hn. E.(Dundee) | Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney |
| Masterman, C. F. G. | Robinson, S. | Waterlow, D. S. |
| Menzies, Walter | Rowlands, J. | Weir, James Galloway |
| Micklem, Nathaniel | Salter, Arthur Clavell | White, George (Norfolk) |
| Molteno, Percy Alport | Schwann, C. Duncan (Hyde) | White, J. D. (Dumbartonshire) |
| Mond, A. | Schwann, Sir C.E.(Manchester) | White, Luke (York, E. R.) |
| Mooney, J. J. | Scott,A.H.(Ashton-under-Lyne | Whitehead, Rowland |
| Morse, L. L. | Seddon, J. | Whitley, J. H. (Halifax) |
| Morton, Alpheus Cleophas | Shackleton, David James | Whittaker, Sir Thomas Palmer |
| Murnaghan, George | Shaw, Rt. Hon. T. (Hawick B.) | Wiles, Thomas |
| Murray, James | Shipman, Dr. John G. | Wilkie, Alexander |
| Myer, Horatio | Silcock, Thomas Ball | Williams, J. (Glamorgan) |
| Napier, T. B. | Simon, John Allsebrook | Williams, Osmond (Merioneth) |
| Newnes, Sir George (Swansea) | Smeaton, Donald Mackenzie | Wills, Arthur Walters |
| Nicholson, Chas. N. (Doncast'r) | Smith, F. E. (Liverpool, Walton | Wilson, Henry J. (York, W.R.) |
| Nolan, Joseph | Snowden, P. | Wilson, J. H. (Middleborough |
| Norman, Henry | Soares, Ernest J. | Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton) |
| Nussey, Thomas Willans | Spicer, Sir Albert | Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart- |
| Nuttall, Harry | Stanger, H. Y. | Younger, George |
| O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny) | Stanley, Hn. A.Lyulph(Chesh.) | |
| O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.) | Steadman, W. C. | TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Mr. Whiteley and Mr. J. A. Pease. |
| O'Doherty, Philip | Stewart, Halley (Greenock) | |
| O'Grady, J. | Strachey, Sir Edward | |
| O'Kelly, Jas. (Roscommon, N.) | Straus, B. S. (Mile End) | |
| O'Malley, William | Stuart, James (Sunderland) |
Motion made, and Question, "That the debate be now adjourned."—(Sir George Doughty), put, and agreed to.
§
Amendment proposed—
In page 9, line 7, at end to insert the words, '(3) If the master of a ship fails to furnish provisions in accordance with this section, and the court before which the case is tried consider that the failure was due to the neglect or default of the master, the master shall be liable on summary conviction, in addition to paying compensation under section one hundred and ninety-nine of the principal Act, to a fine not exceeding one hundred pounds.'"—(Mr. Lloyd-George.)
§ Question proposed, "That these words be there inserted."
§ *MR. AUSTIN TAYLORsaid that the hon. Member for Middlesbrough was very eloquent earlier in the debate in regard to the atrocity of asking that a seaman should be liable to any penalty for wilfully destroying any kind of food. But surely there must be some measure between the crime committed and the 132 penalty proposed. Admitting that there might be 1 per cent. of failures on the part of masters of ships to furnish provisions in accordance with the Act, he asked if it was right for masters of ships to have to appear before a court and prove that it was not their neglect or default, failing which the court was invited to inflict upon them a fine of £100? He was not going to offer any opposition to this clause, because when he made a bargain it was in conformity with the traditions of public life to carry it out. At the same time, he could not help expressing his own opinion that there should be equal justice meted out between master and man.
§ MR. HAVELOCK WILSONsaid it would have been just as well if the hon. Member for Liverpool had spoken out plainly instead of insinuating that he had 133 broken some bargain. He repudiated any such charge. The President of the Board of Trade knew what took place. The master was the man who had charge of this matter. He could take on board in foreign ports what provisions he required. He had the advantage of the owner when he was away from this country and in different parts of the world, and if the master failed to provide sufficient food what was the good of offering a half starved sailor 6d. or 8d. a day at the conclusion of the voyage? That was no compensation to a man who had been half starved. The hon. Member knew perfectly well that some masters provided the food and that the owners allowed them 1s. 6d. a day per man for doing so. That was a very bad system and one which had done more to bring the shipowners into disrepute than anything else he knew of, because the shipowner was blamed for making a profit out of the stomachs of the men, whereas it was the master who was doing so. This clause simply provided that the master should carry sufficient stores on board his vessel, and might he remind the hon. Member that at was provided what substitutes and food equivalents could be given by the master? They wanted to say that a man should not got rice instead of flour, and he thought that it was only a necessary precaution to see that men were not badly treated on board ship by being starved, and the master being the agent of the owner he was the responsible man and not the owner.
§ *MR. AUSTIN TAYLOR moved an Amendment to make Clause 23 inapplicable to those "not accustomed to a European dietary with whom an agreement is entered into providing an adequate scale of provisions suited to their needs and uses." As his Amendment appeared on the Paper it was applied to "or other Asiatics or foreigners not accustomed to European dietary," but he had omitted the words "Asiatics or foreigners." He wished to be quite frank about this. The Bill recognised of course that it was fair that there should be in some trades the employment of other than European races. That was essential to enable the shipowners to carry on their trade in successful competition with other nations, 134 and this they could not do unless they were at liberty to recruit their seamen from Asiatic sources. Generally speaking he thought all the men recruited were subjects of the King; they might not be so, but it was for that case that this Amendment was intended to apply. It was quite obvious that it would be absurd to force upon natives of the Far East a scale of provisions which was suitable to our own country or to those working under the conditions which prevailed, say, in the Western Ocean. In the Far East the natives were accustomed to a perfectly different scale of provisions, and not only that, to a different amount of provisions. As they were accustomed to a different kind and a different quantity of provisions, it was most essential—he did not think he need labour the point—that the shipowners, if allowed under this Bill to employ labour from the Far East drawn from the natives of those countries, should be also enabled to supply them with such provisions as were suited to their constitutions. The principle was really embodied in the Bill, and this Amendment made it most clear that where they were employing men of a different race they should be able to give them suitable food. No nation had stronger racial instincts than ourselves, but if they were empowered to employ Asiatics, shipowners should also have the power of seeing that dietary suited to their constitutions was afforded them.
§ *MR. REES (Montgomery Boroughs)seconded the Amendment, but in doing so did not wish to defend the employment of Asiatics or natives of the Far East which was admitted throughout this Bill to be not only justifiable but necessity, upon the high seas. But as soon as a case for employing Asiatics was made out and it was shown that it was necessary, it was also necessary to insist that they should be supplied with such foods as they were accustomed to and required. To insist upon anything like the dietary necessary for Europeans being supplied to Asiatics would not be doing them any good, but would put them to grave inconvenience, and no inconvenience would attach to such a provision as the Amendment made, the only result of rejecting which would be to make the owner pay more than was necessary for the dietary of these men. It could have no other effect. So little did these Asiatics require the 135 scale of food which was required by the British sailor that he remembered the case of an inhabitant of Turkish Arabia who, having been to Europe, when he came back was asked what he thought of the country. So little did he think of it that he complained that he could not buy dates and curdled milk when he wanted them. This Amendment only provided that the inhabitants of other countries should be supplied with the food which was suitable to them; it would chiefly affect British Indian subjects, and he begged leave to second it.
§
Amendment proposed—
In page 9, line 11, after the word 'India' to insert the words 'or others not accustomed to European dietary with whom an agreement is entered into providing au adequate scale of provisions suited to their needs and uses.'"—(Mr. Austin Taylor.)
§ Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEthought that this was a perfectly fair Amendment. The question of whether or not shipowners should employ Asiatics or Lascars was a totally different one and personally he defended the employment of Lascars on British ships because they were British subjects. But if they were employed at all the shipowners ought to give them the dietary they were accustomed to. It was absurd to give them a European dietary consisting of meat, etc., and force it upon them, because it was not what they wanted. He did not know whether it was possible to have any scale drawn up which would be applicable to Lascars. He remembered asking his hon. friend the Member for Middlesbrough in the Committee whether he could supply him with a schedule of that kind in regard to the food which Lascars cared for, which would come to the same thing in point of price as was provided in the schedule to this Bill. He had not yet received that Lascar schedule, and he bad been waiting some time, but he thought it was perfectly fair that if they were going to have Lascars at all they should give them the food which was suited to them. He accepted the Amendment.
§ MR. HAVELOCK WILSONperfectly agreed that one could not feed Lascars on 136 European food. Anybody who knew anything about this matter would tell them that the Lascars would not like it at all. But it was quite another matter to consider the miserable and meagre fare which was given to Lascars now. It was true that he promised the right hon. Gentleman a bill of fare, and he had one, and if he could move one later on he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would accept it if it did not exceed in cost the price of the food which under this Bill was given to European sailors. He understood that that was what the right hon. Gentleman meant—that so long as it did not exceed the cost of the food given to the European he would not complain of it. He could not follow the argument of his right hon. friend, who said that it was necessary to carry the Lascar in the China trade, because the Germans and the French carried on trade in the Far East without the Lascar. None of the French mail boats were allowed to carry Lascars, and that showed that they could carry on their trade in the Far East without them. It was only the Britisher who wished to carry on his trade by having cheap labour except that belonging to his own country. He was quite prepared to agree that the Lascar should have a separate food scale, but he did want to see him have some better food than he had now, and as they were British subjects, and we were proud of our fellow-subjects in India, we ought to give them the same treatment as we were giving to our follow subjects in England. He would bring up the Lascars dietary scale when the Bill reached a later stage with a view of having it embodied in the measure. There should be no difficulty in framing a dietary for Lascars, because we had Lascars in our own Government service, and the dietary in force in the Royal Naval Marine would be an excellent dietary to ensure that the Lascar had proper food.
§ LORD TURNOUR (Sussex, Horsham)hoped the House would not accept the statement of the hon. Member, which he had made without bringing forward any facts in support of it, that the British shipowner did not give the Lascar proper food.
§ MR. HAVELOCK WILSONsaid the very fact that they are dealing with this statutory scale for British seamen, let alone 137 for Lascars, showed that it was necessary to deal with the case of the latter.
§ LORD TURNOURwas not aware that the question of Lascars entered into this sub-section, and he had heard no argument and no facts in support of the idea that the shipowners had not given them proper food.
§ MR. HAVELOCK WILSONI did not say proper food; I said insufficient in quantity.
§ LORD TURNOURadhered to his view that the hon. Member should not bring forward accusations without any proof.
§ MR. HAVELOCK WILSONsaid he was two years on the Committee which inquired into this subject, so that he was not speaking without knowledge, and he did not think the noble Lord should make these reflections.
§ LORD TURNOURsaid he did not want to be discourteous to the hon. Gentleman and he did not think that he had been. But he did not consider that the hon. Member should bring forward this matter without proving what he said. The hon. Member had not brought forward any specific proof in support of it, and therefore he hoped the House would adopt the Amendment that had been proposed.
§ Amendment agreed to.
§ MR. CLAUDE HAY moved to leave out "may" and insert "shall" in Clause 24. The object he had in view was obvious if one looked at the clause, "Inspection of provisions and water." Provisions and water intended for the use of any British crew might be inspected if the ship was going from any port in the United Kingdom. If it was a purely permissive power, then it seemed to him that the clause would be of little use. What they wanted, if the provision was to be effective, was that they should be satisfied that crews of all British ships leaving these shores would have food which had passed proper tests and was known to be good. They were all familiar with the arguments advanced from time to time by Governments in this House as to when the word "may" might mean "shall;" likewise they wore all hardened to the arguments as to the necessity of the word 138 "shall" when it was in a Government proposal, and they also know how necessary was it that it should be opposed when the mandatory word was proposed by a private Member in other parts of the Bill. Where Governments desired that it should be strongly operative there was no playing about with the word "may." The word "shall" was inserted, and therefore he earnestly appealed to the President of the Board of Trade to accept this Amendment.
§ LORD CASTLEREAGH (Maidstone)desired to associate himself with his hon. friend and to second the Amendment. It appeared to him a slipshod way of wording an Act to say "An inspecting officer appointed under 206 of the principal Act may inspect." he could not understand why the word "may" was placed in the clause at all unless indeed it was due to some fault in the drafting of the Bill. He therefore desired to urge upon the right hon. Gentleman the desirability of substituting the word "shall" for the word "may."
§
Amendment proposed—
In page 9, line 13, after the word 'Act' to leave out the word 'may' and insert the word shall'."—(Mr. Claude Hay.)
§ Question proposed, "That the word 'may' stand part of the Bill."
§ THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY TO THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. KEARLEY (Devonport)said the object which his hon. friend had in view was to make the inspection of provisions compulsory instead of permissive; therefore he must contemplate that the provisions of every ship leaving the ports of this country should be inspected. He did not say that that was impossible. Nothing was impossible where the country faced the cost and employed the necessary staff. But in this particular case it would necessitate the employment of a colossal staff, and cost a great deal of money. He suggested that what the House had to consider in this case was whether the system now in operation was active and effective in its working. The Board of Trade inspectors were at every port, and it was their duty to make investigations and inspections on board ship and elsewhere, and they knew from practical 139 experience that that system had had excellent results. He had been told that it would cost something like £40,000 a year to see that every ship that left the ports of this country had its provisions inspected. They were satisfied that under our present regulations nothing escaped that ought not to escape. Let the House look at this Amendment as it would deal with the whole of the country generally, and not only with ships. The local authorities, or the municipal authorities, were responsible for inspection in their localities, and their inspectors dropped in at haphazard moments, and took samples to see whether adulteration was going on, or whether inferior goods were being sold. That was effectual and it would not be suggested for a moment that every shop should be inspected. It was left to the good judgment of the officer. What he desired to see was that those who went long voyages should have the best possible food, and that was why the Government put this clause in the Bill. They were in favour of the greatest possible inspection, but he was bound to point out that it would be impossible to accept it, and therefore he could not give any encouragement to the hon. Member's Amendment.
§ LORD BALCARRESsaid there was one point he was not quite clear about. He quite followed the argument of the hon. Member, but did not quite see how it met the Amendment in the hon. Member's own name later on in the clause. On the second line his hon. friend proposed that the inspection "should" be compulsory. The hon. Member opposed that, but in line 22 just below, the hon. Member was going to move to insert after the word "that" "an inspection of provisions or water under this section shall be made." It appeared to him that it was made voluntary on the part of the inspector in the first two lines of the clause, but in line 22 the mandatory words were put in and that appeared to be contradictory to the earlier words of the clause.
§ *MR. KEARLEYpointed out that that was a misprint; that the words should be "provided that 'any' inspection."
§ MR. HAVELOCK WILSONhoped the hon. Member would not press his 140 Amendment. This matter, he said had been fully discussed between the Board of Trade, the shipowners, and the seamen. It was first discussed in Grand Committee, and since then they had had several conferences on the point, and they were, as a result, agreed upon, this matter. His hon. friend would believe him when he said he was not likely to give up any point in favour of the seamen, and that he was quite satisfied with this clause. Therefore he hoped he would not press his Amendment.
§ MR. CLAUDE HAYsaid he would not press the Amendment, although he was bound to say he was not satisfied that the shipowners and the seamen were agreed on the word "may." He could only say he hoped the time was not far distant when inspection would be made compulsory.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ MR. CLAUDE HAYsaid the object of the next Amendment which he desired to move, was that seamen should, on sailing from foreign ports, have the same chance of getting decent food as when sailing from British ports. Surely if a British seaman was working on a British, ship, whether he sailed from a French, Dutch, or American port, or whether he sailed to those ports from the coast of England, he was entitled to the same protection of life and health. There was already an absolutely sufficient staff to carry out the examination of ships. If this Amendment was not accepted, the Government would be simply giving British sailors half a loaf when they most certainly ought to have a whole one.
§ MR. ASHLEYsaid that he would not have been able to second this Amendment if the word 'shall' had been inserted instead of the word 'may,' because they all knew that the Consular officers had a great many, and very often purely honorary, duties to perform and, therefore, they could not expect them to examine the condition of every ship. But as it was purely permissive, he could not see any harm in giving them the power in any flagrant case to examine at the foreign ports, in order to carry out the same conditions as when a 141 ship left an English port for a foreign port. Therefore, he had much pleasure in seconding the Amendment.
§
Amendment proposed—
In page 9, line 15, after the word 'going,' to insert the words 'to or.'"—(Mr. Claude Hay.)
§ Question proposed "That the words 'to or' be there inserted in the Bill."
§ *MR. AUSTIN TAYLORwas sure that the mover and seconder of the Amendment were actuated by the best of motives, but he did not know whether the mover was aware that it was customary to store vessels in this country for the voyages which they undertook, and the last thing British shipowners wanted to do was to buy provisions in foreign ports where things were much dearer, because here, owing to our free trade principles, they were able to get everything at a moderate valuation. It was to the advantage of every shipowner to store his ship here for as long a period as he possibly could. He could not understand where the staff which would be required, if the Amendment were carried, would come from.
§ MR. CLAUDE HAYConsular officers.
§ *MR. AUSTIN TAYLORasked who was to pay these people? If British shipping had to wait on the convenience of Consular officers while they were inspecting provisions already inspected in this country it was not a practical proposition and he did hope His Majesty's Government would not accept it.
§ MR. HAVELOCK WILSONsaid he was thankful to the hon. Gentleman for trying to make this Bill as good as possible, but he could assure him he had given this clause every consideration, and such an inspection would be utterly impracticable. The Consular staff had quite sufficient to do to deal with the engagement and discharge of seamen without this additional work, and even if they had time, it would be utterly impossible in large ports, like Rotterdam, where there were sixty or seventy 142 British ships scattered over the harbour, for any inspection to take place. He should very much like to see inspection abroad but it could not be done, and it was no use pressing for the thing which it was not possible to carry out. Then, under the Merchant Shipping Act as it was now, a seaman could demand a survey. Unfortunately, when such a survey was called for, it was done generally by the captains of two other ships, who generally pronounced the provisions to be excellent. He hoped before this Bill was disposed of they might have some alteration, providing that any such survey asked by the seamen abroad for the inspection of their food should be an independent one. If it were possible to carry out the present Amendment he would be only too pleased to support it, but he could not see his way clear to do so.
§ *MR. KEARLEYsaid he could only practically repeat the arguments that had been used against the Amendment. It would be perfectly impossible to put the regulations into force in every part of the world. He understood the mover to suggest that the expense involved should be thrown on the Consular service.
§ MR. CLAUDE HAYI simply stated that the duties could be carried out by the Consular staff.
§ *MR. KEARLEYsaid the Consular officer was already well occupied and was not an overpaid servant, and he was sure he would not be prepared to undertake a new, responsible duty of this kind. He did not know what prospect of success the hon. Gentleman thought he would have of influencing the Chancellor of the Exchequer sufficiently in his favour to make the enormous grant of money that would be necessary to carry out his idea. He thoroughly sympathised with his desire to make regulations more stringent so that the British sailor throughout the world should have the utmost possible protection, but that could only be done by a practical measure, and it was perfectly impractical to think that for a single moment they could establish a system of inspection in the ports throughout the world.
§ MR. CLAUDE HAYsaid he did not wish to press this Amendment, but he was bound to say he was not the least convinced by the arguments against it.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§
Amendment proposed—
In page 9, line 22, after the words 'that' to insert the words 'an inspection of provisions or water under this section, shall be made before shipment whenever practicable and"—(Mr. Lloyd-George.)
§ Amendment agreed to.
§
Amendment proposed—
In page 9, lines 24 and 25, to leave out the words 'and that notice is given within seventy-two hours of the time fixed for the departure of the ship.'"—(Mr. Lloyd-George.)
§ Amendment agreed to.
§
Amendment proposed—
In page 8, line 27, after the word 'section,' to insert I he words 'if they are at a convenient place for inspection.'"—(Mr. Lloyd-George.)
§ LORD BALCARRESsaid he did not quite see the object of these words.
§ *MR. KEARLEYsaid the object was that when stores were collected and warehoused at some convenient and accessible place, the shipowner should have the opportunity of intimating to the Board of Trade inspector that these goods were for a certain ship and were ready for inspection when that notification had been given. If the inspector did not inspect those provisions within forty-eight hours after receiving that notification, then the ships' store dealer was at liberty to send the goods on to the ship. It was felt to be very necessary to give shipowners the facility of having their goods inspected before going on board. He was told it was the custom of shipowners to give their orders for a particular ship to a ships' store dealer, and he collected them probably in a warehouse close by the ship, or in his own warehouse in the neighbourhood of the shipping. This Amendment only slightly extended the law at the present moment.
§ LORD BALCARRESIt does not read.
§ MR. KEARLEYsaid he was sorry he misunderstood the noble Lord's point. He thought it read very satisfactorily, and he was afraid he could not help the noble Lord further.
§ Amendments agreed to.
§
Amendments proposed—
In page 9, line 28, at end of line to insert the words without prejudice to the power of the inspector to inspect any provisions or water not specified in the notice.'"—(Mr. Lloyd-George.)
In page 9, line 31, at end of line to insert the words 'unless the court before which the case is tried think that the finding of the inspecting officer was not justified.'"—(Mr. Lloyd-George.)
In page 10, lines 4 and 5, to leave out 'thirty-first day of December nineteen hundred and seven,' and to insert the words 'thirtieth day of June nineteen hundred and eight.'"—(Mr. Lloyd-George.)
§ Amendment agreed to.
§
Amendment proposed—
In page 10, line 6, to leave out the word 'registered.'"—(Mr. Lloyd-George.)
§ MR. DAVID MACIVERI think we are entitled to have some explanation of this Amendment.
§ MR. AUSTIN TAYLORsaid he understood that "gross tonnage" was sufficient without the word "registered," which was superfluous. Gross tonnage expressed exactly what was meant.
§ Amendment agreed to.
§
Amendment proposed—
In page 10, line 19, after the word 'or' to insert the words 'in the case, of ships of not more than two thousand tons gross tonnage, or ships in which the crew, or the majority of the crew, provide their own provisions, either as ship's cook or as."—(Mr. Lloyd-George.)
§ MR. WILLIAM RUTHERFORDOn an Amendment of this kind I think we are entitled to some explanation as to why these words are proposed.
§ *MR. KEARLEYsaid this was a point raised by the hon. Member for Middlesbrough in Committee. The Amendment had been drawn to meet a desire that 145 there should be some further limitation in that direction.
§ Amendment agreed to.
§
Amendment proposed—
In page 10, line 23, to leave out lines 23 to 26, being Sub-section (5).—(Mr. Lloyd-George.)
§ MR. H. H. MARKS (Kent, Thanet)asked for some explanation from the Government as to why this important Sub-section was to be omitted?
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEBecause we take a general dispensing power later on in the Bill, and therefore it is not necessary to take it here. Consequently these words are unnecessary.
§ LORD BALCARRESsaid that so far as he read Clause 70 it applied to the whole ship, and this sub-section simply enabled the Board of Trade to exempt a particular class. Under Clause 70 they would have to exempt, the whole ship, but this subsection limited the power of the Board of Trade. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would consider this point at a later stage.
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEI will.
§ MR. HAVELOCK WILSONsaid he remembered raising this point in Committee about the Board of Trade having power to dispense with this section's requirements, and it related to the employment of cooks.
§ Amendment agreed to.
§
Amendments proposed—
In page 11, line 28, after the word 'officer,' to insert the words 'or, in case of an appeal under this section, to a court of summary jurisdiction."'
In page 11, line 33, after the word deducted, to insert the words 'or repaid.'
§ Amendments agreed to.
§
Amendments proposed—
In page 11, line 36, at end add, Where the master of a ship whose voyage terminates in the United Kingdom is aggrieved by the decision of the proper officer as to the sums to be allowed as properly chargeable on his re-
146
imbursement account, and the amount in dispute exceeds ten pounds, he may appeal from the decision of the proper officer to a court of summary jurisdiction.'
In page 11, line 36, at end to insert, '(4) Where during the voyage of a ship two or more seamen have been left behind, the delivery and reimbursement accounts furnished as respects each seaman may at the option of the master of the ship be dealt with, as between him and the proper officer, collectively instead of individually, and in that case the master of the ship snail be entitled to be reimbursed out of the total amount of the wages and effects of the seamen left behind the total of the amounts allowed under this section as properly chargeable on the reimbursement accounts, and shall be required to deliver to the proper officer on account of wages only the sum by which the that of the amounts shown on the delivery accounts to be due on account of wages exceeds the total of the amounts allowed as properly chargeable on the reimbursement accounts.'
§ MR. WILLIAM RUTHERFORDthought they ought to have some intelligent explanation, which he had no doubt could be given in a few words as to what this extraordinary clause meant.
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEsaid the explanation was very simple even if the words were not. The proposal was to allow the master of a ship to pool the whole of the money. This was purely a transaction between the Board of Trade and the shipowners, who claimed that when they were paying over money to the Government they should be allowed to pool all the sums received in this way.
§ Amendments agreed to.
§
Amendments proposed—
In page 12, line 23, after the word 'them,' to insert the words 'in respect of the voyage of the ship.'"—(Mr. Lloyd-George.)
In page 12, line 36, at end, to insert the words, 'provided that they have given notice to the master or owner of the ship, and the muster or owner has not given written notice of objection within ten days of the notice being given.'"—(Mr. Lloyd-George.)
In page 13, line 30, after the word 'pounds,' to insert the words, 'and the master does not exercise his option to deal with the delivery and reimbursement accounts collectively.'"—(Mr. Lloyd-George.)
§ Amendments agreed to.
§
Amendment proposed—
In page 13, line 35, after the word 'pounds,' to insert the words 'and the master does not
147
exercise his option to deal with the delivery and reimbursement accounts collectively.'"—(Mr. Lloyd-George.)
§ Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
§ MR. WILLIAM RUTHERFORDsaid his objection to this Amendment was that it enabled the master of a ship to penalise one sailor because there happened to be other sailors who had deserted and who might be in a more or less advantageous position than the particular sailor with whom he ought to deal. He did not think it was right that the master of a ship should be able to penalise a particular seaman in that way, and to put that man in a worse position than those who had deserted. It appeared to him that it was not equitable. He objected to these words being added in the way proposed or in any other.
§ MR. HAVELOCK WILSONsaid this question had been thoroughly discussed, and he was fully satisfied that the case of the seaman was well protected. What was here proposed in no way took away the right of any particular seaman to claim what he was entitled to.
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEThis has nothing to do with the question between the individual sailor and the shipowner. It is purely a question of accounting between the master and the officer.
§ Amendment agreed to.
§
Amendment proposed—
In page 14, line 1, to leave out Sub-section (12)."—(Mr. Lloyd George.)
§ Question proposed, "That the sub-section proposed to be left out stand part of the clause."
§ LORD CASTLEREAGHwished the President of the Board of Trade to give some reason why the sub-section should be omitted.
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEIt is quite unnecessary. This is purely a drafting Amendment.
§ Question put, and negatived.
148
§
Amendment proposed—
In page 15, line 35, at end to add the words '(3) This section shall not apply in the case of a foreign seaman who has been shipped at a port out of the United Kingdom and discharged at a port out of the United Kingdom.'"—(Mr. Lloyd-George.)
§ Question proposed, "That those words be there added."
§ MR. WILLIAM RUTHERFORDsaid he gathered that the meaning of this clause was to protect seamen on British ships. He certainly thought the House should have some explanation as to what the Amendment really meant, and what the effect would be. He might be wrong as to the meaning of it. If he was right, he thought if they passed the Amendment they should be guilty of the grossest injustice.
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEsaid he had a discussion on this matter with the shipowners and he thought they made out a good case. In a case where they shipped a foreign sailor, say at Valparaiso for Hamburg, he did not see why the British shipowner should be compelled to bring that sailor to this country where he did not want him, or even to repatriate him to Chili. It was his own business and the business of his Government. He entered into a bargain to go to Hamburg. As a matter of fact he would prefer to be in Hamburg. It was purely a question for the German Government if they would take him. He understood that they would and he wished them luck.
§ MR. HAVELOCK WILSONWe are perfectly satisfied with the Clause as drafted.
§
Amendment proposed—
In page 16, line 6, at end to add the words 'and shall apply to foreign seamen whether they have been shipped at a port in the United Kingdom or not.'"—(Mr. Lloyd-George.)
§
SIR ROBERT ROPNER moved—
In page 17, line 36, after the word 'other-wise' to insert the words 'this clause to be
149
ineffective in case the ship is at a place where there is no such proper authority, or in case a seaman deserts nr absents himself from the ship within twenty-four hours before the ship is ready to sail.'
§ The Amendment was not seconded, and therefore fell to the ground.
§ Verbal Amendments made.
§ COLONEL IVOR PHILIPPS (Southampton)said there were many cases where seamen were invalided abroad, arid it might be a great relief to them if they could be sent straight back to their own homes. He begged to move the Amendment standing in his name.
§ MR. HAVELOCK WILSONseconded the Amendment.
§
Amendment proposed—
In page 20, line 2, after the word 'port,' to insert the words 'of their place of abode in the United Kingdom.'"—(Colonel Ivor Philipps.)
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEsaid that the Bill, as it stood, was a very considerable improvement on the law as it now existed. He thought it was much better that all questions in regard to the return of seamen should be adjudicated upon by the Consul or proper officer at the port of discharge.
§ COLONEL IVOR PHILIPPSasked leave to withdraw his Amendment.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§
Amendment proposed—
In page 23, line 14, at end to insert the words 'Provided that in the case of a seaman belonging to a British possession who has been shipped and discharged out of the United Kingdom the proper officer may treat a port in the United Kingdom as a proper return port.'"—(Mr. Lloyd-George.)
§
Amendment proposed—
In page 24, line 12, at end, to insert the words 'and also, where that is the case, to the fact that a British ship which is in want of men to make up its complement is about to proceed to a proper return port.'"—(Mr. Lloyd-George.)
§ Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
§ MR. HAVELOCK WILSONsaid he was bound to raise some objection to the compulsion involved in this provision. A crew might be kept hanging about in a foreign port for ten days waiting for a ship to return to their desired port. If a ship owner for his own convenience was going to discharge his men in a foreign port, the least he could do was to provide that these men should be sent home as passengers. This Amendment said that the men must sign on a ship to a return port which they might not like.
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEsaid that his hon. friend had overlooked the words "about to proceed." That was a point for the proper authority to consider and decide. If the proper officer could say "there is a ship wanting men about to return to your port," why should the shipowner be compelled to send the men home as passengers? It would be an advantage to the men to be earning wages on their return voyage.
§ MR. HAVELOCK WILSONsaid he wanted to point out that a ship about to return to the United Kingdom might mean a ship that had to call at a large number of intermediate ports, and might be three months on the voyage. That might not be at all convenient for the men who had been already two or three years absent from home.
§ SIR W. ROBSONsaid that these were questions which the proper authority must take into consideration.
§ MR. J. WARD (Stoke-on-Trent)asked whether the objection of the hon. Member for Middlesbrough could not be met by the insertion of the word "direct" after "proceed."
§ MR. CHARLES WILSONsaid he did not see the force of the objection of the hon. Member, if during the whole of the time the men were returning to the home port they were earning good wages.
§
Amendment proposed—
In page 25, line 24, at end, to insert the following sub-section:—'(3) The provisions of this part of this Act shall for the purpose of sections two hundred and sixty to two hundred and sixty-six of the Principal Act (which relate to the application of Part II. of this Act), be construed as if they were contained in Part II. of that Act.'"—(Mr. Lloyd-George.)
§ MR. EVELYN CECILsaid he desired to move the omission of Clause 51, because it was open to very much the same objection as legislation by reference of which mention had been made in the earlier part of the evening. He was aware that in the Grand Committee nothing was said on this matter, but he did not think that the Committee itself fully realised the far-reaching effects of this clause. Speaking for himself, he admitted that to some extent he was deceived by the statement in the Memorandum which said that this clause among others formed—
Miscellaneous Amendments of Merchant Shipping Laws which are designed to remedy various defects which have been disclosed in the administration of the law during past years.Incidentally he might observe that some carelessness had been exhibited in the re-print of the Bill, because the Memorandum had been printed with the old figures of the clauses, instead of the new figures. That was a source of considerable confusion. This clause provided that space for the storage of provisions or water might be deducted from the gross tonnage in order to ascertain the net registered tonnage. Of course that provision was made wholly as a matter between the employers and the seamen. It was from that point of view a matter of com promise, and it was not as such that he proposed to object to it; but it had other far-reaching effects which had not been noticed or even mentioned in the Committee upstairs, and had only come to light in view of closer examination of the clause. In the first place this particular clause, if passed, dealt extremely hardly with the pilots of the United Kingdom. ["No, no."] An hon. Gentle man said "No," but he should be glad to hear on what grounds he said so. The 152 remuneration of pilots was based on the net registered tonnage of the ship piloted, and if that was so, it was perfectly clear that by reducing in this way the amount of net registered tonnage of the ship—by requiring that the space for water and provisions should be deducted from the gross tonnage in order to ascertain the net tonnage on which the pilot charged—it would necessarily affect the remuneration of the pilots. And it would not do so in any small degree, but to a large extent. He was informed by the United Kingdom Pilots Association that in a vessel of a thousand tons the reduction on pilots' wages might be as much as 23 per cent, on what they were before, and needless to say where it became a question of piloting our Atlantic liners into port, the amount of remuneration which the pilots lost would in consequence of this loss of tonnage necessarily be very considerable indeed, and while he for one was anxious that the comforts of seamen should be thoroughly safeguarded, he could not understand why the wages of another; class of seamen—the pilots—should be so seriously reduced. In endeavouring to meet the needs of sea-going seamen the pilots were being treated unjustly; and if so large a class as they were to be affected in this way it would be better to take back this clause, to reconsider the matter and see if some better proposal could not be made, than to persist in a proposal which affected them so gravely. He did not propose to consider the question of pilots further. He was sure that their case would be considered in other quarters of the House, and he wanted to pass to another class of persons who were seriously affected by this clause, and that was the dock owners. He thought it was probably true to say that so far as the main docks of this kingdom are concerned they were practically not in themselves paying concerns. Of course they might incidentally draw profit from surrounding circumstances, but the administration of the docks, the keeping of them going, so as to be efficient under the control and management of the dock authorities was not, generally speaking, a paying concern. And one had to remember in this connection that dock owners had at the present time to make very great increases and important improvements. More was required of them, 153 and as the size and the length of ships increased it was necessary that larger docks should be built and that more money should be spent in repairs, and that in all respects they should be kept thoroughly up-to-date. Therefore it was not a moment at which to pass a clause which materially curtailed the income of the dock authorities and dock owners; and that that would be the effect of this clause was not, he imagined, disputed. Dock charges, like the pilots' wages, depended upon the net registered tonnage which came into the dock, and if by this regulation they reduced the net registered tonnage they thereby impaired the income of the dock, and diminished the sum which was required for improvements and keeping the undertaking efficient: and it must be remembered that the general public obtained large advantages from these undertakings. There was another point. The dock owners had raised loans on the security of the rates they levied, and it seemed hardly right or just that this House should arbitrarily reduce the security on which these loans were raised. And yet that would be the effect of the passing of this clause. By lessening the income of the docks the security on which the loans had been charged was weakened, while the loans themselves were left still outstanding. That was not a very wise policy, and it was open to the objection that they were interfering with the credit of the dock authorities in a way that was not justified. But after all he did not know that these were the most important objections to this clause even from the dock point of view, because it seemed to him that the amount of space taken in the docks by the ships should be the real basis of the calculation of indebtedness to the dock owners.
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEThat is a separate point.
§ MR. EVELYN CECILThat is a different point, of course. He was, however, putting several points one by one to which he hoped to receive an answer, and he thought that was a perfectly sound point. As the right hon. Gentleman said, it was a perfectly separate point, but it was a point which required consideration. He thought the 154 space in the docks was what these charges ought to be made for, because it was only just that the larger the space the ships took up in the docks the more they should have to pay. Really the questions raised by this Bill were questions between the employers and the seamen, and the Bill was largely in the nature of a compromise in order to deal fairly between those classes. Why, then, should such important persons as pilots and dock authorities be dragged into a discussion between those two parties and suffer for it? This question of the loss of the measurement of tonnage with a view to a very desirable increase in the comfort of seamen was not a matter which could be said to have anything to do with the pilots or with the dock authorities, and it would be better and fairer that the employers and the seamen should come to a mutually satisfactory arrangement without infringing so largely upon the rights and privileges of these injured persons. It was upon that ground and on the particular grounds which he had explained that he ventured to ask the Government to withdraw this clause in consequence of the great injustice which would be done to the classes to which he had referred.
§ *MR. D. A. THOMAS (Merthyr Tydvil), in seconding the Amendment, said he wished to address the House very briefly and to make a strong appeal to his right hon. friend the President of the Board of Trade, if he could not omit the clause, to meet the pilots and dock owners half way. This clause in Committee upstairs was not discussed at all from the point of view of the pilots. It was not realised at that time that their interests were affected. Under these circumstances he I hoped the right hon. Gentleman would re-consider the position. He had had facts laid before him since the Committee stage of the Bill, and had received large deputations from the dock owners and the pilots, who had laid before him considerations which should, he thought, induce him to alter his attitude in regard to this clause. This clause dealt with the method of measuring net register, a very complicated and prickly subject. It was a very important matter which ought to be dealt with, but he did not think that this was a Bill in which a matter of that kind should be dealt with, and they 155 objected to its being dealt with piecemeal in this way. His hon. friend below the gangway said that this clause did not affect pilots.
§ MR. AUSTIN TAYLOR. No, Sir. If I may correct my hon. friend I would point out that the hon. Gentleman opposite said that it may affect the whole of the pilots. It was to that statement that I objected.
§ *MR. D. A. THOMASaccepted the correction, but pointed out that the deduction of spaces used for storage of provisions, etc., in ascertaining tonnage made a very considerable reduction in the net tonnage and in the earnings of pilots. He was informed that in the case of the pilots in the Bristol Channel it would mean twelve and a half per cent, reduction in their earnings. Not only was the work of the pilot very arduous and hazardous, but they had to employ capital and men, and a reduction of, say, 5 per cent, under such a proposal as this would mean a reduction of twelve and a half per cent, in the earnings of the pilots themselves. Moreover, they had been called upon to do more and more work in the last ten years at less pay. The average size of vessels was becoming steadily larger. He was informed that though the tonnage cleared from the Cardiff Docks increased 1,250,000 tons between 1895 and 1905 the pilots' earnings were £35 less. The shipowners were a powerful body of men, well able to take care of themselves, and they had obtained many concessions in this Bill, which in his opinion was largely a shipowners' Bill. Although they welcomed the concessions to the seamen they objected to those concessions being given at the expense of the pilots. The dockowners' case was equally hard. Dock companies which were made up of small shareholders had been put to great expense to meet the requirements of the shipowners, but the dues received by them in return for this huge expenditure 156 had been practically insignificant having regard to that expense. Under all these circumstances he strongly urged his right hon. friend to reconsider the position.
§
Amendment proposed—
In page 36, line 26, to leave out Clause 51."—(Mr. Evelyn Cecil.)
§ Question proposed, "That the words of the clause to the word 'spaces,' in line 26, stand part of the Bill."
§ MR. JOYCEdesired to associate himself with the mover and the seconder of this Amendment and to ask the serious consideration of the President of the Board of Trade to the questions that had been raised. In this regard he desired to say a few words as to how it would affect the pilots. In dealing with the pilots of the United Kingdom this House was dealing with a body of men of whom the nation should be proud. We wanted lines of defence for the nation, and he considered the pilots of the nation the first line of defence. They had the pilot always on duty. Blow high, blow low, in storm and sunshine, the pilots must be at their posts, and certainly their remuneration in the United Kingdom was not of the largest. He was aware of the fact that pilots in other lands earned good and substantial incomes, but he was not aware that outside a few ports and a few choice pilots in this Kingdom, the pilots of this country could aspire to be millionaires. Taking all these circumstances into account, and taking into account that pilots were themselves seamen, the Board of Trade and the Government of this country should be very chary of attacking the rights of such an important body of men. From his reading and from his own recollection, and he was himself a pilot for twenty-three years before he was fortunately or unfortunately for himself sent to this House, he knew the difficulties that pilots had to contend with, not only in the law as administered to them, but in the way the 157 shipowners treated them. He knew the whole tendency of the Act of 1851 was to reduce the earnings of the pilot. The ships grew larger, but the wages did not increase. He remembered when he commenced piloting in 1878 that there were a certain number of pilots in the port of Limerick, to-day there were exactly half the number. With the increased size of the vessels steam became the real power, and so old pilots dropped and new men could not be made because the wages to-day would be starvation wages. Pilots were obliged to Jive respectably, they had to meet men of every country and to talk intelligently to them of the port and the country to which the ship was going. They were men upon whom the shipmaster had to depend to know how things were going at home. Taking all those things into consideration the Board of Trade should be very chary in still further limiting the earnings of the pilots. He would not like to use strong languages and denounce anything of this sort as robbery, but if it was persisted in it would amount to the robbery of a most deserving class of men who, whether space was made larger or not, would have to do the same amount of work and not for a larger amount of money. He thought the pilots' case had been splendidly put by the mover and seconder of the Amendment. He desired to add his word as to harbour authorities and dockowners. In most cases, the dockowners were the harbour authorities, and it was in the case of small docks where they suffered most. They had to keep their docks up to the requirements of modern-built ships. They all knew that in graving and floating docks the authority must provide for larger vessels, and surely this was not a time to cripple their resources, when in all probability there were heavy instalments due to the Board of Works for alterations the dockowners were required to make. He was certain when he read Clause 51 that proper attention had not been given to it upstairs. He regretted that he was not 158 on that Committee. If proper attention had been given to that clause it would not have been found in this shape. He thought therefore the right hon. Gentleman would be wise to withdraw this objectionable clause, and allow the Bill to go through all its stages without it.
§ *MR. AUSTIN TAYLORsaid he was sure the House would sympathise with the observations of the last speaker, which enforced the position that pilots should be well paid in order that they might take a cheerful view of circumstances when dealing with the passengers and captains of in-coming steamers. He must not be taken as being desirous of curtailing the earnings or depreciating the position of a hard-working and meritorious service in what he was about to say. When he interjected an observation a short time ago, it was simply upon a matter of fact. It ought to be perfectly well-known to the House that there were a certain number of pilots who were not in any way affected by this provision. The pilots of London, the Humber, and Liverpool were paid upon the draught, and therefore the question of net tonnage did not affect them. The pilots who were affected were the Irish pilots and those in the Bristol Channel. He wished to bring before the House the considerations involved in this clause from the point of view of the system of measuring the tonnage of steamers with a view to improving the safety and comfort of those who had to navigate them. That was the basis upon which the system of assessing tonnage of vessels had been built up, and the recent Committee presided over by the hon. Member for Dulwich, which dealt with this point, reported that the existing tonnage law, although open to criticism in some respects and by no means an ideal basis for assessing dues, had operated satisfactorily since it was adopted under the Merchant Shipping Act and had encouraged the provision of ample space for the accommodation of the crew. Now what was proposed by this 159 Bill? Simply that spaces which were used for the storage of provisions and water should be deducted from the tonnage in order to arrive at the net registered tonnage upon which dues were payable. That was a direct inducement to the owners of vessels not to skimp the provision of proper spaces for the accommodation of provisions and water, which was so desirable for the comfort of the crew and for those who were responsible for the safety of the ship. In ascertaining the net tonnage of steamers, if they accepted the principle that this was the best system of securing He promised this to the hon. Gentleman, the free development and the safety of the navigation of the mercantile marine, surely it was only reasonable that they should, in a Bill of this kind, deduct those spaces which tended to add to the safety and comfort of those on board the ship who had to work it. If they were going to reverse that principle then it was quite another matter. If the House was going to say that this method of ascertaining what ships ought to pay was wrong, that was another question which ought to be debated at another time. If they were going to alter the whole system of the assessment of dues in every port throughout the world, they would be interfering with the practice of those continental ports which had so very largely adopted the British system of computing net registered tonnage. If, on the other hand, they were going to face the position as it stood to-day, then they were asking for a legitimate development of that system to increase the comfort of those on board. It was not the case, as had been stated, that this was a Bill for the benefit of shipowners. Looking quite dispassionately at this measure, he could not see where the advantage to the shipowner came in, and the points at which he would benefit were extremely few. He had the greatest sympathy with regard to the pilots. He felt that if any thing could be done by a re-adjustment for those pilots whose fees were regulated 160 by the net. registered tonnage something ought to be done, and if due attention was given to the matter something could be done. That, however, was no argument for refusing to give to the shipowner and the mercantile marine a legitimate and natural development of a system of assessing dues and ascertaining net tonnage upon which the whole mercantile marine was built up. They must adopt the system with regard to the mercantile marine which they thought best, and then stick to it. As regarded the dock companies, he thought that those who lived on the mercantile marine and were partners with it in the business of over-sea enterprise, must take their share with the shipowner of the disadvantages as well as the advantages of any changes. He quite admitted there were certain cases in which the net registered tonnage was very low, and the dock companies did not get, perhaps, what they thought they were fairly entitled to, but was that a reason for applying to the whole body of the mercantile marine a condition that was unreasonable, simply because the mercantile marine would not be paying as much as it was thought it ought to others concerned? If it were thought that the dock companies were going to be mulcted because of an advance on the general line adopted in dealing with the mercantile marine, then dock companies could be compensated by the State in, some other way. As regarded the pilots, it was only a certain number of them that was affected. [Cries of "There are many."] Be the number what it might, he sympathised with them, but he did think the right way to deal with the question was not to stay their hand in dealing with the mercantile marine as a whole upon approved principles, but to adjust in some way by a separate arrangement, so that others would not suffer. No one would be readier than he to lend support to the scheme by which hardworking pilots, who had to face all weathers, should receive adequate compensation.
§ *SIR E. BOYLE (Taunton)said the hon. Member who had just sat down had stated that this proposition of his would add to the safety and the comfort of the people on the ship. He did not think that was the real object of his speech. He thought the real object of his speech was to protect the pockets of the shipowners. Who would benefit by this reduction? Not the pilots, nor the public, but the shipowners in all those cases where the pilot's charge was regulated and limited by the tonnage. Let them see for a moment what the difference was between the gross and the registered tonnage. The charge was made only on the registered tonnage, and the registered tonnage on the whole of the steamships that came into the port of London was only from 63 to 65 per cent., and, if they took the largest ships, it was only 30 per cent, of the tonnage. So that under the present arrangements the shipowner was only paying for these large ships 30 per cent, of the actual tonnage, although the large ships were the most expensive to manipulate and for which the greatest expenditure had been incurred. The larger the ship the longer the quay. The longer the quay of necessity the wider the quay. There were more appliances for unloading these great steamers and, most important of all, they required a great depth of water; and yet these great shipowners who had had all these advantages, paying only 30 per cent, of their actual tonnage, came here to-day ad misericordiam asking for still further relief. It was a proposition which, when all the facts had been heard, he was sure the House would not listen to. The shipowners were a privileged class. If there was one thing which required sifting more than another, it was the charging on this registered tonnage. There were rumours abroad that in the distant future the London docks might be taken over by the London Council Council.
§ *SIR E. BOYLEsaid he was going to apply that remark to the Amendment, and to show that if and when any docks were taken over, this Amendment would be a means of altering the price that would be paid. He would leave it there, but he might say one thing further. If this proposition of reducing tonnage charges were listened to, they must remember that in every parish where the docks were situated there would be reduction in the rateable value of those docks. The rateable value of the docks being based on their profits, if they attacked their present limited profits by reducing the registered tonnage they reduced the rateable value. It seemed to him that his was a most moderate request. The remarks which had been made with regard to the pilots he entirely endorsed. He was told that the pilots who were paid on registered tonnage were more than half the pilots working round the United Kingdom. Whether that were so he did not know, but he did know that to give relief to the ship-owner class at the expense of the poor rates of the district where the docks existed and at the expense of the dock company was a suggestion which, if well threshed out, the House would not listen to for a moment.
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEdemurred altogether to the statement of the last speaker that this was purely in the interests of the shipowner, and that it was the shipowner who was begging the House of Commons to reduce his registered tonnage so that he would be let off in regard to the pilot and dock dues. The Bill increased the obligations of the shipowners in the interests of the sailors in three ways—namely, it increased the space for the storing of 163 provisions and water for the crew it increased the space for ballast, so as to ensure greater safety of the ship; and it increased the space to be allowed for the accommodation of the sailor from 72 to 120 cubic feet. All these things for improving the condition of the sailor were deductions from the profit-earning power of the shipowner. When they were calling upon shipowners to make sacrifices for the greater safety of life at sea it was only fair that other interests like the dockowners should contribute something. Every one interested in greater safety of life at sea ought to be made to contribute. In consequence of the provisions of this Bill the shipowner would have less space to occupy, and the dockowner and the pilot ought to charge him only in respect of the space left to him. He thought there was a good deal to be said from the dockowners' point of view as to the injustice of huge ships paying only the same dock dues as ships half the size. But that was a point which was not relevant to this Bill. It raised the whole question of registered tonnage, which could only be settled by means of international conference and agreement. He sympathised very largely with the pilots, and he wished something could be done to meet their case. It had been said that the deduction for their income would amount to 5 per cent. He thought that was an exaggeration. The deduction would be nothing approximate to that amount. He had been told that perhaps the most dangerous part of the clause from the pilots' and dockowners' point of view was that relating to the storage of provisions and water and space. He thought that it was much to be regretted that the pilots and dockowners were not represented upstairs in the Committee. As a matter of fact, he had seen two deputations on this subject, and 164 he thought that on the question of the storage of provisions and water and space, the pilots and dockowners had made out a good case; at any rate that was his view of the matter. He would not be surprised if the pilots were affected, not in London, Liverpool, or Glasgow, but in the Bristol Channel, the Tyne, the Solway, and one or two other places where the dead-weight system was in operation, and pilots were paid in accordance with the registered tonnage. What was pointed out to him by the dockowners and the pilots in regard to dead-weight and other extraneous matters was that a vessel might be constructed so as to give almost unlimited accommodation to store provisions without affecting in the slightest degree the profit-earning capacity of the ship. The dockowners and pilots were afraid of the reduction in this case more than any other, because there was no limit to what a clever naval architect might not affect in the way of reductions. That would hit dockowners very hard; and it must be remembered that some docks were not paying anything like a dividend. He would suggest to the hon. Member who moved the Amendment and his supporters that it would be only fair that they should make a contribution towards the safety of the sailors at sea and increasing their accommodation on ship, board; but at the same time the shipowners and sailors ought to meet the pilots and dockowners half way. If amended in that sense he would be prepared to accept the Amendment of the hon. Member for Merthyr.
§ MR. BONAR LAWsaid he agreed very largely with what had fallen from the right hon., the President of the Board of Trade. The hon. Member for Liverpool had referred to the Report of the 165 Committee of which he was chairman dealing with the question of the registered tonnage of ships. He appealed to the President of the Board of Trade himself to admit that the facts brought before that Committee showed that the net tonnage of ships was continually falling off. He did not think that it was more than one or two per cent. Admitting that, he was sure that there was not one member of the Committee who did not feel strongly on the evidence presented before them that the case of the dockowners, in any change made for crew space, should not be made worse than it was, and that the shipowners should not be better treated than the dockowners. If it was the case, as had been said, that the shipowners could insist upon the deduction of this storage space now, there was nothing to be said in favour of the clause. But if that was not the case, his argument held good that if the shipowners were not entitled now to this deduction, they should not make the case of the dockowners worse than it was in order to give the shipowners the right to deduct it. In other words this proposal was not germane to the scope of the Bill, and he thought the right hon. Gentleman would be more just if he left the matter as it was left by Clause 15. (Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE dissented.) He saw the right hon. Gentleman shook his head, but that was his opinion. Another matter which he wished to refer to was this. The right hon. Gentleman spoke as if shipowners were being penalised by this state of things, but the whole of the evidence before the Committee went to show that no hardship was inflicted upon them at all. He held, after listening for more than a year to the statements made by the shipowners and the dockowners, that on the whole the ship- 166 owners were better treated than the dockowners, and if they made any change at all it should not be in the direction of relieving the shipowner but of relieving the dockowner.
§ *MR. MORTON (Sutherland)said this was one of those clauses in which they were legislating by reference, which made it somewhat difficult to understand the clause at all unless they employed two or three lawyers to find out what it meant. As far as he could make out, however, the Thames Conservancy and some other bodies would be more harshly treated by this clause than the pilots and dockowners, with whom he (Mr. Morton) entirely sympathised, especially with the pilots who rightly asked to be protected. In the case of the Thames Conservancy they spent the dues, not in dividends, but in keeping the fairway and waterway clear for the ships. Now, as far as he could understand, the Thames Conservancy by those clauses would lose something like £10,000 per annum, and as they had not at present sufficient money to carry out all their duties, there was no reason why they should be placed in a position which would cripple their work. Last session Parliament put upon them the duty of dredging the Thames so as to give 30 feet at low water between the Nore and Gravesend, and for that purpose Parliament gave them increased tonnage dues for three years. They would, in the course of those three years, under this Bill lose possibly about £30,000, and that would practically prevent them from carrying out what Parliament meant them to do. Surely the Thames Conservancy ought to be thought of in dealing with matters of this kind, because London was the first Port in this Kingdom or elsewhere, and the Trade was increasing and 167 the Conservators ought not to be prevented by want of funds from carrying out their duties in the interests of the Trade and Port of London. The President of the Board of Trade had spoken about what had been done under this Bill for the sailors, the seamen, and others, and he quite appreciated this measure, and welcomed it as an improve merit and as a reform in those directions, but if something should be done for the seamen and others by means of it, surely they ought to provide other means of paying for that without crippling the work of the Conservancy. Parliament should not call upon bodies like the Thames Conservancy, or dockowners, or pilots, or others who were not receiving too much at the present moment to make up for what was given to the seamen; the Government should find the money in some other way. The President of the Board of Trade had offered to accept a portion of the Amendments that were down on the Paper in the name of his hon. friend the Member for Merthyr. But he said nothing about protecting such bodies as the Thames Conservancy although he proposed to relieve the pilots and the dockowners. The Thames Conservancy however would be more affected by this clause than other the dockowners or the pilots, or any other body. If the right hon. Gentleman would treat the Thames Conservancy in the same way as he proposed to treat others, then he should withdraw his opposition to the clause, but it seemed to him that it was not fair to leave out the Conservancy from the relief offered. The shipowners were to be relieved but not the Conservancy, which if it took money from the shipowners in tonnage dues spent every penny of it and a further amount from other sources of income for their benefit.
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEMay I suggest to my hon. friend that if the Amendment which I have suggested was agreed to by the House the Thames Conservancy would benefit under it as well as the others.
§ *MR. MORTONIf that is so I will not further proceed with my observations.
§ SIR GEORGE DOUGHTY (Great Grimsby) moved the adjournment of the debate.
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEI should like to get this Amendment out of the way if possible. Still if it is thought that there should be an adjournment, I will assent.
§ SIR GEORGE DOUGHTYI think the suggestion which the right hon. Gentleman has made requires some consideration.
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEIf that is the general view, I will not persist in opposing the adjournment. We have made very good progress.
§ Debate to be resumed To-morrow.
§ Whereupon Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Resolution of the House of the 4th August last.
§ Adjourned at one minute after Eleven o'clock.