SECOND READING. (Hansard, 11 July 1905)

§ *LORD LUDLOW

My Lords, although this a short Bill, I think I shall be able to satisfy your Lordships that it is a very important one. Its object is to remedy a very great grievance, indeed a very great injustice, that now exists. The Bill in no way alters the existing law, but enables it to be put into effect. It enables those workmen who ought to have the benefit of the law as it stands 217 to get that benefit. As your Lordships are aware, the legislation passed for a great many years has been in favour of protecting the workman in his employment, and, as far as possible, seeing that when he is injured he is compensated. Various Acts have been passed for that purpose. There have been the Factory Acts, the Workmen's Compensation Act, and the Employers' Liability Act. This Bill does not I quite guard the workman against the same injury as the Employers' Liability Act. What this Bill really does is to I protect the workman, not against the injury caused in his employment by the immediate employer, but rather by a third person.

As your Lordships know, a dock, wharf, and harbour are now held to be a factory under the Factory Acts. Inspectors can go there and inspect the ships and the process of loading and unloading; and if a workman is injured while employed in loading or unloading he is able to obtain compensation. At the present moment the difficulty is to many that law into force. In the event of a man being injured on a British ship in a British port, the ship owner being resident in this country, the workman brings his action and gets compensation; but in the case of a foreign ship in a British port a very different thing takes place. Foreign ships come into our ports, and men go on board to load and unload, and not infrequently they are injured in that employment. But what happens in those cases at the present moment? The workman brings his action, but there is nobody upon whom he can serve the notice as the foreign ship has sailed away. He then goes to the agent and serves the notice upon him. Cases have occurred in which he brings his action and wins it, but when he goes to get his compensation he finds there is no one from whom he can claim it. The agent is held not to be a ship-owner, but merely an agent for loading and unloading the ship, and in a case of that kind the workman is not only non-suited, but has the burden of the costs of the action thrown upon him. I am sure your Lordships will admit that that is very unfair.

218 Although that seems a great hardship, it may be contended that a case of that kind never occurs. I may inform your Lordships, that within the last eight years, in the port of London alone, there have been eight cases of fatal injury and fifty cases of serious injury. In every one of these cases the workmen brought actions, and in a great many they won their actions, but they got no redress, because in all those cases the foreign shipowner was not resident in this country and the ship had sailed, and thereto e there was nobody to recover compensation from. If there have been fifty cases of serious injury and eight fatal cases in the port of London alone in eight years, I am sure your Lordships will understand that the number must be very considerable when the whole of the ports throughout the United Kingdom are taken into consideration. If any damage is done to a British ship by a foreign vessel coming into port colliding with that ship, we at once arrest that foreign vessel under Admiralty jurisdiction, and the vessel is detained in this country until security is given for any compensation that may be awarded in any action at law. In this Bill we ask that what takes place in regard to a foreign ship when she is in collision with another vessel shall take place as regards personal injury on board in consequence of the wrongful act, neglect, or default of the owners of the ship, master, or officers, or crew thereof, or any person in the employment of the owners of the ship. We ask that in such cases the ship should be detained until the shipowner or master satisfies the Court that when an action is brought there will be a defendant from whom redress can be obtained.

The present system, under which foreign ships can sail away and escape liability, is very hard on the British workman and on the British shipowner. If this Bill passes your Lordships' House, the result will be that English and foreign vessels will be put on an equal footing, and the foreign vessel will no longer trade with great advantages in this matter over the British ship. It will make effective the law which already exists, which is that a workman damaged or injured through the negli- 219 gence of a shipowner, or the officers and crew on board the ship, shall be compensated. This Bill simply makes the Act effective. It will do away with a distinct grievance that workmen now labour under, and in every way will be a great benefit to the British shipowner. To sum up the Bill, it proposes to put British and foreign shipowners on the same footing, and to secure that in future a workman injured on board a ship shall be able to bring his action, and, if he succeeds, recover. If this Bill passes, there will be no longer any reason for British ships being sailed under a foreign flag. There are many cases where this is done simply for this purpose. The Bill has been carefully considered in another place, has met with no opposition, and has received the approval of the Attorney-General; I, therefore, hope your Lordships will give it a Second Reading.