no charge can be justly made against either the Government or the Legislature of any dereliction of duty in their endeavours to save the life of all persons who "go down to the sea in ships." Nor can we charge the people of this country with any callousness or want of sympathy for the seafaring portion of the population. The number of Acts of Parliament passed in recent years, and the grants of public money voted for the purpose of saving life, are an answer to all such charges; while noble private institutions, like the Shipwrecked Mariners' Society, the Lifeboat Establishments, the Royal Alfred Asylum, besides various other charitable associations for the benefit of seamen, testify in this respect to the liberality of the public.[1]
Improvement in lighthouses, buoys, and beacons. Nor have the lights, beacons, and buoys on our coast, all tending materially, as they do, to save life, been neglected. On the contrary, while we have greatly reduced the charges, we have increased the number and highly improved the quality of our lights. By the Act passed in 1836,[2] a number of lighthouses, which formed part of the hereditary estate of the
- ↑ As it has often been broadly stated that employment in British ships is much more dangerous now than it was in 1836, when the first Committee sat to inquire into the cause of shipwrecks, I may reply that the most careful analysis shows that, while the losses were then on the average of the three previous years 3.72 percentage of the number of vessels (or rather of their tonnage) employed, they were for the three years previous to 1873 only 2.95 per cent., although these years were exceptionally fatal to ships laden with timber, grain, and coal (see Appendix to 'Commission on Unseaworthy Ships,' pp. 780 and 791), arising from the enormous increase in the oversea trade of these articles. For instance, while in 1861, 57,745,993 cwts. of corn were imported, the imports in 1872 amounted to 97,765,298 cwts. The imports of timber rose between the same periods from 3,358,589 to 4,949,786 loads; and the oversea exports of coals from 7,934,832 in 1861 to 13,198,494 tons in 1872.
- ↑ Lighthouses, 6 & 7 Wm. IV. cap. 79.
