master, after collision with another vessel, not to stand by and render assistance. In the same statute, a code of signals of distress has been adopted and very properly enforced, as well as a general code of pilot signals.
Many losses having occurred from spontaneous combustion of coal on board ship, Government, in 1874, appointed, on the recommendation of Lloyd's Committee, a Royal Commission, under the chairmanship of Mr. Childers, to inquire into this subject, but this Commission has not yet concluded its labours.
Extraordinary scene in the House of Commons on the withdrawal of the Merchant Shipping Bill, 1875. Early in the Session of 1875, the Government introduced another Merchant Shipping Bill, containing various amendments of the then existing law, and among them a special clause which had for its object the abolition of all advance notes. This Bill met with very considerable opposition (partly of a frivolous character), rendering its progress through the House so slow, that Government found it desirable to withdraw it, more especially as the Bill had been materially altered and curtailed in the course of various divisions, especially in the clauses referring to the advance notes and other matters of importance.
When Government intimated its intention of withdrawing the Bill of which they could no longer approve, and which they had not time to pass, a scene arose[1] happily of rare occurrence in the debates*
- ↑ I feel no hesitation in giving, from the public journals, an account of this most extraordinary and unusual scene, not merely as an episode in the history of Merchant Shipping, but to explain the circumstances under which the temporary Act now in force was passed at the close of the Session of 1875:— "Mr. Charley asked the First Lord of the Treasury whether he could hold out any hopes of being able to afford facilities for the third reading of the Infanticide Bill in time to enable the House of Lords to consider it this Session. "Mr. Disraeli said he thought he could hold out some hopes to the
