Shipping: and, though yielding for the moment to a popular cry, Mr. Disraeli may well have had reasonable doubts whether further legislation might not, so far from lessening, tend to increase those dangers and disasters which must ever attend the navigation of the ocean.
Propriety or not, of further legislation considered. Having, however, officially announced his intention to review the whole subject, and to consider it in all its bearings, I venture to invite the attention of my readers to the more important points now pending. They are: a compulsory load-line, and the production of an official certificate of seaworthiness by all ships before they are cleared at the Custom House.
Compulsory load-line.
Mr. J. W. A. Harper's evidence.
So far as regards the proposed compulsory load-line,
a very competent and intelligent witness who
gave his evidence before the Royal Commission on
unseaworthy ships, says,[1] "I think nothing could be
more serviceable and nothing more excellent than
to obtain and, if it were possible, enforce a load-line;
but I also think there is nothing more impossible.
A load-line, do what you may, is the opinion of an
expert. How can you, by authority, enforce the
opinion of an expert? I have had before me," he
continues, "a great many proposals for ascertaining
load-lines for ships. Some of them are very ingenious.
By the best of them you may get, with
considerable accuracy, the cubical displacement of the
empty ship, the displacement of the cargo, and so
you may arrive at the cubical space left in the ship
available for floating. And getting that you get a
valuable and useful fact for some objects. But the
- ↑ Mr. John W. A. Harper, Secretary to the Salvage Association. See Question 8769, p. 311.
