The Sun.
London, England, 1864-04-29 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS,

TIMEs.—In rejecting Mr. Lindsay's motion for
the construction of Harbours of Refuge on Tuesday
night, the House of Commons was only exercising
the same prudent but unwelcome revision of bene-
volent but hasty conclusions which has constantly
to be exercised by every private gentleman. Six
years ago the house had been asked in the most in
Docent and natural way in the world whether it
would not grant money for the construction of more
Harbours of Refuge. It was, of course, supposed
that the house knew very well how great a benefit
they would be. The house had learnt, in quite as
touching terms as Mr. Lindsay used on Tuesday, the
amount of saving in lives and property which would
be effected if ships could always find somewhere to
go to whenever they were in danger of being
wrecked; so that question was supposed to be
i
settled, and the committee were only asked to n •
quire " into the policy of making further grants of
public money" for so admirable a purpose. The
committee were modest, and proposed that the house
should grant only part of the sum required—say a
million and a half, only an annual surplus—and get
the remaining two millions and a half supplied by
local contributions or repaid by tolls upon shipping
using the harbours. This was, as it were, just break-
ing the expense to the house; but the. committee
proposed a Royal Commission to determine the best
places for the harbours, end the commission took
courage, and, as Sir Stafford Northcote mildly puts
it, " threw aside that part of the recommendations of
the committee that a considerable portion of the ex-
pense for these harbours should be defrayed in some
way by a charge upon shipping." Or, as the charge
upon shipping would be theonly source to which most
of these places could look for obtaining the requisite
money, they practically proposed that the wwholecharge, amounting by the confession of the Com-
mittee, to four millions, should be borne by the
country. This was in 1859. In 1860 the House
was asked to ratify the easy promises into which it
thus seemed half betrayed ; its impulsive genero-
sity had been too recent for it to withdraw at once
from its busty consent ; and it actually passed a re-
solution calling upon Government to carry into
effect the recommendations of the Royal Commis-
sion. However, the Government had to raise money,
and to propose Budgets, and very naturally dropped
a suggestion which would have saddled each Budget
with at least a quarter of a million. So in 1862 the
interested parties began to think they must remind
the authorities again, and propied a motion to
enforce the former resolution of 1860; but by this
time the House had found leisure to turn round and
think about it. There had been a greet deal of talk
about sums like a quarter of a million, and it re-
solved by 115 to 77 not to go any further in the
matter, Alter this the Government could not pos-
Nibly be expected to stir; so on Tuesday Mr. Lind-
sey thought it necessary to make one more decided
appeal, and the House, therefore, being brought to
bay, had to say by a majority of 142 to 84 that it
believed the whole proposal to he based on a mere
illusion:, that Harbours of Refuge would be only of
the slightest possible use to our shipping, that they
would probably serve no other purpose but to
sink masses of stone and quantities of money,
and perhaps afford Sir Walter Crotton, or some
other experimentalist on ticket-of-leave-men, an
upport unity for "employing convict labour ;"
that the cost would be at the lest
£10,000,000 or £12,000,000, instead of £4,000,000,
and that, in short, it could not hear of it, and
would not do it. It is obvious that the House could
not hold itself in any way bound to so vast an ex-
penditure upon the nceinneendation of two bodies
which had practically begged the main point in
dispute. The subsequent investigation of the Board
of Trade had enormously diminished the argument
in favour of harbours of refuge. A memorandum
issued by the Board seems, for the first time, to have
brought before the House an accurate analysis of
the probable value to shipping of these harbours,
and it was commented on with the chagrin which
was only natural in the gentlemen who found their
fancies so completely exposed by its facts. Of
course it is easy. es Mr. Lindsay did, to describe
" in touching terms" the enormous loss in men and
money which is usually incurred by shipwrecks,
but the sole question as to harbours of refuge is
what proportion of this loss woald be averted by
their existence, and whether *he proportion would
be sufficient to justify such an outlay. Now, from
the total number of wrecks the report in question
very properly eliminates all cases in which ships
are lost in a gale of wind in which they founder at
sea, and in which their loss may be attributed to
bad seamanship or to collisions. It is obvious
that some of these causes would be wholly unin-
fluenced by harbours of refuge, and though loss of
lite from otaer causes might be occasionally averted
by the nearness of a harbour, yet they are
causes in themselves controllable, and the nation
cannot possibly be expected to spend mil-
lions of money in preventing the consequences
of mere cerelessness. In analyzing from time to
time the annual Wreck Returns we have often
taken occasion to dwell on another frequent cause of
shipwrecks, which in the same way cannot claim
any consideration from the public. We refer to the
notorious unseawor illness of many ships engaged
in our home trade. Mr. Milner Gibson pointed out
on 'Tuesday night that the majority of e;hipe lost on
the East Coast were colliers 30, 50, and even 90 years
old, and most of these were lost at a considerable
distance from the coast. One of the most remark-
able results of Mr. Gtbson's analysis is the fact that
out of 570 persons drowned last year 180 were lost
on the East Coast when the wind was from the west,
so that harbours of refuge couid have been no pos-
sible use to them. An illustration to the same effect
is furnished by the recent lamentable destruction of
,
arreouth fishing boats. They were all lost at sea,
and a Government gunboat was sent to search for
them in the open sea. Tnese little vessels could
hardly ever make a harbour in a heavy gale, and
Admiral Fitzroy's signals in preventing their ven-
turing out when there is danger, will do much more
for them than Harbours of Refuge. As for our great
shipping, the cast; of the Royal Charter, so unfortu-
nately instanced by Sir John Pakington, is a suffi
cient illustration of the use which such ships would
he likely to make of these harbours. The Royal
Charter was on her way up the Channel to Liver-
pool, and when the gale came on in which she
was lost she was near Holyhead, and if she had
made for the harbour she would probably have
escaped. But she had to make a quick passage, and
she pressed on for her destination, and met her
fate. These magnificent ships would only enter
Harbours of Refuge in exceptionally severe gales.
In point of fact, harbours would resolve themselves
into mere conveniences for the inferior shipping,
and that is not an object for national expenditure.
When the advantages to be gained by the proposal
have been reduced to such insignificant proportions,
it may seem superfluous to urge any further objec-
tions, but it is worth while to indicate the sort of
expense with which it is proposed to saddle the
country for so futile an object. On this point, it is
sufficiently suggestive that in one instance the Com-
mittee's estimate for two particular harbours was
£20,000 each, whereas the Commission subse-
quently estimated the expense at £50,000 in one
case, and £75,000 in the other : and, after our ex-
perience at Ramsgate and elsewhere, few persons
will doubt that, if the original estimate was
£4,000,000, we might think ourselves lucky if
it stopped within £10,000,000. Let any one esti-
mate the effect of that sum spread over ten years
upon the taxation of the country, and then estimate
the audacity of the proposal to burden the whole
community to that extent for the uncertain chance
of saving a small portion of the national shipping.
As to the main expense being borne by the *0- -

~sues