The Sun.
London, England, 1856-02-15 00:00:00

IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT.

HOUSE OF LORDS—(YESTERDAY).
The LORD CHANCELLOR4:OOk hie seat on the woolsack
at five o'clock. .

THE BARONY OF FERMOY.

• The Earl of DERBY called attention to a question
involving the privileges of that house. The noble earl
opposite (Earl Granville) a few nights ago informed him
that a petition was in preparation on behalf of the
Baron of Fermoy, and that it was probable it would be
presented to the house within a. day or two afterwards.
Under that impression he postponed his motion'he had
given notice of, to refer the case to a committee of
privilege, deeming it better to raise the question
on that occasion. He, however, had received a note
from the noble earl, to say that he had received the pe-
tition and had transmitted it tip the Lord Chancellor,
and that noble lord had referred it to the Committee of
Privileges without laying it on the table of the house.
He complained of this being most inconvenient. For
centuries there had never been any difference between the
bo'ise and Crown until last year, when her Majesty'sMi-
sisters had contrived ungraciously to involve the Crown
in difficulties as regarded the privileges of the house in
the creation of two separate peerages, each of whose
patents was consulerea by a large portion of that house,
including some of the most eminent law authorities, as
invadd. He contended that it was only in the case of a
lineal descendant of one who had exercised the right
of voting for Irish representative peers that a petition
such as the present was referred to the committee of
privileges. By the act of Union it was provided in re-
gard to Irish peerages that her Majesty bad the power
of creating a new peerage in Ireland upon the extinction
of three Irish peerages, and that such creation Could not
take place until the lapse of 12 months after the death of
the last peer. This right was possessed by the Sovereign
.until the number of the Irish was reduced to 100. The
noble earl then proceeded to argue that there had not
lapsed three Irish peerages according to the terms of
the Act of Union, and that consequently the Govern-
ment were not authorised to advise her Majesty to create
a new peer at the time the Crown conferred the patent
upon the Baron Fermoy.
Earl GRANVILLE said that the Government had
acted under the advice of the law officers of
the Crown at the time they advised her Majesty to
confer the peerage upon Baron Fermoy, and they
were, of course, to prepare to take the responsibility
of this new creation. He would not then enter into
a discussion as to the legality of such crea-
tion, as the case had been referred to a Committee of
Privileges. He would merely remark that there was
something new in the last as laid down by the noble
lord. As to the Irish peerage, no member of that
body, unless a professed supporter of the policy of the
noble lord opposite, had a chance, of being elected to a
seat is that house. •

A conversation then took place, in which Lord
Brougham, Lord Campbell, and the Earl of Desart took
part, after which the snbjegt dropped.

TRIAL OF OFFENCES BILL.

• The house then went into cotirnittee on this bill, the
whole of the clauses were agreed to, and the bin was
reported.

NATIONAL EDUCATION.

Earl GRANVILLE laid upon the table a bill for the
promotioa of education• in. England and Wales, and it
was read a first time.
UNSEAWORTHY VESSELS.

The Earl of ELLENBOROUGH presented several
petitions from seamen at Whitby, West Hartlepool,
Sunderland, and other port; complaining that they
were obliged by law to ge, to sea in unseaworthy vessels.
The noble earl stated that having carefully examined the
.allegations of the petit;onerA, he had come to the con-
clusion not only that they really had a serious grievance,
but that likewise the public interests were materially in-
jured by the existing state of the law. The petitioners
,called attention to the fact that the casualties at sea and
.the number of lives lost had of late years increased in a
greater proportion than the number of ships. At the time
'the petitions were drawn up, that statement was true ;
'.but he was gla'l to say that a return just laid upon their
lordships' table showed a gratifTing decrease in the num-
ber of lives lost during the last year. In 1852 thenumber
of vessels wrecked •in the British seas was 1,015 ; but
that must have been a year of more than ordinarily tem-
pestuous weather. In 1853 the number was 832; in 1854,
987 ; and in 1355, 1,141. The number of lives lost was
in 1852. 920 ; in 1853, 689 ;. in 1854, '1,549 ; and in
1355. 465. The diminution under this head was very
gratifying, and it was also satisfactory to find that
out of 1,388 persons whose lives had been in peril, but
who bad, nevertheless, been saved, no fewer than 650
had been rescued by the most modern appliances fur the
preservation of life. (h ear.) During the last year no
fewer than 57 vessels had been destroyed, 178 most se-
riously injured; and 14 less seriously so, in all 247, lost
or damaged by collisions. Of course there were occa-
sions in which it was almost impossible to avoid acci-
dents of this kind ; but there ..could be no doubt that a
vast proportion of these casualties were doubtless trace.
able to incompetency inthe master, orto the vessel, from
faults of construction, not answering to her helm ; to
inadequacy in the craw, er to deficiency in the equip-
ment of the ship. The petitioners complained that in
consequence of the great cempetition that prevailed,
persons were appointed "masters who produced certi-
ficates of competency, but who were not really compe-
tent. They ales stated that a great number of foreigners
were now employed who werslonlyimperfectly acquainte I
with the English language, and who were consequently
liable to misunderstand what they were ordered to do.
It was, however, quite clear that by far the greater
number of casualties were occasioned by one or other el
the tree or four causes he had just enumerated ; and it
was certainly very hard upon seamen that having once
e )g wed to Sail in a particular vessel they were usable to
,quit it, however unseaworthy 'it might appear to them
to be ; nay, that if they merely went ashore to make a
cmplaint, they were liable to. le apprehended as de-
serters, and sent to prison for, different periods up to 12
weeks. This was a very ;Slone state of things. The
inspector of prisons fox.r tfie county of Cornwall made the
following statement respe,eling the House of Correction
at Yarmouth, in his repot fur 1855 :
Nine prisoners under sentence of 12 weeks' imprison.
ment for having deserted theirs ships or refused to sail in
them after having signed articles of agreement, the ground
of their refusal having heart the eunsaeworthiness of the
ships, or the fact of their having on board an insufficient
amber of able seamen to work.thein with a duo regard to
the safety of the ships and crews.
The inspector goes oh to ray :
The frequent occurrence of, commitments under the Mer-
chant Seamen's Act in this and other seaport towns has
led me to bring the subject under the notice of the Socre-
rary of State in a special report, from a feeling that the
administration of the law affecting merchant seamen is
attended with an amount of hardship to that class of per-
sons not contemplated by the Legislature. A very large
number of merchant seamen are eenimitted summarily to
the prisons of. seaporttowns fur refusing to proceed to sea,
after having signed articles of agreement, the grounds of
'their refusal being, as stated above, the alleged unseawor-
thiness of their ships, or the insufficient complement of
"able . seamen" among tleeir crew. The first cf
those objections is in many cases notoriously well
founded, more especially at the present time,
when the great and sudden increase of trade to the Aus-
tralian colonies and elsewhere has led to many ships
being taken up for service. to the requirements of which
they are quite unequal. * Whether the circum-
stances here alluded to may throw any light upon the nu-
merous; mischances that have occurred of late to merchant
ships I am not qualified to judge,; but I have the best rea-
son to know that the prisonsAf several seaport towns ip
my district are continually' supplied with seamen com-
mitted under the cirodnistances referred to ; the good
character of many of whom, obtainol both in the navy
and merchant service, leads to the strongest presumption
in their favour. -4- * The above remarks apply to
all prisons with which I am acqnainted in seaport towns ;
but in the.case of that which forms the subject of this
report a peculiar hardship is inflicted on the prisoners by
the :closeness of confinement and the very defective ac
commodation.

This state of things ought not to be permitted to con-
tinue. By an act passed about a year and a half ago a sea-
man was permitted to go ashore in order to make a com•
plaint ; but it was idle to give a man a privilege like
that if he was liable to be seized and sentenced by a
bench of ship-owning magistrates to 12 weeks' imprison-
ment for attempting to avail himself of it. On the other
hand, if deterred by the fehy of being arrested if he went
ashore to make his complaint=--he consented to go to sea
in an unseaworthy venial, and if that vesselwas wrecked
he would have no right to ens th a master forwny clothes
or other property that he might lose. There could be no
4oubt that a very pregnant cause of accidents was the in-
adequate number of persons employed as crews. In most
merchant ship; they could only, get up or take in one sail
at a time, and they were consequently exposed to much
dancer from sudden changes of the weather. The course
which he (the noble lord) wished to see adopted, was that
the Board of Trade, which already had
Power to direct an
inquiry to be made after a casualty had cecurred, should
appoint in every seaport an inspector, and that go sh
si3euld be allowed to sail without having undergon can
examination, both as to the seaworthiness of the vessel
and the adequacy of thecrew. (Hear.) He would go even
further, and suggest that au investigation should take
place in the case of every serious casualty occurring to
merchant
as was done with respect to vessels vessels,
belonging to the royal _
nays,. If those two steps were
adopted,
every year. Their lordship:{had probably no idea of the
extent of our annual losses from shipwreck. The yes-
eels lost last year Mounted to no less than 176,000 tons,
and the lives jeopardised could not have been less than
7,000 or 8,000. He (the noble earl) was not at present
.pose any
step in relation to the petitions
f;repared to pro
li ebegged to present, but be might perhaps on some fu-
ure occasion move for a committee.,
Lord STANLEY admitted the great importance of
the subject to which the noble earl's observations-had
reference. The "hardship complained
of by the petition-
ers had already received the attention of Majesty's
(lover-iv:neat ; and in order that be might know how the
law really stood with reference to men going on shore
to complain of the unseaworthinese of their ships, lie
had had a case drawn up and submitted to Sir J. D.
Harding, the Qusen's advocate, and to another eminent
authority„
The following were ties questions put to the
leprned gentleman, and their answers
1, Whether, when 'a seamen is (waged, there is or is
not an implied condition ou the pert of the shipowrier that
the ship shall be seaworthy? We are of• opinion that
there is -an cen'lition "n the part of the ship:miser
ship. shall be.seianro4hya • 1'
that the
2. Whether, if the ship is not seaworthy, and the sea-
man
refused en go to sea in her on that ground, he can be
treated as a deserter, or punished under the enactments
above referred to, or otherwise ?--And tlaut-if the ship is
not seaworthy, and the seaman refuses to go to sea in ter
an that ground, be cannot be treated as a deserter, or