The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-05-04 00:00:00

rJjt Rtherpool &tanbarb.

TUESDAY MORNING, MAY 4, 1841

We were prevented, by the pressure of more imme-
diately urgent matter, from directing attention in our
last number to a subject not perhaps of a very attrac-
tive character to the general reader, but one, neverthe-
less, of great moment to the mercantile community,
and especially to the shipowners, shippers, and in-
surers connected with the port of Liverpool.

It has been determined to establish here an inde-
pendent Book of Registry for the shipping of Liver-
pool; and it will have been seen, by the resolutions
passed at the meeting held in the Underwriters' Com-
mittee-room, on Tuesday, that the preliminary steps
have been when for carrying this determination into
'effect.

The establishment of such a work, we are of opi-
nion, will be highly conducive to the interests of this
town, and we shall therefore feel much pleasure in
rendering our columns subservient to its facilitation
and accomplishment.

Heretofore Liverpool, having no book of registry of
its own, has been under the necessity of depending
upon, and deferring to the authority of a London pub-
lication, and it could hardly be expected that the Lon-
don committee, by whom that publication is issued,
would feel -all that interest about Liverpool and its
shipping, that a committee formed on the spot, and
.consisting of gentlemen whose interests are bound up
most intimately and primarily with this port, would
entertain. This would be more than we could reason•
ably expect. At the same time, we do not deny that
it would be just possible that the London Committee,
if they were really anxious to do justice and give sa-
tisfaction to the inhabitants of Liverpool, might have
done so, if not completely, at least to a very consider-
able extent, and might, by avoiding as much as possi-
ble all occasion of complaint, and evincing a ready dis-
position to correct error when committed, have de-
layed, for some time longer, the call which is now
made, and in course of being attended to, for issuing
forth from Liverpool a publication wholly indepentent
of London, and a publication from which the shipping
interests and mercantile body of Liverpool may confi-
dently expect to receive fair play. But the London
Committee made no such efforts to secure the acqui-
escence of Liverpool in their classification of her mer-
cantile marine, have given frequent cause of dissatis-
faction without manifesting any inclination to remove,
or remedy the same, and so entirely disregarded re-
monstrance, or peremptorily refused the most reasona-
ble requests, that they have done everything to hasten
rathei than postpone the present undertaking. We
cannot say that we feel any regret that such a result
has been produced. We think it becomes the second
port—if second it be to any other in the kingdom—to
have a book of shipping registry of its own, and rejoice
that an opportunity is now offered to emancipate Li-
verpool from a thraldom under which she has suffered
too long.
That many errors have crept into the London book
is, we believe, a fact pretty well known. A corre-
spondent of the Shipping Gazette, who subscribes
himself "A Liverpool Shipowner," has, in a recent
number of that publication, stated one very remarkable
instance. " The Heath," he says, " which stood at
A 1 in the registry-book, was bought by a London
house on speculation at an unsound price, took in a
cargo for London, and the insurance was effected as
on a first class ship, when it was discovered that with-
out some repairs she was not sea-worthy. The tem-
porary repairs were completed, the vessel immediately
reduced in the book to I, although the insurance was
done on her as A 1; the vessel sailed, and in about 48
hours was abandoned off Tuskar waterlogged, and af-
terwards went down."

The same writer vindicates, with mu:h spirit and
effect, the claims of. Liverpool-built ships to the high-
est classification, in answer to the aspersions of some
anonymous writer—not unlikely a party interested in
preserving the ascendancy of the London volume. He
says, addressing himself to the editor,—

A " Subscriber" asks, in a letter addressed to you, how it
is that vessels sailing from the port of Liverpool are notori-
ous for discharging their cargoes in a worse state than from
any other port in the united kingdom?
The answer is obvious, viz., because ships from all the
ports in the kingdom frequent Liverpool, and but few of the
ships sailing out of or owned in Liverpool are built in Liver-
pool, shipowners not liking to pay a Liverpool price, whilst
others consider a first-rate Liverpool-built ship, although
more expensive at first, cheaper in the end than an inferior-
priced out-port built ship; hence the London underwriters
have to pay for averages and total losses on ships standing
A 1 or */E, when the Liverpool underwriters, having the re-
port of their own surveyor on the spot, will not take the
risk.

He then enters into several particulars as to the con-
struction of ships generally adopted and approved of
by Liverpool master-builders, and espouses their prin-
ciple% though they do not happen to be in accordance
with the supreme authority and irreversible decrees of
the great London publication. Into these, however,
we need not follow him at present.
What appears from this and other evidence which