The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1854-05-16 00:00:00

MERCHANT SHIPPING LEGISLATION.

The Bill is divided into eleven parts, of which
the ninth relates to the responsibility of shipowners
In this there is no material alteration from the law;
as it at present stands, but what is required is a
definitive settlement of the doubts which exist as
to the liability of shipowners under the act, known
as Lord Campbell's Act, for affording compensation
to the relative's of persons killed by wrongful act,
neglect or defraud. It is well known that this act
was intended to apply especially, if not exclusively,
to railway accidents ; but by slovenly language,
common to all hasty legislation, it may be made to
apply to any description of accident, and the glo
rious uncertainty of the law has left it doubtful
whether a shipowner, who can have no possible
control over the management of his vessel—other
than that afforded by the certificates of the master's
capability required by the law—is not pecuniarily
liable to the full extent of all his means for any loss
of life which may occur, through wrongful act,
neglect, or default. Such a regulation is mani-
festly unjust when applied to railways, because the
innocent suffer for the guilty, and every passenger
may insure his life for a trifling outlay, as shown
in an able pamphlet by Mr. BOOTH, of the London
and North-western railway; but its application to
shipowners would be still greater injustice, because
the control is infinitely less ; and therefore a Bill,
which professes to comprehend all the law relating
to merchant shipping, should distinctly declare the
exemption of shipowners from such an uncertain
and loosely-defined liability. . .

ANY attempt which is made to render the law
more intelligible and comprehensive, by consoli-
dating the various acts of Parliament relating to ,
any particular subject, is in many respects praise-
worthy, and should entitle those who undertake
the laborious duty to very great credit. It may
be doubted, however, whether the vast interests
of commerce have, in reality, been benefited by the
various enactments which, from time to time,
have been brought to bear upon its operations.
The mighty shipping and commercial interests of
Great Britain have, it must be remembered, at-
tained their gigantic elevation irrespective of
other aid from legislation than the restrictive pro-
tection of the Navigation-laws, and, therefore,
every attempt to fetter future operations by act of
Parliament is naturally viewed with some degree
of suspicion, and should receive the most careful
consideration in its details by those most com-
petent to judge, and most interested in its results,
before receiving the sanction of the Legislature.
A bill is now before Parliament entitled " a bill
to amend and consolidate the acts relating to iner-
chant shipping," and, as the names of Mr. CARD-
WELL, the President of the Board of Trade, and
Sir JAMES GRAHAM, the First Lord of the Admi-
ralty, are on ths back of it, it may be considered
a Ministerial measure. It is a very voluminous
containing no fewer than 460 sections or
clauses, and is said to be the most bulky document
ever submitted to Parliament as a single measure.
Many of its provisions are simply the re-enactment
of laws already in operation, but there are some
portions which will militate very severely against the
shipping interest, and particularly against the im-
mense amount of property invested in steam naviga-
tion; these points deserve the especial attention, not
only of our own representatives, but all those who
consider rapid communication with foreign ports
to be of essential advantage to the trade of the
kingdom. The objections to them have been
strongly urged by the Steam-ship Association of
this port, in an able document explanatory of the
bill ; and we call particular attention to it, in order
to give the most objectionable provisions more ex-
tended publicity.
BY, far the most important alteration proposed
is in section 23 of the bill, by which it is proposed
to be enacted that in all steam-vessels in which the
propelling power is to the gross tonnage one-horse
power for every seven tons, the amount allowed to
be deducted in the registered tonnage for the space
occupied by the propelling power shall for paddle-
wheel steamers be three-tenths, and for screw-
steamers two-tenths, of the gross tonnage. The
effect of this alteration as concerns steam-vessels
belonging to this port will be very serious. For
instance, in the Alps and Andes the increase will
be not less than 50 per cent., and in most of the
steamers, both screw and paddle-wheel, the
increased per centage will be very great. The
consequence of such an alteration will be to
augment materially all dues charged upon regis-
tered tonnage, such as light, dock, and other dues.
Such a provision must tend materially to discourage,
if it do not altogether put a stop to improvement
in steam navigation ; for the owners of those
vessels possessing the most ample means for speed
and efficiency will be the greatest sufferers, as they
will have to pay charges for space which cannot in
any way be made available for freight, instead of,
as at present, paying only for that portion of the
vessel which can carry passengers or cargo. It
will, therefore, unless modified or repealed, be an
effectual bar to the construction of powerful and
fast steamers, which in all cases are the safest, but
operate seriously, if not fatally, to the extension of
steam communication with many distant ports, to
which the enterprise of Liverpool shipowners in
particular is opening up new markets for
British commerce: At a time like the pre-
sent, when every exertion is being made to
secure to Great Britain the maintenance of her
commercial superiority, such a regulation would
prove a heavy blow and great discouragement,
which ought to be firmly resisted. It is well
known that many lines of steam-ships depend more
upon hopes for the future than existing profits ;
even the great New York lines are supported by
subsidies from Government; while to those which
have recently commenced, such as to Canada, Bra-
zil, Africa, and the projected line to Australia, it
would prove a death-blow, a suicidal act on the
part of a Government which we may believe to bee
animated by a desire to promote our commerce
to the fullest extent. It has been estimated that
in one coasting steamer, making three voyages a
week, the difference in dues, from an increase not
amounting to 100 tons, would not be less than
£4OO a year--a ruinous addition to the amount of
charges now paid, and which must directly militate
against steatn-navigation under any circumstances,
and particularly against companies competing with
railways. The question is of too great importance to
be passed over ; and unless the Ministry consent to
an alteration of the objectionable clause, it must
be resisted by every means allowed by the forms
of Parliament. It is preposterous to argue that
any advantage to commerce can be gained by lay-
ing a restriction, or impost, on one class of con-
veyance to benefit another. Even supposing that,
from steamers being forced (the natural result, if
not the design, of what is urged by the sailing
shipowners upon Mr. CARDWELL) to raise their rates
of freight, the sailing ships are enabled, to some
extent, to raige
theirs also, what will be the con-
sequence p why; plainly, that the public will
suffer, and that a premium will be Afforded to

We have gone into the question at some length,
from the importance of the subject,bnt have referred
only to those points of the measure which especially
demand alteration or modification. We can hardly
believe that Mr. CARDWELL will persist in pressing
the clauses alluded to in their present state, when
the objections to them have been pointed out, and
the attention of the legislature called to them by
our representatives and those of other shipping
ports.

enable foreign shipping to take from us a large probably the coming election will elicit an explanation.
What are the Commissioners about, that they do not put
portion of our carrying trade. • their shoulders to the wheel? All the energies they pos-
By section 37 an alteration will be nude by
Bess will be necessary, in order to place Birkenhead in the
which there will in future be no means of
position which it ought to occupy
establishing companies, as is now the case in
Scotland, by registering vessels in the names
of trustees, and the only resource, without
an alteration of the law, will be for companies to
obtain a charter of incorporation. This clause,
therefore, requires some modification, in order to
adapt it to circumstances which have proved bene-
ficial in so many instances.

BIRKENHEAD 4- "THE LIV_ERPOOL

"Homunculi quanti sunt, cum recogito."

'-PLAVTUS.

IN a leading article of the Lireepool hail of Saturday
last, the editor has done me the honour to remark on a
letter,with the signature of "Tabakraucher," that appeared
in that paper on the 6th inst., the subject being Birken-
head. He sets out with a compliment, and winds up with
a growl. A compliment, because some of my observations
have been co-incident with his own —a growl, because
some of his friends are rather thin-skinned, and mightily
afraid of a certain well-known " 3lrs. Grundy."
He accuses me of throwing out indiscriminate censure
on the Commissioners of Birkenhead as a body, and on
Mr. Curry individually: I frankly meet those charges
with a peremptory denial, and refer him to his own
columns for the proof of my assertions. That men holding
the office of a commissioner are open to remark, is a
truism that even he will not be so daring as to deny.
What ! A man, who, when remarking on any one dissent-
ing from his own opinion, cannot dip his pen into the ink-
bottle without loading it with terms of the most vulgar
vituperation, to cry out halt, when in the fair field of cri-
ticism a touch of the whipcord is applied; this is, to say
the least of it, passing strange.
I found fault with Mr. Curry, because he introduced a •
paltry squabble about a disputed 44. with a car-driver, at
a meeting of the commissioners. I do not retract one
word of this. I say that it was beneath the dignity of a
commissioner of Birkenhead to occupy the time of a
meeting of their body with such twaddle. Having, how-
ever, done so, and a committee having taken the case into
their consideration, it was the duty of Mr. Curry to have
attended that committee at their invitation. Mr. Curry.
forgetting that there is such a thing as "courtesy," did
not attend the committee. The Chairman, Mr. Wil-
loughby, was perfectly satisfied at the explanations given
by Mr. Evans, the owner of the car. As a commissioner,
Mr. Curry ought to have made himself acquainted with
the cost of the hire of a car to his own door. If he then
had an idea that the car-driver had imposed on him, it
was his bounden duty as a commissioner to have made an
example of the man for the benefit of the public at large,
by taking out a summons and bringing the matter before
the magistrates. All this was open to him—but no ! like
a petted child, he has recourse to his "debating club," and
tells the chairman of the commissioners that "it was net
the 4d. he cared about, but the manner in which he had
been asked for it." Mr. Curry being proved to be wrong,
and the car-driver to be right, the writer in the Mail
adopts the well-known adage of certain lawyers,—" No
case ; abuse the plaintiff's attorney !"
Mr. Curry is perfectly welcome to the wholesale adula-
tion of the writer in the Mail,—it certainly will require
a huge appetite to digest it. It is, however, open to me,
or to any other ratepayer, to inquire what has Mr. Curry
done during the twelve months he has held the office of a
commissioner? Will the Mail favour the public with a
summary of these wonderful doings ? As to the writer of
these lines, although suffering from severe indisposition,
wonderful to relate, the article in the Mail has not quite
put an end to his days ! And he begs to assure Mr.
Curry, or any other commissioner, that, when he may feel
disposed to comment on the proceedings of their body, he
does hope that such comments will be couched in the
language of gentlemanly society. Most willingly does be
eave the writer of the Mail to indulge in the rare
classic terms of Wapping and St. Giles'..
The Mail evidently writes with a relish; it is some-
thing, on occasion, to give way to the tone of a man's
mind; some men have a natural wish for improvement;
others prefer the beaten track ; but the writer in the
Mail is disposed to march backward. To what else can
be attributed, as applied to respectable tradesmen, such
terms as "decent sort of men who can knead dough, or
paint a cart, or draw a pot of beer, or survey a gin-hsop."
" Men who, in the art of municipal government, exhibit.
their asinine propensities of braying, kicking, Asc."
Surely Mr. Curry ought to feel ashamed of a defence, is
which, with the same breath, his colleagues are thus stk.-
matised ! Are we living in busy England, and in that
corner of England more especially devoted to commerce
and trade of all kinds, and that in the 19th century, to be
ridden rough-shod over by any man, writer of leaders or
not, who shall attempt to thrust such trash on the pub-
lie? It was a true remark of Napoleon, that England,
was a nation of shopkeepers. Wait on the Exchange of
London, Liverpool, Glasgow, pick out the busy bees, the
enterprising minds, and then let the writer in the Mail
ask himself the question, how many of the most leading

men, who have made their way by dint of industry, in-
tegrity, and perseverance, can boast of the familiar qtuo-
terings of a German baron, whose rent-roll is oft inferior
to his title ? Away with such contemptible rubbish.
The Mail attributes the heavy taxation and house rent
to the want of wiser heads. If this writer does not know
facts, he ought to have made himself acquainted with
them. This taxation lays at the door of commissioners of
Birkenhead, when the place was one scene of land spna-
lations, of land gambling—when land put up for public
sale (Winstanley auctioneer) by the commissioners, was
bought in, by their order, at a fabulous price. I leave the
writer in the 3fail to explain this. Birkenhead has barely
yet recovered the blow dealt out to her by her then so-
called friends. The management of the funds of the
township was not then properly attended to, else the
Woodside and the Monks' ferries would long ago have
been the property of the township. Since the Mail is so
=descending as to say that " the shopoericy dynasty of

Birkenhead arc indebted to our forbearance, not to ow
ignorance," I would, with all proper humility, ask the
writer to proceed, and perhaps he will further solicit his
friends (Greene —Rae—Curry —Furniss), whose names he
introduces prominently, to support Mr. Willoughby the
next time he brings forward a motion for a searching in-
vestigation as to the how large sums of borrowed money
have been disposed of—whether the said sums have been
appropriated to the purposes for which they were in-
tended. If memory serves me rightly, these friends of the
Mail repudiated such inquiry not very long since.
Touching the one shilling additional rate, which Mr.
Greene and his friends were so anxious to saddle the town-
ship with, the forbearance and ignorance of the Mail are'
characteristically displayA. The Mail says the rate was
to be laid upon land. Of course the Mail should be cor-
rect. It does so happen that the t.tx was to fall upon
houses, not on land. So much for the forbearance of the
Mail. The present taxation of Birkenhead is 3s. in the
pound, Commissioners' rates, and ls. in the pound poor-
rates—a total of twenty per cent. for local rates only.
Little wonder that families avail themselves of the good
roads, the lamps of Birkenhead, and live just outside the
boundary,- to escape so heavy taxation.
The " asses yoked in the team," is rather an unfortunate

allusion of the writer in the Mail—the term "asses" being
a usual compliment from that quarter to any person hold-
lug. an opp >site opinion. As —asinine—flows so glibly
from his pen, that he must be acquainted with the proverb,
" Plus negabit unus'atinus in and Fiord, quam centuns
philosophi probarerint in centum annie."
I had the temerity to suggest as men well adapted for
the office of Commissioners at the ensuing election, the
names of Laird, Stewart Ker, Lamont, Carmichael, Derby-
shire, Clayton. The writer in the Mail does not agree
with me. He has had the kindness—the very gentlemanly
feeling—to offer as candidates at the next election a par-
ticular friend of his, viz., his sweep, with a clean shirt, as
chairman, and half-a-dozen scavengers to fill up vacancies
in the bo4 of Commissioners. Whether the gentlemen
whose names I have suggested are to be considered proper
associates for "our own sweep and scavengers," I leave to
the decision of the erudite writer in the Mail.
TABAKRAUCHER.
Beech Lawn, May 15th, 1864.

MORE STABBING CASES IN LIVERPOOL.—At the
Police-court, on Saturday, James Ryan was charged with
stabbing Henry Watson and Thomas Watson, and Wil-
liam Werett was charged with aiding and abetting On
Friday night the prisoners, who are American seamen,
were going along Rupert-road, when they came up to the
Watsons, who are brothers, and jostled roughly again"
them. A scuffle emoted, in the course of which Ryan
drew a knife and stabbed the brothers abtaisve theenriitthto
hip, inflicting dangerous wounds.
Ryan
7e conveyed to
re
custody on the spot, and the Wats°ns
the Northern Hospital, where they remain in a dangerous
Tibsequet_itly app_re_hended4.
state. The other prisoner was
on board the ship Capital, to which he and Ryan belonge
They were remanded for seven days.
WARRINOTON.--Trac Mthirra.—The period for which
the men fortning the 4th Royal Lancashire Militia were
assembled for training has drawn to a close, and they were
disbanded on Saturday. On Thursday last, they were in-
spected on the training grouind, near Arpley station, by
Colonel Derinry, of Liverpoo , when the usual evolutions
were preformed by the men. At the close Colonel De-
rimy addressed them, and expressed his astonishment and
satisfaction at the progress they had made, and warmly
congratulated the officers on the success of their exertions.
In the afternoon games, foot races, &c. were entered into
by the men, and a steeple-chase was run by several of the
officers, the course being three times round several of the
fields in Arpley.