Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 10.djvu/584

 .572 FEDERAL REPORTER. �of avarice, but to hold out an inducement to such as require it, tomake extra- ordlnary efforts to save those who may be eiicompaased by perils beyond their own strength to subdue." �Salvage, therefore, is a reward or bounty, exceeding the actual value of their services, given to those by means of whose labor, intrepidity, and perseverance a ship or her goods have been saved from ship- wreck or other dangers of the sea. 1 Bell, Com. 592. How to give such recompense as may fairly reward the labor, intrepidity, and per- severance of salvors, and encourage them to exertion and honesty in relieving ships, goods, and persons in danger, and at the same time to prevent excessive exactions in the moment of alarm, is a difficult problem ; and a court must deal with eaeh case before it according to its own particular circumstances, and with reference to the liberal aims of the law as explained by the jurists whose expressions have been quoted. It may be laid down as a cardinal principle of salvage that the rate of compensation to be allowed in any case must not only contemplate the labor and exertion and danger attending the partic- ular enterprise, but must be so liberal, if the condition of the fund at disposai permit, as to attract publie attention ; the court looking not merely to the exact quantum of service performed and its actual value, but to the general interests of navigation and commerce, which de- pend for protection upon services of this charaeter. �I have emphasized this latter feature of the policy of the law of salvage, because there is a growing complaint among wreckers and salvors that the admiralty courts of our Atlantic coast, more particu- larly those of New York, have until quite recently been disposed for a long time to ignore it in their awards of salvage, and to confine themselves too much to the quantum menat view of the value of sal- vage services. Whether the policy of the courts has been too re- strieted or not in this respect is not for me to say; but the fact is, whether resulting f rom this or other causes, that almost every wreck- ing Company which bas operated along the Atlantic seaboard in the last 50 years lias ceasod to exist. �In this country we have no legislation having for its object the encouragement of salvors, like the merchants' shipping act of Great Britain, 17 & 18 Vict. c. 4, §§ 458 et seq.; and the duty of affording this encouragement devolves upon the admiralty courts; and I think it 18 generally eonceded that unless these courts are more liberal in their awards of salvage than they were for a considerable period until recently, the business of wrecking as an organized pursuit, conducted by rei-utable men, will sooii be wholly abandoned. Certainly, if it be ��� �