Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 3).djvu/337

 *tions. The first lays down the general functions of the Board of Trade; the second relates to the ownership, registration, and measurement of British ships; and the third is confined, exclusively, to matters referring to the conduct and duties of masters and seamen, and embraces the whole of the conditions of the Act of 1850, with various additions and amendments.

The measurement of ships embodied in part second of this Act is a great improvement on all former modes of ascertaining the tonnage of a ship, as it takes capacity for its basis; and thus, while proportioning the dues payable by ships to their capabilities of carrying freight, affords free scope to Shipowners to construct such vessels as are best adapted to the trade in which they are to be employed. This admirable mode of admeasurement*