Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 3).djvu/374

 of the Board of Trade, without whose practical knowledge of the subject (as a first-class yachtsman


 * [Footnote:

"Both in safety and in doubt Always keep a good look-out; In danger, with no room to turn, Ease her—stop her—go astern!"

These appropriate but simple rhymes have been translated into various languages, and, I doubt not, have been the means of preventing numerous colisions and other accidents at sea. It may be amusing and instructive to add that, when the question of lights for ships and rules of the road at sea were under consideration, the French Government wrote to our Government proposing a Maritime Congress to settle them. We replied in substance, "No. A Maritime Congress of sailors of different nations and languages will be a Babel. But we will heartily co-operate with you; we will propose a draft of rules and submit them to you. If France and England can agree on this, other nations will probably join." France adopted our proposal most cordially, and we set to work. At that time we were fortunate enough to have Mr. Milner Gibson at the Board of Trade, who united, as I have explained in the text, what scarcely any other man would have done, perfect knowledge of the subject, a clear, logical, and sensible understanding, and a remarkable power of making other people agree. Not without difficulty, a set of rules was, under his leadership, framed by the Admiralty, the Trinity House and the Board of Trade acting together. These rules were sent to the French Government. They approved them, making some valuable criticisms, but, chiefly, criticisms of detail. We then said, "Now let there be no question of national vanity; no quarrel as to who originated these rules. Do you publish them in your Moniteur on a given day, and we will, on the same day, publish them in our Gazette, merely stating that the rules had been jointly settled by the two Governments. This, as might have been supposed, was agreed on. To the surprise, however, of every one connected with the facts, the Moniteur some time before the day fixed, published a long story to the following effect:—"That the French Minister of Marine had long been alive to the dangers to which navigation was exposed for want of such rules; that he had communicated his apprehensions to his colleague, the French Foreign Minister, who sympathised with him; that he, the French Minister of Marine, thereupon prepared a set of rules, which he sent to his colleague; that the French Foreign Minister submitted these French rules to the English Government; that that Government gave them its cordial and grateful approval; and that both Governments then agreed to adopt them. Therefore, they were to become law!"]