Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 3).djvu/438

 a serious burden on all merchant vessels. So far back as 1845, a Committee appointed specially to inquire into those dues, recommended, "That all expenses for the erection of lighthouses, floating-lights, buoys, and beacons, on the coast of the United Kingdom, be henceforth defrayed out of the public revenue."

Entirely agreeing with this resolution, the Committee of 1860, while recommending Government to adopt that resolution, added: "That the lighting of our shores is a high imperial duty which we owe, not merely to ourselves, but to strangers, whom we invite to trade with us."

They felt that the justice as well as the policy of such a course was strengthened by the fact that the large debt of 1,250,000l., the result of improvident grants, incurred under the authority of Parliament for buying up the lighthouses held by private individuals, had, since that period (1845), been paid out of light dues, raised out of a tax upon shipping, and they had less hesitation in recommending the adoption of this enlightened policy from the fact that the Congress of the United States of America appropriates an annual vote for lights throughout their whole territory, which is borne by the entire federation, and that no charge for light dues is levied on foreign vessels frequenting the ports of that country.

The question of pilotage was also one which received every consideration, the evidence showing that when a voluntary system prevailed, even where the navigation was difficult and, at times, dangerous, no inconvenience arose from the absence of legal compulsion for the employment of a pilot. Many of the members of the committee were of opinion that the whole pilotage of the kingdom should be thrown