Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 3).djvu/497



The last return, made for 1871-3 inclusive shows that the average number of ships lost in each of these three years was 1095, of 319,790 tons, and of lives was 1952; the number of ships belonging to the British Empire being then 37,086, of 7,168,618 tons, and the entries and clearances of vessels engaged in the foreign trade of the United Kingdom being 73,783 vessels, of 27,275,339 tons. No doubt this return shows a sacrifice of life which every humane or right-minded person must wish to mitigate, as to desire to save life has now happily become one of the highest objects of ambition among nations who are truly civilised, but, considering the number of vessels afloat, and the enormous increase in the entries and clearances, it, at the same time, shows a very considerable comparative reduction on the losses of previous years so far as they can be ascertained or estimated, more especially when we consider that previous returns included only the vessels belonging to the United Kingdom, whereas the later ones embrace the tonnage of the whole of the British Empire then greatly increased, and that, too, by steam vessels, increasing the risk of disaster to a serious extent by the rapidity of their movements.

But to this important question I shall more fully refer hereafter. In the meantime I may state that, among the various other recommendations offered by the Committee of 1836, may be mentioned the formation of a Mercantile Marine Board; the compilation and consolidation of a Code of Mercantile Marine