Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 3).djvu/509

 timbers, inferior spars, ropes, and sails, or insufficient stores; and, if the principle of Government interference is correct in the one case, it ought to be extended to the others.

But this system of Government supervision would not end here. An inspection of every chain and anchor manufactory falls far short of the demands of thousands of well-meaning people, who wish to see some potent Board of Trade testing-machines permanently established in every dockyard in the kingdom, as if our shipbuilders knew nothing whatever about the business, or had all arrived at the conclusion that honesty was no longer the best policy, and that the only sure road to riches was to cheat their customers. Nor would even that extension of Government control satisfy them. An estimable friend of mine, a Vice-Admiral in H.M.'s service and a man of learning and of great practical knowledge, asks me in a note I received from him not long since—

"Should there not be some more stringent provisions with respect to the inspection of sailing vessels? It is an old proverb, 'Who ever saw a dead donkey?' But who ever saw an old sailing-ship broken up? I am inclined to think that it is more to the interest of small owners to let an old tub go on shore than to bring her safe into port. This works two evils:—1, the danger to human life; 2, the greater rate of insurance on honest owners to make up an average for the dishonest. Should there not be a Board of Trade inspection as to seaworthiness: 1, of every ship once a year; 2, of every ship absent from Great Britain or Ireland over a year continuously, on her return; 3, of every ship where it appears, on her arrival in port, that she had been on shore or had suffered from heavy weather?"

Now there is no doubt that the evils of which my friend complains do exist, and the remedy he pro