Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 3).djvu/517

 the seaworthiness of ships was more than questionable. Any such measure, while tending to remove responsibility from those on whom it ought to rest, would render Government nominally responsible for the form, the materials, and the whole construction of our merchant ships, and, consequently, could not be seriously entertained.

As there is now an official survey of emigrant and passenger ships, a few witnesses proposed that a similar survey should be extended to all merchant vessels. Others went so far as to recommend that the Board of Trade, already overburdened with work, should also superintend the construction, the periodical inspection, the repair, and the loading of the vessels. But the Commissioners very properly repudiated all such recommendations.

There are great complaints, the Commissioners remark, against the interference of Government, whose surveyors are now not unfrequently accused of forcing on Shipowners and marine engineers special views of their own which are not always in accordance with the best judgment of the two professions, and that to extend the power of such men would produce "mischievous consequences to the future progress of shipbuilding, and would be actually calamitous." "Ships," they add, "would be built and repaired so as to pass the examination of the official surveyor, and any additional outlay beyond what was indispensable to secure a certificate would be rejected as useless. Under the present enactments, Shipowners justly complain that their business is seriously inconvenienced, and that foreign ships