Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 3).djvu/521

 arose in the case of lights, and, as no coloured lamps could be found on trial until very recently, equal to the requirements of the Statute, Shipowners were subjected to similar capricious decisions of surveyors.

It would weary my readers were I to enter into all these details, such as bulkheads, sea-cocks, hatch-*ways, stoke-holes, compasses, safety valves, and innumerable other matters which Government has attempted to regulate by Act of Parliament, as I have, already, in more than one instance, alluded to these matters during the course of this work. But I must not omit directing attention to the large amount of evidence received regarding the system of inquiring into losses and casualties at sea, and to the powers given to the Board of Trade, by the Act of 1854, to institute such inquiries. It would appear from this evidence that the officers of the Board of Trade and the solicitors who act for it, as well as the Shipowners, have all a serious objection to the present mode of conducting such inquiries, and that the tribunal constituted by the Act does not command general confidence, while the mode of procedure is dilatory and expensive (perhaps, necessarily so, where much evidence has to be collected), and the power of the court is so ill-defined that, in too many cases, it cannot be enforced.

The inquiry frequently assumes the shape of a criminal proceeding against the captain, rather than of a careful investigation into the cause of disaster, the chief point at issue being whether the captain is to be acquitted, or punished by having his certificate