Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 3).djvu/557

 extent that "every merchant ship should have marked upon each of her sides amidships, a vertical scale of feet downwards from the edge of her main-*deck," and that a note of her draught of water "should be entered in the log after the vessel has received her full load, immediately before the time of her starting on her voyage, which should, wherever practicable, be left with the officer of Customs or with the British Consul, by whom it should be recorded.

This recommendation was proposed to be carried out in the Government Bill which was withdrawn, but, in the Act now temporarily in force, the provisions are somewhat different. The advantages of either system are problematical. Shipowners will continue, as they have hitherto done, to load their vessels to such draught as they consider prudent, and if one of their vessels is lost, and other persons remark that she was too heavily laden, the answer will either be that the draught was as usual, or that safety in proportion to depth is a matter of opinion depending on many varying circumstances. The mere fact of publicly recording the draught of water would, it is to be feared, have little effect on unprincipled or avaricious Shipowners, against whom alone the law is aimed. Practically, I think the system of marking now in force will be of little or no avail, and that the result will not be as the framers of the law intended. A Shipowner being now required by law to mark upon the sides of the vessel amidships a circular disc 12 inches in diameter, to be so placed that "the centre of the disc shall indicate the maximum load-line in salt water to which the owner intends to load the ship for that voyage," will per