Page:Report from the Select Committee on Steam Carriages.pdf/117



John Farey, Esq. 10 August, 1831. on new inventions in their infant and imperfect state. The advantage to the public from Steam Navigation is now generally acknowledged; but when Steam Boats were in their infancy an attempt was made by the watermen on the Thames to suppress them, by contending that, according to their charter, and the usage of the City of London, no persons could be allowed to own a vessel plying for passengers on the Thames, nor to work on board of such a vessel except they were freemen of the city, and belonging to the watermens' chest. This would have effectually prevented any engine men being employed, and in addition the watermen engaged all their members to refuse to navigate them. After a long dispute and delay of the Steam Boats, it was decided that one out of a number of owners being free was sufficient, and that the men employed to manage the Engines were not subject to the watermen's regulations of freedom of the river; some watermen were induced, by giving them small shares in lieu of wages, to exercise their right of freedom in favour of the real owners, and to navigate the vessel. It was afterwards attempted to get the measurement and calculation for the registered tonnage of the Steam Vessels made according to the extreme breadth across the projecting boxes which contain paddle wheels, under the pretext that they occupied that width in the river and in harbours, instead of measuring the breadth of the vessel at the surface of the water. If that could have been enforced it would have nearly doubled all the rates on Steam Vessels compared with other vessels; but the subject being brought before Parliament, an Act was passed to give them the advantage of deducting as much from the length of the vessel as is occupied by Engines and Machinery in calculating the registered tonnage. This was in effect a small bounty upon Steam Vessels, for they have no claim to such an advantage over sailing vessels, when the weight of masts, sails and rigging, in the latter is not deducted in calculating their tonnage. The effect of that measure has been favourable to the advancement of Steam Navigation, for though it was but a very trifling