THE " First Report" of this Royal Commission shows clearly the necessity for its appointment, for it contains authoritative evidence of an alarming waste of both life and property in the greatest source of the country's wealth and power, such as we think few are aware of. The report of the evidence taken, with the various appendices, comprise a huge blue- book of 750 pages, full of matter of the highest import, but requiring space far beyond that of our limited pages to permit of adequate reference; we must there- fore confine ourselves to putting before our readers some of the more striking and salient facts.

The first witness examined by the Commission was Mr. THOMAS GRAY C.B., the indefatigable Assistant Secretary of the Board of Trade, in charge of the Marine Department. He opened his evidence by producing a series of very complete and carefully-prepared tables, showing the waste of life and property, through wrecks and casualties!, during the nine years between 1875 and 1883 inclusive, and then defined his interpretation of " wreck " and " casualty " to be, in the first case, such a disaster as involves " the absolute destruction of the ship, or some form of casualty resulting in its removal from the register of British ships," and "casualty" as "an occurrence which, though more or less serious to the ship herself, does not result in the total loss of the ship, or her removal from the register." Having thus cleared the way, he opened his evidence proper, so to speak, with the alarming statement that in the period of nine years to which he had drawn attention the " total waste " of British life and shipping had been 10,318 ships, 21,224 seamen, and 3,392 passengers. These figures of course refer to British registered vessels all over the world. If, as of course was not the case, and we do not in any way intend to imply otherwise, Mr. GRAY had thought it desirable to secure the undivided attention of his examiners, he could not have adopted a more sure method of doing so than by putting those lamentable figures before them at the outset. It was also probably decorous, if not practical, to separate from such records of human sacrifice the money- value of the losses. These are only given as regards the ships themselves, not including their cargoes (possibly on account of the difficulties of so doing); also the amount does not include the loss incurred by " casualties," but only vessels included in the first category "wrecks," and is only " approximate;" but even then it is sufficiently appalling, amounting, as it does, for the nine years in question, to | third. Nor is this all, for these figures do 26,739,664?., or an average of 2,971,071?. | not include lives lost by such accidents as per annum.

Mr. GRAY'S statistics for the nine years are grouped into three periods of three years each, and a comparison of the pro- portions between the wrecks and loss of life, &c., for the different periods shows some curious fluctuations; thus, in the first period, 1 wreck in 3-946 was at- tended with loss of life; in the second, 1 in 4-66, and in the third, 1 in 3-49.

The total number of seamen's lives lost during these three periods was 5,905, 5,464, and 8,408 respectively. The re- turns for this last period would at first being washed overboard by a sea, falling from aloft, either inboard or overboard, unless the disaster is accompanied by "casualty" to the ship, in the form of some injury such as the loss of bulwarks, &c., by a sea, or of a spar if from aloft.

One remarkable and very sad item in these returns is the losses by "missing ships," which make up a large proportion of the " wrecks." During the nine years under consideration 696 vessels, with 8,497 hands on board, left port and were never heard of again. The increase in the loss from this cause during the last sight appear to show a very extraordinary : period of three years has been enormous.

increase, but, as a fact, it is only slightly over the proportional increase due to the increase of tonnage lost during this period over that lost during each of the two preceding periods. Here again a start- ling fact is laid bare, viz., that the number of " wrecks," ' as before defined, as well as the loss of life, has positively increased since the " Report of the the above figures, as before stated, do not include deaths by drowning or other cause not attended with casualty to the vessel; these, excluding murder and suicide, are given in another table showing the annual numbers. They vary very much, but the average runs from one in 167 to one in 150.

The question as to what trades the Royal Commission on Unseaworthy Ships " vessels referred to in the returns were em- was issued, and since action was taken ! ployed in, and what proportion of the losses appertained to each, formed the next consideration of the Commission. The statistics produced showed that 78 per cent, of the lives lost by wrecks and casualties were on board vessels employed in the six following trades:—coal, general cargoes, grain, fishing, ballast, and timber; of these 26 per cent, of the losses are in the coal trade alone. Next in rotation on the black list comes the grain trade, which has hitherto been answerable for a very considerable loss of life and property, but it is gratifying to the public, and must be encouraging to the members of the Commission, who have to recommend remedies for the crying evils their labours are bringing to light, to hear that the recommendations of a previous Royal Commission have reduced the casualties actually attributable to carrying a cargo of grain to a minimum. By these we mean missing ships and founderings, which are generally synonymous terms, consequent on that report, with the view to reducing, if not removing altogether, this blot from our escutcheon. j Mr. GRAY expresses a hope, in which we shall all concur, viz., that next year will produce a better result. It undoubtedly should do so, from a cause altogether beyond human control however, viz., the extraordinary absence during the last two years of those long-continued and abnormally violent winter gales which visit these islands from time to time.

The details are very closely gone into, and give, as a net result, that one seaman in every forty-seven employed in vessels registered in the United Kingdom lost his life by wreck or casualty in the years 1875,1876, and 1877, one in every forty- six during 1878, 1879, and 1880, and one in every thirty-one during 1881,1882, and 1883, or 1 in 141 per annum during the first period, one in 138 during the second, and one in ninety-one during the 

167 and in this case mean overloading and shifting of cargo, the latter a danger -which grain-ships appear particularly liable to.

Next come the timber ships, and the greatest part of the casualties to these has occurred to sailing vessels. From time immemorial it has been customary, when a ship is fit for nothing else, to put her into the timber trade, and it •would seem that, in spite of all modern legislation and precautions, this is still done to a considerable extent, judging from the large number proportionally of timber-laden vessels that are disposed of as " missing." Next in order come vessels carrying metals,, either in the shape of ores or wrought metal. These appear but a small proportion of the total losses, viz., only 2-18 per cent, of laden vessels lost.

This part of the enquiry very properly concludes with statements of the numbers of lives saved by various means both at home and abroad, as well as the outlay for the rocket apparatus, the lighting of the coast, under the Trinity House, the Northern Lights Commissioners, and the Commissioners of Irish Lights, and last, not least, an abstract showing part of the expenses incurred in maintaining the establishments of the ROYAL NATIONAL LIFE-BOAT INSTITUTION.

The next point considered was the number and composition of the ships' crews. The evidence given shows that neither the Board of Trade, nor indeed any other government authority, has any power to interfere with the number or quality of any ship's crew, excepting that of an emigrant ship, and it is gratifying to know, upon Mr. GRAY'S authority, that none such has been lost during the period under consideration; and the fact would appear to point towards the desirability of some legislation on this head, although, as he says, he cannot credit the result entirely to the Board of Trade supervision, because the class of ships in question probably belong to firms of standing, ready to do all that is necessary without it. There is not any law requiring that the master, mates, or any portion of the crews of English merchant ships, shall be British subjects. The owner alone comes under this limitation. It appears that the pro- portion of foreigners now serving in the mercantile marine of this country is 16 per cent., and has materially increased of late years. We also gather from the context that Lascars from British India, Malays from Singapore, Chinamen from Hong Kong, if British subjects, all go to make up the remaining 84 per cent.

The next subject referred to is that of insurance, over-insurance, &c., which is too much a matter of controversy to be dealt with in the pages of this journal.

The Commission has a most important duty entrusted to it, and it must be the earnest hope that its labours may result in some well-conceived measures for reducing the lamentable loss of life and property now going on, and maintaining and strengthening the personnel of the British mercantile marine, which in these days more than ever must be one of the chief supports of the navy in time of war.