IN our issue of November, 1911, we observed that the Board of Trade had issued their "Abstracts on Shipping Casualties" earlier than usuai, thus enabling us to publish our article on the Wreck Register in November instead of February, as heretofore.

Since then the Board have " speeded up" their work of compilation still further, so that we are able to present our annual survey, illustrated by our own Wreck Chart, six months earlier than usual, and to base it upon the official data for the year ending June 30th, 1911. The Wreck Chart has, for the first time, been prepared by the Ordnance Survey Department, South- ampton, from information furnished by the Institution.

Our survey falls naturally into two categories, viz., shipping casualties and loss of life, of which the latter is, needless to say, by far the most in- teresting to the Institution, although it is closely related to, and to a large extent governed by, the former.

Shipping Casualties.

It is satisfactory to note that the total number of casualties on and close to our shores (the limitation thus indi- cated is an important one from the point of view of Life-boat work) in the year under review shows a reduction of 212, being 3,072 as compared with 3,284 in the preceding year. Still more welcome is the fact that there was a decrease of 68 hi the number of lives lost in connexion with these casualties, the total being 282 as against 350 in the previous period.

The number of cases of total loss and serious casualty was 1,025, being 70 less than in the previous year, while the minor casualties, which amounted to 2,047, showed a decrease of 142. On the other hand, 95 casualties were attended by loss of life, whereas onJy 86 were accompanied with this result in the corresponding period.

Needless to say the great majority of the total casualties were sustained by British and Colonial vessels, the number being 2,736 as* compared with 336 casualties which befell foreign vessels.

This is not surprising when we consider the following figures, showing the Mercantile Marine tonnage owned by the four chief Maritime Powers— Ships. Tonnage, British Empire . . 11,495 19,012,294 United States . . 3,469 5,098,678 Germany. . . . 2,718 4,833,186 France .... 1,465 1,882,280 As regards the distribution of the casualties (excluding collisions) on the coasts of the United Kingdom, the Abstracts show the following results:— East Coast of England— 468, a decrease of 137 South Coast oJ England— 353, an increase of 23 West Coast of England and Scot- land, and East Coast of Ireland— 584, a decrease of 224 North Coast of Scotland— 111, a decrease of 13 East Coast of Scotland— 99, a decrease of 22 The remainder of the Irish Coast, etc.— 117, a decrease of 10 Total decrease 388 • Loss of Life.

The total loss of life was, as we have stated, 282. These losses were distri- buted on the coasts as follows :—• East Coast of England— 81, an increase of 43 South Coast of England— 26, a decrease of 48 West Coast of England and Scot- land, and East Coast of Ireland— 59, a decrease of 82 North Coast of Scotland— 9, a decrease of 11 East Coast of Scotland— 15, an increase of 3 The remainder of the Irish Coaat, and at Sea— 92, an increase of 22 68 Total decrease .

It will be observed that here, too, the great majority of the lives lost were British; indeed, the proportion of foreign persons who lost their lives in shipping casualties on and close to our shores in the period under review was even smaller than usual, being 21 as compared with 261 British lives lost.

It is with profound satisfaction that we are able to record that in the same period which witnessed the loss of 282 lives, the Life-boats of the Institution saved 706, while 124 were saved by shore-boats, etc., the rescuers concerned in the latter instances being rewarded by. the Institution for their efforts.

It is impossible, however, to get an adequate estimate of the beneficent activity of the Life-boat Service organized by the Institution unless we take a, wide survey over a long period of years. Such a survey shows that, in the fifty years between 1861 and the 30th June, 1911, there were 183,682 casualties to British, Colonial and Foreign shipping, on and near the coasts of the United Kingdom, and that 7,170 of these casualties were accom- panied by loss of life, the total number of those perishing being 30,215. In the same period the ROYAL NATIONAL LIFE- BOAT INSTITUTION granted rewards for the saving of 37,872 lives. In other words, while the sea took a toll of 600 lives a year, the Institution wrested from the jaws of death an average of more than 700 lives a year through the instrumentality of its Life-boats and the heroic services of its crews and of those brave men who put off in shore boats to the rescue of those in peril on the sea.

At the moment of writing, the total number of lives for the saving of which rewards have been granted by the Institution since its foundation in 1824 is upwards of 50,500—more than the population of a County Borough.

Since Rousseau wrote his famous Essay on the thesis propounded by the Academy of Dijon, which established his reputation as a philosophic thinker and writer, many thoughtful men, following out the line of enquiry sug- gested by him, have expressed their doubt of the value of civilization, and have compared it, to its disadvantage, with the simpler and more primitive ages in which, if manners were less polished, the virtues are assumed to have flourished more freely. But, whatever may be the faults of the civili- zation which we have developed, no one, be he never so gloomy a pessimist or laudator temporis acti, will deny to it the merit of having contributed more than any past age to the alleviation of human suffering. At no epoch has charity in all its forms, whether aiming at the material or moral welfare of the people at large, done such beneficent work, or counted so many noble and devoted servants; and the progress of surgery, assisted by the discovery of an- sesthetics, has brought relief, if not cure, to millions who would have died in pain a few generations ago. Yet even in this matter we sometimes hear the voice of the critic, who complains that much of our benevolence is foolish in character and inimical to the best interests of the community, because tending to the pre- servation and the propagation of the unfit.

No such charge can be brought against the life-saving service entrusted to the Institution. For the heroic efforts of our crews generally result, not merely in the saving of life itself, but in giving back to their families and friends men in the prime vigour of life, willing and able to do a man's work for wife and children, aye, and for their country, for many a year to come.

Assuredly, then, there is no form of be- nevolent activity more worthy of the sup- port of the inhabitants of a maritime nation than that of the Life-boat. For, not only does it demand from those who carry it on the very qualities which have made the nation what it is, but its immediate and practical result is to add to the sum of the national man-power an annual average of many hundred vigorous and valuable lives..