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    HARBOURS OF REFUGE,

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    strictest standard . It is no ordinary party quarrel , but as critical a question as lias ever occurred in our constitutional history . With the power of the purse exclusively in the hands t £ their representatives , the people of this country have grown great land free . . Without it , they could never have realized either the wealth or the liberty that now belongs to them ; and Mr . Isaac Butt , in his admirable " History of Italy , " is quite right in his assertion , that the chief cause why parliamentary government decayed in Sicily and flourished in England , was that in the former the Lords were a taxing power , while in our country they were never permitted to become anything of the

    kind . Parliamentary Eeform sinks into insignificance beside this great question of the fundamental right of the House of Commons . If the conspiracy of the Lords is permitted to end in a successful aristocratic revolution , England can only be prevented from going down by a counter movement of greater violence than any good , man would wish to see The lordly conspirators do not seem to know what they are doing when they overthrow the historical basis of our Constitution-Their own existence as an order can only be defended upon historical grounds , and if they compel the people to begin afresh , making a new constitution , they may be sure it will not contain anv provisions for an hereditary Upper House .

    The defenders of popular right cannot be too careful and zealous in expounding to the people the time-honoured legal ground upon which they stand . Men of great wealth among the ' manufacturing and trading classes will feel that their safety depends upon upholding the law , and if it should become necessary to rouse the people to take any strong measures for defending their rights , such measures will have the hearty concurrence of the real friends of order , who might shrink from applying equal energy to obtain the more rapid acknowledgment of ¦ ¦ new ideas .

    Lord John Russell and Mr . Gladstone at present stand out well from the general mass of public men , and if they are thoroughly true to the principles of free government they will <; ome out of the trial to which they have been exposed with a large increase of power . If they falter , they may bid good bye to the honourable ambition which they are believed to cherish .

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    repay its outlay , or charge the vessels which resort thereto for the accommodation . The Government has no business with any such works , even if it Were fitted to undertake them , except where required for purely naval purposes , —and how it bungles over those everybody knows . The truth is , these harbours would be so many jobs , and it was the unclean spirit of jobbery which prompted the virtuous indignation of lionoiirable gentlemen at the supineness of Government . Shipowners would like the harbours very well if not called upon to pay for them . They

    could then make the rotten tubs in which they have , no scruple to put brave men last a little longer . Some members of Parliament have estates the value of which would be enormously increased by the formation of a harbour ; and the constituents of others would like very much to have such a harbour near them , and have the handling of the money which must be expended during its construction . Then there is a whole shoal of other interests as eager for pickings—engineei-s , contractors , and what not—all cloaking their private interests under pretended zeal for the public welfare .

    Now for the false pretences . The average annual loss of lives by shipwreck is about 800 . In 1 S 54 it reached 1 , 500 , and that exceptional year is put prominently forward . The loss of property is estimated at a million and a half . Such being the facts , Mr . Lindsay and liis friends did not scruple to argue as if all these lives and all this property were lost from the want of harbours of refuge , when they knew very well that all the- harbours recommended by the Commissioners would not diminish the annual sacrifice ten , or even five per cent . The Commissioners do not propose a single harbour from Filey Bay , in Yorkshire , to the Land's End . Upon that extent of coast , which' is thus assumed to be amply , protected , three-fourths of the lives so much deplored are lost . Of what avail would it be to the -ships driven oil the fatal sands which line the coast of Norfolk—and .. not a

    gale of wind blows there which does not drown the shrieks of some doomed men—or to the American , Australian , or Indian vessels tempest-tossed in the channel , that £ 800 , 000 are spent : to build , a harbour at Filey-yand nearly as much more thrown away close by , at Hartlepool ? Let us test the value of these , harbours by two of the most terrible wrecks which have ever occurred . Both are of very recent date . Our readers will recollect the emigrant vessel bound from Bremen for New York- —Ave forget hername- — which was wrecked on the Essex coast , some 400 souls—half the average annual loss upon our whole seaboai-d-r—perishing . Which harbour of refuge would have saved them ? And nobody has

    for-HUMANJTY is a very delightful virtue whenever it can be indulged in at other people's expense , and if that indulgence involves , as is often found to be the case , direct pecuniary advantage to one's self or one's friends , the temptation to come out strongly in the humane line is irresistible . No wander , therefore , that sundry members of the House of Commons expressed such a tender regard for human life , drew such sad pictures of the dangers of those who go down to the sea in ships , and even had 5 ~ full measure of sympat 1 vrtro ~§ pTfre—foi ^ lTe-lmjldesv-o ^ mersthe vessels wrecked on these inhospitable shores , when Mr . TjTntjsay moved his resolution to the effect that it was the duty

    of the Government to construct , at the earliest possible moment , the harbours of refuge recommended by the Commission of which jhe was a . member . Some of the speakers only gratified their humane feelings and their dislike to Mr . Gladstone ; others had the additional gratification of pushing on a measure which would largely increase the value of their own property or promote the pecuniary interests of their constituents , and all had the pleasing feeling that the much-enduring public would pny the piper . The end , of course , when such a good one , justifies the means ; we must , therefore , feel no surprise that Mr . Lindsay ' s supporters misrepresented facts and misstated figures in a way which , if "tried on" to obtain anything from a private individual , would have exposed them to a prosecution for false pretences .

    Before we deal with these misrepresentations , let us sny at once that we cannot , admit the slightest obligation upon the part of the Government to construct harbours of refuge . It has no more business with them thnn it has with making docks ' or improving the entrance of any port . If such harbours arc needed , they should be paid for by those who use them . A Government has no right to expend funds derived from all clnsses of the population for the exclusive benefit of a particular interest . The Committee ; of the House of Commons which reported the necessity of such

    gotten the Royal Charter , —with strange ignorance mentioned by some advocate of these harbours as an illustration of their great necessity—wrecked within a short distance of Holybead—a harbour of refuge , which it had actually passed the same afternoon . But could there be crasser ignorance , or more deliberate dishonesty than was displayed by Sir John Pakington and Mr . Beeciioft , wlro ^ TTstnTtmK is ~ evidences—of ^ h ^ r- ^ tecesstty-ot 1-tlie 9 e-- ] tni'bow ! sT the late fearful shipwrecks off Yarmouth and Lowestoft , and the loss of the fishermen pf those ports ? The nearest harbour of

    refuge to Yarmouth which it is proposed to construct is at Filey Bay , on the coast of Yorkshire . Do tliese legislators wish us to suppose that the vessels driven on shore at this end of Norfolk could have got into Filey ? The 200 fishermen were engulphed off the Dutch coast . Were they to have reached Filey ? Sir John 1 ' akingtox and Mr . Beechoft arc either utterly ignorant of the geography of their own country , although the one lias been Colonial Secretary and First Lord of the Admiralty , and the other is a successful trader , or they have been guilty of one ; of the most impudent misrepresentations ever practised in the

    House oi Commons . It is evident that the harbours of refuge now proposed will save but very few if any lives , even if they should not prove destructive by drawing- ships from the open sea , where they arc safe , to ' a dangerous coast , in the hope of making them . We have not , indeed , the slightest proof oi their utility . Mr . Lindsay tolls us that we have fooled our money away on Aldcrney and Dover . They art ; useless . Very likely ; but what guarantee have we that when a million has been spent on Filey , and half a million on Wick , the same discovery will not bo made ? VVc

    cannot take the iptie diocit of Mr . Lindsay or his colleagues . Aldcrney and Dover were selected as the best spots for harbours of refuse by men ns experienced in their day . Wo cannot afford to spend . fiS v OOOjOOp in such a lottery , nnd would h « v « no rig . htto . su apply it if the Treasury were troubled by a constant surplus . The Coimnissioners , it is true , only estimate the coat to the country at . € 0 , 500 , 000 , but ostiuiates , " especially for Government work , must alwuys bo , doubled to ascertain the probable sum required . Sir Mouton J ' kto , indeed , says thai ; they \\ o \\\ i \ not bd exceeded , and pleads earnestly , m the mime of J . < msl > ury , lor a commencement of the good , work , asserting that lus constituents are quite willing to contribute for such a purpose—a

    works itself felt this truth , inasmuoh as it reoonmnended that three-fourths of the eost should be defrayed by a toll on shipping ; and the Commission which was then appointed to ^ examine into the fittest spots asks the Government to contribute ¦ on ly £ 2 , 865 , 000 to works the estimated cost of which is more than four millions , leaving the balance to be supplied by the localities -themselves . The whole cost should be raised in one of these two ways . If Hartlepool thinks that a harbour of refuge will benefit its trade , let it build one , and either trust to increasing prosperity to

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    * June 30 * I 860 . ] The Leader and Saturday Analyst . 605

    Harbours Of Refuge,

    HARBOURS OF REFUGE ,

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), June 30, 1860, page 605, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2354/page/5/