MERCANTILE STEAM TRANSPORT ECONOMY. 425 



Having thus shown that various investigations essentially connected with 

 the elucidation of the subject now before us, " Steam Transport Economy," 

 have constantly and publicly engaged my attention since 1851, I may now, 

 in the beginning of my paper, announce the proposition to which I hope to 

 direct the attention of the British Association. 



Now, what I have undertaken to demonstrate is this : that, in consequence 

 of there being no legalized definitions of the terms power and tonnage as 

 standard units of quantity applied to the prosecution of steam navigation, 

 there is practically no definite measure of quantity whatever attaciied to 

 those terms, even although they are so generally made use of as the base of 

 pecuniary contracts, and that, in addition to the private evils as between 

 buyer and seller resulting from this singular anomaly in matters of mercan- 

 tile account: the public evils, resulting from nominal "horse-power" and 

 " tonnage " being terms which cannot be scientifically recognized as express- 

 ing either the working power of marine machinery or the size of a ship^ are 

 monstrous, inasmuch as they publicly defeat science from being brought to 

 bear on steam-ship construction and steam-ship management as a means of 

 investigation and proof whereby to confirm the existence and establish the 

 continued adoption of good practice where good practice does exist, and to 

 detect error either in the construction of steamers or in the management of 

 steamers in cases where bad types of construction and mal-administration 

 may exist and be destructive of enterprise, which might otherwise have con- 

 duced to public good. In short, ray object is to show that in consequence 

 of the deficiencies in our national standard units of power and tonnage, and 

 deficiencies of our statistical registration, the public are deprived of the 

 benefits capable of being derived from science as a means of discriminating 

 between good and bad practice in the great matter of shipping, thus enabling 

 us to take advantage of the one and explode the other. The constructive 

 merits of steam-ships in a dynamic point of view may be comparatively de- 

 termined by the ratio that subsists between the amount of displacement that 

 is propelled from place to place, the speed or time in which the vessel per- 

 forms the given passage, and the engine-power exerted or the coal consumed 

 in the performance of the work ; yet every ship that is launched, and goes 

 with flying colours upon the usual test-trial, is always for the day pronounced 

 to be the most wonderful ship that ever was built ; and no wonder that it is 

 so, considering that the dynamic merits of ships are thus determined, not by 

 any admitted rule based on the mutual relations of displacement, power, and 

 speed, but by acclamation based on the mutual interests of all concerned, 

 that a new ship shall be of good repute. All attempts to expose this mon- 

 strous deficiency in our nautical system by urging the importance of statis- 

 tical registration, have been held up to reprobation as an interference with 

 the shipping interests, regardless of the fact that it is the public who pay the 

 penalty of an enhanced price of goods transport consequent on whatever 

 deficiencies may exist in connexion with the locomotive properties of our 

 shipping. 



In justification of these remarks as to our denominations of ships' tonnage 

 and engine-power being a delusion, subversive of all truth so far as scientific 

 inquiry and research may be based thereon, I may be permitted to adduce 

 the following statements : — 



Ist. As to tonnage registration. Although tonnage measurement for re- 

 gistration has been subjected to legislative revision under the Merchant 

 Shipping Act of 1854, the terra "tonnage" is still made use of in various 

 significations. By the present law, 100 cubic feet of internal roomage, or 

 available space for cargo, constitutes the unit of tonnage, but as respects all 



