494 REPORT — 1856. 



formed to the best advantage. It has been publicly stated (' Times,* June 18, 

 1856) that at the twelve principal ports of the United Kingdom during the 

 year 1855, ship tonnage to the extent of 6,372,301 tons entered inwards, and 

 6,426,566 tons cleared outwards, making altogether 12,798,867, say 12|- 

 millions of tons of tonnage per annum ; and since mercantile shipping will 

 probably, on the average, carry dead weight of cargo to the full extent of 

 their register tonnage, it is probable that the tons weight of merchandise con- 

 stituting the cargoes of ships arriving at and sailing from the United King- 

 dom, amounts to no less than twelve millions of tons per annum, of which, 

 for the purpose of illustration, we will suppose that one-sixth part, or two 

 millions of tons, is conveyed by steam power on a passage of 3250 nautical 

 miles, under the circumstances of the data that have been assumed as the base 

 of the foregoing calculations; and since we have shown under these circum- 

 stances that the prime cost expenses of freight per ton of goods may be 

 enhanced by an inferior type of ship and machinery, or inferior management 

 thereof, to the extent of I8s., £2 0*. lie?., and £6 10s. Sd. per ton weight of 

 goods conveyed, it follows that the extra charges for freight on the assumed 

 quantity of two millions of tons weight per annum, will amount to the extra 

 annual cost or public loss of £1,800,000 at 8 knots speed, £4',916,666 at 10 

 knots speed, and £13,666,666 at 12 knots speed, according as the type of ship 

 and machinery by which the work is performed may be of the inferior type 

 B, as compared with the superior type A ; seeing also that it is the public 

 interest which has to bear the brunt of our national goods transport service, 

 being either as respects construction or working condition anything short of 

 that degree of perfection which the application of science might achieve, is it 

 not, therefore, of importance that our public system of statistical shipping 

 registration should be complete, especially in those points which are essential 

 for scrutinising the dynamic properties of steam-ships, thus leading to the 

 recognition of good practice on the one hand, or the exposition of bad practice 

 and consequent public loss on the other ? Ships may be regarded as national 

 implements for doing the work of the nation, and should therefore be sub- 

 jected, by the aid of statistical registration, to public scrutiny, as conducive 

 to their being upheld fit to do their work in the best manner. A shipbuilder 

 will not allow his interests to be trifled with by the use of a blunt adze, so 

 the public interest requires that its national transport service in the convey- 

 ance of goods should not be performed by bad ships if the statistical grind- 

 stone will obviate the evil. Nevertheless, the public statistics of British ship- 

 ping afford no data available to science for promoting or even protecting 

 from abuse the great public interests which are involved in the proper execu- 

 tion of its transport service, amounting probably to twelve millions of tons 

 per annum. It is pre-eminently for the British Association to suggest the 

 remedy for this humiliating fact. 



The subject herein treated of admits of extended illustration beyond the 

 limits of time that I may presume to occupy at a meeting of the British 

 Association. I only profess to have broken up new ground, in showing that 

 mercantile transport service by steam-ships admits of being brought within 

 the range of arithmetical calculation, whereby the dynamic quality of ships, 

 the size of ships as measured by displacement, the working quality of engines 

 and engine-power as measured by the unit ind. h.p., and the speed to be 

 assigned as the condition of any service, may each of them be treated as 

 functions of calculation involving definite pecuniary considerations, consti- 

 tuting a system wliich may be denominated the "arithmetic of steam-ship 

 adaptation to the requirements of mercantile service." By the application of 

 these principles of calculation, I submit that errors in steam-ship construction, 



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