482 . INTERNATIONAL LAWS FOR THE 



power, under subsection 5 of section 418 of the Merchant 

 Shipping Act, 1854, to devote the moneys of the Mercantile 

 Marine Fund to "such expenses for establishing and 

 maintaining on the coasts of the United Kingdom proper 

 lifeboats, with the necessary crews and equipments, and 

 for affording assistance towards the preservation of life and 

 property in cases of shipwreck and distress at sea, and for 

 rewarding the preservation of life in such cases as the 

 Board of Trade directs." This duty is very efficiently 

 carried out as far as coast life-saving by rocket appa- 

 ratus provided by the Board of Trade is concerned, 

 and in the event of life being saved, the award to the 

 coastguard, who receive Government pay, and have no 

 expenses for apparatus, is i per life saved. This is 

 not grudged for one moment, but the Board of Trade 

 might do a good deal more in this way. Our North 

 Sea fishing vessels have been well named the " Life-boats 

 of the North Sea," and no year passes without many crews 

 being saved by them and taken into some of our east coast 

 ports. They are generally saved at great risk with only 

 what they stand in, and it would be interesting to know, if 

 this department could give it, how many lives have been 

 saved by this means during the last ten years, and the 

 amount the salvors have received out of the Mercantile 

 Marine Fund for such service. It appears that the depart- 

 ment does not encourage this at all as it ought. If it is 

 necessary to pay lifeboat crews, surely smacks and ships 

 saving lives should be entitled to some reward. These men 

 cannot live on nothing, besides risking their lives, any more 

 than a lifeboatman. A smack will rescue a crew, some- 

 times of fifteen hands or more ; all she can then do is to 

 make for home and land the rescued. The vessel to which 

 they belonged is most probably entirely lost, so that there 



