The Tonnage of Ships. 167 



is a very important one, and should be proportionately rated. 

 I think Mr. Macllwaine's method would be considered a refine- 

 ment. I am sure the Board of Trade officials would feel very 

 much alarmed if an Act were introduced to revise the whole of 

 the tonnage laws in such a radical manner. Another point is 

 this ; I really think the Board of Trade in computing a regular 

 tonnage involving such labour, expense, and annoyance should 

 not take cognisance of a whole lot of space in a vessel ; and the 

 owners should only be called upon to pay for the space actually 

 used for cargo or passengers. I have very much pleasure in 

 supporting Mr. Macllwaine's suggestion for registering dis- 

 placement, as it would be an extremely useful adjunct especially 

 for statistical purposes, but to adopt a percentage of displace- 

 ments for fiscal purposes would embarrass shipowners, and, I 

 fear, necessitate enormous expense and cause immense trouble, 

 and certainly cripple numbers of trades and vessels. 



Mr. A. L. Jones — It has been generally thought that the 

 earning power of a vessel is the safe basis for assigning the ton- 

 nage, but there are different opinions as to whether the earning 

 power is better measured by the dead weight carrying capacity 

 or the internal cubic capacity. I think one of the chief ob- 

 jections to the adoption of a dead weight tonnage has been the 

 difficulty of determining the maximum load line, because if the 

 maximum load line were fixed it would be an easy matter to 

 determine the displacement between the light and deep load 

 lines. Now, however, that diflBculty has been removed by the 

 passing of the Load Line Act. But there is a distinct difference 

 between Mr. Macllwaine's proposal to take a definite fraction of 

 the total displacement and the adoption of the dead weight 

 capacity, because the dead weight capacity is a very variable 

 fraction of the total displacement. One objection suggests 

 itself at once when it is proposed to adopt the total displace- 

 ment as the basis of tonnage, for it would then be an advantage 

 to the ship owner to confine his engine space as much as 

 possible ; whereas the present allowance of 32 per cent, deduc- 

 tion for the machinery and bunkers, provided the machinery 



