Note 297 — Chapter XVII
Reading edition
See also evidence, W. J. Lamport, Question 5556, p. 192. With regard to the question of overloading, Mr. Lamport made a remarkable statement, which I do not hesitate to give at length, because it differs entirely from an opinion prevailing at present in the public mind.
The Chairman asked (Question 556): “From your knowledge of the shipping in Liverpool during forty years, Do you think that there has been a great deal of overloading?”—“Since it was intimated to me that I was to be asked to give evidence in this room, I have been trying to task my memory for cases in which when vessels had foundered or had not been heard of, I myself had felt a reasonable suspicion that the cause was overloading. I have not been able to bring to my recollection a single instance of the kind. Now this result, I must confess, was a little startling to myself, and in order to check it I spoke to the overlooker of my firm, who is a man older than myself, who has had longer experience than I have had, and who, from his outdoor business, would probably hear of such things more frequently than I should. The overlooker told me that he himself did not remember a single instance, in which he had suspected that any vessel which had left the port of Liverpool had been lost because of being overloaded.”
I may add, from my intimate knowledge of Mr. Lamport, which extended over a period of thirty years up to his untimely death, that these were no mere words of course. Indeed, the statement agrees with my own experience; and, from the inquiries I have made elsewhere, there are comparatively very few ships lost from overloading, except in the coasting and short-voyage trades. In confirmation of this opinion, the Commissioners, in their final report, state that “It is chiefly among the small coasting vessels that any habitual overloading prevails,” and “that there are a large number of ships in ballast annually lost, while the losses from collisions show that the management and negligence of sailors are not less disastrous than the carelessness of shipowners.”