Note 300 — Chapter XVII

Opinion of Mr. Charles McIver.

In going carefully through the evidence taken before the Royal Commission on Unseaworthy Ships, I cannot find that any witness objects to the principle that no ship should be allowed to proceed to sea that is unseaworthy, nor do I find that any Shipowner would object to a survey of his ship for the purpose of ascertaining her seaworthiness. Indeed, Mr. Charles McIver, of Liverpool, the senior partner of the Cunard Company, and a gentleman of great experience, though he does not class any of his ships for somewhat the same reason as I have stated, considers it advisable that all ships should be classed—not merely certified as seaworthy, but classed. The Chairman (Question 9245, p. 331) remarked: “You said you would not have any objection to have your vessels classed;” and then he asked, “Do you think it advisable that all ships should be classed?—I think so, from what I have seen in the last two or three years. If you will allow me, I will give another reason. I once got nearly cast away in an unclassed vessel about forty years ago. I was going to the States. She was a wooden vessel. I had taken a passage in her along with my sister, because I knew the captain of the ship. She was loaded with steam-engines and coals. I shall not mention the ports or the owners, because they are all dead and gone, the captain included. Off the Azores we fell in with a gale of wind. It only lasted for twelve hours; but, if it had lasted for twenty-four hours, she would have gone down. The captain came to me, and said, ‘If I had known that she was as bad as this, I would not have let you come.’ He said, ‘Her beams are away from the sides.’ I said, ‘I know that she is making water very rapidly, because it is coming out as clear as it went in,’ and they were pumping every two hours, and so forth. Now, I do not mean to say that there may not be culpability in the owner, but, sometimes, it is ignorance. So it was in that case; they did not believe that the ship was as bad as she was. My remark to the captain was, ‘When you go home you had better throw up command of this vessel or you will lose your life.’ He did so; but, in some way or other, he mixed up Mr. McIver’s name with it. The owner said, ‘Mr. McIver is frightened.’ The captain said, ‘No, he is not frightened, but he knows too much.’ He said, ‘I will give up the ship.’ Now, to show you that I did not think that there was any intentional culpability on the part of the owner, but simply ignorance, or simply that they could do what I could not do, because I knew too much, they gave that ship to the mate, and sent that vessel away in his charge for a long voyage abroad, and she did it safely. The next voyage she was never heard of. Now, any sort of classing, I think, would have prevented that ship from going to sea.”