NEWS OF THE WEEK.
MR. PLIMSOLL'S loss of self-command last week has proved a serious matter for the Government. From every quarter of the kingdom resolutions of sympathy have poured in upon Mr. Plimsoll, some of them expressing confidence that he would make the proper amends to the House of Commons, and some more warlike in tone, expressing a most earnest hope that he would retract nothing. As the result, when, on Monday night Mr. Roebuck had given notice of the intention to revive Mr. Plimsoll's Merchant Shipping Act Amendment (No. 2) Bill, Sir C. Adderley rose after him, to give notice that the Government would on Wednesday move to introduce a Bill to make provision " for giving further powers to the Board of Trade for stopping unseaworthy ships." And on Wednesday, accordingly, this Bill was introduced. It empowers the Board of Trade to appoint a sufficient number of persons with power to detain unseaworthy ships from going to sea ; and it provides that whenever a fourth of the whole number of seamen in any ship, or if there be more than twenty seamen, five or more of them, declare the ship unsafe, it shall be the duty of the Board of Trade's officer to have the ship examined, even without taking any security for the cost of the Process from the complainants. Such is the new measure which underwent a preliminary dis- cussion of no very favourable character on Wednesday. Its second reading was to be taken yesterday, at an hour too late for us to report the result before going to press. But it is clear that the House will not be greatly inclined to repose indefinite con- fidence in the administrative efficiency of a Government which, legislatively, has made on this subject the most distinguished of its failures.
