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A very important aspect of the matter is, according to the statement of the Company, that it would be prac- tically impossible, or at least very perilous to dock their vessels at Bombay, because when their steamers arrive at that port'they are generally fully loaded with cargo for other ports and most dangerous structural etrains would be occasioned by placing them on the blocks.
The Comittee are disposed to think that the considerations of practical commercial convenience which led to the adoption of the practice of accepting this Society's certificates, and the difficulties surrounding any change of the practice, can scarcely have been fully brought under the notice of the Indian and Colonial Gover ments. It is hardly necessary to say that the Committee have not the slightest desire that the Society's Survey- ors should endeavour to usurp any of the functions of the Government Surveyors at Indian and Coloni-1 ports. It
is only their sense of the grave inconvenience which le likely to be caused by the contemplated changes that leads them to put this matter strongly before the Board of Trade and to express the hope that the Board will see its way to adtise the local Authorities that the docking certificates issued by this Society's Exclusive Surveyors should be again accepted as heretofore.
It may
be mentioned that the great majority of the Society's Surveyors, including the Surveyors at Trieste, are salaried Officers who are in the exlusive employment of this Society and are eligible for pensions when they retire from the service. They are all picked men who have been very carefully selected by the Committee from among great numbers of applicants for appointment after thorough consideration of their experience, abilities
and
1S.