GAMBLING ON SHIPS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVI, Issue LXXVI, 6 October 1908, Page 10

GAMBLING ON SHIPS.

THE MODERN "WRECKER.H OWNERS' COMPLAINT^ The coffin-ship— the unseaworthy craft sent out to assured destruction for the profit of her well-insured owners — no longer disfigures the annals of the British Mercantile Marine. That stain is wiped out, like the wrecker of a still earlier age, who, by the exhibition of misleading coast lights, lured many a gallant vessel to destruction. But ships are still deliberately got rid of. There are conditions (says the London Daily Telegraph) obtaining in the marine insurance world to-day which positively invite it. Persons who have not a single penny at stake either in ship or cargo may make, and do make, thousands of pounds by the loss of a vessel which they have possibly never seen. Their only concern in the ship is that she shall go to the bottom as speedily as possible, so that their insurance premiums shall yield a quick and handsome return. Such speculation naturally opens the door to all sorts of fraud and rascality. At their meeting, the Cardiff Shipowners' Association unanimously passed the following resolution: — "That this association strongly deprecates the gambling that is taking place in P.P.I, policies, whpreby insurers gamble in vessels in which they have no interest, to the detriment of shipowners and other legitimate insurers, and trusts that the Board of^ Trade will devise some means to counteract this evil." DOCKS AS "PADDOCKS." Before Parliament rose for the autumn recess, Mr. Maclean drew attention to the case of the steamship Albion, a vessel lost off the Spanish coast on 2nd May of this year, and whose fate must" have been hailed with screams of delight by speculators who had put their money on her. Let it be said at once that the court of enquiry which sat at Westminster acquitted the master and officers of the Albion of all blame. Nobody, of course, would suggest that a ship which is the subject of speculative insurance can, any more than a ship not similarly circumstanced, avoid the ordinary dangers of navigation. But the poinj. about the case of the Albion was the number of speculative policies effected on her. When the court of enquiry into the loss of the Albion was proceeding, counsel' drew an amusing picture. It was perfectly clear," he remarked, " that a large portion of the population of Cardift, when tired of their ordinary business, proceeded to the docks, and there, as if in a paddock, viewed various ships, and, haying made their selection, backed them" with an insurance company. Then came the excitement of studying the casualty list, and watching for a' winner with delirious joy." It is not an inapt simile The docks have unquestionably come to possess for certain classes of 1 people an interest which the paddock fails to excite. The quantum of delirious joy resulting from the loss of the Albion could not have been inconsiderable, for the court found that parsons having no insurable interest? in the ship had netted by her loss a total of £12,600 in amounts varying from £100 to £3,400. This is what was thought about it :—: — The court desires to express its strong disapprobation of P. P. I. insurances by persons who have no insurable interest in the vessel insured, as such insurances tend to raise the. premiums to be paid by ordinary interested insurers, and also to throw suspicion on owners, captains, and officers, on the ground • of the vessel beinc over-insured. They are merely speculative gambles, and should be prohibited by legislation. SOME OF THE SPECULATORS. The distribution of this £12,600 is interesting. A Cardiff chemist, who found that it was much better to watch the shipping newspapers than to go on making up pills and potions, stood to win £2,000 by the loss of the Albion. A stevedore, who confessed that this was the second time he had " spotted a loss,"V was also richer by £2000. A clerk who had something to do with the supply of the ship's x paint had got £3,200 "on her," for ell the world as if he had been dealing with a " bookie " in reference to a horse. But in this case the policies had been taken out in various names, which is a recognised detail in the plan of campaign. In this case there was a reason for it. The speculator did not want his employers to become aware that he was " going it too heavily." It is possible to run up and down the list, finding name after name of people who had not a single sixpence at stake in the Albion, apart from ;he amount of the gambling premiums which they had paid. . Nor is the case exceptional. The m<nd goes back to the loss of the Farth of Forth, a steamship which foundered in the Mediterranean in July, 1903. In this instance her master's navigation was declared at fault, and a court of enquiry suspended his certificate for a whole year. Here a solicitor in the little Irish township of Ballymoney, who had nothing to do with ships or shipping, confessed himself a confirmed gambler in insurance risks, and acknowledged that by the loss of the Firth, of Forfth he was the richer by £6,000. /Ho happened somehow to be the cousin of her mastor. Some unknown people, who had tuken out P.P.I, policies on the vessel through Antwerp brokers, netted £5,700, and an individual at Newcastle-on-Tyne stood to win £2,000. As for the captain, he had insurances of £500 on stores, £225 on personal effects, and £500 on 200 cases of whisky taken out on the ship as a private speculation — total, £1225. Altogether, the underwriters had to put up £14,925, apart from the ordinary business insurances on the Firth of Forth. All this, of course, is gambling r.uie and simple, and the lact that neither the Albion nor the Firth of Forth were deliberately cast away does not in the least affect the argument that these " honour " policies, when taken out by people who wish to " spot a loser," are an incitement to cupidity, and to all the wickedness which follows in its train. It is ,no wonder that all responsrole people in the shipping industry are pressing the Board of Trade to act drastically and promptly in suppressing the modern "wrecker."