LLOYD’S BIG REGISTER.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20958, 22 February 1930, Page 20

LLOYD’S BIG REGISTER.

WHEN IT WAS COPIED. , ENEMY’S SKILFUL TASK. - In a handsome room within a massive building in Fenchurch street in the heart, of London—a room so. quiet that not a. murmur of the thronging traffic can be heard in it —a man whose name is known all over the world has just been honoured. Mr Andrew . Scott most wonderful of veterans—writes an : Evening News- correspondent—is'the secretary of Lloyd’s Refister of Shipping. Recently he celebrated is sixtieth year in the register’s service. The committee—body of shipowners, underwriters, shipbuilders! and engineers —has made him a presentation to commemorate a great day. • Some other men would be thinking of retiring- to a life of ease after six long decades of work for one institution. But not Mr Scott. To-day he carried on with his job as if nothing .had happened. Perhaps no one knows as much about Lloyd’s Register, its romantic history and romantic work as this veteran of Fenchurch street. ;.

. Here, for instance, is one little secret Mr Scott has revealed —a war-time story: ‘Lloyds Register of Shipping, as . the recognised authority furnishing particulars of the worlds shipping, was nsivjrallj . very much sought after throughout the period of the war, and the utmost precautions were adopted in order to avoid if® being transmitted to enemy countries. In. addition to making the customary inquiries of the proper authorities before sending abroad any copies of the register, the society instituted the most . careful inquiries in every case regarding the bona ndes of all subscribers to the book in neutral countries, in order to ensure, as far as possible, that the register would be employed solely .for the personal information Of the subscriber, and would hot be passed into enemy hands. “ Al. AT LLOYD’S.’’ "®y this means the society was in a position to" refuse to issue copies in a very large number of cases when there appeared to be any doubt in the matter. In spite of these precautions, however, a each of the registers for 1915-18 and 1916-17 seems to have reached Germany, where the volumes, each of nearly 1500 pages royal quarto, were photographed page by page, and reproduced for the information of the German Admiralty, and particularly for the use of commanders of submarines. Anyone who is connected with printing will be able to grasp the painstaking labour involved in carrying out this task, which would be hardly' credible had we not these copies or the. volumes before us." The‘ work of Lloyd’s is the grading of ships in various degrees of merit. The famous, phrase, *AI at Lloyd’s," involves responsibilities and tasks which are worldwide.

J How doea Lloyd's Register fix the stand--IDS , i? the eyea of the shipping world? To begin mth, it specifies roughly the requirements that will have to be met if ships are to be graded as Al. It did that in the days of wooden ships; it has done it through the eras of iron vessels and of composite, ones ' right into the present age of steel ones. It passes, judgment on the plana of ships before ® “f e l 13 Iwd down. It inspects, tests, and stamps the materials to be used. It supervises every stage of the ship’s con* struction on the docks. And when the ship is in service, she is periodically over, hauled and surveyed. Lloyd’s experts are all over the world. As Mr Scott has said; “It has gathered together in its service a staff of shin surveyors, engineer surveyors, steel testing surveyors, forging inspectors and elec t'-' ,n engineers, which includes some of the best brains in the professions, and which, now numbers 413, of whom 2 15 arc stationed in this country and 108 abroad, there being 28 surveyors in the United States nearly 100 on the Continent*. 29 in India and the Par East. 14 in Australia, nine in South America, and eight in Africa.” And Lloyd's is not run for profit. It is run tor the benefit of the shipping industry as - a whole, and its century-long record is one of which any organisation in the world might be proud. It moves. with the times, too. It is now interested in the air as well as in the sea. Onhr the other day it was announced that Lloyd’s has formed an Aviation Committee. which will presumably classify aircraft j'ust as shipping is al .ady classi fled. Soon one may read as a matter of course that an airship is “Al at Lloyd’s.”