But, beyond these Acts, a great deal more was necessary for the proper government of the merchant service. The vast multitude of Acts of Parliament suspending, repealing, and altering parts of other Acts had involved our commercial maritime law in almost inextricable confusion, and had become most injurious to the public interest. No persons but those well conversant with the subject can imagine to what extent this abuse had sometimes been carried. When the Navigation Laws were repealed no less than forty-eight separate and distinct Acts of Parliament were in force relating directly to maritime affairs; some of them, now before me, are in black-letter type of a very ancient date. It, therefore, became necessary to deal with these Acts; and, for that and other still more important objects, a Bill was introduced in 1854, which dealt in the most comprehensive manner with all questions relating to merchant ships and their crews. In this great measure, the two Acts to which I have just referred were embodied. [Sidenote: Merchant Shipping Act, 1854.] The Merchant Shipping Act of 1854[139] contains no less than five hundred and forty-eight clauses, divided into eleven separate and distinct parts or sections. The first lays down the general functions of the Board of Trade; the second relates to the ownership, registration, and measurement of British ships; and the third is confined, exclusively, to matters referring to the conduct and duties of masters and seamen, and embraces the whole of the conditions of the Act of 1850, with various additions and amendments. [Sidenote: New measurement of ships.] The measurement of ships embodied in part second of this Act is a great improvement on all former modes of ascertaining the tonnage of a ship, as it takes capacity for its basis; and thus, while proportioning the dues payable by ships to their capabilities of carrying freight, affords free scope to Shipowners to construct such vessels as are best adapted to the trade in which they are to be employed.[140] This admirable mode of admeasurement was also adopted, at a recent congress, as the basis for ascertaining the tonnage on which ships of any nation were to pay dues on passing through the Suez Canal. [Sidenote: Registration of ships.]