Provision is, generously and very properly, now made, that no claim for the use of any of her Majesty’s ships in saving life or property shall be valid, and that no person on board of such ships shall be permitted to make any demand on this behalf without the formal consent of the Admiralty, the mode of procedure in all such cases, previously in many ways objectionable, is now clearly established and defined. Nor does the Act omit to deal, and with great propriety, with dealers in marine stores and manufacturers of anchors. Subsequently, but on much more debateable grounds,[146] an act was passed which dealt with the makers of chain cables. [Sidenote: Limitation of the liability of shipowners.] The ninth part of the Merchant Shipping Act defines or limits the liability of shipowners under certain circumstances; that is to say, shipowners are not liable, so far as regards fire, loss of life or personal injury, or loss of goods or merchandise, unless they have rendered themselves personally responsible, “to an extent beyond the value of their ship, and the freight due or to grow due in respect of such ship during the voyage.” This liability was further limited in 1862 by Mr. Milner Gibson when President of the Board of Trade.[147] The mode of procedure is laid down at length and with great perspicuity; but nothing in the Act is “to lessen or take away any liability to which any master or seaman, being also owner or part owner of the ship to which he belongs, is subject in his capacity of master or seaman.” [Sidenote: Various miscellaneous provisions.] The tenth part of the Act refers to the mode of legal procedure “in all cases where no particular country is mentioned within her Majesty’s dominions;” while the eleventh and last part deals with a few miscellaneous subjects, such as granting power to masters or owners of ships to enter into contracts, under certain circumstances, with Lascars or other natives of India for voyages to Great Britain, Australia, or other parts of her Majesty’s dominions: to corporations for the granting of sites for the erection of sailors’ homes: to the legislative authority of any British possession for the repeal, alteration or amendment of any provisions of the Act “relating to ships registered in such possession:” and to the Commissioners of Customs to recover from the Consolidated Fund, or from the Mercantile Marine Fund, all expenses incurred by them in the conduct of suits or prosecutions raised under the Act. Such are the leading provisions of the Merchant Shipping Act of 1854, one of the greatest, most useful, and salutary measures ever passed, the repeal of the Navigation Laws excepted, in connection with the mercantile marine of Great Britain.[148] [Sidenote: Act of 1855.]