The belated enactment of the Merchant Shipping Act 1979 represents the first significant attempt since 1913 to reform the law relating to pilotage. Reports from two official committees1 and the publication of a White Paper2 have preceded this event; and it would be tempting to suppose that the accumulated problems of over half a century could now be consigned to history. Yet, although the new legislation introduces undeniably important changes in national procedure, its ultimate success will depend upon a comprehensive reorganisation of local practice that has still to be instituted. In matters of marine policy, British Governments display a regrettable tendency to treat the more prominent symptoms of a malady, while deferring responsibility for fundamental surgery.

The pilotage provisions in the Merchant Shipping Act implement the recommendations presented to the Secretary of State for Trade in July, 1977, by the Advisory Committee on Pilotage.3 This body succeeded the Steering Committee on Pilotage, whose earlier conclusions4 had also been generally accepted in a Governmental policy statement issued in December, 1975.5 The later report was somewhat less radical than its predecessor, and the legislative innovations can only be understood in the context of both documents. Indeed, it is arguable that a hybrid solution has distorted the original proposals in a way that defeats the purpose of their invention.

Most of the defects of the existing law were exacerbated by the unco-ordinated administrative structure through which it was executed. Under powers conferred by the Pilotage Act 1913,6 the Board of Trade and successive Ministers have established 92 pilotage districts around the coasts of the United Kingdom. Thirteen are directly managed by autonomous pilotage authorities,7 but the remainder are subjected to various systems of dual control. The Corporation of the Trinity House of Deptford Strond regulates the extensive London Pilotage District by the agency of a committee, and also nominates sub-commissioners for 40 outport districts throughout England and Wales.8 In five other areas,9 a single committee, assisted in one locality by sub