362 THE IOURNAL OF LAW AND ECONOMICS and Ireland,the Fund is also used to pay for the maintenance of some colonial lighthouses and to meet the cost of marking and clearing wrecks (to the extent that these are not reimbursed by a salvaging firm),although these very small proportion of total expenditures. There are also expenditures on lighthouses which are not met out of the Fund.The expenses of building and maintaining"local lights,"those which are only of benefit to ships using particular ports,are not paid for out of the Fund,which is restricted to the finance of lighthouses which are useful for "general navi. gation."The expenditures for "local lights"are normally made by harbour authorities,and are recovered out of port dues. III.THE EVOLUTION OF THE BRITISH LIGHTHOUSE SYSTEM Mill,writing in 1848,and Sidgwick,in 1883,to the extent that they had in mind the actual British lighthouse system,would obviously be thinking of earlier arrangements.To understand Mill and Sidgwick,we need to know something of the lighthouse system in the 19th century and of the way in which it had ev olved.But a stud of the history of the British lighthou system is not only useful because it helps us to understand Mill and Sidgwick but also because it serves to enlarge our vision of the range of alternative insti- tutional arrangements available for operating a lighthouse service.In dis- cussing the history of the British lighthouse service,I will confine myself to England and Wales,which is,presumably,the part of the system with which Mill and Sidgwick would have been most familiar. The cipal lighthouse authority in England and Wales is Trinity House.It is also the principal pilotage authority for the United Kingdom. It maintains Homes and administers charitable trusts for mariners,their wives,widows,and orphans.It has also many miscellaneous responsibilities, example the inspect and regulation of "ocal lights"and the provision of Nautical Assessors or Trinity Masters at the hearing of marine cases in the Law Courts.It is represented on a number of harbour boards,including the Port of London Authority,and members of Trinity House serve on many committees ding government c mittees)dealing with maritime e matter Trinity House is an ancient institution.It seems to have evolved out of a medieval seamen's guild.A petition asking for incorporation was presented to Henry VIII in 1513 and letters patent were granted in 1514.The charter gave Trinity House the right to regulate pilotage,and this,together with its rinoue of Deptord 1913-1060. ns Markes and Siges for the Sea and ch.&An Vncertaine Light. This wnloaded from 137073 144 138 on Ser tember27201610-27-46A All use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions(http://www.jo urnals uchicago edu/t-and-c)
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THE LIGHTHOUSE IN ECONOMICS 363 charitable work,represented its main activity for many years.It did not con cern itself with lighthouses until much late There seem to have been few lighthouses in britain before the seventeenth century and not many until the eighteenth century.There were,however,sea- marks of various kinds.Most of the ese were on and and wer not designed as aids to mariners,consisting of church steeples,houses,clumps of trees, etc.Buoys and beacons were also used as aids to navigation.Harris explains that these beacons were not lighthouses but "poles set in the seabed,or on the seashore,with perhaps an old lantern affixed to the top 1 The regulation of seamarks and the provision of buoys and beacons in the early sixteenth century was the responsibility of the Lord High Admiral.To provide buoys and beacons,he ap pointed eputies, who collected dues from ships presum to have benefitted from the marks.In 1566 Trinity House was given the right to provide and also to regulate seamarks.They had the responsibility of seeing that privately owned seamarks were maintained.As an example,a merchant who had cut dowr ithout permission,a clum of trees which had served as a seamark,was upbraided for "preferring a tryfle of private benefitt to your selfe before a great and generall good to the publique."11 He could have been fined 100(with the proceeds divided equally between the Crown and Trinity House) There seems to have been so ome doubt as to whether the Act of 1566 gave Trinity House the right to place seamarks in the water. This doubt was removed in 1594,when the rights of beaconage and buoyage were surrendered by the Lord High Admiral and were gran ated to Trinit House.How things worked out in practice is not clear since the Lord High Admiral continued to regulate buoyage and beaconage after 1594 but gradu- ally the authority of Trinity House in this area seems to have been acknowl- edged. Early in the seventeenth century,Trinity House established lighthouses at Caister and LowestoftBut it was not until late n the cetury that itbuilt another lighthouse.In the m ntime the building had been taken over by private individuals.As Harris says:"A characteristic element in Elizabethan society were the promoters of projects advanced ostensibly for the public benefit but in reality intended for private gain.Lighthouses did not scape he says:With the ofthelight- house at Lowestoft,the Brethren rested content and did no more.when 101d.at153. 111dat161 121d.at183-87. 131d.at180-81 All subject tnvri of chded om 137 on Seper 011M Terms and Conditions (http://www.Journals.uchicago.e edu/t-and-c)
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