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Explanatory Memorandum
This Bill amends the Merchant Shipping (Recruiting
of Seamen) Ordinance.
2.
Often,
Clause 2 amends the definition of "seaman".
persons engaged nominally in one or other of the capacities
excepted from the present definition of "seaman" in fact
work as ordinary seamen. By this means the requirements
of registration and of the other provisions of the Ordinance
designed to protect the seaman have been evaded.
3.
Clause 3 amends section 5 to enable an Assistant
Commissioner of Labour to sit on the Seamen's Recruiting
Advisory Board and to increase from 3 to 4 the number
required to form a quorum of the Board.
4.
The object of having Parts I and II of the register
was to separate active seamen (that is to say, seamen who
have served at sea on a foreign-going ship at any time
during the two years preceding the application for regis-
tration) and seamen embarking on a career at sea, who are
registered in Part I, from those seamen who have not been
actively engaged at sea (that is to say, who need only show
they have been to sea at some time more than two years
preceding the application for registration), who are
registered in Part II. It has been found that Part II of
the register is not necessary and no seamen are at present
registered in that Part. Clauses 4, 5, 6, 7 and 10 therefore
amend the principal Ordinance to provide for the dis-
continuance of Part II. Seamen who would otherwise be
eligible for registration in Part II will in future be
registered in Part III.