CONFIDENTIAL
а
6. I have looked at the Merchant Shipping Act 1894.
This Act is to be amended, and it is possible that the
potential difficulties to which I shall refer will be
removed when the new amended Merchant Shipping Act
comes into force. However we shall probably not be
certain that the difficulties will be cured until after
the Hong Kong Bill has been enacted. Moreover the type
of difficulty I foresee over the Merchant Shipping
Act 1894 may conceivably arise in other fields which,
in the time available to us, we cannot fully investigate. One The difficulty I see under the Merchant Shipping
Because Murdert
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Sill to Priua.
Act 1894 arises from the fact that Hong Kong may wish to
adopt its own Ordinance regulating the registration of
ships in Hong Kong. The ships will probably remain
"British Ships" until 30 June 1997 and they will be
I then be registered under the Ordnance, rather than the
caught by section 2 of the 1894 Act.
as such
That section This co
This contains an
obligation for such ships to be registered under the
in It
Act. Yet they
will
1894 Act. further provides that if a ship is
not so registered she shall not be recognised as a
British ship. Section 72 sets out the disadvantages
of not being recognised as a British ship, and those
disadvantages could be suffered if, for example, a Hong
Land not under the 1894 Art. Kong ship, registered under the Hong Kong Ordinance were
to put into Gibraltar. For these reasons it may be that
Bill
necessary to use the powers conferved under the Hong Kong when amending the Merchant Shipping Acts under the powers to amend an Act (
Act (eg.
the Merchant Shuffing that) so far as it is -conferred by paragraph 3(b)-of-the schedule to the
Hong Kong Act we shall wish to amend the Merchant.
Builich forcession
Shipping Aet so far as they are part of the law of a defined is Schedule! to the Internetation but, 1978, cap 30),
Gibraltar, as well as part of the law of the United Kingdom.
CONFIDENTIAT