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337
A BILL
ENTITLED
An Ordinance to amend the Merchant Shipping
Ordinance 1899.
BE it enacted by the Governor of Hongkong, with the advice and consent of the Legislative Council thereof, as follows:-
1. This Ordinance may be cited as the Merchant Ship- Short title. ping Amendment Ordinance, 1913, and shall be read and construed as one with the Merchant Shipping Ordinance, 1899 (hereinafter called the Principal Ordinance) and the Ordinances amending the same and this Ordinance and the said Ordinances may be cited together as the Merchant Shipping Ordinances, 1899-1913.
2. Section 39, sub-section (14), of the Principal Ordi- Amendment nance as re-enacted by section 4 of the Merchant Shipping of section 39 Amendment Ordinance, 1911, is hereby amended as fol- of Principal
lows:-
Ordinance as re-enacted
(a.) by the insertion of the words " except licensed by section 4
fishing junks
junk
between the words
and "sball" in the first line thereof;
(b.) by the substitution of a
66
"full stop " for the
16 comma "after the word "inclusive" in the fifth line thereof.
(c.) by the deletion of the words "except in the case of a licensed fishing junk which has obtained a special permit from the Harbour Master" in the fifth, sixth and seventh lines thereof.
of Ordinance No. 48 of 1911.
Objects and Reasons.
Under sub-section (14) of section 39 of the Merchant Shipping Ordinance, 1899, as that section now stands, it is provided that no junk except a licensed fishing junk which has obtained a Special Permit from the Harbour Master may leave her anchorage or attempt to leave any port in the Colony during certain hours of the night. These permits are issued to all such junks as a matter of course and are seldom if ever refused; they are issued monthly, twenty five cents being charged for each such permit.
The object of the present amendment is to do away with these monthly permits and to substitute a general Annual Permit which will be one of the conditions attached to the ordinary licence of which every juuk has to be in posses- sion; the fee of twenty-five cents per mouth will be com- pounded in one payment on the issue of the ordinary licence. The conditions of the licence will in the case of fishing junks enable them of course to get under way at night.
The chief reason for the amendment proposed to be made is in order to do away with the great labour and time occupied in the issue of these monthly permits. The apparent loss of control over these fishing junks occasion- ed by the change will however be more than counter- balanced by the inauguration of a system of endorsement on their licences of every entry of these fishing junks into the waters of the Colony as is done now in the case of trading junks; in this way a record of the movements of these fishing junks will be obtained in a manner which is not at present possible. The necessary alterations in the form of licence and the system to carry out the necessary endorsements on these licences upon the entry of the junks into the waters of the Colony will be of course arranged for by regulations and departmental action.
JOHN A. BUCKnill,
Attorney General.
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