RELIEF OF DISTRESSED SEAMEN.
327
8. Distressed seamen may, if necessary, be supplied with clothing and bedding, but in no greater quantity or of better quality than is absolutely required. Officers are to be furnished with clothing of the same quality as that supplied to seamen.
Medical advice and medicine may be provided when necessary.
9. No definite period can be fixed during which a seaman should receive relief, but in every case in which relief is continued for more than a month a special report of the circumstances shall be furnished by the proper authority to the Board of Trade.
10. Seamen who are in receipt of relief from a proper authority and are unable to ship or to find other employment shall be sent to a proper return port as soon as practicable, but the proper authority at any place en route to such return port shall, if possible, obtain employment for the seaman.
11. A proper return port may be either the port at which the seaman was shipped or a port in the country to which he belongs.
The question of the return port to which, and the route by which, a seaman should be sent shall be decided by the proper authority who shall have regard both to the convenience of the seaman and to the expense involved, and also, where that is the case, to the fact that a British ship which is in want of men to make up its complement is about to proceed to a proper return port.
In the case of a seaman belonging to a British possession who has been shipped and discharged out of United Kingdom, the proper authority may treat a port in the United Kingdom as a proper return port.
12. A seaman may be sent to a proper return port by any reasonable route either by sea or land or partly by sea and partly by land.
For the whole or any part of the route which is by sea, the authority shall place the seaman on board a British ship which is in want of men to make up its complement, or, if that is not practicable, shall provide the seaman with a passage in a British ship in accordance with regulation No. 17.
13. Whenever there is no British ship in which a distressed seaman can be sent either to a proper return port or to a port en route thereto, the proper authority may, if he considers it desirable, secure a passage for him on the best terms obtainable.
If the passage be not prepaid, application should be made by the master of the ship to the proper authority at the port to which the seaman has been so conveyed.