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is that by a subsequent Clause power is given to commute the forfeiture for a pecuniary penalty; but before such commutation can be made, the Ship will have been brought in for adjudication and a penalty thereby inflicted.
To make the Ship owner suffer a penalty which will probably far exceed the pecuniary penalty refusing to be allowed is not requiring such a penalty as forfeiture; since the Officer empowered by Section 9 to make the search, will generally have physical force at his command to enable him to make it.
To make any alteration or craving in the Emigration Laws pro forma is harsh. Any breach of regulations concerning space, dietary, etc., should not have a minute and incompetent cause of forfeiture, which is also indefensibly severe.
The extreme penalty of forfeiture is applied to any cases should be confined to cases where the emigration papers are forged or fraudulently altered, and perhaps to cases in which, Contract having been made with the Emigrants, another is fraudulently substituted, or in which the destination of the Voyage has been fraudulently and improperly changed after survey. If these suggestions are adopted, Clause 7 may be incorporated with Clause 10 as altered.
Sections 12 to 15. These sections being, as is presumed, passed so as to operate in the same manner as the Slave Trading Acts, fall within the province of the Foreign Office, and the Board of Trade are unable to form any opinion on their probable effect.
Clause 16 - This is presumed that...