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in consequence of a decision of the court that the shipping master cannot refuse a certificate, if both parties seek it.
In replying upon the papers containing these suggestions:
1. We have acknowledged with thanks the care and attention shown in the Report of Major Malleson and its Appendices (2437/66), the [Report of the Sanitary Commissioners upon his Report (do.), and the Letter of the Bengal Government upon those Reports (do.), and also through them for the exceeding valuable information these papers contain.
2. As regards the questions of medical help and assistance at Calcutta, the supervision of boarding houses there, and the police of the port, we have observed that they are local matters, and that all we can say is that we trust the attention of the local Government will continue to be directed to them, and that no effort will be spared to put a stop to the great evils which have undoubtedly prevailed among the seamen at Calcutta.
3. As regards the transfer of the duties of the shipping master to the Customs, the local Government have the best means of judging, and the power and responsibility of acting. If the effect of that change is to strengthen the shipping master's hands, and to place at his disposal the large Customs staff, and if the direction of that staff and of their chief is energetically directed to the performance of the onerous and important duties thus imposed on it, we cannot doubt that the change will be advantageous. But the experience of similar arrangements at home shows us that it requires constant care and superintendence to insure the performance of a secondary duty by a staff previously appointed for the discharge of another duty. We should add, that we only say this by way of caution, not of objection.
4. With regard to the suggestions, that s. 190. of the Merchant Seamen's Act should be modified (2437/66); that owners who discharge men at Calcutta should be bound to send them home (907/65) (2437/66); that masters who leave men in gaol should, unless themselves free from fault, leave money to pay for the men's passage home (907/65) (2437/66); and, finally, that it should be made clear that shipping masters in a colony have the power of refusing their sanction to a discharge unless the master provides the men with a passage home, we have said, that the Board of Trade regard these suggestions with approval, and are engaged in a consideration of the whole subject, with the view of effecting revision of the whole of the existing enactments on the subject.
A
But with regard to the decision of Mr. Justice Phear, reported in 4494/66, we have observed that we are totally unable to understand the action of the shipping master, or the instructions said to have been given to him by the Government of Bengal in that case, or the conduct of the Advocate General in arguing the case.
In the first place it is alleged in the evidence in the case, that the shipping master stated that the Government of Bengal had directed him to refuse his sanction to any discharge or transfer of seamen
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the port of Calcutta. If this is so it is utterly at variance with the principles on which the Bengal Government have formerly acted, with the instructions of the Board of Trade, and with the obvious dictates of true policy. The whole object of the legislature and instructions on this point has been to prevent men from being left improperly behind so as to become distressed themselves and a burden on the public. To prevent them from changing from one employment (which is no longer profitable) to another which is profitable, and which suits them equally well, not only contrary to all principles of justice and economy, but is obviously calculated to defeat the very object which the Government have had in view.
In the second place, the case selected for trying this question seems to have been singularly unfortunate. The men had been engaged on a long voyage. Their master had arranged with the master of another ship for their transfer to it, and the men were perfectly contented to be so transferred. The refusal of the shipping master to sanction a legitimate and useful transaction of this kind, without the shadow of a reason for objecting to it, must naturally have created a prejudice in the mind of any reasonable man against the assumed powers under which so tyrannical and arbitrary an act could be done. And there is little to be wondered at if the judge, having such a case before him, and a doubtful Act to construe, should lean strongly to a construction which should prevent such acts for the future. Lastly, the Advocate General, instead of arguing the case for the Government, argued it against them, instead of pointing out the real objects and policy which Parliament and the Government have had in view, viz., the protection of seamen, and the prevention of such discharges as would leave the men in distress and a burden on the public, instead of pointing out the strong expressions of the section itself, on which considerable reliance might have been placed,-he appears to have sought out and urged upon the court every expression in the imperial or local Acts which was adverse to the case of his own clients. The Board of Trade are far from saying that the decision of Mr. Justice Phear is wrong, or that the Act ought not to be amended; but they expressed a strong opinion that powers granted to local Governments and officers are to be exercised as they appear to have been exercised in this case, if cases are to be brought into court where the Government and its officers are so obviously in the wrong as they have been here, and if they are brought into court only to be abandoned by the legal officers of the Government, there is no enactment that can be found which will stand the test.
if
Finally, with regard to the suggestion that arrangements should be made with the United States, under the Foreign Deserters Acts, we stated that we would communicate with the Foreign Office on the subject.
On a
The last suggestion is not yet acted on. former occasion, before the Civil War, the arrangement went off on the ground that our Act con-
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18. St