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Passengers Act 1855, and Ordinance No 8 of 1871 when leaving this Port for Saigon,
I have the honor to report that it is because the voyage between touching and arriving at Saigon is not of seven days' duration that, as regards the passage, the Steamers are not subject to the laws which I have quoted above.
2.
This is, I apprehend, quite manifest from the proviso to Section 2 of Ordinance No. 8 of 1871, which declares that nothing in that Ordinance shall be deemed to affect Chinese Passenger Ships which shall clear out and proceed to sea merely upon a voyage of not more than seven days' duration within the meaning of the Chinese Passengers Act 1855 and certain local enactments.
That proviso I find "inserted for the purpose of obviating any doubts which might arise in the minds of Shipmasters as to whether the exception in the Ordinance of 1871 corresponds with the exception in the Imperial Act of voyages not exceeding seven days duration". The law is, therefore, I presume, perfectly clear that Saigon is not declared to be a Port more than seven days distant.