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cases, or else to exempt all Consuls from payment. The opinion of the Attorney-General as to the power of enforcing the law has been given in the following terms :-
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"To ship a seaman (except with the Harbour Master's sanction) to do duty on board any merchant ship whatever elsewhere than at the Office of Harbour Master, is a breach of section 16 of Ordinance 8 of 1879, and the person so shipping him is liable, on summary conviction, to a penalty of $25 or imprisonment for a month (see 32).
"Refusal to pay the fee after the man is shipped would not be an offense, but the amount of the fee is recoverable in a summary manner before a Magistrate (see 435).
7. Other Foreign Consuls at Hong Kong (including the German Consul), are (as I am informed), about to follow the example of the Consul of the United States in stopping payment of the fees to the Harbour Master's Office. This is a question which might lead to international complication: