:
IT
*зea voyage within the ordinary acceptation of the term, for which the prescrited precautions ought to te enforced. The duration of the voyage is clearly of the same essence of the question. Yet the Schedule of an Act of the Hong Kong Legis- lature, 10 1974, provides that this may te ascertained, not ty fact and experience, tut ty assuming that a steamer can travel five miles an hour without sails.
555
The basis of calculation seems absurd; permitting what is really a three and a half days voyage, for an ordinary steamer, to te declared a seven lays voyage; and so necessitating the provision of appliances and the exercise of restrictions which would practically disqualify, on a false assumption, ships perfectly alapted to three-and-a-half tara teruge, fur an ordinary
#6480–4870–7oyage different conditions.
jor voyages of seven days duration are practically unknown in
43
the china coast trade. It rare for a run to exceed three and a half lays. The duration is more frequently two to three as the steamers call usually at each treaty port on their way; and there are seven such ports on the 1,300 miles of coast between Hong Kong and Newchwang.
A
The new Legislation would practically atolish consiier ations of duration, and subject ships that are rarely more than 49 bours without entering port, to conditions properly intended for a long sea voyage. It may te plausitly alleged that the new Ordinance shall not be put in force unless the a3330t of all Powers te ottained to its provisions. But it may te feplied that
without hesitation,
such assent could not be made operative even if it were given. It is quite certain that if the proposed regu- lations are enacted, they will te enforced by British Officials and conformed to ty British Ship owners, but that they will be ava evaded with varying degrees of laxity ty others, with the result of transferring to other flags an important tranch of the local trade, for nothing is more certain than that the Chinese, for