7587.
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Sutor.
9.
Expenses by whom payable.
(No 21 of 1891, Sec. 2.)
(6.) All expenses incidental to the apprehension, and confinement, of any seaman, wuder this section, shall be payable by the master of the ship to which such seaman may belong, tl be recoverable from him, at the suit of the Captain Superintendent of Police, as a debt due to the Gov- ernment of this Colony; and the subsistence money for every such scanian contined in gaol shall be paid in advance to the superintendent of the gaol, and in default of such payment, the gaoler may release such seaman: Provided that every seaman imprisoned under this scetion may, by direction of the Committing Magistrate, be sent on board his ship, or may be placcil at the disposal of the Consular Officer at whose request the Magistrate dealt with the case,
on the written application of the said Consular Offeer, either on or before the expiration of his term of imprisonment,
524
Sub-section (6) provides that a Foreign seaman who has been imprisoned at the instance of his Consul may be handed over to the Consul before the expiration of his term of imprisonment. (This enables the Consul to send the seaman away in another ship if opportunity occurs.)
The sixth subsection will also be referred to the Foreign Office, but before reterring to that Department, Mr. Chamberlain will be glad to receive any observations which the Board may wish to offer on these provisions.
3. In section 9 subsection 6 the provision that a foreign seaman convicted under the section may be placed at the disposal of the Consular Officer would appear to need further safeguards. It would be preferable to word the whole subsection as in section 238 of the Imperial Merchant Shipping Act, 1894, or otherwise the reason given by the Acting Attorney-General might be stated in the Ordinance and a paragraph equivalent to section 238 subsection 1 of the Imperial Act included.
Faragraph 3.-The remarks in this paragraph are to a certain extent dealt with by my notes on the Bill to clause 9 (1), (2), and (3), and, as pointed out, it will be well to bring the form of the whole of this clause so far as it relates to deserters into con- formity with Section 238 of the Merchant Shipping Act. Sub-section 6, however, deals more especially with imprisonment for offences committed within the waters of the Colony, and for which punishment is prescribed in paragraphs D, E, F and G, of sub- clause 5 of clause 9.
It is presumably intended to deal with these offences, which are not under the provisions of section 238 of the Merchant Shipping Act, but which are offences the punishment for which can be conveniently arranged for between the different nations. This, therefore, is, I presume, the reason why sub-clause 6 goes beyond the provisions of section 238 of the Merchant Shipping Act by giving the Magistrate power, among other things, to simply hand the offender over to his Consular authority without specifying what is to become of him, As the ship to which he belonged may have sailed, this in itself may be a convenient power, but, as before stated, is not one of the powers conferred by section 238, unless it can be said that the Consular Officer is for this purpose an Agent for the owner of the vessel.
It is presumed that this sub-clause is not intended to refer to deserters who can be apprehended but not confined, but the expenses of the apprehension might well be provided for as the words at present are "apprehension and confinement."
(2) Sub-clause 6 of Clause 9 of the Ordinance provides that foreign seamen imprisoned under the Section "may be placed at the disposal of the Consular Officer
on the written application of the said Consular Officer." think this Sub-clause should be worded like Section 238 of the Merchant Shipping Act. The Colonial Office The Board of Trade agree that some parts of Clause 9, dealing with the apprehen sion of seamen for various offences, should be more in harmony with Section 238 of the Merchant Shipping Act, but that Section deals with desertion only, while this sub-clause 6 deals with offences which do not come under Section 238 and must necessarily therefore go beyond that Section (as it does in giving power to the Magis- trates to hand over offenders to a Consul). I imagine the Ordinance is not bound to be confined within the limits of Section 238, and the Solicitor to the Board of Trade certainly says the powers may be convenient." Perhaps, therefore, we may express concurrence with the views of the Solicitor and say we have no objection to such powers being given to the Magistrate.
to
I gather from that the Board of Tråde have probably already taken the opinion of Counsel on the point dealt with in that paragraph, and if it were necessary for us go into the matter we should, of course, like to see the Counsel's opinion, assuming my conjecture to be right. But I don't think that it really is a point to be decided by the Foreign Office.
416. Para 5 de (.0. letter, which is not an end is it
meraly asked
And Vid, Agreed wilt Dot?.
T.O.