Copy.
sir,
WILKINSON & GRIST,
Solicitore.
ENCLOSURE
5th. February, 1917.
246
British Ships (transfer Restriction) Act 1918.
following faote:-
To have the honour to bring to your notice the
By Section 1 (3) of this act it is provided that the Board of Trade may require any person who applies to be registered as the cwner of a British ship to furnish particulars "for the purpose of "ascertaining whether or not that person is, or is a trustes for, 'or otherwise represents, a foreign controlled Company".
Nowhere in that section, or elsewhere in the Act, is the Board of Trade authorised to require particulars as to whether anyone, other than a British subject, is a shareholder, or otherwise interested, in a British, and British controlled, Company; and yet the form of declaration sent out from England to the Registrar of Shipping in this Colony provides that the declarant must so state.
The Aot itself makes it absolutely clear that, so long as the majority of directors of a British Company are themselves British subjects, and therefore, so long as such a Company, desirous of being registered as the owners or mortgagees of a British ship, is not a "foreign controlled Company", that Company is entitled to be no registered. But, if there happens to be a single shareholder in the Company who is not a British subject, a declaration cannot be madde nade in the form sent out to the Registrar!
Thus an almost impossible position arises in a case where a mortgage is desired to be given, say, to the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, in which, it is well known, there are many shareholders who are not British subjects, although the Company itself is entirely British controlled. So also in the case of the Indo China S. N. Co., the Douglas Steamship Company, the China Navigation 8. S. Co., and numerous other shipping Companies. No such declaration can be made on behalf of any of these Companies