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HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL.

to any British ships registered at, trading with, or being at, any port in that possession, and to the owners, masters, and crews of those ships, any provisions of Part II of the Act which would not otherwise so apply, such law shall have effect throughout His Majesty's dominions, and in all places where His Majesty has jurisdiction in the same manner as if it were enacted in the Act.

2. By section 735 of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1894, the Legislature of any British possession may by any Act or Ordinance, confirmed by His Majesty in Council, repeal, wholly or in part, any provisions of the Act (other than those in the Third Part thereof which relate to emigrant ships) relating to ships registered in that possession.

3. In exercise of these powers an Ordinance, now numbered as No. 10 of 1899, was passed by the Hong Kong Legislature and has been amended by Ordinances Nos. 5 and 11 of 1931 and by Ordinance No. 23 of 1932.

4. The principal Ordinance (as published in the Ordinances of Hong Kong 1844-1923) comprises 46 sections and a Schedule of Tables. It cannot be compared with Ordinance No. 125 (Merchant Shipping) of the Straits Settlements which comprises 472 sections and several Schedules.

5. It deals, however, with certificates of registry, certificates of competency, the engagement and discharge of seamen, boarding houses for seamen, distressed seamen, health and accommodation, discipline, surveys, general equipment, life saving appliances, deck and load lines, dangerous goods and explosives, grain cargoes, unseaworthy and unsafe ships, marine courts, courts of survey, ports of the Colony, duties of masters, quarantine, fairways, safety of ships and prevention of accidents, removal of obstructions," moorings and buoys, fishing stations, police powers, light-houses, lights and beacons, launches, motor-boats, river steamers, junks and native craft, offences and prosecution thereof, regulations and fees.

6. By section 41 of the principal Ordinance such of the provisions of the Merchant Shipping Acts as apply to the Colony and are not inconsistent with the provisions of the Ordinance are repealed so far as they relate to ships registered in the Colony; but in all other respects the provisions of the said Acts are expressed to be in force in the Colony and extend to all ships registered in the Colony when such ships are within the waters of the Colony. By sub-section 2 (b) fines not exceeding one thousand dollars are substituted for fines punishable under the Acts not exceeding one hundred pounds.

7. Apparently the provisions of the Acts repealed by the section and the application to the Colony and ships registered therein of the remaining provisions relate only to the Acts which

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