CO129-329 - Governor Nathan - 1905 [7-12] — Page 125

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Enclosure 2:

GIST OF ARGUMENTS USED BY HARBOUR MASTER.

There are three points of view affecting such cases, which have to be taken into consideration.

(1) You deliberately signed Articles to proceed to certain latitudes, which embrace both Asiatic-Russian and Japanese Ports, at a time when you knew those countries were at war, and also when you must have been aware that your cargo (coal) is regarded by both these nations as "Contraband of War", and yet you wait until within measurable distance of your final port of discharge, which you were elso aware was in the Far East, to create difficulties which have involved serious delay to your ship and consequent loss to her owners. In knowledge also of the fact that similar difficulties had been created during some considerable period before you signed on, by other crews, yet you have deliberately chosen your cantine to make representations on the subject now, instead of doing so when before signing on you had the opportucity.

I assign no reason for your act, beyond the statements you have nade;

but to show you the difficulties that sometimes occur in judging these cases, I would point out that in one or two cases recently, when men have been similarly circumstanced, they have since declared that they were "put up jobs" before they signed on, with the intention of obtaining passages home, spent in idleness, and to sue the owners for full wedes up to the time they arrived in England.

(ii) The next point is, how far owners can be expected to go, in having it stated on the agreement that their vessels are carryin contraband, for without some such statement attitudes, such as you i An agreement to this effect have taken up, are rendered possible.

if captured

in the ship's Articles would condemn the cargo without question, and running with contraband would have to be abandoned. If the reasoning powers of the crews during the earlie) stages of the war were at fault when signing on, it can hardly be when men contended that such is the case now --12 months later

must surely be aware what they are committing themselves to.

(11) No conclusion bas, so far as I am aware, been come to in England as to how these cases should be treated, but the line I have consistently taken since the commencement of the war has been (and this is the third point alluded to) what risk is likely to be encountered in the voyage between Hondkond and the port she clears

If a risk of capture and personal danger to life may be reasonably thought to exist, I have not in spite of the fore- -going considerations exacted the fulfilment of the agreement

for.