are no such governors or officers these powers may be exercised by any two resident British merchants. The particulars of the case must be indorsed on the agreement of the ship on board of which the seamen are put, and the expenses of their subsistence may be paid out of any monies granted by Parliament for the relief of distressed British seamen. By sect. 212 of this act, the masters of all British ships bound as aforesaid are obliged, under heavy penalties, to afford a passage and subsistence to all seamen or apprentices not exceeding one for every fifty tons burthen, whom they are required to take on board, under the circumstances mentioned above. They must provide the seamen or apprentices during the passage with a proper berth or sleeping place effectually protected against sea and weather; and they are subsequently entitled to receive out of the fund already mentioned such sums per diem in respect of the subsistence and passage of the seamen or apprentices as the Board of Trade may appoint (t). Doubts having been entertained whether under the lastmentioned sections of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1854, with reference to the relief and sending home of distressed seamen, any power existed of making regulations and imposing conditions for the prevention of desertion and misconduct, and the undue expenditure of public money; it is provided by sect. 22 of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1862, that the claims of seamen to be relieved or sent home in pursuance of any of the above sections or any of them shall be subject to such regulations and dependent on such conditions as the Board of Trade may from time to time make or impose; and no seaman shall have any right to demand to be relieved or sent home except in the cases and to the extent provided for by these regulations and conditions. By sect. 213 of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1854, whenever any seaman or apprentice belonging to any British ship is discharged or left behind at any place out of the United Kingdom, without a full compliance on the part of the master with all the provisions mentioned above, and becomes distressed and is relieved under the statute, and whenever any British subject, after having been engaged by any person (whether acting as principal or agent) to serve in any ship belonging to any foreign power, (t) This section mentions British ships; the previous section refers to ships belonging to British subjects. or to the subject of any foreign power, becomes distressed and is relieved as is mentioned above, the wages due to the seaman or apprentice, and the expenses of his subsistence, necessary clothing, conveyance home (or burial, if he dies before reaching home), constitute a charge upon the ship, whether British or foreign, to which he belonged; and the Board of Trade may in the Queen's name (besides suing for any penalties which may have been incurred) sue for the wages and expenses, with costs, either from the master of the ship or from the owner thereof for the time being, or, in the case of an engagement for service in a foreign ship, from the master or owner, or from the person by whom the engagement was made (u). These provisions have been extended by the Merchant Shipping Act, 1855 (18 & 19 Vict. c. 91). Sect. 16 of this act provides, that the Board of Trade may issue instructions as to the relief of distressed seamen and apprentices under the sections mentioned above, and determine by these instructions in what cases this relief shall be given (r). All the powers mentioned above, of recovering expenses incurred with respect to distressed seamen and apprentices, are also extended by the last-mentioned act to any expenses incurred by any foreign government for these purposes and repaid by the English government, and to cases in which seamen and apprentices are conveyed home in foreign ships. The provisions of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1854, which are above mentioned, are, moreover, extended by this statute to seamen and apprentices not subjects of the Queen, but reduced to distress in foreign parts by having been shipwrecked, discharged or left behind from a British ship; subject, (u) These sums are recoverable either as other Crown debts, or in the same way as wages due to the seamen; and the production of the account of wages furnished under the act, and proof of payment by the Board of Trade or Paymaster-General, is sufficient evidence that the seaman was relieved, conveyed home, or buried at the expense of the Crown. The M. S. Act, 1854, s. 213. It is observable that the provisions of Part III. of the M. S. Act, 1854, with reference to the protection of seamen against abandonment abroad (ss. 205213) are not excepted in s. 13 of the M. S. Act, 1862, which extends the whole of Part III. of the M. S. Act, 1854, except certain specified sections, to re gistered sea-going coasting ships em ployed in fishing, sea-going ships belonging to the General Lighthouse Boards, and sea-going pleasure yachts. It is obvious, however, that no question with reference to these provisions can, under ordinary circumstances, arise in the case of any of the ships above mentioned, except sea-going yachts. (r) The power of the Board of Trade (under s. 22 of the M. S. Act, 1862) to make regulations for the prevention of desertion and misconduct, and the undue expenditure of public money in these cases, has been already mentioned, ante, p. 214. Relief of men. WAGES. Ordinary contract, and its incidents. however, to such modifications in the case of foreigners as the Board of Trade may direct. The 544th section of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1854, and the 23rd section of the Amendment Act of 1855, enables the master or owner of any ship or his agent to enter into contracts under the conditions mentioned in the sections with Lascars or natives of India, binding them in certain cases to serve as seamen in ships bound to or from the United Kingdom; and the 16th section of the Merchant Shipping Act Repeal Act, 1854, makes provision against the master of any ship in which any native either of Asia or Africa or the South Sea or Pacific Islands has been brought to the United Kingdom as a seaman leaving him in distress in this country (≈). Before treating of the general statutory provisions relating to the discharge of seamen at the conclusion of their engagement, it is convenient to consider the subject of wages. In former times, advantage was frequently taken of the improvidence and ignorance of seamen to induce them to bind themselves by unjust and oppressive contracts as to wages. The legislature interfered from time to time to check this abuse, and the Court of Admiralty, in its character of a Court of Equity, relieved as far as it could against these contracts; but, as these are now matters of history only, and the earlier decisions of the Courts of law turn chiefly upon acts of parliament worded differently from the existing statutes, we will pass, at once, to the modern statutes which regulate contracts of hire with seamen (a). Wages begin either when the seaman commences work, or at the time specified in the agreement for his commencing it, or for his presence on board, whichever may first happen (6), and () The 17 & 18 Vict. c. 120, s. 16, App. p. clxvii. As to the relief and conveyance home of Lascars and other natives of the Indian Empire who are found destitute in the United Kingdom, see 4 Geo. 4, c. 80, ss. 25 --28, 30-34, and the M. S. Act, 1855, 8. 22. (a) The early acts will be found mentioned in sect. 1 of the 5 & 6 Will. 4, c. 19. The decisions upon them are collected in Abbott on Shipping, pp. 645-652. (b) The M. S. Act, 1854, s. 181. At common law, if the ship was not sent on the projected voyage, the seamen were entitled to be paid for the time during which they were employed on board. Wellsv. Osman, 2 Ld. Raym. 1044; Mills v. Gregory, Sayer, 127. Where a seaman was discharged after the articles had been signed, but before the commencement of the voyage, it was held that he was entitled to sue in the Court of Admiralty for wages if the voyage had been prosecuted. The City of London, any seaman who has signed an agreement and is discharged before the commencement of the voyage, or before one month's wages are earned, without fault on his part, justifying the discharge, and without his consent, is entitled, as we have already seen (c), in addition to the wages earned, to compensation for any damage caused to him, not exceeding one month's wages; and he may recover this compensation, as if it were wages duly earned (d). The forms of agreement now in use in pursuance of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1854, contain, as we have seen (e), 1 W. Rob. 88. If the voyage was abandoned, the remedy was only at common law. Ib.; see also The Debrecsia, 3 W. Rob. 37. (c) Ante, p. 210. (d) The M. S. Act, 1854, s. 167. The French Code has settled with great precision the mode in which seamen are to be indemnified if the voyage is, by reason of any act of the owners, master, or freighters, not prosecuted. If the intended voyage is given up before the ship sails, the seamen who are engaged for the voyage, or by the month, must be paid for the time during which they have been employed about the ship, and they are also entitled to retain any money that may have been advanced to them. If nothing has been paid in advance, they are to receive a month's wages as an indemnity, or, if they were hired for the voyage, that proportion of their wages which a month bears to the average length of the voyage. If this abandonment of the adventure occurs after the commencement of the voyage, the seamen hired by the voyage are entitled to the whole of the wages stipulated, and those who were hired by the month must be paid all that they have earned, and also, as an indemnity, half of the full amount of their wages, computed according to the probable duration of the voyage. In every event, the mariners are to be paid a sum to cover their expenses back to the port from which the vessel sailed, unless an engagement is procured for them on some ship returning there. If the voyage is prevented, before the ship sails, by an interdiction of commerce with the port of destination, or by an order of government, (arrest of princes or embargo,) the seamen are only entitled to be paid for the days of actual employment; if this occur after the commencement of the voyage, they are to be paid, in cases of interdiction, (and it would seem also in cases of actual stoppage caused by the government putting an end to the voyage,) for the time only of actual service; these being cases of vis major, in which it is just that all the parties should bear a proportion of the loss. In cases of mere delay by the government, those seamen who are hired by the month are to receive at the rate of half their monthly wages during the delay, and those who are hired by the voyage are to receive no increase of pay. If the voyage is prolonged (owing to the ship proceeding to a more distant port than that originally intended for her destination, or to her going to her port of destination by a longer voyage than that which was agreed upon), the seamen hired by the voyage are not entitled to refuse to serve, but their wages are to be increased in proportion to the increased length of the voyage; but no reduction is to be made if the ship is discharged voluntarily at a port nearer than the port of original destination. It appears, however, that if such a discharge takes place by reason of perils of the sea, or of any other cause over which the owners and master have no control, the seamen hired by the voyage are to be subject to a proportionate reduction of their wages. See the Code de Commerce, Arts. 252 to 256. Where the agreement is that the men are to be remunerated by sharing in the freight, or in the profits of the adventure, no compensation or payment is to be made to them if the voyage is prevented, shortened, or lengthened by cases of vis major; but if the alteration is caused by an act of the freighters, owners, or master, they are entitled to be compensated. See Ib. Art. 252 to 257, with Rogron's Commentary. These rules have been adopted in Belgium, and, with some modifications, in Holland. In America, the principles sanctioned by them have been acted upon in some cases. See 3 Kent, Com. 188 (ed. 1873). (e) See ante, p. 198. Allotment of wages by notes. a stipulation that any embezzlement, or wilful or negligent destruction of any part of the ship's cargo or stores, shall be made good to the owner out of the wages of the offender; and that if any person enters himself as qualified for a duty which he proves incompetent to perform, his wages are to be subject to a reduction proportioned to his incompetency. The Merchant Shipping Act, 1854, also provides by sect. 168, that all stipulations for the allotment by notes of any part of the wages of seamen during their absence, shall, if made at the commencement of the voyage, be inserted in the agreement, and shall state the amounts and times of payment. In cases where a seaman desires that any part of his wages not exceeding one half shall be paid during his absence to his wife or other relation, or in favour of a savings bank, it is obligatory on the owner or master to insert a stipulation for that purpose in the agreement. These notes must be in the form sanctioned by the Board of Trade (ƒ), and may, by sect. 169 of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1854, be proceeded on, in the County Court or summarily (g), either by the relations mentioned in that section, or, if the note is in favour of a savings bank, by such persons as the Board of Trade may direct; and the amount may be recovered with costs from the owner, or any agent who has authorized the drawing of the notes (). In these proceedings the seamen are to be presumed to be duly earning their wages, unless the contrary is shown by any evidence which the Court may, in its discretion, think sufficient. No wife of any seaman, however, who deserts her children, or so misconducts herself as to be undeserving of support from her husband, can recover wages on any allotment note (i). Sect. 3 of the Merchant Seamen Act, 1880, provides for the time and mode of payment of these notes. (f) See Appendix, "Forms," No. 26; and No. 26A, note (b). With respect to "advance notes," by which an owner or master agrees to repay a sum advanced to a seaman, provided the ship sails, see M'Kune v. Joynson, 5 C. B., N. S. 218. These notes are made illegal by the M. S. Act, 1880, s. 2 (Appendix, p. ccclxxb). See also 8 Geo. 1, c. 24, s. 7. (g) See also the M. S. Act, 1854, ss. 188, 519. The mode of proceeding summarily in these cases is to claim the wages before two justices or a stipendiary magistrate acting in or near to the place at which the person upon whom (h) See the M. S. Act, 1880, s. 3 (Appendix, p. ccclxxc). A registered owner who has demised his ship and parted with all control over her is not liable under this provision. Meiklereid v. West, 1 Q. B. D. 428. (i) Sects. 167, 168, and 169 of the M. S. Act, 1854, which occur in the third part of the act, are not excepted in s. 13 of the M. S. Act, 1862, which extends to sea-going yachts, certain fishing vessels, and ships belonging to the three General Lighthouse Boards, the greater part of Part III. of the earlier act. |