PREFACE.

LAW ESTABLISHING THE BUREAU OF NAVIGATION.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That there shall be in the Department of the Treasury of the United States a Bureau of Navigation, under the immediate charge of a Commissioner of Navigation.

SEC. 2. That the Commissioner of Navigation, under the direction of the Secretary of the Treasury, shall have general superintendence of the commercial marine and merchant seamen of the United States, so far as vessels and seamen are not, under existing laws, subject to the supervision of any other officer of the Government. He shall be specially charged with the decision of all questions relating to the issue of registers, enrollments, and licenses of vessels, and to the filing and preservation of those documents; and whenever in title forty-eight or fifty of the Revised Statutes any of the above-named documents are required to be surrendered or returned to the Register of the Treasury, such requirement is hereby repealed, and such documents shall be surrendered and returned to the Commissioner of Navigation. Said Commissioner shall have charge of all similar documents now in the keeping of the Register of the Treasury, and shall perform all the duties hitherto devolved upon said Register relating to navigation.

SEC. 3. That the Commissioner of Navigation shall be charged with the supervision of the laws relating to the admeasurement of vessels, and the assignment of signal letters thereto, and of designating their official number; and on all questions of interpretation growing out of the execution of the laws relating to these subjects, and relating to the collection of tonnage tax, and to the refund of such tax when collected erroneously or illegally, his decision shall be final.

SEC. 4. That the Commissioner of Navigation shall annually prepare and publish a list of vessels of the United States belonging to the commercial marine, specifying the official number, signal letters, names, rig, tonnage, home port, and place and date of building of eve[r]y vessel, distinguishing in such list sailing-vessels from such as may be propelled by steam or other motive power. He shall also report annually to the Secretary of the Treasury the increase of vessels of the United States, by building or otherwise, specifying their number, rig, and motive power. He shall also investigate the operations of the laws relative to navigation, and annually report to the Secretary of the Treasury such particulars as may, in his judgment, admit of improvement or may require amendment.

SEC. 5. That the Commissioner of Navigation shall, under the direction of the Secretary of the Treasury, be empowered to change the name of vessels of the United States, under such restrictions as may have been or shall be prescribed by act of Congress.

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SEC. 6. That the Commissioner of Navigation shall be appointed by the President of the United States, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, and shall receive a salary of four thousand dollars per annum. And the Secretary of the Treasury shall have power to transfer from existing Bureaus or divisions of the Treasury one clerk, to be designated as deputy commissioner of navigation, to act with the full powers of said Commissioner during his temporary absence from his official duty for any cause, and such additional clerks as he may consider necessary to the successful operation of the Bureau of Navigation, without impairing the efficiency of the Bureaus or divisions whence such clerks may be transferred.

SEC. 7. That this act shall be in force and take effect on and after July first, eighteen hundred and eighty-four. Approved July 5, 1884.

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[Circular.]

ORGANIZATION OF THE BUREAU OF NAVIGATION.

TREASURY DEPARTMENT, OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY,

Washington, D. C., July 18, 1884.

To Officers of the Treasury Department:

Whereas Congress, by an act approved July 5, 1884, authorized the establishment of a Bureau of Navigation in the Treasury Department, and charged a Commissioner with its control and management, subject to the direction of the Secretary of the Treasury, it is hereby ordered that said Commissioner shall have power to give instructions, over his own signature as Commissioner of Navigation, to collectors of customs in all matters essential to the fulfillment of the duties with which he is charged in the second, third, fourth, and fifth sections of said act, and address over his own signature all persons with whom in his judgment it may be necessary to communicate in furtherance of the objects for which said Bureau was established, and he will so organize his office that the duties prescribed in the act may be most promptly and effi ciently performed.

The duties relating to navigation hitherto assigned to the Register of the Treasury having been devolved upon him, he will sign, as Commissioner of Navigation, the certificates of registry of vessels as authorized and required by section 4158 of the Revised Statutes, and he will cause to be transmitted the requisite supply of forms of such instruments to collectors of customs; but he will treat as valid and still in force all such outstanding instruments as bear the signature of the Register of the Treasury, and will allow the issue of such instruments with the Register's signature till new ones with his own official signature can be supplied to collectors.

The Commissioner of Navigation shall supervise the action of shipping commissioners as devolved upon the Secretary of the Treasury by the tenth section of the shipping act approved June 26, 1884, and, with the approval of the Secretary of the Treasury, shall regulate the mode of conducting business in their offices, and perform such other duties pertaining to the care of seamen as would devolve upon the Secretary of the Treasury by virtue of the provisions of the said act or Title LIII of the Revised Statutes.

He will also give instructions to collectors of customs in regard to the documenting of vessels and their clearance, entry, and movements, and the collection of tonnage duties therefrom as far as they may be required by the provisions of said shipping act and Titles XXXIV and XLVIII of the Revised Statutes.

He shall issue also to collectors of customs such instructions in regard to the entry of vessels into ports subject to quarantine as may be required by the public health and permitted by Title LVIII of the Revised Statutes.

In all cases in which it is necessary for the head of the Bureau of

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Navigation to communicate with the head of a Department, he will make such communication through the Secretary of the Treasury.

For the guidance of the Commissioner of Navigation in respects not necessary to be here enumerated, he is referred to the act itself, herewith published.

CHAS. J. FOLGER,

Secretary.