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Exemption of Her Majesty's Ships.

Pt. XIV. 741-742.

Exemption of

741. This Act shall not, except where specially provided ("), Her Majesty's apply to ships belonging to Her Majesty (b).

(a) See s. 73, sub-s. (3) (seizing illegal colours); s. 99 (certificates of service); s. 148, sub-s. (1) (saving bank); ss. 195 et seq. (volunteering into navy); ss. 480 et seq. (naval courts); s. 516 (naval officer as receiver of wreck); ss. 557 et seq. (salvage); ss. 76, 692 (detention of ships by naval officers).

As to the registration and application of the Merchant Shipping Acts to certain Government ships, see M. S. A. 1906, s. 80, and note to s. 419.

(b) As to what ships are included in this expression, see note (a) to s. 557.

Definitions and Provisions as to Application of Act.

Many expressions, not included in s. 742, are defined in various sections throughout the Act. See INDEX under tit. " Definitions," or under the words themselves. For the meanings of many expressions occurring but not defined in this Act, see also the Interpretation Act, 1889, post, p. 419.

ships.
[1854, s. 4;

40 & 41 Vict.
c. 16, s. 2.]

742. In this Act (a), unless the context otherwise requires, Definitions. the following expressions have the meanings (b) hereby assigned [1854, 8. 2; to them, that is to say

"Vessel" includes any ship or boat, or any other description of vessel used in navigation (c);

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"Ship'
"includes every description of vessel used in naviga-
tion not propelled by oars (d);
Foreign-going ship" (e) includes every ship employed in
trading (f) or going between some place or places in the
United Kingdom, and some place or places situate beyond
the following limits; that is to say, the coasts of the
United Kingdom, the Channel Islands, and Isle of Man,
and the continent of Europe between the River Elbe and
Brest inclusive;
"Home-trade ship includes every ship employed in
trading (f) or going within the following limits; that
is to say, the United Kingdom, the Channel Islands, and
Isle of Man, and the continent of Europe between the
River Elbe and Brest inclusive;

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"Home-trade passenger ship" means every home-trade ship employed in carrying passengers (g);

"Master" includes every person (except a pilot) having com-
mand or charge of any ship;

"Seaman" includes every person (except masters, pilots, and
apprentices duly indentured and registered) (), employed
or engaged in any capacity on board any ship (i);
"Wages" includes emoluments;

"Effects" includes clothes and documents;

"Salvor" means, in the case of salvage services rendered by the officers or crew or part of the crew of any ship belonging to Her Majesty, the person in command of that ship;

40 & 41 Vict. c. 16, s. 3;

43 & 44 Vict.

c. 16, s. 8;
50 & 51 Vict.

c. 62, s. 5;

52 & 53 Vict. c. 5, s. 3.]

Pt. XIV. 742.

53 & 54 Vict. c. 27.

52 & 53 Vict. c. 10.

"Pilot" means any person not belonging to a ship who has the conduct thereof ();

"Court" in relation to any proceeding includes any magistrate or justice having jurisdiction in the matter to which the proceeding relates (7);

"Colonial Court of Admiralty" has the same meaning as in the Colonial Courts of Admiralty Act, 1890;

"A Commissioner for Oaths" means a commissioner for oaths within the meaning of the Commissioners for Oaths Act, 1889;

"Chief Officer of Customs" includes the collector, superin-
tendent, principal coast officer, or other chief officer of
customs at each port;

"Superintendent" shall, so far as respects a British Possession,
include any shipping master or other officer discharging
in that possession the duties of a superintendent (m);
"Consular Officer," when used in relation to a foreign country,
means the officer recognised by Her Majesty as a consular
officer of that foreign country (n);

"Bankruptcy" includes insolvency;

"Representation" means probate, administration, confirmation, or other instrument constituting a person the executor, administrator, or other representative of a deceased person;

"Legal personal representative" means the person so constituted executor, administrator, or other representative of a deceased person;

"Name" includes a surname;

"Port" includes place;

"Harbour" includes harbours properly so called, whether natural or artificial, estuaries, navigable rivers, piers, jetties, and other works in or at which ships can obtain shelter, or ship and unship goods or passengers;

"Tidal water" means any part of the sea and any part of a river within the ebb and flow of the tide at ordinary spring tides, and not being a harbour;

"Harbour authority" includes all persons or bodies of persons,
corporate or unincorporate, being proprietors of, or in-
trusted with, the duty, or invested with the power of
constructing, improving, managing, regulating, main-
taining, or lighting a harbour (a) ;

"Conservancy authority" includes all persons or bodies of
persons, corporate or unincorporate, intrusted with the
duty or invested with the power of conserving, main-
taining or improving the navigation of a tidal water;
"Lighthouse" shall in addition to the ordinary meaning of
the word include any floating and other light exhibited
for the guidance of ships, and also any sirens and any
other description of fog signals, and also any addition to

a lighthouse of any improved light, or any siren, or any
description of fog signal (o);

Buoys and beacons" includes all other marks and signs of
the sea;
"The Trinity House

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shall mean the master wardens and
assistants of the guild, fraternity, or brotherhood of the
most glorious and undivided Trinity and of St. Clement
in the parish of Deptford Strond in the county of Kent,
commonly called the corporation of the Trinity House of
Deptford Strond;

"The Commissioners of Irish Lights" means the body incor-
porated by that name under the local Act of the session
held in the thirtieth and thirty-first years of the reign of
Her present Majesty chapter eighty-one, intituled "An
Act to alter the constitution of the Corporation for pre-
serving and improving the Port of Dublin and for other
purposes connected with that body and with the Port
of Dublin Corporation" and any Act amending the
same (p);
"Lifeboat service" means the saving, or attempted saving of
vessels, or of life, or property on board vessels, wrecked
or aground or sunk, or in danger of being wrecked or
getting aground or sinking.

Any reference to failure to do any act or thing shall include
a reference to refusal to do that act or thing.

(a) Some of the definitions have now a more general application than under the former Acts, e.g., that of "harbour authority," which was formerly defined only for the purposes of the Removal of Wrecks Act, 1877.

(b) As to the construction of definitions or interpretation clauses in which the word "includes" is used, see note (d).

(c) "Vessel."-The term was not defined in the former Acts. In certain sections it is now substituted for "ship or boat," &c.: see, e.g., s. 503.

For the meaning of "vessel" in the provisions of Part IX. as to removal of wreck, see s. 532.

(d) "Ship."-The word "includes" in an interpretation clause is used by way of extension. Hence it would seem that the present clause does not exclude vessels which are propelled by oars in cases where, but for the clause, they would be within the term "ship." See the cases next cited.

Accordingly a "coble," 24 feet long, partly decked, and having removable masts, &c. for sailing, and of a class which go twenty miles out to sea, was held to be a "ship" within the M. S. A. 1854, 1862, although she was fitted with oars with which she was propelled when in harbour. Ex parte Ferguson (or Hutchinson) (1871), 40 L. J. Q. B. 105; L. R. 6 Q. B. 280.

And a hopper barge used for dredging, having a bow, stern and rudder, but not furnished with any means of propulsion, being of a class which is always towed, was held to be a ship within M. S. A. 1854, ss. 2 and 458 (1894, ss. 544 and 742), Ld. Coleridge, C. J., observing that it was immaterial to consider whether she was "used in navigation." The Mac (or Macadam v. The Saucy Polly) (1882), 51 L. J. P. 81 ; 7 P. D. 126; reversing 7 P. D. 38, &c.

Where, however, the vessel was an electric launch of only about three tons burden, used for carrying passengers upon a small artificial lake, she was held not to be a ship, on the ground that, having regard to the size of the lake, she was not a vessel “used in navigation," it being apparently assumed that such a vessel would not be within the term "ship" unless brought within it by the extension in the interpretation clause. The Mayor of Southport v. Morris, 62 L. J. M. C. 47; [1893] 1 Q. B. 359.

T.

E E

Pt. XIV.

742.

Pt. XIV. 742.

In Ex parte Ferguson, supra, Blackburn, J., said that every vessel which substantially goes to sea is a "ship," whether propelled by oars or not. And in The C. S. Butler (1874), L. R. 4 A. & E. 238; 31 L. T. 549, Sir R. Phillimore held the converse of this, viz., that a vessel was not a ship " unless her real habitual business was to go to sea. See also Oakes v. Monkland Iron Co., infra (note (i)).

It would appear, however, that the latter proposition is incorrect, and that a vessel, in order to be a ship, need not be sea-going. See per Cotton, L. J., in The Mac, supra, and The Salt Union v. Wood, cited in note to s. 260.

A vessel which had been registered, but had for four years been used as a coal hulk, was held not to be a ship. The European and Australian R. M. Co. v. Peninsular and Oriental S. Nav. Co. (1864), 12 Jur. (N. S.) 909; 14 L. T. 704. Nor, it seems, is a dumb barge propelled by oars. See Gapp v. Bond, cited in note to s. 24. See also The Owen Wallis (1874), 43 L. J. Ad. 36; L. R. 4 A. & E. 175; Everard v. Kendall (1870), 39 L. J. C. P. 234; L. R. 5 C. P. 428. As to a vessel at the time of being launched, before receiving her engines and boilers, see The Andalusian (1878), 47 L. J. Ad. 65; 3 P. D. 182 (see note to 8. 2); The United States (1865), 12 L. T. 33; 2 M. L. C. (O. S.) 166; and cf. Re Softley, Ex parte Winter (or Ex parte Hodgkin) (1875), 44 L. J. Bk. 107; L. R. 20 Eq. 746 (equitable mortgage of unfinished vessel before launch).

As to the meaning of the term "steamship" in a bill of lading, see Fraser v. Telegraph Construction, &c. Co. (1872), 41 L. J. Q. B. 249; L. R. 7 Q. B. 566. (e) As to certain ships engaged in fishing being deemed to be foreign-going ships, see s. 744.

(f) As to meaning of "trading," see s. 625, note (ƒ).

(g) As to who are “passengers," see ss. 267, 625.

(h) As to indenturing and registration of apprentices, see ss. 105-109, 392— 398.

(i) "Seaman."--In Reg. v. Judge of City of London Court (1890), 59 L. J. Q. B. 427; 25 Q. B. D. 339, Ld. Coleridge, C. J., said that this definition would undoubtedly include such a person as a stevedore. And in Re The Great Eastern S. S. Co. (1885), 53 L. T. 594; 5 Asp. M. L. C. 511; following Wells v. Osman (1704), 2 Ld. Raymond, 1044, persons were allowed to sue as seamen for wages in respect of services rendered to a vessel in port. That decision appears to have partly rested on the fact that they had been engaged for a voyage, though the vessel in fact never proceeded thereon. But in Thomson v. Hart, supra (s. 236), the definition was held to include a person engaged as store-keeper of a ship while in port, who had not yet been engaged for the voyage.

The term appears to include medical practitioners, stewards, cooks, interpreters, &c., when 'part of the complement of the ship (see ss. 303, sub-s. (4), 304, and notes thereto); sea-fishing boys (see s. 393); and cooks of British foreigngoing steamships of 1,000 tons and upwards: see M. S. A. 1906, s. 27.

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Men who follow the sea as a calling, but are out of such employment, are "' seamen "in the widest sense of that term, but only those at the time actually employed or engaged for service on a ship are seamen so as to be exempted from the provisions of the Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act, 1875. See R. v. Lynch, 67 L. J. Q. B. 59; [1898] 1 Q. B. 61.

The term also includes lascars serving on a British ship. See Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co. v. The King, 70 L. J. K. B. 845; [1901] 2 K. B. 686.

As to the position of a female acting as cook and steward, and partly as sailor, see The Jane and The Matilda (1823), 1 Hagg. 187.

In Oakes v. Monkland Iron Co. (1884) (Sc.), 21 Sc. I. R. 407, a fireman on a steam barge plying exclusively on an inland canal was held to be a "workman,' and not a 66 seaman," within the Employers and Workmen Act, 1875,

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88. 10, 13.

As to the position of a person who messes with the master but helps in working the ship in return for his passage, see The Hanna, supra (p. 361).

Persons employed in the capacity of seamen are not excluded from the rights of seamen under the Act by the fact that the agreement with the master was oral, when required by ss. 113, 114 to be in a certain form. Re The Great Eastern S. S. Co., supra; and see note (e) to s. 113, and cf. note to s. 236. (k) As to "qualified pilots," see s. 586.

(1) This definition of "court" does not exclude every person not a "magistrate

or justice," &c. See Board of Trade v. Leith Local Marine Board (1896), 24 Ct. of Sess. Cas. (4th Series), 177.

(m) See s. 247 as to business of superintendents.

(n) "Consular officer" by the Interpretation Act, 1889, s. 12 (20), includes consul-general, consul, vice-consul, consular agent, and any person for the time authorised to discharge the duties of consul-general, consul, or vice-consul.

(0) Such an addition may be treated as a separate lighthouse: see s. 642. (p) See s. 634 and note (d) thereto.

INTERPRETATION ACT, 1889.

NOTE. The following definitions are contained in the Interpretation Act, 1889, and unless the contrary intention appears, the several expressions there defined are to have the same meaning in the M. S. Acts. See Interpretation Act, 1889,

8. 12.

13.-(3.) The expression "High Court," when used with reference to England or Ireland, shall mean Her Majesty's High Court of Justice in England or Ireland, as the case may be.

(6.) The expression "the Summary Jurisdiction Act, 1848," shall mean the Act of the session of the eleventh and twelfth years of the reign of Her present Majesty, chapter forty-three, intituled "An Act to facilitate the performance of the duties of justices of the peace out of sessions within England and Wales with respect to summary convictions and orders."

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(7.) The expression the Summary Jurisdiction (England) Acts," and the expression "the Summary Jurisdiction (English) Acts" shall respectively mean the Summary Jurisdiction Act, 1848, and the Summary Jurisdiction Act, 1879, and any Act, past or future, amending those Acts or either of them.

(8.) The expression "the Summary Jurisdiction (Scotland) Acts" shall mean the Summary Jurisdiction (Scotland) Acts, 1864 and 1881, and any Act, past or future, amending those Acts or either of them.

(9.) The expression "the Summary Jurisdiction (Ireland) Acts" shall mean, as respects the Dublin Metropolitan Police District, the Acts regulating the powers and duties of justices of the peace or of the police of that district, and as respects any other part of Ireland, the Petty Sessions (Ireland) Act, 1851, and any Act, past or future, amending the same.

(10.) The expression "the Summary Jurisdiction Acts," when used in relation to England or Wales, shall mean the Summary Jurisdiction (England) Acts, and when used in relation to Scotland, the Summary Jurisdiction (Scotland) Acts, and when used in relation to Ireland, the Summary Jurisdiction (Ireland) Acts.

(11.) The expression "Court of Summary Jurisdiction" shall mean any justice or justices of the peace, or other magistrate, by whatever name called, to whom jurisdiction is given by, or who is authorised to act under, the Summary Jurisdiction Acts, whether in England, Wales, or Ireland, and whether acting under the Summary Jurisdiction Acts or any of them, or under any other Act, or by virtue of his commission, or under the common law.

Pt. XIV. 742.

c. 76.

16.-(1.) The expression "board of guardians" shall, as respects England and Wales, mean a board of guardians elected under the Poor Law Amendment 4 & 5 Will. 4, Act, 1834, and the Acts amending the same, and shall include a board of guardians or other body of persons performing under any local Act the like functions to a board of guardians under the Poor Law Amendment Act, 1834. (2.) The expression "poor law union" shall, as respects England and Wales, mean any parish or union of parishes for which there is a separate board of guardians.

(3.) The expression "board of guardians" shall, as respects Ireland, mean a board of guardians elected under the Act of the session of the first and second years of the reign of Her present Majesty, chapter fifty-six, intituled "An Act for the more effectual relief of the destitute poor in Ireland," and the Acts amending the same, and shall include any body of persons appointed by the Local Government Board for Ireland to carry into execution the provisions of those Acts.

(4.) The expression "poor law union" shall, as respects Ireland, mean any townland, or place, or union, or townlands, or places, for which there is a separate board of guardians.

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