Duty of pilotage authorities to make returns to Board of Trade. after proper examination as to their qualifications, to obtain licences as pilots (a). By the Merchant Shipping Act, 1854, sect. 337, every pilotage authority must deliver periodically to the Board of Trade, in the form and at the times required by the Board, returns of the following particulars with regard to pilotage within the port or district under their jurisdiction (1) (1.) All bye-laws, regulations, orders, or ordinances relating (2.) The names and ages of all pilots or apprentices licensed (a) By s. 40 of the M. S. Act, 1862, the rules are given, which are to be observed with respect to provisional orders made in pursuance of the act. These are in substance as follows: 1. Application in writing for the order must be made to the Board of Trade by some persons interested in the pilotage of the district. 2 & 3. Notice of the application must be published, once in each of two successive weeks in the month immediately succeeding the time of the application, in the Shipping Gazette and in one of the county newspapers, stating the objects it is proposed to effect by the order. 4. The Board, before making an order, has six weeks in which to refer the application to the district pilotage authorities, and to consider any objections which may be made. 5. The Board may settle the order in such manner and with such terms and conditions as they may think fit, consistently with the provisions of the act. 6. No order is to take effect until confirmed by Parliament, for which purpose the Board is to introduce a public general bill, setting out the pro visional order. 7. Any portion of the order which may be petitioned against in its passage through Parliament, may be referred to a select committee, and the petitioner may appear and oppose. (b) These returns must be laid before Parliament by the Board of Trade. If pilotage authorities (other than the Trinity House of Deptford Strond and its sub-commissioners) fail to make these returns as required within a year from the time fixed by the Board of Trade, or if they do not allow the Board, or those appointed by it, to inspect their books and documents, the Queen may, by order in Council, suspend their powers for so long as she thinks fit, and during their suspension their powers and rights are to be exercised by the Trinity House. See ss. 338, 339. Provisional orders under this act have been made in several instances, and confirmed by Act of Parliament. For the more important of these acts see Appendix, "General Table of Pilotage Authorities in England and Wales," p. 110. scale for the time being in force, and the amounts received for the several classes of service rendered by pilots; and also the amount paid by such ships as have, before reaching the outer limits of pilotage water if outward bound, or their port of destination if inward bound, to take or pay for two or more pilots, whether licensed by the same or by different pilotage authorities; together with the numbers of the ships of each of these classes: (6.) The receipt and expenditure of all moneys received by or on behalf of the pilotage authority, or any sub-commissioners appointed by them, in respect of pilots or pilotage: The pilotage authorities must also allow the Board of Trade, or any persons appointed by it, to inspect all books or documents in their possession relating to the matters which are required to be returned to the Board. LICENCES. Under the Merchant Shipping Act, 1854, sect. 349, every PILOT qualified pilot on his appointment receives a licence (e), mentioning his name and usual place of abode, together with a description of his person, and a specification of the limits within which he is qualified to act. The principal officer of customs at the place at or nearest to which the pilot resides must, upon his request, register the licence; and no qualified pilot can act as such until his licence is registered. Any qualified pilot acting beyond the limits for which he is qualified, is considered as an unqualified pilot. Under sect. 350, every qualified pilot is, upon receiving his licence, to be furnished with a copy of that part of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1854, which relates to pilotage, and of the rates, bye-laws and regulations established within the district for which he is licensed; and he must produce these copies to the master of any ship, or other person employing him, when required to do so, under a penalty not exceeding 57. By sect. 351, every qualified pilot, while acting in that capacity, must be provided with his licence, and produce it to every person by whom he is employed, or to whom he tenders his services as pilot. If he refuses to do so he incurs for each (c) See the M. S. Act, 1854, s. 333. As to the licences of the pilots licensed by the Trinity House of Deptford M.P. Strond, see the M. S. Act, 1854, s. 370, S PILOT BOATS. COMPULSORY PILOTAGE (GENERAL). offence a penalty not exceeding 107., and is subject to suspension or dismissal by the pilotage authority by whom he is licensed. By sect. 352, every qualified pilot, when required by the pilotage authority who appointed him, must produce or deliver up his licence; and on the death of any qualified pilot the person into whose hands his licence happens to fall must, without delay, transmit the same to the pilotage authority which appointed the deceased pilot. Non-compliance with these provisions subjects the offender to a penalty not exceeding 107. (d). The Merchant Shipping Act, 1854, provides also for the approval and licensing of pilot boats by the pilotage authorities, and for the mode by which they are to be distinguished. By sect. 345, all boats and ships regularly employed in the pilotage service of any district are to be approved and licensed by the pilotage authority of the district, who may, at its discretion, appoint and remove the masters. Sect. 346 contains regulations with reference to the painting of the pilot boats black, with the name of the port and owner on the stern in white. The number of the licence must also be painted on the bows (e). This section also regulates the flags which these boats must carry. The master is liable for a breach of these regulations to a penalty not exceeding 207. By sect. 347, when any qualified pilot is carried off in a boat or ship not in the pilotage service, he must, subject to a penalty not exceeding 507., exhibit the prescribed flag, in order to show that the boat or ship has a qualified pilot on board. By sect. 348, if any boat or ship, not having a licensed pilot on board, displays a flag such as a pilot boat is required to carry, a penalty not exceeding 507. is incurred, to be recovered from the owner or master of the boat. With respect to the compulsory employment of pilots (ƒ), the (d) A pilot who has been called upon under this section to deliver up his licence cannot set up as an excuse that the pilotage authority has acted in an arbitrary or capricious way. Henry v. Newcastle Trinity House Board, 8 E, & B. 723. (e) The regulations of the Trinity House of Deptford Strond require in addition that the number of each pilot boat licensed by it should be marked on the mainsail or trysail. The Board of Trade have, under the powers given them by the 3rd section of the M. S. Act, 1873, exempted pilot boats from such of the provisions of that section as require the name to be marked on the bows, and the name of the port of registry to be marked on the stern, and a scale of feet to be marked on the stem and stern. (f) As to the liability of the owners in cases where the pilot is employed by compulsion of law, see infra, p. 281. vision as to Merchant Shipping Act, 1854, provides, by sect. 353, that subject to any alteration to be made by any pilotage authority in pursuance of the powers already noticed (g), the employment of pilots is to continue to be compulsory in all districts in which the same was by law compulsory immediately before the time when that act came into operation (), and all exemptions from compulsory pilotage then existing within these districts are also to continue in force. The master of any unexempted ship General pronavigating within these districts who, after a qualified pilot has districts offered to take charge of the ship or has made a signal for that purpose, either himself pilots the ship without possessing a pilotage certificate (i) enabling him so to do, or employs or continues to employ an unqualified person to pilot her, and every 1854. master of any exempted ship navigating within these districts. who, after a qualified pilot has offered to take charge of the ship, or has made a signal for that purpose, employs or continues to employ an unqualified pilot to pilot her, incurs for every offence a penalty of double the amount of pilotage demandable for the conduct of the ship (j). (g) See supra, p. 251. (h) The act came into operation on the 1st of May, 1855. See the M. S. Act, 1854, s. 3. (3) See the M. S. Act, 1854, ss. 340, 342, 355, and post, pp. 265, 266. The M. S. Act, 1854, s. 353. See also ss. 58 and 59 of the 6 Geo. 4, c. 125 (Appendix, p. xii), the provisions of which have been held, in the Court of Admiralty, to be still in force; The Killarney, Lush. 427; The Earl of Auckland, Lush. 387; The Hanna, L. R., 1 A. & E. 283; The Hankow, 4 P.D. 197. A similar provision to that mentioned in the text is contained in s. 70 of the last-mentioned statute, and under that section it was held that the prohibition did not preclude the master from applying to his vessel any moving power which he might select. Thus, he was entitled to use another vessel, or boats, or a steam tug for this purpose; and if this could not be done without necessarily devolving upon those who applied the power the selection of the course, and a certain portion, or indeed all the charge and conduct of the vessel in that course, still, if the bona fide object of the employment was the motive power, the person so employed was not a pilot, and was not within the meaning of the act. Beilby v. Scott, 7 M. & W. 93. It pilot on board. Mackie v. Landon, 6 where pilotage compulsory before the Merchant Shipping Act, Passenger steamers ply ing on the coasts of the United King- Channel Foreign vessels. EXEMPTIONS FROM COMPUL- (GENERAL). By sect. 354, the master of every ship carrying passengers between any place situate in the United Kingdom, or the islands of Guernsey, Jersey, Sark, Alderney and Man, and any other place so situate, when navigating upon any waters situate within the limits of any district for which pilots are licensed by any pilotage authority, must (unless he or his mate have a pilotage certificate granted either by a pilotage authority under the 340th section of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1854, or by the Board of Trade under the 342nd section or the 355th section of the same act) employ a qualified pilot to pilot the ship; and if he fails to do so he is liable to a penalty not exceeding 1007. (i). In addition to these general enactments special provisions are contained in the Merchant Shipping Act, 1854, with respect to compulsory pilotage within the pilotage districts of the Trinity House of Deptford Strond. These will be noticed in a later part of the Chapter. Foreign ships are within these enactments of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1854, relating to compulsory pilotage (k). A statute imposing upon all inward-bound vessels, in general terms, an obligation to take a pilot at a station beyond three miles from the British shore, is binding upon foreign ships (7). We have seen that sect. 353 of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1854, preserves, subject to any alterations to be made by pilotage authorities under the provisions of that act, the exemptions from compulsory pilotage which existed when it was passed. According to the construction which has been put upon this provision by the decided cases, not only are the numerous local exemptions which were at the coming into operation of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1854, in existence within the several pilotage districts within the United Kingdom, either under charters, local statutes, or orders in council, still in force (m), but so are also the (i) See The Temora, Lush. 17; The Beta, Br. & L. 328. In Ireland this section has been held to apply to a steamer carrying passengers between two places within the limits of the port of Dublin. The Dublin Port and Harbour Board v. Shannon, L. R., Irish, 7 C.P.116. The words "Home trade passenger ships" in the marginal note to the section are misleading. (See the M. S. Act, 1854, s. 21.) (k) See post, p. 286, and the M. S. Act, 1854, ss. 376-384. Foreign ships, within British jurisdiction, are now subject to the statutory regulations (1) The Annapolis, Lush. 295. |