WHALING IN ROSS SEA

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 32, 1 November 1929, Page 12

WHALING IN ROSS SEA

NEW REGULATIONS GAZETTED LICENSING PROVISIONS Special interest attaches to the amending regulations gazetted this week governing whaling in the Ross dependency, and revoking those of 1926. By an Imperial Order-in-Council of July 30, 1923, the coasts of the Ross Sea, with the adjacent islands and territories south of a prescribed latitude and between prescribed longitudes east and west of Greenwich, were declared a British settlement within the meaning of the British Settlements Act, ISB7, and named the Ross Dependency. The Governor-General of New Zealand is Governor of the Ross Dependency and is vested with its administration. When the dependency was vested in the control of New Zealand in 1923, the Rosshavet Whaling Company had already obtained a license from the British Government for 21 years, and control of this license was handed over to the Dominion. The new regulations provide the necessary machinery for the issuing by the Governor-General of licenses for whaling in the dependency. New License Conditions. The Fisheries Amendment Act, 1912, is not to be applicable to the dependency and the new regulations governing licenses include the following: — It shall be unlawful for any person to engage in whaling in the Dependency without a license. The fee payable in respect of every license issued as hereinbefore provided shall be £2OO for every year or part of a year computed from the 30th day of September in respect of which the license is granted, and in addition to such annual fee there may be made payable such royalty or other payments as the Governor may in any case think fit to require. Any person engaged in whaling without a license commits an offence, and is liable to a fine not exceeding £lOOO for each separate day on which an offence against this regulation is proved to be committed. The owner or master of any vessel engaged in whaling operations pursuant to any license issued under these regulations, and failing to comply with all or any of the provisions contained in the license, commits an offence, and is liable to a fine not exceeding £lOO for each separate day on which an offence against this is proved to be committed. Arrest of Vessels. Any officer before whom an information is laid for an offence against these regulations alleged to be committed in respect of any vessel may issue his warrant authorising any person named therein to arrest and detain the said vessel, and to keep the same under safe arrest until the matter of such information shall have been finally determined, and until any fine inflicted upon conviction thereunder shall have been paid or satisfied or until the amount of the maximum fine that may be inflicted for the offence alleged in such information has been deposited with an officer, and such ship may be so arrested and detained at any time thereafter and either before or subsequently to the conviction of any person for any offence alleged in such information. Licensed and Unlicensed Whalers. The Rosshavet Company, which employs the factory ships Sir James Clark Ross , and C. A. Larsen and ten chasers, is now operating in the Ross Sea for the seventh successive season. A license for 21 years in terms of the new regulations has been granted to the Southern Whaling Company, Ltd., of Liverpool, whose factory ship, Southern Princess, and five chasers left Port Chalmers on Wednesday for the Ross Sea. On the other hand, the Kosmos and her seven chasers, which left Wellington three weeks ago for the Ross Sea, and the N. T. Neilson-Alonso and five chasers, now on their third voyage from Hobart to the Antarctic, are unlicensed. They claim the right to operate anywhere in the Ross Sea and adjacent waters as long as they keep outside the territorial limit of three miles from any land in the Ross Dependency, and despite the apparent anomaly of licensing whalers they are within their rights. The Governor-General usually delegates an officer to act as administrator in the Ross Sea, nnd this year Captain W. Stuart, of the Marine Department, is acting in that capacity on board the C. A. Larsen. It is interesting to note that this year for the first time the Norwegian Government has sent a naval officer to the Ross Sea on board the Sir James Clark Ross to act as inspector of whalers and see that certain Norwegian regulations are strictly observed by all the whalers. As far as he is concerned, the whalers are Norwegian “territory” and he has the legal right to board any of them on the high seas and full authority to act for his Government in regard to any contravention of the regulations.

In some respects the situation is Gilbertian, since the New Zealand Government’s regulations cannot be enforced in respect to any foreign ship as long as she keeps outside territorial limits, and this the factory ships and their chasers are well able nnd content to do. For some time past the New Zealand Government has been pressing for an international agreement to regulate whaling operations, and signs are not wanting that the Norwegian Government will ultimately agree to such a proposal.