RUM-RUNNING BOATS

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 103, 25 January 1933, Page 9

RUM-RUNNING BOATS

American Right of Seizure COURT’S RULING ON LIMIT Washington, Jan. 23. The Supreme Court ruled to-day that British or Canadian rum-running vessels cannot legally be boarded, searched, or seized by United States coastguardsmen when they are more than an hour’s sailing distance from the shore. The decision was handed down in a case brought by Frank Cook, a Canadian. Unusual interest was attached to it because of the frequent friction from the search and seizure of Canadian and British vessels by coastguardsmen on the look-out for rumrunners. The court held that the treaty with Britain in 1924 which authorised the boarding of British vessels suspected of liquor smuggling, if found within an hour’s sailing of the United .States shores, bad superseded the confllctive provisions of the Tariff Act of 1930, under which the United States had contended that coastguardsmen were authorised to board British vessels within four leagues of the coast.

The ruling was handed down in a ease which had brought a protest from Canada, namely, the seizure of the vessel Mazeltov, Ilf miles off the Massachusetts coast. The vessel had a speed of only eight to nine knots an hour. '