INSPECTION OF VESSELS

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20034, 5 September 1939, Page 4

INSPECTION OF VESSELS

BRITISH SAFEGUARDS ADMIRALTY CONDITT ONS (British Official Wireless.) Rood. 9 tun. RUGBY, Sept. 4. The Admiralty announces that all British merchant vessels are liable to examination by the British naval contraband and control service. British ships coming under any of the following categories _ will not normally be detained on interception longer than is necessary to establish their identity, namely:— (1) Ships on Government charter. (2) Ships bound direct for British' or Allied ports and which will discharge all their cargo and passengers in such port. (3) Ships whose last port of call was British or Allied and which have a special war clearance from it. Other British ships may, on interception on certain routes, be required to pul into a contraband control base for more detailed examination.

The Royal Navy is fully mobilised and is at its war stations in full strength, supplimented by a number of fully commissioned and armed merchant ships as auxiliary cruisers. The Admiralty, profiting by past experience, has already taken certain measures which were only slowly developed during the last war. Among these is the reintroduction of the convoy system for merchant shipping to assist the merchant navy in its vital duty of ensuring the overseas traffic of the British commonwealth and its Allies.