COLONIAL CERTIFICATES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVI, Issue 5364, 25 January 1879, Page 7

COLONIAL CERTIFICATES.

ke Thk law which relMes to certificates of n m. " potency for masers -»nd mates is one to which '* the authorities at the Board o? Trade evid -ntly attach a special imp »rt trice, and in the enforcement of which they have shown much '' activity and determination. The requiremen' lor the possession «>f these certificates ls iu the ciae of foreign going ships is now so ' generally understood and accepted, that no " mas er or officer in this c»unt r y «ould think of offering lus services to an owner, and no ,l owuer would think of employing him, unless the is f«»r r hcoming ; but att-mp.s at an evasion of the law by masters of colonial A ships are not uncommon, and these attempts have b-en matche d and dealt with in a manner which will, no doubt, in time, prevent the r. curreuco of abuses of this natur . Within the pa*t few months prosecutions of e masters of colonial ship 3 for this offence have ' heen succes-fully nude't-keo in England, and 1 our impression of Saturday last contained the report of proce diugt in the po'ic—court at ' Cork, whe e the master a colonial ship was fined £1(1, for taking his ship beyond the limits within which hi-* certificate authore d * him to navigate her. In ibis case the ship belonged tn a port in Dominion of Canada. ) Iu Jumj the m ister signed an agreement with his crew at Waterford for a voyage from : that port, to Hali'ax, in ova Scotia, and » back. The ship cleared from Wnterford, J but, instead of going t-» Halifax she went to Baltimore, in the United Stages The | general law with respect to colonial ccrtitic;»tes is, as our reader.-* may remember, tha*. the certificate is available for the navigation of a culouial bhip from any port iu th- - oolony, or between any port in the United Kingdom an l any port iu the possession to which the ship belongs, but not beyond thosa limits. Toe colonial snipinister, therefore, who was brought up before the Cork bench for taking his ship to a port in the United States when he had cleared for a port in Nova Scotia was appar.-ntly an offender against the law, and may t-iink himself fortunate that lie was only mulcted in a mitigate.! penalty. The p ov»sion infringed in 'his case is contained ir. P.irt JII. of the Merchant Shippiig Act, 1534 By Section 547 of the same it would have been competent for the bgislatiro authority of Canada, if it had disapproved of the Imperial law relatii g to colonial ce« tilicates, or otherwise to ships registered iu the possession, to have obtained i»s repeal, subj *ct to Ihe confirmation by Her Majesty in Council. But this has not yet been dom* ; «-n the contrar., in ISGD, an Imperial Act was passed, with tlie appr- val or the Colonial J.egislaiure, by uhieh eertilicates of compt tency granted on examination in the colony to misters, in'ites, aud engineers, were placed «»n the same for ing as certificates granted iu the United .Kingdom ; an I ll«*r dajesty in Council in iy impose such conditions and make sueh remilations with respect to such certificates, and "to the us-, issue delivery, aud canc-dlatiou theieof, as t-> H«t Majesty may seem fit ; and impose penalties not exceeding £50, f->r the breach of such conditions and regulations." Under the j-tatuce last cited, orders in Council have be. n issued which hive brought til" certificate system at home and iu the colonies iuto harmony, aud c-donial c rtificat»s are now regarded as of equal authority with thoBC issued in the mother country. As the law now stands, however, under the Act of iStiO, the colonial certificate, in order to take rank with the certificate granted by the Board of Tiade iu this country, must be issued under certain regulations set forth in the order in Counc 1. Those regulations relate to the form of the certificate, to the < domicile of the holder, to the ins-rtton of i the name of the possession win nee issued, i and other matters ; and unless these rul-s are complied with the certificate is valueless for the purpose of enabling a colonial shipmaster to take a colonial ship from a port in the United Kingdom to any place outside the < posse-sion tf) which the sh pb< longs. With- i out the certific ite contemplated by the order * iu Council, a colonial shipmaster, mate, or 1 engineer who navigates or assists in navi- | gating a colonial ship from a port in the United Kingdom to a port outside the limits of the culonj* in which the ship is registered, < is, before the law, in the position of a m*n j who has no certificate at all, and if he takes i the ship, oris party to taking her, outside 1 those limits, he incurs a penalty. The ex- ] ; amination on which certificates are granted, i ! whether at h'-rne or in the colonies, is l conducted on stricter principles than for- * merly. The regulation under which those < who take charge of foreign-going ships are * subjected to a test of competency has worked i well, and the effect of the system has been ' iu the main beneficial. The certificate of f comp-tency for master and officers has now I become a necessity in the great carrying trade < of this country. "It is still uudecided, but t sacrcely doubtful," says Mr. Maclachlan in ] his well-known treati&e on the Law of c Merchant Shipping, 11 that the effect of this t provision"—the provi-ion, namely respecting i certificates—"considering how directly it f bears on the proper navigation of the ship, #. will be to render the ship unseaworthy within t the meaning of the policy of insurance if she I proceeds to t-ca from a port of the United c Kingdom with officers of the grades referred t 'o, who have not obtained appropriate d certific ttes of qualification, or whose cert tificafes have been cancelled or suspended and t remain so." If, then, the fact of an un- e certificated shipmaster taking a ship to sea I is, or may be, sufficient to vitiate a policy of s insurance, the importance which must bs a attached by the commercial world to the s requirements of the law as to these certificates g

will be at once appareut, and the of the authorities in seeing that the law relating to I ho proper employment of these docu inents i* enforced will b-i duly appreciated. —MUdfJl* JA/I'itiui'' Rrg'ub r,