Laws Relating to Seamen

LAWS RELATING TO SEAMEN. For legislative pur poses seamen may be divided into three classes—seamen in the royal navy, merchant seamen, and fishermen.

Seamen in the Royal Navy.

It is still lawful to impress men for the naval service (see IMPRESSMENT), subject to certain exemptions (13 Geo. II. c. 17, 1740). Among persons exempt are seamen in the merchant service. In cases of emergency officers and men of the coastguard and revenue cruisers, seamen riggers and pensioners may be required to serve in the navy (Naval Volunteers Act 1853). There appears to be no other instance (now that balloting for the militia is suspended) where a subject may be forced into the service of the Crown against his will. The navy is, however, at the present day wholly recruited by voluntary enlistment (see the Naval Enlistment Acts, 1835 to 1884). Special advantages are afforded by the Merchant Shipping Act 1894 to merchant seamen enlisting in the navy. They are enabled to leave their ship without punishment or forfeiture in order to join the naval service. The discipline of the navy is, unlike that of the army, for which an annual act is necessary, regulated by a permanent Statute, that now in force being the Naval Discipline Act 1866 amended by the Act of 1884. (See NAVY.) Merchant Seamen.—Most of the acts dealing with this sub ject, commencing with 8 Eliz. c. 13, were repealed in 1854 and have since been consolidated and extended by the Merchant Shipping Acts 1894, 1906, 1921 and 1925. The act of 1894 defines a seaman as "every person (except masters, pilots, and appren tices duly indentured and registered) employed or engaged in any capacity on board any ship." The engagement and discharge of seamen must take place before a superintendent only when the employment is on a foreign-going ship. If the ship is a home-trade ship, the signing on and discharge take place before a superin tendent only if the master so desire. But if the signing on does not take place before a superintendent, the master must cause the agreement to be read and explained to the seaman, and the seaman must sign it in the presence of a witness; copies of all such agree ments must be transmitted to the Board of Trade. A copy of

every agreement with the crew must be posted in some part of the ship accessible to the crew. Before a seaman can be discharged at any place abroad, the master must obtain the sanction, endorsed on the agreement with the crew, of the like officials or, in their ab sence, of merchants there resident. A seaman discharged in a for eign country is entitled to be provided with adequate employment on some other British ship bound to the port in His Majesty's dominions at which he was originally shipped, or to a port in Great Britain agreed to by the seaman, or to be furnished with the means of returning to such port or of a passage home. If his ship is wrecked or lost, the seaman is entitled by the Act of 1925 to two months' wages from the date of the termination of his services.

At common law there was no obligation of the owner to provide a seaworthy ship, but by the act of 1876, now superseded by the act of 1894, part v., every person who sends or attempts to send, or is party to sending or attempting to send, a British ship to sea in such unseaworthy state that the life of any person is likely to be thereby endangered is guilty of a misdemeanour, unless he proves that he used all reasonable means to ensure her being sent to sea in a seaworthy state, or that her going to sea in such unsea worthy state was under the circumstances reasonable and justifi able. By the Act of 1906 many of the provisions as to seaworth iness were applied to foreign ships, and they may be detained in a proper case. A return of certain particulars, such as lists of crews and of distressed seamen sent home from abroad, reports on discharge, births and deaths at sea, must be made to the regis trar-general of shipping and seamen, an officer of the Board of Trade. The seaman is privileged in the matter of wills (see WILL), and is exempt from serving in the militia (42 Geo. III. c. 9o, s. 43). There are special enactments in favour of Lascars and foreign seamen on British ships, e.g., s. 125 of the Act of 1894.