Laws of the United States RELATING TO Ta' I Navigation and the Merchant Marine. Part II of the Report of the Commissioner of Navigation 70247 WASHINGTON: GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE. Laws of the United States Relating to Navigation and the Merchant Marine. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE AND LABOR, BUREAU OF NAVIGATION, Washington, D. C., July 1, 1903. SIR: The edition of the Navigation Laws issued in 1899 has been exhausted. During the four years which have elapsed since its publication Congress has made many changes in the statutes comprised in the volume. Especially the act approved February 14, 1903, to establish the Department of Commerce and Labor, has transferred to that Department from the Treasury Department the branches of government principally employed in the administration of the laws relating to navigation and merchant shipping. By section 10 of that act: "All duties, power, authority and jurisdiction, whether supervisory, appellate or otherwise, now imposed or conferred upon the Secretary of the Treasury by acts of Congress relating to merchant vessels or yachts, their measurement, numbers, names, registers, enrollments, licenses, commissions, records, mortgages, bills of sale, transfers, entry, clearance, movements and transportation of their cargoes and ¦ passengers, owners, officers, seamen, passengers, fees, inspection, equipment for the better security of life, and by acts of Congress relating to tonnage tax, boilers on steam vessels, the carrying of inflammable, explosive or dangerous cargo on vessels, the use of petroleum or other similar substances to produce motive power, and relating to the remission or refund of fines, penalties, forfeitures, exactions or charges incurred for violating any provision of law relating to vessels or seamen or to informer's shares of such fines, and by acts of Congress relating to the Commissioner and Bureau of Navigation, shipping commissioners, their officers and employees, Steamboat-Inspection Service and any of the officials thereof," have been transferred to and imposed and conferred upon the Secretary of Commerce and Labor. By section 7 of that act jurisdiction, supervision, and control by the Department of the Treasury over the fur-seal, salmon, and other fisheries of Alaska and over the immigration of aliens into the United States have been transferred and vested in the Department of Commerce and Labor, and authority, power, and jurisdiction exercised by the Secretary of the Treasury by virtue of any law in relation to the exclusion from and the residence within the United States of Chinese and persons of Chinese descent have been transferred to and conferred upon the Secretary of Commerce and Labor, and the authority, power, and jurisdiction in relation thereto vested by law or treaty in the collectors of customs and the collectors of internal revenue, have been conferred upon and vested in such officers under the control of the Commissioner-General of Immigration, as the Secretary of Commerce and Labor may designate. These sections involve many and important changes in the relations of collectors and other officers of the customs to the Treasury Department and amend many sections of the Revised Statutes and subsequent acts of Congress. In some cases the transfer of duties from the Secretary of the Treasury to the Secretary of Commerce and Labor is not explicit, and in such instances the language of the statute before July 1, 1903, has been retained, with a marginal reference to the act of February 14, 1903, to indicate that the readjustment of duties is yet to be determined. As in the editions of 1895 and 1899, the effort has been made to include in this volume only laws actually in force. Where sections of the Revised Statutes or other laws have been specifically repealed or amended by subsequent legislation, the repealed portions of the law are omitted and the present, not the original, reading of amended sections is adopted. In instances where the effect of repealing or amendatory acts upon previous legislation is not clear and specific both original and repealing or amendatory statutes have been incorporated or indicated. The effort further has been made to confine the law included in this volume to the navigation law, meaning by that term the law relating to vessels, with which owners, masters and agents should be acquainted. The line between this law and the customs law is not always clearly defined. The laws directly relating to duties on imports and to invoices are not included in this volume, while those relating to entry, clearance, manifests, and transportation by water have been comprised within its limits. The scheme of arrangement will appear from the Table of Contents. The law has been divided into large divisions by subjects, called parts, while these parts have been subdivided into headed paragraphs. For further convenience of reference is published a Table of Laws, giving the sections of the Revised Statutes and subsequent laws which have been included in this compilation, the date of enactment and amendment, together with the page of this compilation on which they may be found. The Table of Laws may be found at the end of the volume, together with the usual Alphabetical Index. A marginal ref erence gives the number of the section of the Revised Statutes included in each paragraph, or the date and section of the act, if enacted subsequent to the Revised Statutes, with the date of amendatory acts which have been incorporated, if practicable, in the paragraph. Where reference is made in a paragraph to a title or chapter of the Revised Statutes, the numbers of the sections comprised in such title or chapter have been printed in brackets. Reference to the Table of Laws at the end of the volume will show which of those sections have been included in this volume as pertinent or in force, and will also show the page where they may be found. Fees payable by the masters and owners of vessels of the United States were in most instances abolished in 1886 and 1890, and accordingly the statutes imposing such fees are not retained in this compilation, though they furnish a basis on which officers are compensated from the Treasury for services. Respectfully, Hon. GEORGE B. CORTELYOU, EUGENE TYLER CHAMBERLAIN, Commissioner. Secretary of Commerce and Labor. |