rate of 13s. 6d. per ton, and to load February; the usual Chamber of Shipping Welsh Charter will be used. Steamer 150,000 cu. ft. Alexandria-London, 11s. 6d. per 60 cu. ft. ppt. This is a steamer of about 150,000 cu. ft. capacity, fixed from Alexandria with cotton seed and, perhaps, in addition, grain, oil seeds, etc., at 11s. 6d. per 60 cu. ft., for prompt loading. 3,000 tons Huelva-Charlestown or Savannah, 11s., Tinto terms Decr.-Jany. A steamer has been chartered to carry about 3,000 tons of ore at 11s., for December or January loading, "Tinto " terms. Tinto terms are the terms of charter on which ore from the Tinto mines is shipped. There is address commission and a brokerage to charterers, and in addition a Spanish tax. 7,500 Bombay-Karachi-United Kingdom-Continent, 28s. on dw. 20th Jany.-15th Feby. This steamer has to load between 20th January and 15th February, a cargo of mixed merchandise (cotton, seeds, grain, kernels, etc.), at a rate of 28s. per ton on her deadweight tonnage, irrespective of the cargo loaded. If fixed at a rate per scale ton, this would mean a rate on the scale tons for different cargoes according to bulk, the scale tons being less than 20 cwt. to the ton. 30,000 Qrs. Baltimore-Rotterdam, 14 c. 1-15th Jany. The freight is at 14 cents per 100 lb. wheat or heavy grain. Proportionate rates will be paid on any lighter grains shipped. 15,000 brls. Apples, Halifax-United Kingdom, 70 c. per brl. ppt. This is not a very common tramp cargo, as it is usually shipped by liners in parcels. The steamer is to be paid freight at 70 cents per barrel. CHAPTER XVII MASTER AND SEAMEN THE law relating to master and crew is of importance to owners, and therefore to shipbrokers. General. Under the Merchant Shipping Act, 1894, Section 742, the term master" includes every person (except a pilot) having command or charge of any ship. With regard to the possession of a certificate Section 92, as amended by the Merchant Shipping Act, 1906, Sections 56 and 85, enacts (1) Every British foreign-going ship and every British home trade passenger ship when going to sea from any place in the United Kingdom, and every foreign steamship carrying passengers between places in the United Kingdom, shall be provided with officers duly certificated under this Act according to the following scale (a) In any case with a duly certificated master. (b) If the ship is of one hundred tons burden or upwards with at least one officer besides the master holding a certificate not lower than that of (i) Mate in the case of a home trade passenger ship; (ii) second mate in the case of a foreign-going sailing ship of not more than two hundred tons burden; and (iii) only mate in the case of any other foreign-going ship. (c) If the ship is a foreign-going ship and carries more than one mate with at least the first and second mate duly certificated: (d) If the ship is a foreign-going steam-ship of one hundred nominal horsepower or upwards, with at least two engineers, one of whom shall be a firstclass and the other a first-class or second-class engineer duly certificated: (e) If the ship is a foreign-going steam-ship of less than one hundred nominal horse-power or a sea-going home-trade passenger steam-ship, with at least one engineer who is a first-class or second-class duly certificated. (3) An officer shall not be deemed duly certificated within the meaning of this section, unless he is the holder for the time being of a valid certificate of competency under this Act of a grade appropriate to his station in the ship, or of a higher grade. For convenience the provisions of this section with regard to other officers have also been stated. Under the Merchant Shipping Act, 1894, Section 742, “foreigngoing ship" includes every ship employed in trading or going between some place or places in the United Kingdom and some place or places situate beyond the following limits-the coasts of the United Kingdom, the Channel Islands, and Isle of Man, and the Continent of Europe between the River Elbe and Brest inclusive, while "home-trade ship" includes vessels employed in trading or going within these limits. Section 93 contains a list of grades of certificates of competency as follows Master of a foreign-going ship; First mate of a foreign-going ship; Second-class engineer. That section proceeds- (2) A certificate of competency for a foreign-going ship shall be deemed to be of a higher grade than the corresponding certificate for a home-trade passenger ship . . Duties and Authority. It will be obvious from a perusal of these provisions that it is practically entirely with certificated masters that we are concerned. At the same time, the duties and rights and authority of a master depend not on the possession of a certificate, but on the fact that he is master, and that he is put in that position by the owner of the ship. The question of the nature and extent of a master's duties has three aspects. First of all, in a question between the shipowner and a third party, if the master has entered into some transaction with the third party in the scope of his duty to his employer, then he has implied authority and his acts bind his employer. The great importance of this will appear shortly. In the second place in a question between the master and his employer, if the master fails in his duty to his employer, he may be liable in damages. Thirdly, certain duties are laid upon the master by statute, and if he fails in any of these he may be liable to a fine. In any discussion of the position of a master the word "duty is liable to bear any one of these three meanings. From a practical point of view, the first is by far the most important, as will appear from a perusal of the chapter on bills of lading, but the other two ought also to be kept in view. His duties may be classed roughly under four heads, and it is to be observed that a considerable number of these duties devolve upon the master only in the absence of some other person specifically charged with them. If, then, the master takes upon himself duties which really belong to another, he is acting outside his authority, and persons transacting business with him may find that he has no power in law to bind his employers to pay money or perform a contract. The four heads under which his various duties may be grouped are (1) Care of vessel and of those on board. (2) The obtaining of freights. (3) Receiving cargo and signing and delivering bills of lading and looking after cargo. (4) Engaging and paying the crew. (1) Care of Vessel and of THOSE ON BOARD. While a vessel is in her home port, the owner or managers may naturally be expected to give any orders which may be necessary for the maintenance of the ship in good repair, and the master has no authority to bind his owners to pay for unusual repairs or supplies in such circumstances, but in a foreign port the master may have greater powers. Formerly these were very wide for obvious reasons. Emergencies might arise which called for immediate action, and communication with owners was slow and uncertain. With the increasing range of the telegraph and cable, however, the reason for this delegation of authority to the master has largely disappeared, and with it the authority itself. At the same time, as these powers do still exist in appropriate circumstances, it is necessary to give a brief account of them. In the first place, as indicated above, there must be difficulty in communicating with the owners, and there must be no agent at the port empowered to act for them. A master ordering extraordinary repairs or pledging his owners' credit without communicating with them when he might do so, does not bind them. Secondly, assuming the impossibility of communicating with the owners, and the absence of an agent, the repairs or supplies ordered or the expenditure incurred must be necessary. This does not mean that the ship could not proceed on her voyage without them, but merely that they are such things as the owner of the vessel, as a prudent man, would have ordered, had he been present at the time they were ordered, as being fit and proper for the service on which the vessel was engaged. Money for dock dues is a necessary expenditure in the sense that a vessel cannot proceed on her voyage until it is paid. But if, for example, a plate is so badly damaged that it must be repaired before sailing and the master takes advantage of the opportunity to have other faulty plates repaired at the same time, then, if the second repair is one which a prudent owner would have ordered, the money paid for it is equally an expenditure for necessaries. In addition to this authority to pledge his owners' credit for necessaries, the master has still greater powers. These are to hypothecate the ship and freight by a bond of bottomry, and the cargo by a bond of respondentia, to sell the cargo and to sell the ship. Bottomry and respondentia are contracts by which ship and freight in the former and cargo in the latter are made security for a loan. If the security is lost, the lender has no recourse against the borrower, and, moreover, if in the course of the voyage, the master borrows further sums in the same way, the last bond takes precedence of the previous ones. Other claims such as that of the crew for their wages may also come before the bottomry bond. For these reasons, and since the very fact of borrowing on bottomry usually indicates financial weakness, the transaction is a speculative one and the rate of interest is high. To justify any of these extreme measures at the present time would be exceedingly difficult. The necessity must be such that to refrain from acting would lead to severe loss. The reason for insisting on this rigorous limitation of the authority of the master lies not only in the loss which the adoption of one of these extreme measures must entail on the owners, but also in the prejudice which may be suffered by other parties such as mortgagees or other lenders on security of freight or cargo. It is perhaps a little unfortunate that the same word "necessity" |