MR. GIBSON BOWLES (Lynn Regis)I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he has suspended for three months the master's certificate of Mr. E. R. Beveridge, master of the ship "J. V. Troop," on the ground that Mr. Beveridge was fined £5 by the Liverpool city justices for an assault upon a seaman; whether the Board of Trade habitually exercises the power given to it by Section 469 of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1894, by sitting as a court of review upon every case decided by a, court of law in which any master, mate, or engineer has been convicted of any Offence; whether, in considering any conviction for any offence committed by a master, mate, or engineer, the Board of Trade takes into 1297 account, or attaches any importance to, the question whether the offence was such as to show professional incompetency or inadequacy in the capacity of master, mate, or engineer; on what grounds the Board added to this penalty the far more serious punishment of a suspension of Captain Beveridge's certificate and a consequent deprivation of his means of livelihood for three months, and thereby punished him a second time for the same offence; whether he or any member of the Board was present at the proceedings at Liverpool; and, if not, upon what report of those proceedings lie acted; whether he called upon captain Beveridge for any explanation or defence before imposing upon him this additional punishment, and whether Captain Beveridge was in any way heard in his own defence by the Board of Trade before that second penalty was imposed whether the proceedings of the Board of Trade, in considering this matter and the infliction of this punishment, were in any sense public or altogether private; and whether he will lay upon the Table of the House the report of the proceedings of the court and any other documents which were considered by the Board of Trade before arriving at the conclusion to suspend Mr. Beveridge's certificate?
§ THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (MR. RITCHIE, Croydon)In pursuance of their powers, the Board of Trade have suspended the certificate of Mr. E. R. Beveridge, of the ship "J. V. Troop," for three months, upon his conviction at Liverpool for a brutal assault upon a member of his crew. When an officer is convicted of such an offence, it is a rule of the Department to deal with his certificate. The Department did not review the decision of the court or the evidence upon conviction by a court of competent jurisdiction. In. a cease which seriously affected the defendant's character as a shipmaster, the Board of Trade were bound to take action.
MR. GIBSON BOWLES (Lynn Regis)Am I to understand that, without hearing the captain in his own defence, the right honourable Gentleman has suspended him on an exparte statement?