§ Considered in Committee.
§ (In the Committee.)
§ [Mr. JEFFREYS (Hampshire, N.) in the Chair.]
§ (11.8.) GENERAL LAURIE (Pembroke, Haverfordwest)said there were 70,000 fishermen on the coast of Canada, and the Admiralty would be debarred from obtaining services of these men if the proviso was retained in the Bill which provided that the men must be actually on the register of a vessel. Canadian fishermen, for example, were paid off as soon as the vessel landed the product of its voyage, and after that they were not registered as on a vessel at all.
§ THE CIVIL LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. PRETYMAN, Suffolk, Woodbridge)said he would briefly explain the object of the Bill. In 1869 the Admiralty was empowered to raise naval volunteers within the United Kingdom, and by the Act of 1896 that power was extended beyond the United Kingdom to seamen in vessels registered in the British Islands. Since that time it had become necessary to raise volunteers, particularly in Newfoundland, and it was found that the limitation to seamen serving on ships registered in the British Islands made that course impossible. The object of the Bill was to remove that disability and to enable the Admiralty to enlist as naval volunteers British subjects in all parts of the world.
Bill reported, without Amendment; read the third time, and passed.