§ Order for Second Reading read.
§ The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of TRADE (Sir Philip Cunliffe-Lister)I beg to move, "That Bill be now read a Second time."
This is a very short but urgent Bill. All it seeks to do is to give power to the Board of Trade to make reciprocal arrangements with foreign Governments and the Dominions where regulations affecting shipping are in force in this country and there are regulations in force in the Dominions or in the foreign country which are substantially the same or equally effective. It introduces no new principle at all. The principle is laid down in the Merchant Shipping Acts. It was found, that in the matter of wireless telegraphy on ships, you might have provisions almost identical and equally effective in a foreign country, but there was no power to recognise their equivalence and accept them. The French Government were enforcing certain wireless regulations which do not differ in their general effect from ours but which are not in terms identical. It is obviously in the interests of chipping that an arrangement should be made, but there is no statutory power to enter into such an agreement. We are seeking by this Bill the power to make an agreement of that kind. Let me make it plain that we do not seek to vary in any way the Regulations we apply to our own shipping. That is a matter for which we legislate from time to time. It merely means that where we have laid down provisions, we shall be in a position to make mutual arrangements with foreign countries or with our Dominions, so that for the purpose of entering into each other's ports our provisions will hold good in their ports, and their provisions will hold good in ours. That is all the Bill seeks to do, and the House will agree it is, obviously, a necessary and businesslike arrangement; and, in view of the fact that the French Regulations have been suspended to enable us to make statutory arrangements, I hope the House will allow the Bill to be read a Second time.
§ Question put, and agreed to.
1070§ Bill read a Second time, and committed to a Standing Committee.