§ Not amended (in the Standing Committee) considered.
§ Mr. SpeakerThe new Clause (Repeal of s. 461 of Merchant Shipping Act, 1894), which stands on the Order Paper in the name of the hon. Member for Rotherhithe (Mr. Benjamin Smith) is not in order.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the Third time."
§ 7.2 p.m.
§ Sir Hugh SeelyDuring the Second Reading Debate I said that this Bill was brought forward on the "La Crescenta" 96 case. I have heard that people have thought that I meant by that that if this Bill had been in operation the persons involved in the "La Crescenta" case would have been found guilty, and therefore they were fortunate to avoid the result of their action because of the hiatus in the law. Of course it was not so, because even under this Bill the same thing applies, that a ship has to be proved to be overloaded before the persons in charge can be found guilty, and in the "La Crescenta" case it was stated by the judge that the reason it failed was that it was not proved that the ship was overloaded. That case, therefore, was outside this hiatus, and what is now being remedied is really putting back to the 1894 Act what was done by the 1932 Act. I felt I should like to say that, because any feeling that may have arisen that anything I said assumed that if this Bill had been in operation the result of that case would have been different, is unfounded. I knew at the time that the case failed because the judge held there was no evidence of overloading.