§ Sir W. WomersleyI beg to move, in page 6, line 14, at the end, to insert:
() In this Act the following expressions have the meanings hereby respectively assigned to them, that is to say—harbour" means any harbour, whether natural or artificial, and any port, dock, haven, estuary, tidal or other river, canal or inland navigation to which sea-going ships have access;salvage" means the preservation or recovery of vessels wrecked, stranded or in distress, or their cargo or apparel, or the recovery of any other property from the water and includes the removal of wrecks, and "salvage operations" and "salvage purposes" shall be construed accordingly;tidal water "means any part of the sea, and any part of a river within the ebb and flow of the tide at ordinary spring tides and not being a harbour.
§ This Amendent contains a definition of harbour and tidal water. That is to meet the wishes of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Oxford University (Petty Officer Herbert), who suggested that, instead of referring to another Act, we should reprint the definition in the Bill. This Amendment repeats the definition in the Merchant Shipping Act, 1894, thereby saving my hon. and gallant Friend and a great many other people the trouble of looking up the Merchant Shipping Act. I have inserted the definition of salvage so that I can deal a little later with salvage workers. It will clear the air as to what their position really is.
Petty Officer HerbertI thank my right hon. Friend very much for seeing the light as much as he has done. But this raises a question of the order of procedure. I now hope that my new Clause, which is for the same purpose of tidying up the definitions, will be accepted.
§ The Deputy-ChairmanThe hon. and gallant Member had better wait until his new Clause is called.
§ Amendment agreed to.
§ Clause 8, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.