II.8561 AMENDMENTS TO NAVIGATION LAWS. TREASURY DEPARTMENT, BUREAU OF NAVIGATION, Washington, D. C., December 28, 1896. To collectors of customs and others: The following amendments to the laws relating to navigation and the merchant marine have been made by Congress since the issue of the volume containing those laws in 1895. Several minor omissions in the volume have been supplied. This document may be cut and the amendments inserted at the proper page, as indicated. The volume will then state the law as it exists on December 31, 1896. The following amendments to the laws relating to navigation and the merchant marine have been made by Congress since January 1, 1897. This document may be cut and the amendments inserted at the proper page, as indicated, in the Navigation Laws for 1895. With these amendments and those issued December 28, 1896, the volume will state the law as it exists March 10, 1897. The following changes in the law are made by the Act. approved March 3, 1897, entitled "An Act to amend the laws relating to navigation." That Act will take effect on July 1, 1897, and the following changes in the law all go into effect on that date. Laws of the United States Relating to Navigation and the Merchant Marine. TREASURY DEPARTMENT, BUREAU OF NAVIGATION, Washington, D. C., July 1, 1895. SIR: The transaction of the business of this Bureau and of public offices directly or indirectly connected with it, and the convenience of the shipping interests of the United States, have rendered necessary for some time a compilation of the laws of the United States relating to navigation and the merchant marine. Such a compilation has also seemed desirable for reference by Congress in the consideration of further legislation bearing upon the subject. The effort has been made to include in this volume only laws actually in force. Where sections of the Revised Statutes or other laws have been specifically repealed or amended by subsequent legislation the repealed portions of the law are omitted and the present, not the original, reading of amended sections is adopted. In the numerous instances where the effect of repealing or amendatory statutes upon previous legislation is not clear and specific both original and repealing or amendatory legislation have been incorporated. The effort further has been made to confine the law included in this volume to the navigation law, meaning by that term the law relating to vessels. The line between this law and the customs law is not always clearly defined. The laws directly relating to duties on imports and to invoices are not included in this volume, while those relating to entry, clearance, and transportation by water have been comprised within its limits. The scheme of arrangement will appear from the Table of Contents. The law has been divided into large divisions by subjects, called parts, while these parts have been subdivided into headed paragraphs. Experience has suggested this method of arrangement as the one best suited for ready reference, and as best adapted for bringing under one head and subhead various and widely scattered provisions of law relating to one subject. It is the method adopted in the recent consolidation of British laws into the Merchant Shipping Act of 1894. For further convenience of reference is published a Table of Laws, giving the sections of the Revised Statutes and subsequent laws which have been included in this compilation, the date of enactment and amendment, together with the paragraph and page of this compilation in which they may be found. The Table of Laws may be found at the end of the volume, together with the usual Alphabetical Index. A marginal reference gives the number of the section of the Revised Statutes included in each paragraph, or the date and section of the act, if enacted subsequent to the Revised Statutes, with the date of amendatory acts which have been incorporated in the paragraph. Where reference is made in a paragraph to a title or chapter of the Revised Statutes, the number of the sections comprised in such title or chapter has been printed in brackets. Reference to the Table of Laws at the end of the volume will show which of those sections have been included in this volume as pertinent and in force, and will also show the page and paragraph where they may be found. Fees payable by the masters and owners of vessels of the United States were in most instances abolished in 1886 and 1890, and, accordingly the statutes imposing such fees are not retained in this compilation, though they furnish the basis on which officers are compensated from the Treasury for services. The fees still payable by owners and masters may be found at the end of this volume. Respectfully, yours, EUGENE TYLER CHAMBERLAIN, Hon. J. G. CARLISLE, Secretary of the Treasury. Commissioner |