Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 3).djvu/522

 cancelled or suspended; and, inasmuch as he is on his trial, he may if he pleases volunteer a statement, but cannot be examined. Nor has the court any power over the Shipowner, who, however culpable, is altogether beyond its jurisdiction.

The Commissioners recommended that these inquiries, made purely in the public interest with a view to the preservation of human life, should be conducted in such a manner as would best disclose the nature and cause of the disaster, whether, for instance, this was owing to the faulty construction of the vessel, to bad stowage, to circumstances connected with the navigation, to the incompetency of officers, or to the neglect and misconduct of the master or crew.

With this object in view, they recommended that the preliminary inquiry now made by the receiver of wrecks should be limited in the first place to such a narrative statement as would enable the Board of Trade, with the aid of their legal advisers, to decide on the propriety of an official inquiry, and that, if such were found necessary, there should be a complete severance between that inquiry and any proceedings of a penal character, power being reserved to the Board of Trade to prosecute the Shipowner or to proceed criminally against the master, mate, or any member of the crew whose neglect of duty may have occasioned the disaster. They further suggest that the 11th Section of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1871, "should be amended and be made expressly to extend to the master of the vessel; for it is very important to avoid any doubt that the master who, without justifiable excuse, leaves port with his vessel