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PASSENGER STEAMER COMPLE- MENT. Kingston; Ont, Jan. 28---At: the north of Kingston and along the Ca- nadian side of the St. Lawrence river from here to Brockville, the need of more uniform international marine laws is very much in evidence. Two years. ago, there was a_ reciprocal agreement between the governments of United States and Canada regard- iilg passenger steamer inspection, but, CLEVELAND, JANUARY 3l. 1907. - passengers than Canadian steamers of the same size and class are allowed. Under the reciprocal arrangement, the inspection of "each "country,.16. ace cepted by the other, and therefore the Canadian boats get the short end of the deal. The reciprocal arrangement hits the United States owners of small gaso- line launches who. wish to carry pas- sengers between United States and Canadian ports, and a number of cases No. 5 AID TO SHIPPING. At the session of the National Con- vention for the Extension of Foreign Commerce of the United States at Wash- ington last week, a resolution was adopt- ed recommending the passage by Con- gress of such legislation as will promote the growth of the American merchant marine, but the convention refused to place itself on record in behalf of the ship subsidy bill before Congress. Its resolution recommended liberal compen- ae ey ; THIS EXTRAORDINARY PHOTOGRAPH OF THE PITTSBURG STEAMSH IP CO.'S STEAMER DOUGLAS HOUGHTON WAS TAKEN BY AN AMATEUR WITH A PANORAMIC CAMERA WHILE THt STEAMER WAS AT THE ORE DOCK AT TWO HARBORS. IT WILI. BE OB- SERVED THAT GREAT LIBERTIES WERE TAKEN WITH THE STEAMER'S LONGITUDINAL SECTION BY THE CAMERA. in the carrying out of this agreement, several disadvantages to the marine owners as both sides of the line ap- pear. For instance, the Canadian law states that the passenger complement of a vessel shall be decided by multi- plying the length by the breadth of the vessel at the water line, and di- viding by a factor, according to the class (river, lake, etc.,) of the vessel. The United States law fixes the com- plement according to the seating ca- pacity of all the decks. In one in- stance, a United States day passenger steamer, was allowed 3,500 passengers in its own waters, while Canadian in- spection gave it only 1,500. Taking the average case a United States steamer under its own laws will be al- lowed from 15 to 25 per cent more were in evidence here last season. Under the United States law, it is not necessary to inspect craft of fifteen tons and under, and yet such craft may carry passengers. Hence, owners of these boats have no inspection cer- tificates to produce to the Canadian inspectors, and 'the latter, having no authority under the reciprocal arrange- ment to inspect United States boats, the small gasoline launches cannot carry passengers from Canadian ports. © On the other hand, there is Canadian inspection of small gasoline launches carrying passengers, and the owners present their Canadian certificates to the inspectors across the border, and thus do business between the two countries, whereas the small United States boats cannot. sation from the Government to Ameri- can-built and American-manned ships for all services rendered, including the carriage of mails and the right to use the ships in time of war. Speaker Cannon, in the lobby of 'the House, told several hundred delegates to the convention what he thought about the ship subsidy bill. "It will give something like $4,000,000 _ to certain lines," he said, and he enumer- ated the lines, "which will-not more than equal the sea postage of those lines." Sar- castically he added: "Some people call this a subsidy. I call it spending the people's money which we get from the postage on the sea service for the im- provement of the sea service." He added that he was willing to try the experiment. | |