1318
THE NEW ZEALAND GAZETTE.
[No. 87

5. Testimonials of character, and of sobriety, experience, ability, and good conduct on board ship, for at least the twelve months of service immediately preceding the date of application to be examined, will be required of all Applicants, and without producing them no person will be examined.

6. The testimonials of servitude of Foreigners and of British Seamen serving in foreign vessels, which cannot be verified, must be confirmed either by the Consul of the country to which the ship in which the Candidate served belonged or by some other recognised official authority of that country, or by the testimony of some credible person on the spot having personal knowledge of the facts required to be established. The production, however, of such proofs will not of necessity be deemed sufficient. Each case will be decided on its own merits, and, if the sufficiency of the proofs given appears to be at all doubtful, it must be referred to the Marine Department.

7. Should any doubt exist as to the age of a Candidate, he will be required to produce a certificate of birth.

8. Foreigners must prove to the satisfaction of the Examiners that they can speak and write the English language sufficiently well to perform the duties required of them on board a British vessel.

9. Statement of services in ships over eighty tons, of which the agreements with the crews have been entered into in New Zealand, can be verified by the Superintendents of Mercantile Marine Offices, and may be obtained on application at such offices upon payment of a small fee, the amount of which will be regulated by the amount of service required to be verified. Delay, inconvenience, and disappointment will be avoided by candidates getting this verification beforehand.

10. The time for which length of service as Seaman or Officer in the Mercantile Marine is to be reckoned in all cases referred to in the following paragraphs is to commence at the date when the Articles of Agreement were signed by the Applicant, and to end at the date when he was discharged as shown on the Articles of Agreement. The Certificates of Discharge will generally be sufficient evidence of this, but great care must be exercised by the Superintendent and Examiners to detect any tampering in any way with the information contained in them, and to report to the Marine Department at once any suspicious cases.

11. Services which cannot be verified by proper Entries in the Articles of the ships in which the Candidates have served cannot be counted. For instance, a man will state his service to have been as Second or Only Mate, and to support his assertion will produce a Certificate of Discharge or of employment by the Master, to the effect that he served as Mate, when on reference to the Articles it appears that he has actually been rated as Boat-swain; the service in such a case will not be regarded as having been in the capacity of Mate.

12. Whenever a man has, from any cause, been regularly promoted on a vacancy in the course of the voyage from the rank in which he first shipped, and such promotion, with the ground on which it has been made, is properly entered in the Articles and in the Official Log Book, he will of course receive credit for his service in the higher grade for the period subsequent to his promotion.

13. Service in the coasting trade may be allowed to count as service, in order to qualify a candidate for examination for a Certificate of Competency for Foreign-going Ships; it being understood, however, that service in the coasting trade must amount to half as much again as service in the foreign trade, and that service in a lower grade than that of First or Only Mate in the coasting trade will not be recognised as officer's service.

14. Three years' service as Mate in the coasting trade, together with at least nine months' service as Master, may be allowed to count as service for a Master's Certificate for Foreign-going Ships, provided the Candidate's entire service at sea calculated as above is sufficient, and that his services as Mate and Master in the coasting trade can be proved by the Articles, and provided he has already passed an examination for the Foreign Trade, unless, under special circumstances, the Marine Department see fit to dispense with this latter provision.

15. Services in Pleasure Yachts of not less than twenty tons register, performed within Home-trade limits, may be accepted towards qualifying a Candidate for examination, provided the Candidate has proof of from six to twelve months' service in an ordinary trading vessel, the amount of the latter service to be determined by the nature and length of the Candidate's experience in Pleasure Yachts. Only service at sea will be allowed to count, and time spent in port will not be accepted. The Candidate must have his sea services verified as far as possible. He must then fill in an application form (Exn. 2) and forward it, filled up in the usual way, to the Marine Department, accompanied by a full and detailed description of all the services claimed (if not officially verified), such as the nature and length of voyages, &c., capacity served in, tonnage of vessels, whether steam or sailing, time actually afloat, time in harbour, &c.; and unless these particulars are forwarded to the Marine Department supported by satisfactory certificates and testimonials no application will be entertained.

16. Service in Pleasure Yachts will not be accepted at all unless verified by satisfactory proofs, and it must be distinctly understood that accepted service is confined to actual sea service, service in harbour or port being inadmissible. See also par. 26.

17. Time for which Indentures of Apprenticeship are in force will be accepted as sea service, provided that the Apprentice has remained by the ship for at least four-fifths of the time covered by the Indentures, and that the Indentures of the applicant are indorsed by the Owner or Master to whom he has been bound, to the effect that he has performed his service faithfully for the whole time agreed upon.

18. Service as Third or Fourth Mate may be accepted as equivalent to service as Second Mate to qualify a Candidate for examination for a Certificate of Competency as First Mate, provided he is able to produce a satisfactory testimonial from the Master or Owner of the vessel in which the service was performed, showing that he has had charge of a watch while serving as such Third or Fourth Mate, and that during the whole of the time claimed he was in possession of a Second Mate's Certificate of Competency, valid in New Zealand.

19. Service as Third or Fourth Mate may also be accepted on the same conditions to qualify a Candidate for examination for a Master's Certificate of Competency, provided he can produce satisfactory evidence of his having served at sea twelve months as Second Mate of a Foreign-going Ship while in possession of a First Mate's Certificate of Com-