288

the Law Officers on the several points to
which their attention was drawn,

I have, &c.,
(Signed) STANLEY.

Governor
Gore Browne, C.B,
&c., &c., &c.

The Emigration Commissioners
to Mr. Merrivale.

Emigration Office,
22nd December, 1857.

Sir,—

We have to acknowledge your letter
of 24th ultimo, enclosing a further despatch from the Governor of New Zealand accompanied by voluminous documents, on the subject of the “Ann Wilson” passenger ship. In your letter

No. 54, 3rd
July ’57.

No. 59, 80th of the 9th instant, a further despatch is transmitted, enclosing duplicate copies of the same documents.

2. The “Ann Wilson” is a vessel of 432 tons, and was chartered for the conveyance of passengers to New Zealand by Messrs. James Baines & Co., the owners of the Black Ball Line of Australian Packets. She sailed from Liver-
   pool on the 29th of November, 1856, and arrived at Wellington on the 29th of March last, having been one hundred and twenty days on the voyage. Considerable sickness had prevailed, and four adults and fourteen children had died on the voyage. Another death having oc-
   currred almost immediately after her arrival, an inquest was held at which evidence was given with a view to show that the vessel had more passengers on board than by law she was capable of carrying. That her ventilation had been insufficient—her galley inadequate—her supply of water so short that the passengers had never so throughout the whole voyage received their legal allowance—and that the medicines and medical comforts were not according to the prescribed scale. Criminal proceedings were in consequence taken against the master, and the following penalties were pronounced against him:—

1st—For excess of
passengers .......... £1140

2nd—For non-issue
of water .......... 600

3rd—For irregularity
in issue of
dinners .......... 120

1860

The master escaped from the Colony before the decision was pronounced, and thus evaded the payment of the penal-
ties. The “Ann Wilson” has not yet returned to this country.

3. Some of the charges for which proceedings were taken against the master would, if substantiated, evidently imply great neglect on the part of the Emigration Officers in this country who cleared the ship. We therefore propose in the first place to go through these heads of complaint, and show how far the Emigration Officers at Liverpool can fairly be held blamable. As the evidence at the inquest and at the subsequent proceedings before the Magistrate were generally to the same effect, we shall, for the sake of clearness, confine ourselves principally to the latter.

4. First, then, in regard to the alleged excess in the number of passengers, the charge rests on the evidence of the Emigration Officer at Wellington. That officer deposed that the height of the between decks of the “Ann Wilson” was a little over six feet, the length 108 feet, breadth 26 feet, giving a superficial area of 2808 feet (the measurement at Liverpool gave 2903 feet); that according to the Passenger Act the space allowed to each statute adult ought to have been twenty-five feet—and that accordingly only 112½ statute adults could legally be carried on that deck—that the number actually carried was 169½ statute adults, being an excess of fifty-seven. The penalty inflicted by the Resident Magistrate upon this evidence was £20 for each statute adult in excess, amounting, as we have stated, to £1140.

5. Now the whole of this charge rests on a misconstruction of the Passengers’ Act, which we confess we are altogether at a loss to understand. The Passenger Act enacts (Section 3) that “the expression ‘upper passenger deck’ shall signify and include the deck immedi-
   ately beneath the upper deck, or the poop or round house and deck house when the number of passengers and cabin passengers carried in such poop, round house, or deck house shall exceed one-third of the total number of passengers which such ship can lawfully carry on the deck next below; the expression ‘lower passenger deck,’ the deck next beneath the upper passenger deck, not being an orlop deck.” And in the 14th section it is provided that no ship shall carry under the poop or in a round house or deck house, or on the “Upper Passenger Deck,” more than one statute adult to every fifteen superficial feet, nor