Merchant Shipping Act, 1906

Part III.

Seamen's Food.

Statutory scale of provisions for crew.

25.(1) The master of every ship for which an agreement with the crew is required under the Merchant Shipping Acts shall, if the agreement is made after the first day of June nineteen hundred and seven, furnish provisions to every member of the crew (who does not furnish his own provisions), in accordance with the scale set out in the First Schedule to this Act, and for the purposes of section one hundred and ninety-nine of the principal Act (which provides for compensation in the case of short or bad provisions) every such member of the crew of the ship shall be deemed to have stipulated by his agreement for provisions in accordance with that scale.

(2) The power of the court to modify or refuse compensation under section one hundred and ninety-nine of the principal Act shall be extended to cases where a member of the crew claiming compensation, although he has not been supplied with the provisions actually required by the scale, has been supplied with provisions containing on the whole the same or a greater amount of wholesome nutriment in their place.

(3) If the master of a ship fails to furnish provisions in accordance with this section, and the court before which the case is tried consider that the failure was due to the neglect or default of the master, the master shall be liable on summary conviction, in addition to paying compensation under section one hundred and ninety-nine of the principal Act, to a fine not exceeding one hundred pounds.

(4) His Majesty may by Order in Council vary or add to the First Schedule to this Act.

(5) This section shall not apply in the case of lascars or natives of India or others not accustomed to a European dietary, with whom an agreement is entered into providing an adequate scale of provisions suited to their needs and uses.