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Shipowners letters.
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30.—(1) The following letters (in this Act referred to as shipowners’ letters), that is to say, letters of the owners, charterers, or consignees of vessels inward bound, and of the owners, consignees, or shippers of goods on board those vessels, when not exceeding the weights and when complying with the conditions herein-after mentioned, shall—
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(a) if required to be delivered at the port of the vessel’s arrival, be delivered to the owners, charterers, consignees, or shippers by the master free of inland postage, and the persons to whom they are to be delivered shall be entitled to the delivery thereof before the delivery of the other letters to the Post Office; and
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(b) if delivered elsewhere in the British Islands, be delivered by post on payment of inland postage only,
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but subject in either case to the previous payment to the Post Office of the gratuities payable under this Act to masters of vessels bringing the letters.
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(2) Provided that—
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(a) The letters brought by any one vessel to any one such person shall not collectively exceed six ounces in weight (except in the case of letters brought by vessels coming from Ceylon, the Mauritius, India, or the Cape of Good Hope, into any port of the British Islands for an owner, charterer, or consignee of such a vessel, in which case they may be collectively twenty ounces in weight); and
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(b) The owner, charterer, or consignee shall be described as such on the address and superscription; and
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(c) In the case of owners, shippers, or consignees of goods, it shall also appear by the ship’s manifest that they have goods on board the vessel.
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(3) If any shipowners’ letters are found by an officer of customs to be in excess of the weights herein-before limited by this section, that officer shall seize so many of the letters as will reduce the remainder within the said weights, and shall take them to the nearest post office.
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(4) If any person with intent to evade any postage falsely superscribes a letter as being the owner or charterer or consignee of the vessel conveying the letter, or as the owner or the shipper or the consignee of goods shipped on the vessel, he shall for each offence be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding ten pounds.
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