LETTER OF SUBMITTAL.

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE,

BUREAU OF NAVIGATION, Washington, D. C., May 18. 1915.

SIR: The edition of the Navigation Laws for 1915 has been prepared in substantially the same form as the editions of 1895, 1899, 1903, 1907, and 1911, which proved to be convenient for the use of collectors of customs, shipping commissioners, the masters, owners, and agents of vessels, seamen, and others directly interested in vessels, their officers, crews, passengers, and cargo.

As in the five former editions, the effort has been made to include in this volume only laws actually in force. Where sections of the Revised Statutes or other laws have been specifically repealed or amended by subsequent legislation the repealed portions of the law are omitted, and the present, not the original, reading of amended sections is adopted.

The effort has been made to confine the law included in this volume to the navigation law, meaning by that term the law relating to vessels, with which owners, masters, and agents should be acquainted. The line between this law and the customs law is not always clearly defined. The laws directly relating to duties on imports and to invoices are not included in this volume, while those relating to entry, clearance, manifests, and transportation by water have been comprised within its limits. The respective jurisdictions of the Secretary of the Treasury and the Secretary of Commerce are more clearly defined than heretofore.

The provisions of the so-called seamen's act of March 4, 1915, have been incorporated in the volume, although those provisions do not take effect as to vessels of the United States until November 4, 1915, and as to foreign vessels until March 4, 1916, except vessels of foreign nations under treaties and conventions, articles of which must be abrogated before the act becomes applicable to such vessels. As abrogation of such treaties and conventions usually requires a year's notice, in the case of vessels of some foreign nations portions of the act will not be applicable before July 1, 1916.