Stephen Johnson Field

“ The exemption of the reshipment from fees was undoubtedly made, as suggested by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, to encourage a more steady and continuous service, and to make it for the interest of masters to so treat their crews as to induce them to remain with the vessels. This object requires the extension of the exemption to a reshipment on all voyages succeeding in regular order the one for which fees were paid, equally as to the one next succeeding. Every reshipment must, by its terms, be only for another voyage, not for several voyages. ”

“ No reason can be assigned why the exemption should extend to the first reshipment on the same vessel, that will not apply to all subsequent reshipments following continuously.
It is of no weight against this construction of the statutes that it may deprive the commissioner of fees to an extent materially affecting his compensation. Statutes are not to be wrested from their true meaning because a diminution of the fees of an office may result from it. ”

“ As a class, particularly those serving as common sailors, they are proverbially improvident, and frequently the prey of unscrupulous landsmen. Soon stripped when in port of their hard earnings, they are generally willing to accept employment on almost any terms. Their necessitous condition often compelled them to submit to harsh contracts which placed them completely in the power of masters of vessels. To remedy these evils, the office of shipping commissioner was created ”