7. Incidents of Enrollment or Registration.—
The law provides that vessels registered pursuant to law and no others (except those qualified according to law for carrying on the coasting or fishing trade) shall be deemed vessels of the United States and entitled to the benefits and privileges pertaining to such vessels. When a vessel ceases to be wholly owned by citizens of the United States or a corporation created under the laws of the United States, control of which is held by citizens, or ceases to be commanded by a citizen of the United States, she forfeits her rights, benefits and privileges of a vessel of the United States. Pilots and officers having charge of a watch must be citizens of the United States.
A capital distinction to be borne in mind is that between vessels entitled to engage in coastwise trade and those not so entitled. No vessel of foreign registry may engage in that trade. No foreign-built vessel of American registry, with certain exceptions,[3] may engage in that trade under penalty of a fine, although it is within the power of the Secretary of Commerce to waive the imposition of such fine, and this has sometimes been done where an emergency arising out of exceptional circumstances has made it necessary for an unauthorized vessel to trade between ports of the United States. Vessels entitled to engage in the coastwise trade are those which, being built within and owned by citizens of the United States, are enrolled for that trade. Vessels owned by corporations may not engage in the coasting trade unless 75 per cent. of the interest therein is owned by citizens.
The coasting trade consists of trade between continental ports of the United States, either directly or by way of a foreign port; that is to say, if you depart from New York with merchandise for Miami, you are trading between American ports, even though you may touch at Bermuda en route. The test is whether you trade between ports of the United States as part of a single voyage, irrespective of nationality of the ship. The character of the voyage, whether foreign or domestic, is determined by its terminus (Tabor v. U. S., 1 Story 1). Thus a vessel bound from New York to Yokohama, via San Francisco, would be upon a foreign voyage. Such a vessel, flying a foreign flag, could not discharge any of her passengers or cargo at San Francisco.
Trade between the east and west coasts via the Panama Canal or Cape Horn is coastwise. Trade between ports of the United States and those of Hawaii, Porto Rico and Alaska is coasting trade, though the Shipping Board may issue permits to foreign vessels to carry passengers between Hawaii and the Pacific coast until February 1, 1922. Trade between ports of the United States and those of the Philippine Islands is by statute not coasting until February 1, 1922. Thereafter it is governed by Sec. 21 of the Merchant Marine Act, which will be found in the Appendix. Trade between ports of the United States and those of the Panama Canal Zone is not coasting.
By the coasting trade is not meant the mere putting in of a vessel at a port of the United States after leaving another port for bunkers or supplies (which is not forbidden) but trading between such ports, e.g., the carriage of cargo and passengers from one such port and their discharge at another.