174.—(1) Where a seaman or apprentice is lost with the ship to which he belongs the Board of Trade may recover the wages due to him from the owner of the ship, in the same court and in the same manner in which seamen’s wages are recoverable, and shall deal with those wages in the same manner as with the wages of other deceased seamen and apprentices under this Act.

(2) In any proceeding for the recovery of the wages, if it is shown by some official return produced out of the custody of the Registrar-General of Shipping and Seamen, or by other evidence, that the ship has twelve months or upwards before the institution of the proceeding left a port of departure, she shall, unless it is shown that she has been heard of within twelve months after that departure, be deemed to have been lost with all hands on board, either immediately after the time she was last heard of, or at such later time as the court hearing the case may think probable.

(3) Any duplicate agreement or list of the crew made out, or statement of a change of the crew delivered, under this Act, at the time of the last departure of the ship from the United Kingdom, or a certificate purporting to be a certificate from a consular or other public officer at any port out of the United Kingdom, stating that certain seamen and apprentices were shipped in the ship from the said port, shall, if produced out of the custody of the Registrar-General of Shipping and Seamen, or of the Board of Trade, be, in the absence of proof to the contrary, sufficient proof that the seamen and apprentices therein named as belonging to the ship were on board at the time of the loss.