Chap. 53.—An ACT to amend and re-enact sections 1 and 2 of an act, approved
February 28, 1924, entitled “An act to confer upon the State corporation
commission jurisdiction and to impose upon it the duty to prescribe and en-
force rates of pilotage and other charges to be observed in the business
of pilotage and to prescribe the procedure.” [S B 23]

Approved February 25, 1930

1. Be it enacted by the general assembly of Virginia, That sec-
tions one and two of an act, approved February twenty-eighth, nine-
teen hundred and twenty-four, entitled an act to confer upon the State
corporation commission jurisdiction and to impose upon it the duty
to prescribe and enforce rates of pilotage and other charges to be
observed in the business of pilotage and to prescribe the procedure,
be amended and re-enacted so as to read as follows:

Section 1. The State corporation commission shall prescribe and
enforce the rates of pilotage and other charges to be observed in the
business of pilotage, but before the said commission shall fix or pre-
scribe any such rates or charges it shall first give ten days’ notice of
the time and place of meeting, to the individual pilots, company or
association of pilots and all owners, charterers, operators or agents
of vessels who are directly affected by such rates or charges, by pub-
lication in a newspaper of general circulation in each of the cities of
Norfolk, Portsmouth and Newport News. For the purpose of deter-
mining the fair basis of such rates and charges, the commission shall,
for the two years next preceding, have access to the books and records
of the individual pilots, who have no organized association, and of any
association of pilots where they have an organized association whose
rates are to be fixed by them, and shall have the same powers in all
respects as are given by law in fixing rates and charges of transporta-
tion and transmission companies. Provided that, in fixing such rates
and charges said commission shall fix such amounts as will be a fair
charge for the service rendered and to accomplish this purpose shall
have due regard to necessary operating expenses; maintenance of,
depreciation on, and return on investment in properties used and useful
in the business of pilotage, and the rates and charges of pilotage at
comparable and competing ports of the United States.

Section 2. When such rates and charges shall have been fixed
and prescribed by said commission, they shall be the legal rates and
charges of pilotage in Virginia, and shall be enforced as provided by
law, and the State corporation commission shall have the power to
change or alter such rates or charges, after notice and hearings as here-
inbefore provided in this act.

Section 3. An emergency existing, this act shall be in force from
its passage.