Section 2
SEC. 2. The Secretary of Commerce and Police is hereby authorized to modify or renew the aforesaid contracts when necessary, or to enter into new contracts at any time on the general terms and conditions set forth in section one of Act Numbered Thirteen hundred and ten: Provided, however, That— (a) Bids therefor need not be advertised for in the United States ; (b) Such contracts shall be approved by the Governor-General in place of the Philippine Commission; (c) No contract shall be entered into or renewed for a period extending beyond July twenty-sixth, nineteen hundred and fourteen. "Provided further, however, That in order to avoid the dis-arrangement of the present system of transportation during the period from the expiration of the former contracts until the time of the execution of new contracts hereunder, the Secretary of Commerce and Police, with the approval of the Governor-General, is authorized to make temporary arrangements for the continuance in force on terms approved by him of such of the former contracts as he may deem advisable, from the date of the expiration of the former contracts until the time of the execution of the new contracts contemplated and authorized by this Act, and to authorize the payment during that time as subsidies for services rendered of an amount which shall not, however, exceed the proportion of the annual appropriation hereunder which the time covered by such temporary contracts forms of an entire year. Temporary contracts which may have been entered into of the kind herein specifically authorized are hereby confirmed. Such contracts may contain a provision for the payment of subsidies from this appropriation to the contracting steamship companies: Provided, however, That the total subsidy payments called for by the terms of the contracts entered into under the authority of Act Numbered Thirteen hundred and ten and the resolutions mentioned in the first section of this Act, and the contracts authorized by this section, shall in no year exceed the funds available under the provisions of this Act. To be entitled to a subsidy under this Act on the route between Manila, Iloilo, and Cebu any steamship company must obligate itself to maintain a vessel or vessels having a minimum sustained speed of twelve miles an hour; equip such vessels with a number of first-class staterooms not less than twelve if such staterooms can accommodate four passengers each, or with a number of first-class staterooms not less than twenty-four if they can accommodate two passengers each only; and to provide good, first-class meals for first-class passengers and good, suitable meals for all other passengers, under the supervision of the superintendent of interisland transportation.