the travaux préparatoires hague rules hague-visby rules - Comite ...

328 COMITE MARITIME INTERNATIONALThe Travaux Préparatoires of the Hague and Hague-Visby RulesThe Chairman: I am sure whatever consideration the Drafting Committee may bemoved to give to this matter may be coloured by the very strong expressions of opinionthat have come from, I think, all the interests involved.Lord Phillimore: I think it is very important that we should do nothing whichwould make “received for shipment” bills of lading not commercial instruments, andit is very important that they should be considered as negotiable. I do not knowwhether Dr. Bisschop has considered the judgment which was rendered by the PrivyCouncil in December last, to which I was a party, in which we did our very best to setup the “received for shipment” bills of lading as negotiable instruments; and, one doesnot remember these things very often, but, if I remember right, we actually allowed theendorsees of the document the title to sue, which is only given by Act of Parliament toendorsees of bills of lading; and therefore I [118] think it is very desirable that weshould call these “received for shipment bills of lading”.The Chairman: Then the question is whether the first four lines on page 4 shallstand part. Is that agreed? (Agreed).Now Sir Norman Hill has an amendment.Sir Norman Hill: Sir. The point that we want to raise is with regard to the issue ofthese “Received for shipment” bills of lading and the “shipped on board” bills of lading.As I have said, we have established the practice of issuing a “received for shipment”bill of lading at the request of the cargo owners. It is particularly applicable tothe liner services. There are regular sailings at fixed dates; there are regular berths,and, to meet the convenience of the cargo interests, the moment the cargo is put intothe custody of the line the bill of lading has been given, enabling the cargo interest, notonly to arrange its finance, but to enable the cargo interest to send forward the bill oflading very often by the same ship which is carrying the cargo. That has been an enormousconvenience. If the alternative had been nothing but the “shipped on board” billof lading, then in a great many cases, in a great many countries, the bill of lading wouldnot have been in the hands of the cargo interest until after the ship had sailed with thecargo on board, and it would not have been at the port of destination when the shiparrived. It would disorganise business. To meet the demand which have been made uponus we are assuming the responsibility in every case to issue a “shipped on board”bill of lading. It is not an onerous obligation on us, provided we are only asked to givethose bills of lading after the cargo is on board. It is the time-honoured, the originalform, of bill of lading; it is the most convenient one for the shipowner to issue; it giveshim time to get the returns in from the ship as to what cargo has been stowed, to compareit with the information given by the cargo owner, and it regularises business in thebest manner and on the safest lines for the shipowner. That is his position; but it willexpose the cargo owner to a very great deal of inconvenience and a great deal of expense.We want to make it perfectly clear that if, under these rules, we agree on demandalways to issue these bills of lading, that demand shall only be made on us fairlyafter the goods are on board. You will wreck the whole of the object that you havein view if there is unfair pressure brought to bear on particular shipowners to get the“shipped on board” bills of lading out of their [119] hands when the cargo ownerknows that the cargo is not on board, when the cargo owner knows that the cargo hasonly just been bundled down on the quay. If the cargo owner has to go off in a hurryto his bankers to draw against the cargo, he must be satisfied with a “received for shipment”bill of lading; if he wants to send forward the bill of lading by the same boatwhich is taking the cargo, which might be the mail boat, and he may know that the nextmail ship will not go for another fortnight, he will have to be content with a “receivedfor shipment” bill of lading. The only pressure to issue improperly “shipped on board”bills of lading can come from the cargo interests; and we have been turning over in our