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

340 COMITE MARITIME INTERNATIONALThe Travaux Préparatoires of the Hague and Hague-Visby Rulestrade which Sir James Hope Simpson has already mentioned as being conducted onthese lines - and we are very grateful to him, as shipowners all of us, for the forcibleway in which it has been brought home to the Conference that there is a case whereyou must have combined action - the whole American trade in general cargo is doneon bills of lading equivalent to and as I think actually in many cases “received for shipment”.The one I happen to hold in my hand actually has these words: “received in apparentgood order and condition from [blank] to be transported by the goodsteamship [blank]”. I think words equivalent to goods for shipment; they are intendedto be. As a representative of a concern which has run many lines out of New Yorkfor the last thirty years, I have never seen a general cargo from New York that was“shipped”; they are always “received”. We have from time to time endeavoured to getit altered, but we have given up long ago, because it is so much the constituted customof New York, for reasons that we shipowners personally know very well - we have triedto beat it down before, but it is absolutely impossible - that all bills of lading must beissued when the goods are received on the wharf for shipment, and one of our greatdifficulties to-day in dealing with the pilferage question is that we cannot bring ourbills of lading down to “shipped” bills of lading, so that we are only responsible forwhat goes into the ship. We are taking steps to try to amend that as best we can, butthe great difficulty in our stopping pilferage in New York is that we are obliged by thecustom, and I believe law, port regulations, or something, in America to issue bills oflading that we get in this form. I feel sensible that this meeting is representing Europeaninterests. I have not heard any representatives of the States speak. I am afraid theyare not here. Therefore, as an inefficient representative of the trade, although not representingAmerica, I would like to emphasise that the whole general cargo trade fromAmerica is done on such bills of lading, and I presume that the bankers have somemethod, and have had for the past thirty years or however long it has been going on,without all these [138] difficulties, of tackling that position. I do not know how theydo it, but the bankers surely advance money on American bills of lading as well as onothers.Mr. McConechy: Mr. Chairman. I take it that we have already agreed to clause 6and the addition, because I had a special mandate?The Chairman: No, Mr. McConechy.Mr. McConechy: You are not going over that again?The Chairman: Clause 6 is the amended clause which has been dealt with, butclause 7 is the new number; it is the old clause 6.Mr. McConechy: You have agreed to the first two clauses of section 7.The Chairman: No; at present the Committee has not accepted the additionalwords at the end of 7. It was for that reason that I called attention to the matter justnow.Mr. McConechy: But the previous part is accepted.The Chairman: The part in black at the head of page 4 has been accepted.Mr. McConechy: As long as you do that I feel quite right, because the ManchesterChamber of Commerce and the Manchester Association of Importers and Exportershave fully discussed these two points, and I was instructed to do my best to carry thatthrough. I understand up to the printed part we have done so. The reason we are doingthat is because the legal information that we have got is entirely different from thatmentioned by Mr. Paine. He brings forward a judgment by Mr. Justice McCardie.The Chairman: Mr. McConechy. I almost think I had better take the view of theCommittee as to whether we should dispose of the small questions under Article 3 bythe amendment at the end of section 7 of Article 3, and that then we should get as soonas we can to this larger question of “Received for shipment” bills of lading.