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714 COMITE MARITIME INTERNATIONALThe Travaux Préparatoires of the Hague and Hague-Visby Ruleschargé d’examiner les amendements àl’article 5? (Assentiment). Puis-je demanderà Monsieur Pineus s’il accepte cettemission?M. Pineus (Suède). Je ferai de monmieux, Monsieur le Président.study the amendments to article 5? (Assent).May I ask if Mr. Pineus accepts thismission?Mr. Pineus (Sweden). I will do mybest, Mr. Chairman.Quatrième Séance Plénière -20 Février 1968[63]Présidence de Monsieur Albert Lilar,Président.M. le Président. Si vous le voulezbien, nous consacrerons cette séance plénièreà l’examen des conclusions de laCommission chargée d’examiner l’article5, sous la présidence de M. Pineus. Jedonne immédiatement la parole au Présidentde la commission pour faire rapportsur ses travaux.Fourth Plenary Session -20 February 1968[63]Mr. Albert Lilar, Chairman.The Chairman. If you do not mind,we will devote this plenary session to thestudy of the conclusions of the committeeon article 5, chaired by Mr. Pineus. Iimmediately give the floor to the chairmanof this Committee to make the reporton his work.Mr. Pineus (Sweden). Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen: I have the pleasure toreport on the result achieved by your Committee on Article 5. You all know that oneof the reasons we had the great pleasure of coming back to Brussels is that it provedimpossible in May last year to reach an agreement on this Article on the application ofthe Convention. I will not go trough the somewhat painful history of it all and the difficultiesthat faced us in May. You will find that in the printed report of the proceedingsof the May conference. The difficulties still remain with us, at any rate to a certainextent.I think the situation can briefly be summed up as follows. Everybody is agreed thatwe should try to enlarge the scope of application of the Convention. Everybody isagreed that we could improve on Article 10 of the Hague Rules as it now stands. Thedifference is that it remains to be settled how large a step we shall take in this direction.The Stockholm text when it came out for your examination in May proved toolarge a step. By including ports of discharge or optional ports of discharge in a contractingState among the other criteria that will make the Convention applicable gravemisgivings were expressed. It was said that by [64] doing so we made difficulties andwould create unwanted repercussions which were not in our mind when the Stockholmtext was elaborated by a working group I was happy to preside over at a meetingin Antwerp some ten years ago.In the circumstances a compromise had to be sought for. The text presented to youwhich appeared in Document 16 and is now submitted for your consideration, and Ihope approval, is a slightly redrafted version of what was put before the Conferencein May on behalf of the delegations of Denmark, Finland, Japan, Sweden, UnitedKingdom and the United States; CONN 25 it was called then.We had a very lively discussion in the Committee on the original version of it. Yesterdaytwenty delegations were represented in your Committee, today sixteen. I givethe names in the order they were mentioned in the list that went round from right to