16th June. Yr might have bees thought that Tong before this every possible dispute that could arise in connection with shipping from accidents of any kind, and collisions, had been tried in English Admiralty Gout, and that if a dispute arose now, the lawyers would find a precedent that
parties to fight it out. would make it quite inngeessary for the ut there is no lawyer worthy of the wame who would not find at least a shade of difference between the case brought for his advice vies might seem an absolutely an s one already decided, and there is always the "glorious uncertainty" for which our law is famous to tempt parties to try the hazard of the game. So it coles that in one number of eighty pages of Maritime Law Cases (that for December last) we find no less than four cases directly interesting to merchants in China and Japan, the vessels concerned being the Benlarig, the City of Peking, the Glamorganshire, and the Ulysses. As to three of these we only propose to refer to them briefly, but in the Glamorganshire case three points of great practical importance were decided, and we accordingly reprint in full in another column the judgment of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.
"The case, or rather cases, for there were two tried together, will be familiar to most of our readers, although the accident out of which they arose occurred five years ago. It will be remembered that on the night of the 7th of June, 1886, the American sailing ship Clarissa B. Carver, with a cargo of rags, was sailing into Kobe from Yokohama, and was about five miles off the port, when the steamer Glamorganshire, also making for Kobe, ran into her and sank her. The rough and ready rule is that a steamer which runs' down a sailing vessel must be to blame, but. when the owners of the Carver sued the steamer for the value of their vessel, the steamer refused to pay, on the ground that the ship's green light was insufficient and wrongly placed; and it will perhaps be remembered that divers were sent down to fix the exact position of the light. This was the one suit; the other was brought by the owners of the cargo, and their claim was disputed on the ground that they were not the real owners, but the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank, who held the bill of lading, having bought Pau! Heinemann & Co.'s draft on Barings' against the cargo. The Privy Council upheld the decisions of the Court in Japan and the Supreme Court in Shanghai, which were against the steamer; and the facts are so clearly set forth in Lord Hob-house's judgment that we need not dilate on them further, but the three points decided are, as we have said, of such importance that it is well worth while to repeat them. The first is in reference to the steamer's allegation that the Carver's green light was too! dim and was improperly fixed in the rigging, which Was an infringement of the regulations; and it is held that "an infringement of the Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea, which by ho possibility could have anything to do with the collision, will not render a ship liable," which has after all somewhat the air of an obiter dictum, be-! cause the second point in the judgment is that "it is not an infringement of art. 3 of the Regulations to carry side lights in the rigging and Lord Hob-house held that it was a_cummon practice to so carry them. The third point, which arose out of the cargo suit, is most important to merchants here "When plaintiffs in an action for loss of cargo by collision prove that the cargo was shipped to their order, and that the bill of lading is indorsed to a bank to secure advances, they retain sufficient interest in the cargo to entitle them to sue." In this the phrase "to their order" is evidently not to be taken in its technical sense because the goods were really shipped by Paul Heinemann & Ca. on account of, not "to the order of," Messrs. Warren 0o,; and the Hongkong Bank, which held the bill of lading as security for its advance to the shippers, might be considered the legal owner; it is therefore most valuable to shippers here, whose ordinary business follows the course adopted by Paul Heinemann & Ca., that it should have been decided by th highest legal authority that the people who ordered the cargo and for whose account it was shipped "retain sufficient interest in the cargo to enable them to sue," although the actual bill of lading is indorsed to, and is in the hands of, a bank. It will be seen that Lord Hobhouse gives his fullest approval to the modification that was added to the decree of the Japan Court by the Supreme Court here, by which the owners of the Glamorganshire were treed from the danger of "all claims on behalf of any consignees or indorsees of the bills of lading." In this judgment at least the law justifies its claims to be the perfection of common-sense.
In the case of the Benlarig, which was lying broken down off the coast of Spain, it is noticeable that the steamer Vesta, which agreed to tow her into Gibraltar, but had to give her up and left her in a worse position than she found her, was awarded £400 for towing the Benlarig 130 miles, because she did her best to get her into safety, which is what she had contracted to do. "Tt would be very unfortunate," said Judge Butt, "to discourage vessels from rendering assistance to other vessels in distress. In this, as in some recent cases, I am sorry to see a decreasing tendency to aid vessels that are broken down." We mention the City of Peking case because a point was decided that one would think must have been settled when steamers were first invented; that "the fact of a vessel under steam colliding with a ship at her moorings in daylight is prima facie
not escape liability except by provin; evidence of fault; and her omnes can-that a competent cer cahtd not have averted the collision by the exercise of ordinary care and skill." In the case of the lysses wrecked in the Red Sea, James Hanven puts in words the feeling that Was very general here among the owners of the c: in that unfortunate vessel; that "the Ocean Steamship Company treat the matter as though they were strangers who lad rendered a salvage service to the whole venture, including their own ship and the whole of the cargo on board." ie question, however, immediately before James was the claim of the captain and crew of H.MS. Falcon for salvage. The Falcon put sentinels on shore to protect the cargo from the plundering Arabs, and the men helped to get the cargo out of the hold, whi hich was "full of water which had been fouled to an extraordinary extent," and then helped to transport it a third of a mile over the reef to the lighters, " very troublesome work when ove bears in mind the heat_of that season of the year in the Red Sea." When they asked for compensation, theOceanSteamshipCompany alleged' that their services were rendered "in the course of their ordinary duties as the officers and crew of one of H.M.'s ships of war towards British subjects and property which were in peril of attack from hostile tribes, and from robbers and pirates and Sir James Hannen's answer to this was, that " the getting out of the cargo, and the rescuing of it from the shallow water into which it was first thrown, appears to me to be entirely outside the scope of H.M.'s ships, and to entitle those engaged to a substantial reward." And he accordingly awarded them one thousand pounds.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.