His Lordship read the following judgment with reference to the application of the defendants for leave to file a counterclaim and for an order that the plaintiffs should give security for the amount of the counterclaim This is an application by the British defendants for leave to file a counterclaim by a cross-petition in this suit asking for relief against the American plaintiffs, and that the plaintiffs may be ordered to give security to obey the judgment of the Court on the counterclaim.
have to decide the following question:—Has this Court jurisdiction to entertain a counterclaim by the defen-idants against the plaintiffs who are citizens of the United States? The answer depends on whether the present suit can, or cannot, be distinguished from the Chishima-Ravenna collision case heard by the Judicial Committee of the {Privy Council in 1895 (The Imperial Japanese Government y. P. and 0. Ca., R., 1895 A.C., p. Gi).
In that case it was decided that the counterclaim by the British defendants against the Japanese plaintiffs could not be entertained. Unless then it is shown that this Court has a larger jurisdiction over a United States plaintiff than it had then over a Japanese plaintiff, this application must fail. Counsel for the defendants contended that the ratio decidondi of the Judicial Committee in the above coco was that the Treaty between Great Britain and Japan, on which the authority of the Court was founded, gave the Court no jurisdiction over a Japanese; but that the present case was on all fours with cases decided by the High Court at home, such Griendtovern ¥. Hamlyn and Ca. (8, Law Times Reports, page 231). To this proposition I cannot accede, because the Court which decided that case—the King's Bench Division—is a Court of plenary jurisdiction, while this Court is in fact, though not in name, a Consular Court with a jurisdiction limited as regards mixed cases. Moreover, its powers in this respect must be regarded strictly and may not be extended after the mamer of a Court of plenary jurisdiction, which has sometimes to lengthen its arm in order to do full justice between litigants.
China has ceded her natural jurisdiction over the plaintiffs to the United States Government, and has further, by Article XV of the Treaty with Denmark of 13th July, 1863 (see Hertslet's Treaties between Great Britain and China, etec., vol. I, p. 141), of which both Great Britain and the United States take advantage y the most favoured nation clause, undertaken that she will not interfere in controversies between the subjects of Denmark and those of any other Foreign Power. If then this Court has jurisdiotion over an American citizen, it can only \be by understanding with the United States Government. There is no such understanding.
For this reason, I doubt whether this Court can entertain a counterclaim against a plaintiff who is a citizen of the United States; and as section 47 (c) of the Order-in-Council of 1881 gives me
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.