the vessel belongs, as the laws of that nation or the interests of its commerce may require."

Private vessels belonging to this country are deemed parts of its territory. They are accordingly regarded as subject to the jurisdiction of this country, on the high seas, and in foreign ports, even though they admittedly are also temporarily subject generally to the laws of such ports.

In United States v. Rodgers, a case in which the Supreme Court sustained the jurisdiction of courts of the United States to try a person for an assault committed on a vessel belonging to a citizen of the United States while such vessel was in the Detroit River and within the limits of the Dominion of Canada, Mr. Justice Field, who delivered the opinion of the court, said:

It is true, that, as a general principle, the criminal laws of a nation do not operate beyond its territorial limits, and that to give any government, or its judicial tribunals, the right to punish any act or transaction as a crime, it must have occurred within those limits. We accept this doctrine as a general rule, but there are exceptions to it as fully recognized as the doctrine itself. One of those exceptions is that offences committed upon vessels belonging to citizens of the United States, within their admiralty jurisdiction, (that is, within navigable waters,) though out of the territorial limits of the United States, may be judicially considered when the vessel and parties are brought within their territorial jurisdiction. As we have before stated, a vessel is deemed part of the territory of the country to which she belongs.

On March 4, 1915, the President approved an Act of Congress usually referred to as the "Seamen's Act." The general purposes of this law evidently were the improvement of the condition of seamen and the promotion of safety of life at sea.

Whatever may be the merits of this act it can undoubtedly be said to have aroused a good deal of criticism in foreign countries. The questions that have arisen in connection with its enforcement with regard to foreign vessels, to which it is applicable the same as to American vessels, may be said to fall into two classes, namely: (1) those

7 See Moore, Digest, II, pp. 272-362.

8 150 U. S. 249.

9 38 Stat. L. 1164.

involving treaty rights affected by certain provisions of the act, and (2) those which, while not involving legal rights, relate to international comity and established customs of nations.

Provisions of the first-mentioned class are found in Sections 4 and 16 of the Act. Section 4, which provided among other things for the enforcement of certain specified rights of foreign seamen respecting their wages, and further provided that the courts of the United States should be open to such seamen for its enforcement, was inconsistent with treaty stipulations withdrawing from the jurisdiction of local authorities wages disputes between masters and members of the crews of merchant vessels. Section 16 directed the President to give notice within ninety days of the passage of the act to foreign governments of the termination of treaty stipulations providing for the arrest and imprisonment of deserting seamen from vessels of the United States abroad or from foreign vessels in American ports. Stipulations in a score of treaties were affected by the law.10

The act was framed so that at the end of a certain period the stipulations inconsistent therewith could no longer be enforced in this country and should of course not be invoked by American Consular Officers abroad. And since practically all of these agreements did not contain provisions for partial abrogation a somewhat difficult task in adjusting conflicts between the law and the treaty provisions in question confronted the executive department of the Government except in two instances in which the treaties contained no provisions. other than those affected by the law.

Statutory provisions of the second class just mentioned are found

10 Austria-Hungary, May 8, 1848, Art. IV, and July 11, 1870, Arts. XI and XII; Belgium, March 9, 1880, Arts. XI and XII; Bolivia, May 13, 1858, Art. XXXIV; China, June 15, 1858, Art. XVIII; Colombia, December 12, 1846, Art. XXXIII, and May 4, 1850, Art. III; Denmark, July 11, 1861, Arts. I and II; Great Britain, June 3, 1892; France, June 24, 1822, Art. VI, and February 23, 1853, Arts. VIII and IX; Greece, November 19, 1902, Arts. XII and XIII; Italy, May 8, 1878, Art. XIII, and February 24, 1881; Independent State of the Kongo, January 25, 1891, Art. V; Netherlands, January 19, 1839, Art. III, and May 23, 1878, Art. XII; Norway, July 4, 1827, Arts. XIII and XIV; Roumania, June 17, 1881, Arts. XI and XII; Spain, July 3, 1902, Arts. XXIII and XXIV; Sweden, June 1, 1910, Arts. XI and XII, and July 4, 1827, Arts. XIII and XIV; and Tonga, October 2, 1886, Art. X.

in Sections 4, 11, 13 and 14 of the act. Section 4 provides that seamen shall be entitled to receive on demand from the master of the vessel one-half of the wages which they have earned at every port where the vessel shall load or deliver cargo. Section 11 makes unlawful the payment of advance wages of seamen. Section 13 provides that no vessel (with certain exceptions) shall be permitted to depart from a port of the United States unless it has on board a crew not less than 75 per centum of which in each department are able to understand any order given by the officers of the vessels, nor unless a certain percentage of the crew "are of a rating not less than able seamen." Section 14 of the law contains provisions relating to "life saving appliances, their equipment and the maintaining of the same.

Briefly summarized, the important international aspects of the Act of March 4, 1915, which have been pointed out, grow out of provisions thereof that affect treaty arrangements of long standing, that apparently in a measure set aside the general rule of comity under which American courts have refused to take jurisdiction in certain controversies between masters and seamen, and that run counter to laws and customs of other countries and have the effect of nullifying contracts made outside of the jurisdiction of the United States, and of compelling foreign nations to conform to the ideas of this country in matters relating to the equipment of vessels and the treatment and qualifications of seamen, some phases of which are dealt with by the London Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea.

III

Some interesting questions have been raised in the courts of this country and in British courts during the war with regard to jurisdiction over vessels which have been diverted from their customary employment because of conditions brought about by the war, namely, vessels requisitioned by the governments to which they belonged and government owned vessels employed in commerce.11

11 See The Luigi, 230 Fed. Rep. 495; The Attualita, 238 Fed. Rep. 909; The Pampa, 245 Fed. Rep. 137; The Florence H., 248 Fed. Rep. 1014; The Roseric (D. C. N. J.) decided in November, 1918; The Broadmayne (1916), L. T. Rep. 891; The Messicano, 32 L. T. Rep. 519.

In the case of The Attualita,12 an Italian merchant vessel requisitioned by the Italian Government, the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit held that the vessel was not exempt from suit in a court of this country. This ship, which it appears was employed in the Italian Government service at a fixed rate and remained under the control and management of the owner who paid the officers and crew, had been libeled by a Greek steamer to recover damages for loss resulting from a collision between the two vessels which occurred in the Mediterranean Sea. The contention was pressed in this case that The Attualita being under requisition of the Italian Government was immune from the jurisdiction of the courts of this country under principles of international law.

The decision of the court appears clearly to be grounded on sound principles.

It is of course well settled that aliens have free access to the courts of this country to maintain and defend their rights in cases of this character. 13

14

In the opinion of the court reference was made to the well known case of The Exchange, in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that the public armed vessels of a foreign nation may, upon principles of comity, enter the harbors of this country with the presumed license of the government, and while there are exempt from the jurisdiction of local courts.

Chief Justice Marshall in rendering the opinion of the court said that the "perfect equality and absolute independence of sovereigns, and common interest impelling them to mutual intercourse, and an interchange of good offices with each other, have given rise to a class of cases in which every sovereign is understood to waive the exercise of a part of that complete exclusive territorial jurisdiction, which has been stated to be the attribute of every nation." It appears that he divided these cases into the following classes: (1) the immunities accorded the person of the sovereign in a foreign country; (2)

12 238 Fed. Rep. 909.

18 The Maggie Hammond, 9 Wall. 435; The Belgenland, 114 U. S. 368; The Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, 175 Fed. Rep. 215.

147 Cranch, 116.

the immunities granted by civilized nations to foreign diplomatic representatives; (3) the immunities allowed the troops of a foreign prince which are permitted to pass through his dominions; and (4) the immunities granted to public armed vessels.

In the light of this often quoted rule there appears to be no violation of international law or comity in the action of an admiralty court in taking jurisdiction in proceedings in rem or in personam instituted with a view to recovering indemnity for loss resulting from the alleged improper navigation of a merchant vessel the services of which the owner thereof has been temporarily required by his government to place at its disposal in consideration of a stipulated compensation for such services.

Any contention that a court in the United States should not adjudicate a controversy of this kind because a sovereign should not be impleaded as a private litigant to defend his rights before judicial tribunals of a foreign government, appears clearly not to be well grounded. The action of a court in taking jurisdiction in the case must not necessarily result in impleading the government to which the vessel belongs, since the courts are open to the owner of the vessel to defend his rights in proceedings instituted against it.

The following excerpt from the opinion of the court in Workman v. The Mayor,15 in which Mr. Justice White discussed at some length the question of the right to recover for maritime torts committed by government owned vessels, seems pertinent to this point:

We, of course, conceive that where maritime torts have been committed by the vessels of a sovereign, and complaint has been made in a court of admiralty, that court has declined to exercise jurisdiction, but this was solely the cause of the immunity of sovereignty from suit in its own courts. So, also, where, in a court of admiralty of one sovereign, redress is sought for a tort committed by a vessel of war of another nation, it has been held that as by the rule of international comity the sovereign of another country was not subject to be impleaded, no redress could be given. Both of these rules, however, proceed upon the hypothesis of the want of a person or property before the court over whom jurisdiction can be exerted. As a consequence, the doctrine above stated rests not upon the supposed want of power in courts of admiralty to redress a wrong committed by one

15 179 U. S. 552.