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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.

or if the convention should be sent back to the Senate and an unconditional consent should be given by that body to ratification of the convention.

In the interest of safety of life at sea the several signatory powers prescribed in the treaty, through their plenipotentiaries in conference, certain standards with respect to the equipment and operation of vessels. The Government of the United States having agreed to these standards, it seems odd for this Government to make a declaration to the effect that it will adhere to them but that it reserves the right to change them and to impose on all vessels in its waters, foreign as well as American vessels, such higher standards of safety as it may deem appropriate.

However, it can perhaps be plausibly argued that, whatever action might be taken in the future in accordance with the possible purposes indicated in the Senate's reservation with respect to the Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea, such action would not necessarily be violative of the treaty, though it might be objectionable to foreign nations whose vessels it would affect.

A fair construction of the treaty seems to be that it imposes upon each of the contracting nations obligations to exact of its own vessels the requirements of the convention with respect to their equipment and operation, but not obligations to see to it that these requirements are met by the vessels of other contracting nations.

It would, therefore, seem that, although foreign nations might question the right of this Government to substitute in its judgment standards as to the equipment of American vessels in place of those specified by the treaty, if it should impose on its own vessels not only the standards required by the treaty but also certain higher standards, other nations would not be in a position to complain of a violation of the treaty on the part of this Government.

Should this Government attempt to impose on vessels of other nations standards other than those prescribed by the treaty, such action would doubtless be regarded by those nations as objectionable, but a complaint of treaty violation could probably be met with the reply that the only obligations which the treaty imposes on this Government are those requiring it to see to it that its vessels are operated

and equipped in accordance with the rules prescribed by the treaty, and that if this Government sees fit to prescribe certain rules for vessels of other countries, its action in such a matter is one with which the treaty is not concerned, so long as the regulations imposed on the foreign vessels are not such as to require these vessels to disregard the standards prescribed by the convention.

Unfortunately it seems possible that the work of the conference which framed this convention may become a nullity in consequence of the intervention of the war. But it may be that an understanding can be reached to prevent such a result.

II

It appears that the Government of Great Britain had under consideration shortly prior to the outbreak of the war the question of the advisability of endeavoring to effect an arrangement with other nations with regard to the question of jurisdiction over merchant vessels in foreign ports. Possibly this interesting subject may be taken up when the condition of international affairs will permit such action.

The Supreme Court of the United States and the lower federal courts have in numerous cases set forth the rules defining the law and practice of the United States relative to the exercise of criminal and civil jurisdiction by this government over foreign merchant vessels and persons on board of them in territorial waters of this country, and over American vessels and persons thereon in foreign waters. Reference to a few cases will serve to call attention to the general principles enunciated.

With regard to the exercise of jurisdiction in criminal matters by the courts of this country over foreign ships in American waters and over persons on board such vessels, the leading case may doubtless be considered to be that known as Wildenhus's Case, in which the Supreme Court of the United States sustained the jurisdiction of the courts of New Jersey where the crime of felonious homicide had been committed by a Belgian subject on the person of another Belgian subject on board of a Belgian vessel lying in the port of Jersey City,

2 120 U. S. 1.

New Jersey. In the following excerpt from the opinion of the court delivered by Mr. Chief Justice Waite are enunciated the rules underlying the assumption or non-assumption of jurisdiction by the local courts:

It is part of the law of civilized nations that when a merchant vessel of one country enters the ports of another for the purpose of trade, it subjects itself to the laws of the place to which it goes, unless by treaty or otherwise the two countries have come to some different understanding or agreement; for, as was said by Chief Justice Marshall in The Exchange, 7 Cranch, 116, 144, "it would be obviously inconvenient and dangerous to society, and would subject the laws to continual infraction, and the government to degradation, if such merchants did not owe temporary and local allegiance, and were not amenable to the jurisdiction of the country." United States v. Diekelman, 92 U. S. 520; 1 Phillimore's Int. Law, 3d ed. 483, Sec. 351; Twiss' Law of Nations in Time of Peace, 229, Sec. 159; Creasy's Int. Law, 167, Sec. 176; Halleck's Int. Law, 1st ed. 171. And the English judges have uniformly recognized the rights of the courts of the country of which the port is part to punish crimes committed by one foreigner on another in a foreign merchant ship. Regina v. Cunningham, Bell C. C. 72; S. C., 8 Cox C. C. 104; Regina v. Anderson, 11 Cox C. C. 198, 204; S. C., L. R. 1 C. C. 161, 165; Regina v. Heyn, 13 Cox C. C. 403, 486, 525; S. C., 2 Ex. Div. 63, 161, 213. As the owner has voluntarily taken his vessel for his own private purposes to a place within the dominion of a government other than his own, and from which he seeks protection during his stay, he owes that government such allegiance for the time being as is due for the protection. to which he becomes entitled.

From experience, however, it was found long ago that it would be beneficial to commerce if the local government would abstain from interfering with the internal discipline of the ship, and the general regulation of the rights and duties of the officers and crew towards the vessel or among themselves. And so by comity it came to be generally understood among civilized nations that all matters of discipline and all things done on board which affected only the vessel or those belonging to her, and did not involve the peace or dignity of the country, or the tranquillity of the port, should be left by the local government to be dealt with by the authorities of the nation to which the vessel belonged, as the laws of that nation or the interests of its commerce should require. But if crimes are committed on board of a character to disturb the peace and tranquillity of the country to which the vessel has been brought, the offenders have never by comity or usage been entitled to any exemption from the operation of the local laws for their punishment, if the local tribunals see fit to assert their authority.

The rules with regard to the exercise of civil jurisdiction in cases involving the rights of foreign vessels or persons connected with such vessels have frequently been announced by the courts in a variety of

cases.

In ex parte Newman3 a case in which foreign seamen had libeled a foreign vessel for wages, the Supreme Court of the United States said that admiralty courts will not take jurisdiction in such a case, except where it is manifestly necessary to do so to prevent failure of justice; that the better opinion is that independent of treaty stipulations there is no constitutional or legal impediment to the exercise of jurisdiction in such a case, but that the courts will not do so as a general rule without the consent of the representative of the country to which the vessel belongs, where it is practicable that the representative should be consulted.

In the case of the Carolina, a British vessel, in which an action. was brought by a foreign seaman in the United States Court for the District of Louisiana to recover damages for assault and battery alleged to have been committed on the high seas, the court said:

It is undoubtedly true, as a general proposition, that an action for a personal tort follows the person, and may be brought in any foreign court. It is also true that the courts of a nation are established and maintained for the convenience of its own citizens or subjects, and if foreigners are permitted to become actors therein it is because of what is termed comity between nations. American Law Review, vol. 7, p. 417, and Daniel Webster's Works (Everett's Edition), vol. 6, pp. 117, 118. The only ground upon which a foreigner could urge a claim to become a libelant in our courts would be that it was by comity due his government that its subjects should be thus heard, and, so far as this claim could be considered as a right, it could be insisted on only by that government, and, except in cases of inhumanity or gross injustice, would disappear whenever the claimant's government took a position against it.

The court stated that the exercise of jurisdiction in this case was discretionary, and that the courts of Great Britain afforded adequate redress to the libelant. The court therefore declined to take jurisdiction.

In Patterson v. Barke Eudora," the Supreme Court of the United 3 14 Wall. 152. 5 190 U. S. 169.

4 14 Fed. Rep. 424.

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