Mr. NICOLSON. Mr. Haight will answer that question.

Mr. HAIGHT. Well, they have not tried to figure out in their own minds every possible deviation which might be called reasonable. They know that saving property or life at sea is an excusable departure from a voyage. If you try to enumerate all the possibilities, suppose an American ship learns of an insurrection that is taking place on one of our outlying islands, and the man has not got wireless, and he deviates to go to a cable station to notify the Govern ment-you might have a million different possibilities.

Mr. BRAND. This amendment of mine permits all of those and the only thing it prohibits is deviating for the purpose of profit. Mr. HAIGHT. Well, the word "reasonable" was put in to let the courts say what would be reasonable.

Mr. EDMONDS. This is the situation as I can see it, but I am only a layman. I would consider if the captain of a ship, or if the owner of a ship, made a contract with me to make a direct delivery, that any damage or loss coming to me because he did not make that direct delivery, he would be liable for. Is not that right; is not that good law?

Mr. HAIGHT. Surely.

Mr. BRAND. If you did not have these words in this?

Mr. HAIGHT. Surely.

Mr. EDMONDS. Now we will presume the cargo is taken on the ship without any agreement as to direct delivery. A man says he is going to sail from Constantinople to New York or from Greece to New York, stopping at intermediate ports. He may say he is only going to stop at two ports but, on his way back, he may find additional cargo to fill the boat up at a third port, and he may stop at three ports, and he comes in. Now, the question, then, of reasonable deviation would arise. But there is a question in my mind I want to talk to Mr. Haight about, too; I want him to think about it. I am not so sure that a peculiar condition might not arise with a ship, in which a ship would be forced by storm damage, or something or other, or by piracy, even, or on account of the condition of the sea, or the condition of a certain harbor, or something happening in a harbor, to go to some point maybe three or four hundred miles away and, at its own expense, to ship the cargo to the home port, or a port he was going to, by rail. Now they should be in a position to make that deviation, if it is a reasonable deviation.

Mr. BRAND. That would be permitted under my amendment. Mr. EDMONDS. I think there should be some amendment that would cover that, because very frequently a ship might find it to its advantage. As a matter of fact, I called the attention of the Shipping Board where they went up to Boston to unload something like 150 tons of freight, when it would have paid them a great deal better to have taken that off at New York and put it on a railroad train and shipped it to Boston, than it would to go o and complete the voyage and make delivery by running the ship from New York to Boston to make delivery of only 150 tons; your railroad freight on that is far cheaper than operating a ship.

Mr. BRAND. Do you think that particular case would be prohibited by my suggestion?

Mr. EDMONDS. I do not know, but we have to think about these things: we have to think if it is good judgment, good, solid, rea

sonable judgment, for a ship to take out 15 or 20 tons of freight. They may have advertised the ship was going to Boston, but it would pay them to unload the freight and put it on a car and ship it by rail to Boston, rather than to transport it by the ship that might cost the shipowner 15 or 20 times as much as the value of the freight. We want to be fair to the shipowner, without detriment to the shipper.

Mr. BRAND. I would like to get language in there that covers not only the shippers, but I would like to get language in there that covers the shipowners, too, if it is possible.

Mr. EDMONDS. I brought a compromise in last night, and I did get Mr. Campbell and Mr. Haight to agree to it, but Mr. Draper was immovable.

Mr. DRAPER. It is not my desire to be unpleasant.

Mr. EDMONDS. No; it is not unpleasantness; but it is very hard to get you down to a point where you will agree to anything. I think you just have your mind set and you won't go any further than that.

Mr. DRAPER. Let me explain one thing. There seems to be an opinion around here that all the steamship owners are the finest type of wonderful gentlemen. Some of them are. There is also an opinion some people may have that the average shipper is trying to do the steamship owner out of something. That is not the fact. There are occasions where he does.

Mr. EDMONDS. Being in business myself, I will agree they are trying to do each other all the time.

Mr. DRAPER. They are trying to do each other all the time, but here is the kind of attitude the shipper is confronted with by the carrier: We ship stuff on a bill of lading that provides, and as a lot of other bills of lading do, that the voyage is ended when the vessel enters port. We shipped a lot of perishable stuff in the middle of the summer time to Sweden. The vessel got in the harbor over there and could not find a dock. She was in a hurry to get down to Hamburg to pick up some more cargo, so that she unloaded our stuff out in the roadstead on a barren island and sailed away to Hamburg, and three months later we found it. You can imagine the condition it was in, and we could not collect a dollar-not a cent.

Mr. EDMONDS. That is the same cargo we have heard of down here several times.

Mr. DRAPER. That is the same cargo you have heard of several times that went to Sweden.

Mr. EDMONDS. And I think it has been sticking in your mind ever

since.

Mr. ROBB. We contracted for a shipment from New York to Rotterdam by one of these big English steamship lines. They delivered that shipment in London. The rate to London was a good deal less than the rate to Rotterdam, and they have $8,300 of our money to-day that they have had for five years they won't give back on account of a clause in the bill of lading.

Mr. EDMONDS. This will eliminate that-this new bill of lading. Mr. ROBB. That is what we have been up against.

Mr. EDMONDS. We are trying to eliminate that now, to stop them from doing that. There is no question at all but that there have been very great irregularities on the part of the ships, particularly

during the war, and I think that they ought to be stopped from a great many of their irregularities; they ought to be made to do business the same as everybody else, and the shippers ought to stop trying to do the ships, and we ought to give our American ships. cargo and cut down all we can on the English ships.

Mr. DRAPER. We would do that if the American ships would treat us with a proper spirit at all.

Mr. EDMONDS. I had a man come to me a while ago and say, we will pay 30 per cent more to the American ships if they will give us certain conveniences."

Mr. DRAPER. All right; we were shipping on an American ship, too, sending stuff over to Germany, and we tried to get a settlement out of the Shipping Board, but instead of giving us a settlement, they wanted to give us the ship. [Laughter.]

Mr. EDMONDS. I think that was done with the idea of encouraging you to go into the shipping business yourself, so that all these troubles you have would be stopped.

Mr. BOAL. That cargo was sent on a ship that we had chartered to someone else.

Mr. DRAPER. It was under one of your M. O. 4 contracts, was it not?

Mr. BOAL. No; a chartered ship.

Mr. BRAND. I will say that the deviations of the American Shipping Board ships are less troublesome than any other line I know of. Mr. DRAPER. I think that is true, sir.

Mr. EDMONDS. As a matter of fact, Mr. Brand, I do not think, if you will go into it, that deviation is annoying and it is not a practice. In other words, the deviations, when you take the number of voyages made by ships, are very few and far between, in comparison to the straight voyages.

Mr. HAIGHT. One in seven.

Mr. BRAND. But down the Mediterranean it is a terrible thing; you can not depend on the lines there at all.

Mr. EDMONDS. Well, you can not depend on the people that live around the Mediterranean at all.

Mr. BRAND. With the American ships, we found it different; whenever they tell us anything, they do it. But on the others, you can not depend on them at all.

Mr. HAIGHT. If you can get it in writing, you can libel the ship and hold it every time.

Mr. NICOLSON. I think the question of the uniformity of the bill of lading is a tremendously important one and, incidental to that question, is the certainty that if two nations agree upon a uniform bill of lading that it will be binding equally upon the citizens of the two nations represented. I am not going into a discussion of the question, but I do think that the question of the relationship between the British shipowner and the British act has some bearing on the provisions of this act in respect to the relations of the American shipowner to this act. Now if this bill is going to apply to everybody alike, whether foreigner or American, and whether on incoming or outgoing cargo, I think that question becomes very much less important, because we are sure that everybody is going to be treated alike with respect to American commerce, whether imports or ex

99 66 * * *

ports. I therefore, Mr. Chairman, suggest further amendment, notwithstanding it may not be strictly necessary because of the decisions that have been made by the Supreme Court, but for clarity of statement, that there be inserted in line 25, page 12, being the second line of section 11, after the word " sea incoming or outgoing," between ports of the United States, etc. I am not wedded to that exact impression, "incoming or outgoing"; it might be imports and exports," or anything which makes it clear and puts it beyond all possible argument that this bill of lading will apply to movements both ways.

May I add further, Mr. Chairman, that the amendment proposed this morning by Mr. Haight, to be added to the end of the deviation clause, in form proposed by the Shipping Board, so far as we can at present see, will be entirely acceptable to the board; but I prefer postponing a final statement on this point for the present.

In conclusion, let me renew our assurances that we are in entire sympathy with the general purposes of this act and of the importance, so far as possible, of having a uniform bill of lading established by the maritime nations of the world generally.

(The following letter and extracts from bills of lading were submitted for the record by Mr. Edmonds:)

NORTH AMERICAN EXPORT GRAIN ASSOCIATION,

New York, January 28, 1925.

Hon. GEORGE W. EDMONDS, Acting Chairman Committee on the Merchant Marine and Fisheries, House of Representatives, Washington, D. C'. DEAR SIR: Referring to your telegraph dispatch of to-day, advising us that a hearing on the bill relating to carriage of goods by sea was being held this morning, to which of course it was impossible for us to send a representative after receipt of your dispatch, we wish to say, after a study of this bill, we are in general favorable to its provisions except as to section 4, subsection 4 (the deviation clause), which provision as appearing in H. R. bill 11447 is decidedly in conflict with The Hague provisions as proposed by the International Conference in October, 1922, at which conference representatives from The United States were present, and which latter provis ons have now been embodied in the English carriage of goods by sea act effective since January 1, 1925.

The Hague rules proposed the following:

"Any deviation in saving or attempting to save life or property at sea, or any reasonable deviation shall not be deemed to be an infringement or breach of these rules or of the contract of carriage, and the carrier shall not be liable for any loss or damage resulting therefrom."

Whereas H. R. 11447 provides, section 4, subsection 4, the following: "Any deviation in saving or attempting to save life or property in jeopardy at sea, or any deviation agreed upon between the carrier and the shipper at the time cargo space is contracted for shall not be deemed to be an infringement or breach of this act or of the contract of carriage, and the carrier shall not be liable for any loss or damage resulting therefrom."

If this last were to become effective, it would entirely frustrate one of the main objects of The Hague conference, namely, to secure by legislation such a uniform deviation clause as would be reasonable to both carriers and shippers. The deviation clauses generally employed by carriers at present, and forced upon shippers, are certainly unreasonable. Legislation such as is embodied in this deviation clause would simply perpetuate the objectionable conditions which presently prevail and which The Hague conference proposed to do away with. If the clause, section 4, subsection 4, were to become effective the deviation privileges imposed on shippers would be the same as are required in bills of lading to-day. The shipper would be at the mercy of the carrier and could secure space only on carrier's terms as to deviation privileges. The only alternative the shipper would have would be to decline to ship, that is to say, to go out of business. The Hague provision-permitting

deviation to save life or property and any reasonable deviation, etc.- -seems to adequately protect all parties. To eliminate this stipulation (reasonable) could only mean that the carrier would impose unreasonable terms as he does

now.

In view of the fact that Great Britain by legislation adopted these Hague rules practically as agreed, including the deviation clause therein stipulated, the enactment of H. R. 11447 with the altered deviation clause would give rise to a peculiar situation. That is to say, foreign vessels when sailing from Great Britain to the United States would be obligated under the British act to issue to shippers bills of lading including the deviation clause as proposed by The. Hague conference, whereas if this H. R. 11447 is enacted in its present form these same vessels when taking cargo from the United States would by grace of the easier terms allowed by legislators here be permitted to impose on American exporters such unreasonable deviation conditions as The Hague conference desired to do away with altogether, and which the British Government by legislation has now prohibited.

The United States certainly could hardly be expected to grant by legislation more favorable conditions to carriers as to exports from the United States than other governments allow to those same steamers as to exports from those countries to America or elsewhere.

Furthermore, one of the principal reasons for The Hague conference was to secure by legislation uniformity in bill of lading conditions, something that is universally desired. To adopt section 4, subsection 4, as proposed in H. R. 11447, against the recommendation of The Hague conference and in conflict with legislation along these lines enacted by other Nations, is to completely frustrate that good purpose. We urge then that section 4, subsection 4, be so amended as to bring it into harmony with the proposal of The Hague conference, and which is now embodied in the British act.

If this bill may not already have been amended by the committee as thus proposed we request that we may be heard thereon. This association, comprising in its membership practically all grain exporters, east of the Rocky Mountains, is very much interested in bill of lading provisions. We regret that through no fault of ours we failed to learn of the hearing to-day.

We might further add that on page 5, line 6, if the phraseology was changed to read:

"The shipper, carrier, and the receiver shall give all reasonable facilities, etc."

It would better give to this paragraph the meaning it was intended to convey.

If any serious objection has been made to any of the other clauses of H. R. 11447, may we be advised of their nature?

We hand you herewith two bill of lading forms used by representative steamship companies, on which we have marked the deviation clauses as employed by them and by many other lines in the same or similar form.

Respectfully yours,

JAS. WARD WARNER.

President.

DEVIATION CLAUSE EMPLOYED BY UNITED AMERICAN LINES (INC.) JOINT SERVICE WITH HAMBURG-AMERICAN LINE, ISSUED SEPTEMBER, 1923

The carrier may substitute another vessel or vessels or tranship the whole or any part of the goods by any other vessel, whether operated by the carrier or by others at the original port of shipment, or at any other place or places and may forward the goods by other means when necessary, but shall be under no obligation to do so. The vessel with the goods on board, either before or after proceeding toward the port of discharge may remain in port, proceed by any route and deviate from or change the advertised and intended route at any stage of the voyage and may proceed to and stay at any places whatsoever, although in a contrary direction to or outside of or beyond the usual route to said port of discharge, once or oftener, in any order, backwards or forwards, for loading and/or discharging cargo, fuel, stores, or passengers, and/or for any purpose whatsoever that in the opinion of the carrier or master may seem advisable, and although pertaining to another voyage. This liberty is not