a modern revision thereof, we will get exactly what we deserve-a first-class lot of high-priced litigation with the prospect of even less relief in the future. Since the issue is raised and is definitely before us we must settle it right or not at all.

This is a report that was made to a convention of the National Industrial Traffic League and was unanimously adopted by that organization.

Ocean carriers have preserved throughout all the centuries of water carriage a lot of old-fashioned ideas as to why they should be exempt from liability on one cause and another. There may have been justice in their contentions in the days of long ago when a ship departed on a long journey during which the owner had no means of communication with the master. That, however, is a thing of the past, and to-day the owner is in daily and instant touch with the ship which is as completely under control as is the railroad train.

From the viewpoint of the modern shipper dealing with the ocean carrier of to-day it seems absurd to urge the continuation of these obsolete conditions. It would appear that the majority of the committee

That is, a majority of the committee brought in a report favoring these Hague rules. The minority committee came in and made its report, and the association voted down the majority committee report and adopted the minority committee report unanimously, which is this report.

* * * It would appear that the majority of the committee had failed to read some of the more recent developments in the fight of our Government to control ocean carriers who persisted in violating the dry laws.

Now before we can readily sense the importance of The Hague rules and understand the reason for their promulgation, we must go behind the scenes and study the causes leading up to their sudden adoption at The Hague. Let us, therefore, see what the conditions were that inspired this sudden desire to "endow" the commercial world with this important code.

Let us inquire of the members to learn if there is a single one who has ever known of a case where ocean carriers conceded improved conditions to the shippers except under force of competition, threatened loss of tonnage, or the force of governmental control, actual or potential. It has never been done before, and we have no reason to suspect The Hague rules to be an exception. Until America started the ball rolling with the enactment of the Harter Act in 1893, the whole world remained at the mercy of the ocean carriers. That act, however it may be criticized for incompleteness, pointed the way, and other nations, one after the other, took up the battle and enacted legislation which has gradually closed in on the ocean carriers' right to dictate terms to shippers. In some respects these laws are more rigorous, and others less so, than the Harter Act. In all respects they mark the progressive steps of bringing the ocean carriers under more control than was ever thought possible. When the Interstate Commerce Commission sought to inject itself into the task of improving conditions in the through export bill of lading it was pretty generally understood (by the carriers) that it could not be done. It was done, however, and all things considered, it was well done. This merely proves what can be done.

Mention is made of the movement which started among the shippers of the British Empire to seek a curb on ocean carriers.

That was referred to in the majority report.

* * * Reference is also made to the maritime law committee "deeming the time opportune to work out The Hague rules.

The fact of the matter was, the shippers in Great Britain had been so badly treated by the British steamship companies that they descended upon Parliament with a demand that legislation somewhat similar to our Harter Act be enacted for their protection, and immediately the British steamship companies got together and devised these rules as a means of protecting themselves from legisla

tion like the Harter Act, which they considered to be more adverse to them. This report goes on:

So.

The citizens of the British Empire have a way of accomplishing things which they set out to do, and when they resolved to bring ocean carriers under the control of their government, no one doubted their ability to do This was particularly true of the ocean carriers and it became a wild stampede to give the shippers some sort of a concession that would stop the clamor and stay the inevitable. That is why we are now studying The Hague rules; and let us not be deceived into thinking there has been any change of heart toward shippers in general or American shippers in particular.

Moreover, let us note that where the majority of the changes seemingly favor the shipper, this is attributable to the well-known fact that he had little or nothing in the beginning, so that he must "receive," since he could "give" no further concessions.

I thought maybe the committee would like to have that background. Now, if we are through with deviation

Mr. EDMONDS. Go on to the next matter, Mr. Draper.

Mr. DRAPER. The next complaint that we have is on page 7, subparagraph (j). If you will read it in connection with paragraph 2, under which that paragraph (j) appears "neither the carrier nor the ship shall be responsible for loss or damage arising or resulting from "

And then read paragraph (j):

Strikes or lockouts or stoppage or restraint of labor from whatever cause, whether partial or general.

We object very strenuously to a steamship company being allowed to exempt itself from all loss or damage resulting from a lockout, for instance, caused by itself. Under that language a master of a ship can lockout a single cabin boy and exempt himself from liability for all loss or damage of any kind to our goods that are on board of that vessel. Quite recently one of our companies suffered a loss in a foreign port of about $40,000, largely on one shipment, due to a lockout. In this case it happened to be a lockout of stevedores.

Mr. EDMONDS. Now, you object to that yet you sign this kind of a provision to-day, and you have it to-day, and it is far worse than what you have in this bill:

Also, that if on account of weather, lockouts, labor troubles, strikes, whether of carrier's employees or others, earthquakes, epidemic, interdict, prohibition of importation, rot, war, or other disturbance, or any cause beyond the control of the carriers, or by reason, etc.

You sign that clause to-day.

Mr. DRAPER. Quite true. Why, we have to sign it in order to get anything.

Mr. EDMONDS. All right; we are trying to improve conditions here, yet you object to this; because I do not know of a contract to-day in any kind of business that does not put just that thing in. The contracts made for coal, yours in Chicago, contain that kind of a clause.

Mr. DRAPER. Quite true; but we think if we are going to improve these conditions the carrier should no longer be exempt from damage or loss resulting from lockouts caused by himself.

Mr. EDMONDS. Well, sometimes lockouts that are caused by the master are not intentional; they are caused by him but because he is forced to do it for self-preservation.

Mr. DRAPER. Suppose that he deliberately does it?

Mr. EDMONDS. Oh, I do not think that is possible; a man does not hold property worth five or six hundred thousand dollars lying around; he wants to use it.

Mr. DRAPER. He might.

Mr. EDMONDS. He might, but that is very far-fetched.

Mr. DRAPER. It is not far-fetched when they have our goods.

Mr. EDMONDS. All right, you are going to have an anthracite strike next year. Is it brought on by the operators or not? Your contracts are all made subject to it; every contract made to-day is subject to strikes and everything else.

Mr. DRAPER We do not complain about the word "strikes."

Mr. EDMONDS. It is charged the operators are bringing that anthracite strike on, but they won't put in their contract anything at all to restrict them from bringing it on, and it is charged they

are.

Mr. DRAPER. We are perfectly willing to have strikes of stevedores in there, but we want to object to the word "lockouts.”

Mr. ROBB. Í happen to know about this case that Mr. Draper had at Havana, Cuba, and there was only one line affected; the other lines were delivering cargo currently. Now, this line thought they could beat the labor game on their docks, and they allowed property to pass in to the extent of one-half a million dollars. My company lost $40,000, which they are trying to get back to-day, on account of a lockout. The other lines operating to Havana were delivering stuff, our stuff, at the same time. They may have been fighting for a principle, but it was at our expense and they got the benefit. Mr. EDMONDS. They might have benefited or they might not; it just depends on how the strike worked out, or the lockout; but I do not see how you can take one example that may happen once in 10 years and use it as an example on which to base legislation, when all the others they may have may be very justifiable. I have known some of them to be very justifiable. It may be a hardship to the shipper, of course; on the other hand, there will arise conditions beyond the control of the man who is endeavoring to operate successfully.

Mr. DRAPER. But any shipowner, if he does create a lockout himself, for his own benefit, it may damage the goods he has in his custody, and if he elects to do that, should not he pay for that damage?

Mr. EDMONDS. Are you not suing him in court to-day?

Mr. DRAPER. Yes; but try to collect your money. You can sue anybody, but to collect is another matter.

Mr. ROBB. We have already spent seven or eight thousand dollars trying to get our money back. We would like to get half of it. That is the way it generally works out and, generally speaking, when you put a case of that kind in the hands of an admiralty attorney, he will take it on a 35 to 50 per cent basis, only.

Mr. EDMONDS. Yet you want to put in here a clause which you, yourself, in your private business, would not countenance for one minute; you are attempting to put in here a clause that would place the shipowner absolutely in the hands of a cabin boy; you are asking us to place that in here which would absolutely place the

shipowner in the hands of the cabin boy; and you would not countenance it in your own business for one minute.

Mr. ROBB. The uniform bill of lading in use by land carriers does not contain any clause with reference to lockouts.

Mr. DRAPER. It does strikes.

Mr. ROBB. It does strikes.

Mr. DRAPER. But not lockouts.

Mr. ROBB. During the shopmen's strike a year ago (it was a lockout, practically) those shops were closed, and the engines were turned over to contract shops for repairs. It amounted to a lockout. The railroads of this country paid every loss sustained by the shippers on that account, and that is what we want these people to do.

Mr. EDMONDS. That is true, and the contract with the railroad company contained the word "lockout," did it not?

Mr. DRAPER. No, sir; "strikes," not "lockouts."

Mr. EDMONDS. But they have other facilities to do it. Something might happen on the ship where they have not other facilities to do it.

Mr. DRAPER. Why don't they take care of the goods?

Mr. EDMONDS. All I want you gentlemen to do, when you come down to a thing like this, where it is a business that is affected more by strikes than any other business in the country, I want you to place yourselves in the position of the other fellow. The trouble is you come down here and you want everything your own way, and you want things that you would not do in your own business.

Mr. ROBB. We have gone as far as I think we ought to go on this thing.

Mr. EDMONDS. I am not complaining about it on this bill, particularly, but when you bring up a thing like this, I think you ought to place yourselves in the other fellow's shoes.

Mr. DRAPER. The railroad's bill of lading does not contain "lockouts."

Mr. EDMONDS. They have entirely different conditions; they are on land; you are on ships at sea. You can have a strike on the railroads, you can have a strike in the anthracite mines, and you can use bituminous coal; or you can have a strike in the bituminous mines and you can use anthracite coal, and the railroad can have a strike in its shops and get the other shops to do its work, as it did a year ago; they have the facilities; but here the ship may be in a foreign port away somewhere or other, and it has not a crew, and it can not help itself.

Mr. DRAPER. If the crew struck, they would be protected.

Mr. EDMONDS. If the crew strikes; but should the crew so act to the officers on the ship that they cause a strike, that forces the officers to do something, they call it a lockout.

Mr. DRAPER. If it is on the high seas, you can get them for mutiny.

Mr. EDMONDS. Oh, it is different on the high seas; but those conditions down here in Cuba may have become so absolutely unbearable that they were forced to do it.

Mr. ROBB. But in this very case, Mr. Chairman, the steamship company could have gone to some other dock and made arrange

ments to unload the stuff and save it. Instead of that, they let it lay out in the stream for 71 days and become ruined.

Mr. EDMONDS. At that same time there were a lot of other people who had stuff lying out in the harbor on boats, and they could not protect themselves. Right here in the House, there was a Member of Congress who had a lot of shoes lying out there until the rain ruined them, and he had a loss of $200,000 down there, just becauseof the congestion in the harbor of Habana on account of the strike. Mr. LARSEN. You only object to the word "lockout?"

Mr. DRAPER. That is all.

Mr. LARSEN. You just want that word "lockout" taken out? Mr. DRAPFR. If a ship has a strike it is entitled to some protection.

Mr. EDMONDS. And only lockouts in so far as they are brought on voluntarily by the officers.

Mr. DRAPER. Brought on by the agent of the owner, or the owner, or something of that sort.

The next thing that we have to offer some criticism of is this paragraph 6 on page 4, which reads:

Unless notice of loss or damage and the general nature of such loss or damage be given in writing to the carrier or his agent at the port of discharge before or at the time of the removal of the goods into the custody of the person entitled to delivery thereof under the contract of carriage, or if the loss or damage be not apparent, within three days, such removal shall be prima facie evidence of the delivery by the carrier of the goods as described in the bill of lading.

Mr. EDMONDS. Is your objection there in regard to the "general nature of such loss or damage," or in regard to the three days?

Mr. DRAPER. We have two or three objections in connection with that.

Mr. EDMONDS. If it is to the "general nature of such loss or damage," I will agree with you that it ought to go out, if that is what you object to.

Mr. DRAPER. I do not quite get your point.

Mr. EDMONDS. "Unless notice of loss or damage" and cutting out "and the general nature of such loss or damage," so that it will read "unless notice of loss or damage be given in writing," etc.

Mr. DRAPER. We certainly object to that "general nature of such loss or damage."

Mr. EDMONDS. I will agree we can not expect the people you employ here to have sufficient knowledge to describe the loss in the bill of lading.

Mr. DRAPER. The first part of that clause covers cases where the damage is apparent. Now it may read all right, but, in the practical operation of transportation, what happens is this: A drayman or truckman, more often than not, is extremely illiterate, very frequently he can not even read or write, and he makes his mark on a sheet of paper that somebody gives him and he carries it away and delivers where it is supposed to go. Our position in regard to that is that if a box of goods is broken open or damaged, the steamship company knows it quite as well as some drayman who is driving a team of mules, and there is not any reason why you should be forced to give the steamship company notice in writing before you take the goods even away from the dock. It can not be done.