Liability for Damages Arising in the Navigation of Vessels (Volume 1); Hearing Before the Committee on Commerce, United States Senate, Sixty-Second Co

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1913. Excerpt: ... bill applies with equal force to various American steamship companies, including the United Fruit Co., the Plant Line, American-Hawaiian Steamship Co., New York & Porto Rico Steamship Co., and a number of others on our Atlantic and Pacific coasts. Hence the provisions of the bill are not consistent with the avowed policy of Congress to encourage the increase of the American merchant marine. INCONSISTENT WITH RECENT PANAMA CANAL ACT. Furthermore, should the bill pass, every foreign vessel which is acquired by an American citizen and which obtains the American flag under the new Panama bill will be denied the valuable protection now extended by the Harter Act if such vessel engages in foreign commerce. The result will be to discourage American capital from investing in such vessels. Owing to our laws relating to shipbuilding and ownership, the percentage of United States vessels engaged in foreign commerce is to-day insignificant as compared with those of other countries, and the effect of the proposed amendment can only be to make that percentage even smaller than it is. If the provision for the liability of the carrier for fault or error in navigation is advocated upon principle, without regard to the practical effect, why should it not apply to all alike, domestic as well as foreign commerce? DISCRIMINATION AGAINST AMERICAN COASTWISE SHIPPERS. On the other hand, the proposed amendment works a distinct discrimination against the American shipper of goods to a coastwise port, for just as the increased liability of the foreign carrier would result in a benefit to the foreign shipper, or, rather, to the cargo underwriter of the foreign shipper, so the exemption of that liability as to coastwise vessels would restrict the rights and privileges of the coastwis...