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GENERAL SURVEY
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question of safety of life at sea and to have been solved by Article 48 of the London Convention and has therefore had some doubts as to how far the Conference should deal with it, it will not oppose the adoption of a Draft Convention by the Conference.
The Swedish Government indicates that, though it might perhaps be questioned whether the subject on the Agenda is within the competence of the International Labour Conference, practical reasons can be invoked for having it dealt with by the Conference, and it is not therefore desirable to oppose this course being taken.
(c) One Government (Great Britain) considers that it would be impracticable to lay down, for international application, detailed rules on the subject of the minimum age of watch-keeping officers, professional experience and the passing of public examinations, and in these circumstances doubts whether the question on
the Agenda is one on which international agreement can best be expressed by means of a Draft Convention. In its view, however, agreement might well be reached, in the form of a Recommendation, or, if such was the general desire of the Conference, of a Draft Convention, on the principle that each Government should establish a national system providing for compulsory minimum requirements of professional capacity on the part of the classes of persons covered by the item on the Agenda, with such exceptions as national conditions require; but, as it does not consider it desirable that any Recommendation or Draft Convention which is adopted should specify the application of any detailed rules, it has not returned replies to the specific points put in the Questionnaire1.
(d) Lastly, one Government (South Africa) has not given any special reply to the Questionnaire but has simply made a short general statement with reference to all the four maritime Questionnaires. This statement, while mentioning the Merchant Shipping (Certificates of Competency) Act 1925 which regulates the subject- matter of this Report in that country, is to the effect that, in view of the particular conditions in the Union indicated in the statement, it is considered that the time
1 See footnote, page 59.
QUESTION 1
has not yet arrived for the Union Government to under- take the responsibility of
of associating itself with international action such as is contemplated in the different Questionnaires 1.
2. Such, then, is the position of the replies on the first and fundamental question put to the Governments. What conclusions can be drawn from them?
(a) In the first place, the overwhelming majority of the Governments do not question in any way the competence of the Conference for dealing with the problem on its Agenda. If one or two Governments have had doubts on this preliminary point, they have never- theless not only made it clear beyond misunderstanding that they do not oppose endeavours being made by the Conference to arrive at an international solution of the problem, but have also signified, by their replies to the Questionnaire as a whole, their readiness to co-operate in working out such a solution. In these circumstances it would be superfluous to embark here on any examination of the merits of the point in question, or to refer to the short discussion raised on it at the Thirteenth Session of the Conference. It is simply desired to note that, so far as the Governments whose replies are given in this report are concerned, the question of the competence of the Conference as a matter of practical politics at any rate is concluded.
(b) Secondly, it would be equally superfluous to enter here into any discussion of the question whether the problem on the Agenda of the Conference has already been sufficiently dealt with by Article 48 of the Londor Convention, so as to make it unnecessary for the Confe rence to endeavour to find a more specific solution for it
1 Except that the statement of the British Government contains further observations on the question of exceptions, which observa- tions are considered under Question 3, post, p. 68, this statement as well as that of the South African Government are not further referred to in the following sections of this chapter, as they do not contain specific replies to the subsequent points in the Questionnaire. Any general references to the replies of the Governments in the following sections of this chapter should accordingly be read subject to the statements of these two Governments.
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