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GENERAL SURVEY
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question whether the Draft Convention at present under consideration is not to be completely distinguished in its objects from previous Draft Conventions which have excluded the fishing industry, e.g. the Draft Conven- tions concerning respectively seamen's articles of agree- ment and the repatriation of seamen, and whether the special conditions of this industry which made it expedient to leave it entirely out of account for the particular purposes of those Conventions could be considered to be of a nature to justify similar treatment of it for the wholly different purposes of the present Draft Conven- tion. It is hardly necessary, however, to go into the merits of this question, or to refer to the modern develop- ments of the fishing industry or to the extent to which fishing vessels, often of comparatively big tonnage, traverse the routes followed by large ships. The fact is that in the two countries in question the principle of certificates of professional competency is already reco- gnised and applied to certain classes of fishing vessels. In Great Britain vessels engaged in certain fisheries are treated on the same footing as foreign-going vessels for the purposes, inter alia, of certificates of professional competency, and the regulations in force in Germany on this subject also apply to vessels engaged in sea fishing, subject to defined exceptions. Moreover, it has to be remembered that the Committee of the Thirteenth Session of the Conference expressly decided to include the fishing industry within the range of the Questionnaire, and that most of the other Governments make no dis- tinction at all between fishing vessels and other vessels for the purposes of the Draft Convention, while nearly all the special exceptions proposed for fishing in a few replies relate, as has already been noted (ante, (ii) p. 71),
1 Section 744 of the Merchant Shipping Act of 1894, as amended by Section 83 of the Act of 1906, provides that: "ships engaged in the whale, seal, walrus, or Newfoundland cod fisheries shall be deemed to be foreign-going ships for the purpose of this Act, and not fishing boats, with the exception of ships engaged in the Newfoundland cod fisheries which belong to ports in Canada or Newfoundland and of ships engaged in the whale fisheries off the coast of Scotland and registered at ports in Scotland."
2 See Grey Report submitted to the Thirteenth Session of the Conference, at page 38.
"
QUESTION 3
to vessels of very low or comparatively low tonnage. In all these circumstances it would appear that there can hardly be any question at the present stage of provid- ing in the draft to be submitted to the Conference for the possibility of exceptions for the whole fishing industry as such, but that in accordance with the general tendency of the replies any exceptions allowed for fishing vessels should be of the same "minor" character as those con- templated in the majority of the replies for other vessels.
(iii) Minor exceptions. Once the principle that exceptions should not be allowed on the sole ground of the nature of the trade or industry engaged in is established, it would appear that the observations and proposals of the Governments summarised in the preceding pages might well be reduced to a pure question of tonnage. A number of Governments, indeed, make this the sole criterion e.g. Australia, Belgium, Denmark. If France and Finland have referred respectively to vessels not carrying a crew of more than five or vessels manned exclusively by members of the shipowner's or master's family, clearly these criteria could be equally well expressed in terms of tonnage. Similarly, the dis- tinctions made in a few replies in respect of fishing vessels (e.g. coastal vessels, certain trawlers and mechani- cally propelled line boats and drifters) or sailing vessels nearly all imply or refer to a small tonnage. Lastly, only four Governments (France, Germany, India1, Japan 2) have thought it necessary to take horse power specially into account with reference to engineer officers, and in two of these cases at least (France, Japan 2) the horse power mentioned (10 and 70 respectively) would only exclude comparatively small vessels.
From the standpoint of the objects of the Draft Convention, it seems clear that in any case tonnage is the primary factor to be taken into consideration, as the majority of the replies expressly or implicitly recognise. It would appear, moreover, in the light of the replies as a whole, that for the purposes of an international Conven- tion it would be at once simpler and more satisfactory
1 See also post, p. 78.
2 See also post, p. 78.
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