99
CONCLUSIONS
94
Netherlands to the different parts of the Questionnaire was to endorse the attitude of the British Government had taken the view that the Draft Convention should not specify any detailed rules for international application, but should be confined to laying down the general principle that each Government should establish a national system providing for compulsory minimum requirements of professional competency on the part of masters and navigating and engineer officers on merchant ships, and leave matters relating to the application of this principle to be determined by the individual country as national conditions require. The other Governments, however, were not only agreed that the Draft Convention should embody the fundamental rule that certificates of competency are to be obligatory for employment in any of the four capacities of master or skipper, navigating officer in charge of a watch, etc., but on the whole considered that it should go further and define the scope and certain methods of application of this rule on the lines of the different specific points contained in the Questionnaire, i.e. as to the definition of the duties for which the certificates would be required, the vessels which would have to carry persons thus certificated, the general minimum conditions to be complied with before certificates could be issued, the sanctions to be provided for cases of breaches of the rules of the draft, and super- vision of its enforcement. It was observed in this connection that in their attitude towards these different points these Governments had not availed themselves of the distinction which the Thirteenth Session of the Conference left it open to them to make between the first three Questions in the Questionnaire (which the Thir- teenth Session regarded as of primary importance for the Draft Convention) and the last three Questions (which it treated as of secondary importance for this purpose), but had with very few exceptions treated both groups on the same footing with a view to the inclusion of proposals on them in the Draft Convention.
The great majority of the Government were thus in favour of a Draft Convention which would deal with the different aspects of the problem on the Agenda which were covered
covered by the Questionnaire, and so recognised that a draft which merely laid down the
Page 60Page 61