CO129-536-10 Need for leglisation concerning number of certificated officers carried on passenger ships 18-11-1931 - 15-6-1932 — Page 59

CHAPTER III

CONCLUSIONS AND TEXT OF A PROPOSED DRAFT CONVENTION

or

It has been seen in the preceding chapter that the principle of the adoption by the Conference of a Draft Convention concerning the minimum requirement of professional competency on

competency on the part of masters skippers, chief engineers and navigating and engineer officers in charge of watches on board merchant vessels has, with one exception (South Africa), been unanimously accepted by the twenty-three Governments1 whose replies to the Questionnaire framed on the basis of the decisions of the Thirteenth Session of the Conference are reproduced in this Report.

It was noted that in accepting the above principle the great majority of the Governments had expressly or tacitly recognised not only the competence of the Conference to deal with the problem on its Agenda, thus confirming the attitude of the Thirteenth Session on this point, but also the insufficiency of Article 48 of the London Convention on the safety of life at sea (May, 1929) as an international solution of the particular problem in question. If one or two Governments indicated that they had had certain doubts on these points, it was nevertheless found that they had resolved them in favour of the Conference and a special Draft Convention they not only expressly stated that they did not oppose the adoption of a Draft Convention, but by their replies to the Questionnaire as a whole mani- fested their readiness to contribute to the framing of a special body of international regulations.

It has further been seen in the preceding chapter that only one Government (Great Britain), or perhaps two for the combined effect of the replies of the

1 Cf. footnote, ante, p. 55.

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