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Ernest T. Florance:

Will the gentleman from Ohio kindly tell me what that section is that has been added, because I am probably laboring under a misapprehension and have been misinformed. I was informed that there has been added a section by which the rights of a holder of a Bill of Lading are made inferior to any lien or chattel mortgage or attachment that might run against the property, even after he had become the owner of the Bill of Lading.

Francis B. James:

Section 31 of the

The gentleman has been misinformed. Fourth Tentative Draft of the act puts bills of lading so far as negotiability is concerned upon the same basis as promissory notes and bills of exchange, and the new section added to the Bills of Lading Act is simply declaratory of the meaning of the act as it stood without it. To illustrate: If A were the owner of a carload of a hundred bales of cotton, and should execute a mortgage upon that cotton to B, which mortgage was duly recorded, and thereafter should sell that cotton to an innocent purchaser for value, the innocent purchaser for value would take the hundred bales of cotton subject to the recorded mortgage, which was notice to the world. The new section of the Bills of Lading Act (Section 43) recognizes that principle in the case where a bill of lading is issued after the mortgage has been given and duly recorded, and that section was merely a recognition of the correct interpretation of the act without the addition of the section, said section being a mere declaration of the meaning of the act. Some doubt was raised as to what was the meaning of the act, and to clarify that section and remove the necessity of litigation, as legislation is cheaper than litigation, it was deemed wise to insert an interpreting clause which preserves the construction of the act as generally understood. Therefore, the gentleman has been misinformed as to the contents of the section, which does not in any manner impair the negotiability of a bill of lading, but simply recognizes a principle which is inherent in the nature of property and of title to property.

Albert W. Biggs, of Tennessee:

Will not this question be considered in the report of the Committee on Uniform State Laws? Will not the draft of the Uniform Bills of Lading Act come in under that report?

Amasa M. Eaton, of Rhode Island:

The report of that committee is here and will be submitted in due order.

The President:

The present report, however, recommends the approval of these bills, and the Association must dispose of the report in some way, either by acceptance of it or amendment or rejection. Albert W. Biggs:

I do not want to go ahead in the dark, and recommend something that is yet to be submitted to the Association. I may be in error as to what will take place, but if the Committee on Uniform Sate Laws is to bring in a report embodying this draft of the Bills of Lading Act, about which two members of the Committee on Commerical Law disagree, and as to which we cannot know which of them understands it correctly, I believe that the subject matter of the recommendation of the Committee on Commercial Law ought to go over until after we have heard the report of the Committee on Uniform State Laws.

Amasa M. Eaton:

If the gentleman will permit me to interrupt him, I would state that the report of the Committee on Uniform State Laws is fully in accord with the sentiments that have been expressed by this report and recommendation. There is no difference of opinion between us at all.

The President:

The gentleman from Tennessee moves to defer action upon this report until after the report of the Committee on Uniform State Laws shall have been made.

Amasa M. Eaton:

I ask the gentleman from Tennessee whether there is any object to be accomplished in pressing his amendment after the explanation that I have just made?

Albert W. Biggs:

I think we ought not to take action on the report of the Committee on Uniform State Laws until that report is actually presented and discussed.

The President:

The Chair will rule that the subject of uniform state legislation recommended in this report is not in order until after the report of the Committee on Uniform State Laws, the subject being primarily germane to the business of that committee. Therefore, as a matter of order and procedure, unless overruled, the Chair holds that that portion of the report must go over until the Committee on Uniform State Laws shall have made its report.

George Whitelock, of Maryland:

Then I make this suggestion. Mr. Eaton, who is about to present that report, is like myself one of the Commissioners on Uniform State Laws. The two reports, as he has stated, are in absolute harmony and concurrence. Therefore, in view of the Chair's ruling, I suggest that Mr. Eaton have leave now to read the report of the Committee on Uniform State Laws in order that the Association may act advisedly, and when the whole subject is before it, it can dispose of the same.

The President:

It seems to the Chair that there are two distinct subjects in this report-one relating to Maritime Law, which has no possible connection with the other. That is the peculiar subject matter of this report. The other is a matter appropriately within the sphere of the other committee.

The Chair will therefore, unless overruled, put the question

upon the approval of the report of this committee so far as relates to the three bills which are incorporated in the report.

Amasa M. Eaton, of Rhode Island:

In view of the ruling of the Chair, I move to divide the resolution that I offered, and take up first so much of it as endorses the report of this committee, and their recommendation to adopt the Maritime Law and the Bankruptcy Law.

Albert W. Biggs, of Tennessee:

I was going to move that the report of the Committee on Commercial Law embraced in Sections 1 and 3 be approved.

The President:

That is practically the motion made by the gentleman from Rhode Island, as he has now amended his resolution.

Albert W. Biggs:

Then, sir, I will second it.

Edgar H. Farrar, of Louisiana:

That motion, Mr. President, is open to discussion?

The President:

Certainly, sir.

Edgar H. Farrar:

Will the gentlemen who presented this report indicate under what clause of the Constitution of the United States they derive the power of the Congress to legislate in regard to the rights of inheritance of a person injured upon a vessel of the United States, or to pass any law whatever on that subject?

The President:

I will ask the Chairman of the committee if he is prepared to answer the query of the gentleman from Louisiana?

George Whitelock, of Maryland:

With the permission of the Chair, I will ask Mr. Hughes, of Virginia, a member of the Maritime Law Association of America, to reply to the question propounded.

Robert M. Hughes, of Virginia:

I suppose from the question that it is directed more especially to the draft of an act giving a right of action for damages resulting in death. I can hardly presume there is any question of constitutionality involved as to the draft of a lien statute.

Edgar H. Farrar:

The same objection applies to both cases.

Robert M. Hughes:

I do not see that any question of constitutionality arises when Congress commences to legislate in regulating the maritime law on the subject of liens. Perhaps I misunderstood the question, but certainly I can see no question of the right of inheritance there. I think there are two acts as to which the question is raised. The first is the act giving a right of action for damages after death has occurred. Now if Congress has a right to pass a law giving such a right of action on the high seas, I suppose it has a right to say how the money shall be distributed; I should think the one right would include the other. So limiting myself entirely to answering the question as I understood it, I submit there can be no doubt of the power of Congress to give a right of action for damages resulting in death on the high seas. We all know that at present there is no such right of action. It is true there are a good many state statutes giving that right within the jurisdiction of the states which enact those statutes, but if a death occurs on the high seas caused by the negligence of the vessel on which the decedent is a passenger, or something like that, then, under the decisions, there is no right of action.

The Maritime Law Association has been considering this question for a great many years. The committee which prepared the draft of the act which is now before you, and which has received the unanimous approval of that committee, was a committee of very able specialists in that line, and the result is the act, which is too long to read now. I do not understand that the question asked relates at all to the policy of the act, but simply to the constitutionality of it. I think that the act can

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