No. 42.
Mr. Bounder de
Melsbroeck to Mr. Bayard.
Washington, April 21, 1887. (Received April 21.)
Sir: Under the date of August 11, 1886, I had the honor to inform your excellency that the second session of the congress of commercial law would assemble in the month of September of this year, expressing the desire that the United States Government would also be represented at this session.
In pursuance of this note I have the honor to transmit to your excellency two copies of the resolutions* laid before the members of the international congress of commercial law by the royal committee of organization.
In conformity with the arrangement adopted for the preliminary work, the section of maritime law has made a new examination of the decisions reached at the congress of Antwerp. It has collected the criticisms of which these decisions have been the subject in numerous publications, and the remarks made concerning the draft of maritime international law, communicated last month to all who took part in the congress. It has examined and discussed, with the assistance of these new materials, the points which were examined by the session of 1885, and has elaborated the draft which it now submits to the members of the congress. This draft, which is accompanied by a report of Mr. N. Jacobs, president of the section, will serve as a basis for the deliberations of the second session of the congress, which will be held at Brussels during the second half of the month of September, 1887. The section’s Work includes a large number of subjects of maritime law. The propositions reached are divided into several series of resolutions distinct from one another. For some, those which relate to the conflict of laws, to collisions, and to salvage to sea-going vessels, the method of a treaty is recommended.
In choosing this frame-work and this method of division of its labors the section is impressed with the difficulties which each of the subjects presents from the stand-point of an international decision; some, indeed, adapt themselves to the form of a general law applicable to all nations in such countries as shall have enacted this law; others seem rather calculated to become the subject of conventions applicable solely to the contracting parties. The various portions of the commission’s work are then independent of each other; they are not united in a common lot, and the failure of some does not involve the failure of the rest. The section has endeavored specially to do practical work. I think it has made the way easier for an international agreement on the subjects whose examination it had undertaken.
I direct your excellency’s attention especially to this point, in order that you may be now able to form an opinion on the possibility of negotiating with the Government of the King special conventions on the subjects for which the Belgian commissioners propose to reserve that method of international settlement.
Hoping that the Government of the United States will kindly send a representative to this meeting of the congress of commercial law,
I avail myself, etc.,
- Not printed herewith.↩