COMMERCE LAWS.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 836, 7 June 1910, Page 5

COMMERCE LAWS.

{, LINKS INTERNATIONAL AND ALSO INTER-IMPERIAL, SOME PRESENT INCONGRUITIES. COLONIAL COURTS. .'■y Telegraph—Frees Association—CopyriKht (Rcc. Juno G, 9.30 p.m.) London, June 6. The commercial arbitration proposals approved by the Chambers of Commerce of the Empire (which met in congress at Sydney last year) will be submitted to the International Congress of Chambers of Commerce, which will meet in' London during tho fourth week in June. The Board of Trade, through the Foreign and the Colonial Offices, has obtained replies to inquiries regarding the practice of -17 countries. It is the board's intention to submit them to a committee of experts with a view to summoning an International Congress with the ultimate object of preparing an International Convention binding together all parts of the Empire and the majority of foreign nations.

"Tho Times" says that the linking of the commercial world in this way will go a great distance to counteiact the growth of armaments. Besides being applied to foreign nations, such a convention will apply to tho Empire, and will thus tend to Imperial Federation. Much has already been accomplished in harmonising the law of salvage, collision at sea, and shipowners' liability.

"Tho Times" hopes that the programme will not exclude consideration of the enforcement of the judgments of colonial Courts. "To talk about unity of Empire is strange and incongruous when it is remembered that in our Courts our colonial fellow-subjects are treated like Russians or Spaniards, and may be required to give security for costs before prosecuting proceedings; also, that judgments of tho most esteemed of our colonial Courts aro theoretically not entitled- to. greater weight than judgment of Courts in Bolivia or Costa Eica.

"Reciprocity in this respect should bo easily realisable, and ought to be realised at the next Imperial Conference."