BILLS OF LADING

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 215, 9 June 1920, Page 8

BILLS OF LADING

AMENDMENTS SUGGESTED. A request from the Associated Chambers of Commerce for recommendations regarding the amendmentof -bills of lading wasbefore the executive 1 of the Wellington Central Chamber of Commerce yesterday. The president (Mr. A. Leigh Hunt) mated -that the chamber had placed its proposals before past conferences of the Chambers of Commerce. They included the elimination from the . bills of lading of anything in tho nature of' bluff. It was an offence in othor countries for a shipping company to insert in tlhe bill of lading clauses that were ultra vires at common law, but in New Zealand unsuspecting consignees wero often prevented from claiming their rights by the provisions of tho bills of lading. Tho shipping companies hnd added clause after clause: they had even declared tlhohiselves to be not responsible for the unseaworthy condition of vessels or for damage by vermin. The people who wero paying freights had a right to a just bill of lading. Mr. A. Holmes said that consignees ought to mako euro that every ship had an attorney in the Dominion. If thero was no attorney, the consignee could make no clnim after tho ship had left New Zealand, and damage not ' discovered before the ship (had left. He mentioned a, consignment of orockery, which hod been stowed beneath a mass of steel. . The shattered crockery was amone the last cargo to leave the ship, and the vessel sailed before the consignee could make a claim. Another important point was that when a ship was going to be surveyed far damage, tho employer of the surveyor flhould not bo the shipping company. The respective liability of the ship nnd the insurance company dependrd'upon the report, and consignees had suffered in some cases.