COMMERCIAL ARBITRATION.

Auckland Star, Volume XLI, Issue 133, 7 June 1910, Page 5

COMMERCIAL ARBITRATION.

INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS. RECIPROCITY IN THE EMPIRE. (By Cable.—Press Asociation.—Copyright^ LONDON, Juno 6. The commercial arbitration proposals, approved,by the conference of Chambers of Commerce of the Empire, will be submitted to an international Congress of Chambers of Commerce, to be held in London in the fourth week of June. The Board of Trade, through the Foreign and Colonial Offices, has obtained replies regarding the practice of 47 countries, and 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 I and a majority of foreign nations. The "Times" says thatjhe linking of j the commercial world in this way will go ! a great distance toward counteracting (the growth of armaments. Once applied 'to foreign nations, such a Convention will apply to the Empire, and thus tend U> Imperial federation. Much has already been accomplished in harmonising the law of salvage, collisions at sea, and shipowners' liability. The programme of the Chambers of Commerce will, the '"Times" hopes, not j exclude consideration of the matter of the enforcement of the judgments of colonial Courts. "Talk about the unity of the Empire," it says, "is strange and incongruous when it is remembered that in our Courts colonial fellow-subjects are treated like Russians or Spaniards, and may be required to give security for costs before prosecution proceedings; also, that the judgments of the most esteemed of our colonial Courts are theoretically not entitled to greater weight than those 'delivered in Bolivia or Costa Eica. ReeiI procity is easily realisable, and ought to be realised at the next Imperial Conference."