GROWTH OF ARBITRATION

Otago Witness, Issue 2934, 8 June 1910, Page 27

GROWTH OF ARBITRATION

LONDON, June 6. Commercial arbitration proposals have been approved by the chambers of commerce of the Empire, and will be submitted to an international oongress of chambers, 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 followed in 47 countries, and it intends 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 the foreign nations. The Times says that the linking of the commercial world in this way will go a great distance towards counteracting the growth of armaments. When once applied to foreign nations, such a convention will apply to the Empire, and thus tend towards an Imperial Federation. Much has already been accomplished by harmonising the law regarding salvage, collision at sea, and ship-owners' liability. The Times says it hopes that the programme of the chambers of commeroe will not exclude "the consideration of the enforcement of the judgments of colonial courts. It states that the talk about the unity of the Empire is strange and incongruous when one remembers that in our courts our colonial fellow-subjects are treated like Russians and Spaniards, and may be required to give security for costs before prosecuting proceedings, also

that the judgments of the most esteemed of our colonial courts are theoretically not entitled to greater weight than thos* of Bolivia or Costa Rica, Reciprocity is easily reliable, and ought to h realised at the next Imperial Conference