THE OCEANS.

Thames Star, Volume LVII, Issue 14728, 5 August 1921, Page 3

THE OCEANS.

ANCIENT TRADERS’ LAWS. To-day, when tho principles of international law are rather in the melting-pot, and a League of Nations has been called into being for their restatement and amplification, and to act as a sort of international policeman to see to their due observance, it is interesting to look back to that remote period, some 3000 or more years ago, when their first outlines were being sketched and enforced by the merchants and mariners of the Eastern Mediterranean (writes Sydney W. Clarke in John O’London’s Weekly). “LORD OF THE SEA.”

It was the ancient traders of Crete and Phoenicia, those intrepid adventurers who voyaged afar in tho quest for pelf, who first felt the need for something more than the rules and regulations of the township and the State. In the years of the glory of Tyre, when, as the prophet Ezekiel recorded, “thy wares went forth out of the seas, thou filledst many people; thou didst enrich tho kings of tho earth witli the

multiplication of thy riches and of thy merchandise,” her trades anti

seamen framed a code of the sea law

which should apply to the ships and all they carried wherever they might , be. These customs of the sea, later put into more definite form by the i Greeks of Rhodes, formed the basis of all subsequent maritime codes, and were the first beginnings oi international law: “I, indeed, am the lord of all the world,” said the Emperor Antonine, about A.D. 150, “but the law is lord of the sea. Ret this be settled by the Rhodian law, which has been devised fori nautical matters.”

THE PILOT’S HEAD. The Rhodian code was adopted by the Romans, stated in terms by the Emperor Justinian, and later was carried to France, where it was extended by the traders of Bordeaux into the famous sea code known as the Rolls of Oleron, which, in turn, were recognised by the English Admiralty, and confirmed by an Act of Parliament in 1402, thougn with some modifications —as, for instance, in the punishment awarded to a negligent pilot. “By thei laws of Oleron,” says an old commentator, “if a pilot’s fault is so notoriously gross that the crew sees an apparent wreck, they may then lead him to the .hatches and strike off his head; but the laws of England allow no such hasty execution.” Prominent among these ancient Judgments of tlio Sea, as they were termed, was one relating to losses incurred in saving the ship from tempest, which, we are told in a (deeply interesting essay by Mr. G. A. Henderson, in the current issue of Lloyd’s Calendar, is the basis of the modern law of General Average which provides a livelihood for a distinct profession called average adjusting, like tea-tasting, gauging for licensed victuallers and other mysterious occupations, is little known to tho general public. Average adjusters are learned persons, specially good at figures. When, in order to save a ship, the cargo has to be jettisoned, or thrqwn overboard, or some other sacrifice has to be made involving loss to one of the parties concerned in the voyage, for the benefit of all parties, the loss is to be distributed according to the principles of average —often a, very complicated matter. There 1 is a mass of legal decisions and literature about average adjusting. It is' interesting to note that the Rhodian law was as follows:

If a ship is caught in a storm and makes jettison of its cargo l , 1 and breaks its sailyards and masts and tiller and anchors and rudders, let all these come into contribution together with tho value of the ship, and of the goods which are saved. .

Which differs not at all in principle from tho first express enunciation of the rule of General Average by an English Judge in 1801: —

All loss which arises in consequence of extraordinary sacrifice' made or expenses incurred for the preservation of the ship and cargo comes within General Average } and must be borne proportionately by all who are interested. ST. PAUL AND SHIPWRECK. One wonders whether St. Paul nact this ancient law in mind when he told how, in a vain attempt to avert shipwreck at Melita. “We being exceeding tossed with a tempest } the next day they lightened the ship; and the third day we cast out with our own hands the tackling of the ship .... and when they had eaten enough, they lightened the ship and cast out the wheat into the sea."