INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON SAFETY OF LIFE AT SLA. 5 



at a time when the American flag was frequently seen on merchant vessels in for- 

 eign ports, but the principle maintained by the United States has not lost its value 

 to international trade because the element of self-interest on our part has grown 

 less. Even now its assertion, especially in ports of the republics to the south of us, 

 is sometimes necessary. Furthermore, only eight years ago Congress passed a law 

 (Act of March 17, 1906) providing that foreign passenger steamers in American 

 ports shall be subject to no other inspection than is necessary to satisfy our in- 

 spection force that the condition of the vessel, her boilers and lifesaving equip- 

 ments are as stated in her foreign certificate of inspection, that certificate being 

 based on foreign requirements deemed equivalent to our own. 



Articles 60 and 61 seem to me of especial interest to the Society of Naval 

 Architects and Marine Engineers. The establishment of international standards of 

 safety, coupled with the obligation upon each nation to guarantee that its own ships 

 comply fully with the requirements of such standards, offers both positive and 

 negative advantages to the successful prosecution of their work by a body of 

 trained men such as compose the Society. The London Convention furnishes an 

 impetus to high grade construction work in that it secures for such work interna- 

 tional recognition. More than mere formality is intended by Article 64 of the Con- 

 vention, by which the governments of the maritime powers agree to communicate 

 to one another "all information which they possess affecting safety of life on those 

 of their vessels which are subject to the rules of the Convention, provided always 

 that such information is not of a confidential nature." This article was intended to 

 mean that the best results of the best thought of ship and engine builders shall be 

 exchanged between nations for critical study with a view to their incorporation, if 

 practicable, into the rules fixing international standards of construction, and to facil- 

 itate this result the Convention in Article 74 provides "the governments may, 

 through the diplomatic channel, introduce into this Convention, by common consent 

 and at any time, improvements which may be judged useful or necessary." 



Again, the due performance of the obligations imposed upon nations by the 

 Convention will involve more intimate co-operation than in the past between the 

 Department of Commerce, which is especially charged with the administration of 

 laws relating to the merchant marine, and the Society of Naval Architects and 

 Marine Engineers. Casual study of the twelve articles on Construction, comprising 

 Chapter IV of the Convention, and the accompanying nine pages of regulations, 

 will convince any reader that a small staff of well-trained naval architects must be 

 created to work in or with the Department of Commerce, if the United States is to 

 give effect to the Convention. Such a staff the British Board of Trade (which, of 

 course, is a department of government, and not a board of trade as the words are 

 used in this country) already possesses, and, through the operations of the See- 

 berufsgenossenschaft, Germany also obtains the best technical advice. How this co- 

 operation is to be brought about and how this staff is to be organized are ques- 

 tions which may be reserved until the Convention has been ratified by the Senate 

 of the United States. It is not, however, too early for the Society of Naval Archi- 

 tects and Marine Engineers to begin to think about the matter. 



