300 SOCIETY NAVAL ARCHITECTS AND MARINE ENGINEERS. 



few exceptions, into the second group. Finally all ships equipped with wireless apparatus are 

 required to maintain a continuous watch when they are engaged in the trans-Atlantic trade 

 or in other trades taking them more than 1,000 miles from the nearest coast, which of course 

 covers the trans-Pacific voyages to the United States. To render possible the establish- 

 ment of the continuous watch the convention provides that in addition to operators a new 

 rating, called the certificated watcher, shall be established, the function of the watcher being 

 to sit with the telephone on his ears and in cases of emergency summon the skilled operator 

 who is usually berthed in a cabin opening irito the radio room (Art. 34). 



It was contended with much force that the task of sitting at an instrument with tele- 

 phones on one's ears for long stretches when on unfrequented routes no messages are passing 

 through the ether would be tiresome and the watch might be ineffective. 



A mechanical device able to select the distress call from other calls and by a bell sum- 

 mon the operator would be more effective. Inventors have been endeavoring for several 

 years to devise such an instrument, but thus far without success. Its invention, of course, 

 will simplify the difficult problem of maintaining a continuous wireless watch on all ships. 



The provisions in regard to operators and watchers will not apply in terms to some ves- 

 sels in trade between the United States, the West Indies, Central America, and Mexico. Until 

 July 1, 1915, however, such ships are subject to the American law which requires two men 

 skilled in the use of the apparatus, and the convention (Art. 72) provides in substance that 

 such compliance shall continue after the convention takes effect. 



. RULE OF ASSISTANCE. 



The provisions in Artices 33 and 34 for a continuous wireless watch on all vessels 

 equipped with radio apparatus, together with the requirement in Article 37 binding the master 

 of every vessel to proceed to the assistance of a vessel in distress, constitute the broadest 

 declaration every made by maritime nations in statutory form of the principle of the mutual 

 obligation of those at sea to aid one another when in distress. In the case of cargo boats or 

 small passenger vessels doing little commercial wireless business one operator evidently would 

 suffice to send out distress calls in event of casualty imperiling those on board. If not on 

 duty at the time, he could be promptly roused and send out his call almost instantly. The 

 second operator or watcher in the case of such vessels, however, is prescribed in the in- 

 terest of safety of those on board other vessels, and is thus, in effect, a tax upon the owners 

 of cargo boats and passengers in the interest of the general safety of ocean navigation. 



Every master of a vessel who receives a call for assistance from a ship in distress by 

 Article 37 is bound to proceed to the assistance of the persons in distress. The Brussels con- 

 vention of 1910, with respect to assistance and salvage at sea (Art. 11), provides that every 

 master is bound, so far as he can do so without serious danger to his vessel and crew or pas- 

 sengers, to render assistance to everybody found at sea in danger of being lost. The Belgian 

 delegation at London contended that this article obliged the master of a vessel hearing a 

 wireless distress call to render assistance, but the French delegation, turning to the text of 

 the Brussels convention, maintained that the words used, "trouvee en mer," could not have so 

 broad a meaning, as it would do violence to their language to maintain that a ship 300 or 

 1,000 miles distant from a vessel in distress and hearing its call could in any proper sense be 

 said to have "found" the vessel. These divergent views were harmonized in Article 37, 

 which may be regarded either as affirming the Brussels declaration or as stating for the first 



