CHAP. VII] MERCHANT SHIPPING 1195 
and (b) vessels wherever registered, while trading on the 
coast of the Colony ; that for the purpose of this Resolution 
a vessel shall be deemed to trade if she takes on board cargo 
Or passengers at any port in the Colony to be carried to and 
landed or delivered at any port in the Colony. 
Passed unanimously. 
10. Coasting Trade. 
A vessel engaged in the oversea trade shall not be deemed 
50 engage in the coasting trade merely because it carries 
between two Australian or New Zealand ports, 
(a) passengers holding through tickets to or from some 
oversea place, 
(b) merchandise consigned on through bill of lading to or 
from some oversea place. 
Passed unanimously. 
Since that conference the Parliament of New Zealand 
in an Act, No. 36 of 1909, has legislated so as to carry out in 
its application to New Zealand the resolution of the con- 
ference by limiting to vessels coasting in New Zealand, or 
registered in the Dominion, the application of such provisions 
of the New Zealand shipping legislation which differ from 
the provisions of the Imperial Merchant Shipping Acts! 
The only point of any consequence in which the legislation 
of New Zealand as contained in the consolidating Act No. 
178 of 1908 and in the amending Act of 1909, to which the 
royal assent was only given in March 1911 on a promise of 
amendment to restrict the operation of the provision to goods 
shipped from New Zealand, is open to criticism, is the pro- 
vision in s. 41, which requires that the conditions laid down 
by New Zealand shall regulate bills of lading wherever 
entered into in respect of vessels conveying goods to and 
from New Zealand. 
' Bee Parl. Pap., Cd. 5135, pp. 72-83. 
* This provision is clearly contrary to private international law, though 
it has the precedent of the Harter Act of the United States. The Australian 
Act No. 14 of 1904 only refers to bills of lading in respect of goods shipped 
from the Commonwealth, and so the Canadian Act in 1910 (c. 61), and the 
Western Australia Sea Carriage of Goods Act, No. 26 of 1909 (Parl. Pap., 
Cd. 5135, pp. 50, 51), relate only to coasting trade in the state itself. See 
New Zealand Parl. Pap., 1911, H. 15, p. 1.