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trade in a foreign country, the trading Government shall not, 
in its character as such, be treated as entitled to any sovereign 
immunity from taxation either directly or through the claim 
of superiority to the jurisdiction of municipal Courts; nor 
shall a Government so trading be treated as entitled to any 
sovereign immunity from taxation in respect of property in the 
other country concerned which it may own or hold in a trading 
capacity or in connection with trade. 
It is understood that, as the Committee recommended, it 
would be a proviso to the whole agreement that it should be 
without prejudice to the national interests of a sovereign State 
in any emergency of war. 
11. 
The Conference further recommends that the draft conven- 
tion on the immunity of State-owned ships adopted by the 
meeting of the International Maritime Committee held at 
Gothenburg in August last, and amended after consultation 
between the British Admiralty and Board of Trade, should be 
adopted throughout the Empire as the basis on which an inter- 
national convention might be concluded. This amended draft 
is as follows : 
Immunity of State-owned Ships. 
(Amended Draft: October 26, 1923.) 
Article 1.—Vessels owned or operated by States for 
trading purposes, cargoes owned by them and cargo and 
passengers carried on such vessels and the States owning 
or operating such vessels shall be subjected in respect of 
claims relating to the operation of such vessels or to such 
cargoes to the same rules of legal liability (i.c., liability 
to be sued for payment) and to the same obligations as 
those applicable to private vessels, persons or cargo. 
Article 2.—Such liabilities shall be enforceable by the 
tribunals having jurisdiction over and by the procedure 
applicable to a privately-owned ship or cargo or thé owner 
thereof. 
Article 3.—Ships of war, State Yachts, Surveying 
vessels, Hospital Ships and other vessels owned or operated 
by States and employed on other than trading purposes 
shall continue to enjoy the respective privileges and 
immunities hitherto enjoyed by them by the comity of 
nations. 
Liabilities against such ships in respect of 
collisions or salvage claims shall, however, be enforceable, 
but only by action before the competent tribunals of the 
State owning or operating such vessels; and no such vessel 
shall be liable to arrest. 
carried for non-commercial purposes in ships owned or 
operated by the State shall not be subject to seizure, but 
shall be liable to process of Law, but only in the Courts of 
the State owning such vessels. 
Article 4.—The provisions of this Convention will be 
applied in every contracting State in all cases where the 
claimant is a citizen of one of the contracting States, pro- 
Similarly, State-owned cargo