ELEVENTH ANNUAL REPORT.

Gentlemen of the Board of Trade:

IN meeting you after the lapse of another year, we have again to say that the present unhallowed rebellion has disturbed the operations of this Board to a very considerable extent; and that we have less finished business to report to you now than on any former occasion. So, too, we have to repeat that the office work-of which there is no record-has been greater and more wearisome than ever before.

In giving you a rapid account of our action upon the principal questions which have been considered during the year, we propose to call your attention to such as were pending when we met you in January, 1864. And, first, the

TAX ON DIVIDENDS OF NON-RESIDENT STOCKHOLDERS.

The Act of the Legislature, of April 29, 1863,† which required "every corporation organized under a charter or under general statutes, paying dividends in scrip,

* Committee,-Joseph S. Fay, Edward Atkinson, Ginery Twichell, Charles B. Hall, John D. W. Joy, Henry Saltonstall, and Arthur L. Devens. † Chap. 236. Laws of 1863.

stock or money" to reserve "from each and every dividend one-fifteenth part of that portion due and payable to its stockholders residing out of the Commonwealth," and to "pay the same as a tax or excise" into the public treasury. In stating* our reasons for opposition to this unwise law, we remarked, that we had sent petitions to the General Court, to all the cities and to all the principal towns in the State; that, as far as we knew, our prayer for its repeal had met with universal favor; and that we had solicited His Excellency to recommend its abrogation in his Annual Message. It is possible that our action in the premises was of service; for we have now to add, that the Governor, in addressing the Legislature, urged "re-examination" of this statute, on the ground of expediency, and "the graver objection of its doubtful constitutionality;" and that, on the 11th of May following it was repealed. †

INTERNATIONAL GENERAL AVERAGE.‡

In our Seventh, Ninth, and Tenth Annual Reports, we gave you an outline of our action upon the very important subject of International General Average. In the last, we acquainted you that a bill of seventy-two pages had been prepared by a legal gentleman in London, for the examination of the principal commercial nations; that in due time after its transmission to various parts of Europe and the United States, about thirty delegates assembled in London to consider it; and that, upon careful study on several days, it was set aside altogether, on account of its defective arrangement, contradictory provisions, and omissions in various essential particulars.

* Tenth Annual Report, p. 56.

+ Chap. 208. Laws of 1864. Committee on International General Average,—J. Russell Bradford, William T. Glidden, Samuel Gould, Francis Bacon, and Nathan Crowell.

We have now to inform you that the committee of the "National Association for the Promotion of Social Science," appointed in 1862, have, as was then agreed, published their "Transactions" in a volume of more than three hundred pages, which contains the individual views of several of the members, and translations of parts of the German general mercantile law, a copy of the Laws and Regulations relating to General Average, of Denmark, and other papers of interest, pertinent to the question.

We have further to inform you that in July, we were invited by the Chairman and Secretary of the "International General Average Committee," London, to be represented in the "Congress," at York, England, on the 26th of September; and that we appointed J. Russell Bradford, one of our own members, who, our delegate in 1860, and in 1862, is entirely conversant with the proceedings of the "Council," as well as an experienced adjuster of Marine Losses.

Mr. Bradford accepted the service, and at the time designated met delegates from the Chambers of Commerce of Bremen, Hamburg, and Lubeck, from the Belgian Government, the Chambers of Commerce at Antwerp, the Board of Underwriters at Antwerp, the Comité des Assurances Generales at Paris, the Russian Government, the Corporation of Sunderland, the Board of Underwriters at Amsterdam, the Netherlands Trading Company, the Shipowners' Society of Amsterdam, the Chamber of Commerce of Hull, the Shipowners' Society of London, the Belgian Government, Lloyd's Salvage Association, the Committee of Lloyd's, the Chamber of Commerce of Liverpool, the Liverpool Underwriters' Association, the Sunderland Shipowners' Society, the Board of Underwriters of Boston, United States, the Chamber of Commerce of New York, the New York

Board of Underwriters, the New Orleans Board of Underwriters, and the Shipowners' Association of Liverpool, besides several Adjusters from London, Liverpool, Glasgow, and elsewhere.

The action at York was final, and the objects of the Congress" having been attained in the adoption of the following Rules, that body, and the "International General Average Committee" were dissolved:

INTERNATIONAL GENERAL AVERAGE RULES.

FRAMED AT YORK IN 1864.

At a Congress of Delegates, appointed by various Governments and Commercial Associations of Europe and America, held at York in September, 1864, under the Presidency of Sir James Wilde and Sir Fitzroy Kelley, the following Rules were adopted:

SEC. 1. A jettison of timber or deals, or any other description of wood cargo, carried on the deck of a ship, in pursuance of a general custom of the trade in which the ship is then engaged, shall be made good as General Average, in like manner as if such cargo had been jettisoned from below deck.

No jettison of deck cargo, other than timber or deals, or other wood cargo, so carried as aforesaid, shall be made good as General Average. Every structure not built in with the frame of the vessel shall be considered to be a part of the deck of the vessel.

SEC. 2. Damage done to goods or merchandise by water which unavoidably goes down a ship's hatches opened, or other opening made, for the purpose of making a jettison, shall be made good as General Average, in case the loss by jettison is so made good.

Damage done by breakage and chafing, or otherwise from derangement of stowage consequent upon a jettison, shall be made good as General Average.

SEC. 3. Damage done to a ship and cargo, or either of them by water, or otherwise in extinguishing a fire on board the ship, shall be General Average.

SEC. 4. Loss or damage caused by cutting away the wreck or remains of spars or of other things which have previously been carried away by sea peril, shall not be made good as General Average.

SEC. 5. When a ship is intentionally run on shore because she is sinking or driving on shore or rocks, no damage caused to the ship, the cargo, and the freight, or any or either of them, by such intentional running on shore, shall be made good as General Average.

SEC. 6. Damage occasioned to a ship or cargo by carrying a press of sail shall not be made good as General Average.

SEC. 7. When a ship shall have entered a port of refuge under such circumstances that the expenses of entering the port are admissible as General Average, and when she shall have sailed thence with her original cargo, or a part of it, the corresponding expenses of leaving such port shall likewise be so admitted as General Average; and whenever the cost of discharging cargo at such port is admissible as General Average, the cost of reloading and stowing such cargo on board the said ship, together with all storage charges on such cargo, shall likewise be so admitted. Except that any portion of the cargo left at such port of refuge, on account of its being unfit to be carried forward, or on account of the unfitness or inability of the ship to carry it, shall not be called on to contribute to such General Average.

SEC. 8. When a ship shall have entered a port of refuge under the circumstances defined in Section seven, the wages and cost of maintenance of the master and mariners, from the time of entering such port until the ship shall have been made ready to proceed upon her voyage, shall be made good as General Average. Except that any portion of the cargo left at such port of refuge on account of its being unfit to be carried forward, or on account of the unfitness or inability of the ship to carry it, shall not be called on to contribute to such General Average.

SEC. 9. Damage done to cargo by discharging it at a port of refuge shall not be admissible as General Average, in case such cargo shall have been discharged at the place and in the manner customary at that port with ships not in distress.

SEC. 10. The contribution to a General Average shall be made upon the actual values of the property at the termination of the adventure, to which shall be added the amount made good as General Average for property sacrificed; deduction being made from the ship owners' freight and passage money at risk, of two-fifths of such freight, in lieu of crew's wages, port charges, and all other deductions; deduction being also made from the value of the property of all charges incurred in respect thereof subsequently to the arising of claim to General Average.

SEC. 11. In every case in which a sacrifice of cargo is made good as General Average, the loss of freight, if any, which is caused by such loss of cargo, shall likewise be so made good.

In December, Mr. Bradford submitted a Report, the material part of which we insert. Thus :

"It is very satisfactory to observe that the Rules recommended are so nearly in accordance with the laws and customs of this country.