Since the publication of the first edition of this work there has been one lawsuit of great significance (The M aritm) to which reference has been made in this revised chapter. Also the coming into effect of the London Convention on Limitation in Maritime Claims and the United Kingdom’s implementation of it has moved several strides nearer reality and this, too,

will accordingly be given more detailed treatment than it received in the first edition.

, The basic idea behind the right to limit liability was that every encouragement should be given to shipowners to carry on their business. Going to sea in ships was an adventurous pursuit to be encouraged rather than discouraged in the interests of the promotion and flourishing of international trade and if those who were prepared to gamble what capital they did have knew that they were faced with exposure to unlimited liability and often in situations over which they might have no personal control their keen adventurous spirit might have been stifled before it had had time to blossom. Centuries ago a serious maritime disaster would very likely have resulted in the instant bankruptcy of the ship’s owner. The chances were that he might abandon the ship and her freight into the hands of those third” parties with valid claims against him. This in itself produced in practical

. terms a form of limitation of liability. Recognition of the inescapable economic fact that aggrieved third party claimants would not recover their 1 losses where the shipowner’s adjudged liabilities far exceeded his assets was the essence of the pro-limitation argument. Looking at it from the creditor’s viewpoint it is surely preferable to live in the certainty of obtaining a substantial percentage of the compensation due rather than face the uncertainty of not knowing whether or not they would ever receive the much larger sums to which they had a right.’

Those who argued originally for the introduction of limitation of liability in the maritime industry had an additional argument in that within the maritime world disasters can be very often contained within the industry itself. This is not necessarily so in the case of disasters in the air or concerning aircraft. One example of a maritime disaster where there was suffering both to life and to property was the calamity of the 7,242 gross tons bulk carrier Lake I llawara which struck the Tasman bridge in the harbour at Hobart early in the 1970s.

The ship, loaded with zinc ore, sank within minutes, some of her crew perishing. The bridge itself was seriously damaged and out of action for a year and a half. Three cars plunged into the river as a result of the disaster,