196.6/1148
The Swedish Legation to the Department of State
Memorandum
A bill has been introduced by Senator LaFollette, numbered S. 1559 and entitled:
“A Bill relating to the payment of advance wages and allotments in respect of seamen on foreign vessels, and making further provision for carrying out the purposes of the Seamen’s Act, approved March 4, 1915.”2
The effect of this bill in practice would be to give jurisdiction to the courts of the United States, even in case of a contract legally entered into between Swedes on a Swedish vessel while in Sweden. By thus extending the limits over which a law-making power has jurisdiction the bill, should it become law, would be contrary to international comity and to fundamental principles of law commonly acknowledged among nations.
- Introduced December 14, 1931; see Congressional Record, vol. 75, pt. 1, p. 440.↩