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2. In all cases and under all circumstances, the liability of the company shall absolutely cease when the goods are free of the ship's tackle and thereupon the goods shall be at the risk for all purposes and in every respect of the shipper or consignee.

4. As regards these very wide clauses, White C.J. and Sankaran Nair J. held in Sheik Mahomad Ravuther v. The British India Steam Navigation Co., Ltd. (1908) I.L.R. 32 M. 95 that they did not absolve the company from liability for loss occasioned by the negligence of their servants before delivery and after landing. Wallis J. held otherwise. (I might remark that Sir S. Subramania Aiyar J. and Miller J. similarly differed in the earlier stage of the same case, reported in Sheik Mahomad Ravuther v. The British India Steam Navigation Co., Ltd (1906) I.L.R. 30 M. 79. I am bound, of course, by the judgment of the majority unless it is opposed to a judgment of the Privy Council, not brought to the notice of the majority, or reported after the Full Bench decision. Such a judgment of the Privy Council, it seems to me, has been pronounced in Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China v. British India Steam Navigation Co. Ltd. (1909) A.C. 369. The defendant in that case was this very same British India Steam Navigation Co. The bill of lading which had to be construed in that case contained this very same clause about the liability of the company ceasing absolutely when the goods were free of the ship's tackle &c., and the defendants' landing agents (as in this case) received the goods into lighters to be carried to jetties. The only difference between the facts of this case and the facts of that case is that, whereas the goods were lost in the present case through the negligent overloading of the lighter by the defendants' landing agents, the goods were lost in the other case by the misfeasance and fraud of the landing agents. Their Lordships of the Privy Council applied the English Common Law relating to common carriers by sea in that case as we have to do in this case. I shall just quote the concluding sentences of their Lordships' judgment:--" Now it may be conceded that the goods in question were not delivered according to the exigency of the bills of lading by being placed in the hands of the landing agents, and it may be admitted that bills of lading cannot be said to be spent or exhausted until the goods covered by them are placed under the absolute dominion and control of the consignees. But their Lordships cannot think that there is any ambiguity in the clause providing for cesser of liability. It seems to be perfectly clear. There is no reason why it should not be held operative and effectual in the present case. They agree with the learned Chief Justice that it affords complete protection to the respondent company." It seems to me that this decision of the Privy Council pronounced on the 3lst March 1909 (about 31/2 months after the pronouncement of the Full Bench decision in Sheik Muhanad Ravuther v. The British India Steam Navigation Co., Ltd. (1908) I.L.R. 32 M. 95. on the 15th December 1908,) clearly over-rules the decision in the latter case, unless we are to accede to the ingenious argument of Mr. Seshagiri Iyer that we are not bound by the decision of the Privy Council unless it was given in a case which went up on appeal from an Indian tribunal. (The appeal case of 1909 was an appeal from the decision of the Supreme Court of the Straits Settlements). I am wholly unable to hold that the binding nature of a decision of the Privy Council depends on the locality of the tribunal which pronounced the decision from which the appeal was preferred to the Privy Council, any more than the binding nature of a decision of this Madras High Court upon a Madras District Court depends on the question whether the High Court's decision was pronounced in an appeal preferred in a case which arose in that particular district. (The tribunal which decided the case in Chartered Bank of India Australia and China v. British India Steam Navigation Co., Ltd.(1909) A.C. 369. consisted of Lord Macnaughten Lord Atkinson Lord Collins and Sir Arthur Wilson who have taken part in deciding many Indian appeals). The last question I have to consider is whether this case can be distinguished from the case decided by the Privy Council by reason of the fact that the boat in which the goods were placed by the defendant's landing agent was unseaworthy. Having regard to the language of their Lordships of the Privy Council that the clause in the bill of lading absolutely absolving the defendant as soon as the goods are free of the ship's tackle protects the defendant from liability for whatever happens afterwards, I do not think the question whether what happened afterwards was negligent overloading by, or fraudulent dishonesty of, the landing agents is of the least importance. If it is necessary to decide this question, I should be inclined to follow the English Law on this question also, whatever may be the American Law. (See, as to the American Law, Carver's Carriage by Sea, Section 251(a), last paragraph). Arnould on Marine Insurance (Vol II) says. " The Warranty of seaworthiness which is implied as to the ship does not extend to lighters employed to land the cargo. It is enough to satisfy this warranty (of seaworthiness) that the ship be originally seaworthy for the voyage insured when she sails on it; the assured makes no warranty that the ship shall continue seaworthy in the course of it" " Every ship" says Lord Mansfield " must be seaworthy when she first sails on the voyage insured but she need not continue so throughout the voyage" (Arnould in footnote (b) at p. 848 refers to the cases decided by Lord Mansfield and Lord Eldon establishing the above proposition).

5. In Lane v. Nixon (1866) I.L.R. C.P. 412 it was clearly held by Erle C.J. Byles J. Keating J, and Montagu Smith J. that the warranty of the ship's sejoworthiness does not extend to lighters employed to land goods. Keating J, says, "the employment of lighters to land the goods seems to be a usual and ordiary incident of such a voyage, and has no reference whatever to the implied warranty of seaworthiness. I think it would be a dangerous step to extend that warranty". Montagu Smith J. said" There is nothing to justify the extension of the implied warranty of seaworthiness to lighters so employed as in a fresh stage of the voyage. It would, I think, be extremely inconvenient if it could be done." If there is no implied warranty of seaworthiness for lighters and boats (or catamarans or coolies or elephants, as Erle C.J. put it) the clause about negligence in the bill of lading is " express, plain and unambiguous" and clearly exempts the defendants from liability, even if we adopt the " artificial rule of construction" (as Wallis, J., puts it at page 109 in Sheik Muhamad Ravuther v. The British India Steam Navigation Co,, Ltd (1908) I.L.R. 32 M. 95 "enunciated by Walton, J", in Price and Co. v. Union Lighterage Company (1903) I.K.B. 750.

11. Assuming that the overloading of the boats could, in such circumstances as we have before us, be considered to render the boats unseaworthy-and that assumption requires us to apply the word " unseaworthy" in a rather unusual sense--there is nothing to prevent the shipowners from limiting their liability against the unseaworthiness of the ships, any more than there is anything to prevent their limiting their liability against the fraud of their agents. The principle in the one case seems to have features common with the principle in the other case. In the case of unseaworthiness, it is assumed that the parties enter into the contract on the basis that the carriers are in a position to carry the goods and that their ships are capable of doing so--to use the words of1 Lord Blackburn in Steel v. State Line Steamship Company (1877) 3 A.C. 72 at P. 89 there is a duty on the part of the person who furnishes or supplies that ship, or that ship's room, unless something be stipulated which should prevent it, that the ship shall be fit for its purpose. That is generally expressed by saying that it shall be seaworthy; and I think also in marine contracts, contracts for sea carriage, that is what is properly called a '' warranty," not merely that they should do their best to make the ship fit, but that the ship should really be fit." If, therefore the shipowners wish to enter into a contract in which they do not warrant that their ships are seaworthy, they must make it clear to the persons with whom they contract that they do not so warrant; similarly the carriers would, ordinarily, be supposed to be responsible for the honesty of their agents who are under their own control, and if they wish to restrict their liability so that they are not responsible for loss caused by the dishonesty or the fraud of their agents, equally must they make that restriction plain. It seems, however, unnecessary in this case to consider whether the duty cast, upon the shipowners to employ honest agents and the duty (if any) cast upon the shipowners to prevent loss arising, from the causes with which we have now to deal, are each, or either of them a warranty properly so called or whether the duty in either of the cases consists merely in that the shipowners should do their best to prevent loss. We have primarily to deal with the words of the clause and the facts of this case; and not much help is obtained in construing a clause by the circuitous method of reasoning which has to be followed before any aid can be had from the fact that the Privy Council considered a similar clause to save the shipowners from liability in the particular case before them. For if we wish to follow this method of reasoning we should have to determine the further questions whether the liability under the circumstances which were before the Privy Council is of the same extent and nature as the liability under the facts now before us, and in order to do so, it will be necessary to determine whether the cause of loss with which we are dealing falls under the head of unseaworthiness.