Note 7 — Chapter I

The "Geneva Convention Bill"7 is intended to facilitate [037]the withdrawal of reservations subject to which the Convention was ratified by Great Britain. These reservations, upon which I insisted at Geneva, somewhat to the surprise of my French and Russian colleagues, relate to Arts. 23, 27, and 28 of the Convention, one of the effects of which would have been to impose upon our Government an obligation to carry through, within five years, an Act of Parliament, making the employment of the Geneva emblem or name, except for military purposes, a criminal offence. Any one who knows something of the difficulties which beset legislation in this country, especially where commercial interests are involved, will see that the performance of such an undertaking might well have proved to be impossible. Though myself strongly in favour of placing, at the proper time and in an appropriate manner, legislative restrictions upon the general use of the emblem and name, I can hardly think the Bill now before Parliament to be well adapted for its purpose. The "Memorandum" prefixed to it ought surely to have stated, in plain language, the effect of the articles in question and the reasons which prevented them from being ratified together with the rest of the Convention. Instead of this, only one of those articles is cited, and few members of Parliament will be aware that an omitted paragraph of that article requires that the use of the emblem or name should be penalised by British law at the latest five years and six months from the date of the British ratification, which was deposited on April 16, 1907—i.e., not later than October 16, 1912. This requirement is not satisfied by the Bill, which, even if passed in the present Session, would preserve intact till 1915 the rights of proprietors of trade-marks, while somewhat harshly rendering forthwith illegal the user of the emblem or name by all other persons.