Peter Vivian Daniel

“ It appears to me to be no slight paradox to assert, that a man is the positive and controlling agent in the accomplishment of an effect which he merely suffers, and which is forced upon him by a power that he is wholly unable to resist or influence, and that it is equally paradoxical to declare, that we elect and seek a sacrifice or a peril from which we are most anxiously fleeing. ”

“ Mr. Benecke, in his Treatise on Average (p. 96) , tells us that general average has been described in the English courts to comprise 'all loss which arises in consequence of extraordinary sacrifices or expenses incurred for the preservation of the ship and cargo.' After speaking of the enumeration of instances of general average in some of the Continental nations of Europe, he continues: 'Although these laws and the corresponding ones of other states do not make use of the term sacrifice, yet their definitions imply that nothing short of a sacrifice shall be deemed a general average. ”

“ That principle, which is traced by all writers and courts to the Rhodian law, is thus propounded by Lord Tenterden, in his work on Shipping (p. 342) : 'Namely, the general contribution that is to be made by all parties towards a loss sustained by some for the benefit of all.' The same writer (p. 344) says that goods must be thrown overboard; the mind and agency of man must be employed. If the goods are forced out of the ship by the violence of the waves, or are destroyed in the ship by lightning or tempest, the merchant alone must bear the loss. ”