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　　《装卸时间与滞期费》第6版

　　Laytime Clauses 装卸时间条款

　　2.122 The next case to consider the problem was Watson Brothers Shipping Co Ltd v. Mysore Manganese Co Ltd where the laytime speciﬁed was ‘‘500 tons per clear working day of 24 hours (weather permitting) Sundays and holidays excepted’’. If work was carried out on these excepted periods then half was to count as laytime. There was also a provision requiring the ship to work day and night if requested to do so.

　　2.122接下来探讨这一问题争议的案例是Watson Brothers Shipping Co Ltd v. Mysore Manganese Co Ltd案。其中装卸时间规定为‘每24个小时的良好天气工作日（天气允许的情况下）500吨，星期日和节假日除外’。如果在此除外期间作业的话，只有一半计为装卸时间。另外还有一个条款规定：如果要求的话，船舶应能够昼夜连续作业。

　　2.123 Having concluded that the charter that he was then considering could not be successfully distinguished from that in the Forest Steamship case, Hamilton J added:

　　. . . apart from authority the natural construction of the clause would be that the defendants (the charterers)... are to have, not a day by the calendar or a day which is a working day as distinguished from a calendar day which is a holiday, but a certain number of hours upon which work in the ordinary course may be done.

　　2.123看完这一租船合同，Hamilton法官认为他无法明确地将它同Forest Steamship—案的租船合同区分开来，接着又说道：

　　……抛开先例不管，这一条款本身的解释就是给予被告（承租人）一个，不是根据日历日的一天，或者也不是(区别于日历日的)节假日的一个工作天，而是一个含有一定时数且在此期间可以进行作业的‘日/天’。
　　

　　2.124 These cases were, however, distinguished in Orpheus Steamship Co v. Bovill & Sons, a decision of Scrutton J, who had been the unsuccessful counsel for the plaintiff shipowners in the previous case considered above. The dispute arose out of the carriage of a cargo of grain to Avonmouth, where discharge was to be ‘‘in accordance with the rules of the Bristol Channel and West of England Corn Trade Association’’, under which eight ‘‘working days of twenty-four hours each’’, Sundays excluded, were allowed for the particular discharge. Under these rules time counted from arrival off Avonmouth, whether berthed or not. There was no allowance for interruptions by bad weather and Scrutton J therefore held that in these circumstances effectively what was allowed was eight working days. He relied on the fact that the charter did not mention any time outside working hours to show that there was none, saying:

　　There is no provision as there was in the other cases about what you are to do with the period after the working hours... In this case there is no provision either authorising you to exclude it or saying what will happen if it is worked. In these circumstances it seems to me that it is part of the working day. It is a day on which work can be done between the parties and the parties can require work to be done during that time. I see no reason to exclude it.

　　It may be therefore that this case should simply be considered as an illustration of a particular number of working hours, viz. 24, being agreed between the parties as being the usual number to be worked each day in the port and trade in question. On this basis there would be no discord with the earlier cases.

　　2.124 然而，这些案例又与Scrutton法官判决的Orpheus Steamship Co v. Bovill & Sons—案不同。在上文讨论的前一个案例中他曾经作为没有成功替原告船东辩护的律师（后来升任法官）。该案的争议是产生于去往Avonmouth(在英国Avon河口)港的粮食运输中。其中规定是‘按照布里斯托尔海峡及西英谷物贸易协会的规则’进行卸货，按照规则，对于具体卸货是允许8个‘每24个小时的工作日’，星期日除外。根据协会这些规则，装卸时间从抵达Avonmouth之港外开始起算，不论靠泊与否。而且不允许因坏天气而中断计算。因此，Scrutton法官判定：在这些情况下，事实上所允许的装卸时间就是8个工作日。他根据的事实是，这一租船合同中并未提及工作时间之外的任何时间，也没有证明其存在，他说道：

　　这里没有像其他案例中那样的有关您在工作时间之外应做些什么的条文……在该案，既没有条文规定许可您排除它，也没有说若进行作业了，时间应怎样计算的条文。根据这种情况，依我之见，它就是工作日的一部分，在这一天中，当事双方均可以进行作业，而且双方都能够要求在这期间内作业，我想没有什么理由可以将它除外不计。

　　因此，可以将这一案子简单地看成是在有关港口和贸易中当事双方就工作小时的具体数目，比如24小时，作为每日可以工作的正常时数这一事情达成协议的一个例证。基于这一点，它同以前的案例就没有什么不一致的地方。
　　

　　2.125 Commenting on this type of laytime clause in Reardon Smith Line Ltd v. Ministry of Agriculture, Lord Devlin said:

　　It is, of course, possible, and it is sometimes done, for the lay days to be deﬁned as a number of working hours. Or they may be deﬁned as working days of 24 or some other number of hours, though the authorities are not entirely agreed on what that means.

　　The reference in the last part of this quotation is presumably to Scrutton J’s decision in Orpheus Steamship Co v. Bovill & Sons.

　　2.125 在Reardon Smith Line Ltd v. Ministry of Agricuhure—案中，Devlin勋爵对这类型的装卸时间条款进行了评论：

　　当然，这很可能，并且有时这样做，将装卸时间定义为一定的工作时数。或者他们可能定义为24个小时或其他时数的工作日，尽管先例对其含义并没有统一的意见。

　　这段引文的后一部分大概可能指的是Scrutton法官对Orpheus Steamship Co v. BoviU Sons—案的判决。
　　