Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 3.djvu/238

 THE GENERAL BUENSIDn. 231 �The only adjudication claimed by counsel for domestic creditors to be direotiy in their favor is that of Ths Cannon Raleigh and astoria, recently decided in the district of Vir- ginia. On a careful perusal of this case I do not find thia question to bave been pasaed upon, though there are intima- tions, as in other cage», that the liens of the state laws are of equal yalidity with strictly maritime liens. The learned judge did say that these liens took precedence &î ail liens, other than those for mariners' wages, but the question was not between foreign and domestic creditors, but between ma- terial men and a mortgagee, and the court adopted what I have considered the better law, that such liens were entitled to rank a mortgage; foUowing Keeder v. Steam-ship Gnrgis Creek, 3 Am. Law Eeg. 236. I ani informed, too, that the practice of the clerks in many of the eastern districts, in the distribution of proceeds, is to place domestic and foreign ma- terial men in the same rank; but if this practice, unsanc- tioned by judicial authority, is entitled to any weight -in other districts, it is fairly offset by the unifonn practice in this district, ever since the organization of the court, to prefer tho claims of foreign creditors. �It is not denied that the application of this rule -will lead to apparent injustice in certain cases where the foreign port is much nearer the domicile of the owner than many ports in his own state, whieh, under the law as settled by the supreme court, must be considered as home ports ; as, for example, in holding Jersey City to be a foreign port to a New York vessel, ■while Buffalo and Ogdensburg are domestic, or in regarding Toledo and Windsor as foreign to Detroit, while Ontonagon and St. Joseph are domesti^j. This difficulty, however, has arisen from the practice of treating any port in the same state as a home port. Indeed, tho use of the term home port is unfortunate and misleading. The true distinction is between foreign and domestic yessels, the uniform carrent of American authorities holding eaeh state in this regard foreign to every other. The General Smith, 4 Wheat. 438 ; The Belfmt, 7 Wall. 624-43 ; The Nestor, 1 Sum. 73; Th« Lidu, 10 Waîl. 192-200; The Bi€h, 1 C6S. 308. ThÏB ctiB«iB«tïon, adopted from tiM ����