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Owners of ships or vessels who can prove that they have sacrificed an anchor, a net, or any other implement used in fishing, in order to avoid injuring a submarine cable, shall be indemnified by the owner of the cable.

In order to be entitled to such indemnity, one must prepare, whenever possible, immediately after the accident, in proof thereof, a statement supported by the testimony of the men belonging to the crew; and the captain of the vessel must, within twenty-four hours after arriving at the first port of temporary entry, make his declaration to the competent authorities. The latter shall give notice thereof to the consular authorities of the nation to which the owner of the cable belongs.

The courts competent to take cognizance of infractions of this convention shall be those of the country to which the vessel on board of which the infraction has been committed belongs.

It is, moreover, understood that, in cases in which the provision contained in the foregoing paragraph cannot be carried out, the repression of violations of this convention shall take place, in each of the contracting States, in the case of its subjects or citizens, in accordance with the general rules of penal competence established by the special laws of those States, or by international treaties.

Prosecutions on account of the infractions contemplated in articles 2, 5 and 6 of this convention, shall be instituted by the State or in its name.

Evidence of violations of this convention may be obtained by all methods of securing proof that are allowed by the laws of the country of the court before which a case has been brought.

When the officers commanding the vessels of war or the vessels specially commissioned for that purpose, of one of the High Contracting Parties, shall have reason to believe that an infraction of the measures provided for by this Convention has been committed by a vessel other than a vessel of war, they may require the captain or master to exhibit the official documents furnishing evidence of the nationality of the said vessel. Summary mention of such exhibition shall at once be made on the documents exhibited.

Reports may, moreover, be prepared by the said officers, whatever may be the nationality of the inculpated vessel. These reports shall be drawn up in the form and in the language in use in the country to which the officer drawing them up belongs; they may be used as evidence in the country in which they shall be invoked, and according to the laws of such country. The accused