4. The Convention does not define “wage-earning employment”. It should be taken in its broadest sense. 5. In the Refugee Conference the Australian representative held that persons holding a visa for a temporary stay (he called them “lawfully living” or “sojourning”) should not be entitled to engage in wage-earning employment (Article 17 of the Refugee Convention dealing with this right also refers to refugees “lawfully staying”). This problem was not discussed in detail, but the President held that it was obviously only fair that refugees temporarily visiting a country for special reasons and for a specific period should not be accorded the right to engage in wageearning employment to any greater extent than other aliens whose sojourn was governed by 144 special conditions were allowed to. This view would also seem to be correct as regards stateless persons. 6. See the Comments to Article 11 for the meaning of the expression “shall give sympathetic consideration”. Article 18 Self-employment The Contracting States shall accord to a stateless person lawfully in their territory treatment as favourable as possible and, in any event, not less favourable than that accorded to aliens generally in the same circumstances, as regards the right to engage on his own account in agriculture, industry, handicrafts and commerce and to establish commercial and industrial companies. 1. The incorporation of the provisions of Article 18 of the Refugee Convention in this Convention provoked no debate and met with no opposition in the conference. The proposal was 145 adopted by a vote of 13 to none with 2 abstentions. Its purpose and import is thus exactly the same as of the corresponding article of the Refugee Convention. 2. The structure of this Article is the same as that of Article 13 (except for the reference to “lawfully in their territory”). For the meaning of the terms involved, see that article. A treatment less liberal than in the case of wage-earning employment was provided in the Refugee Convention because some of the representatives in the Ad Hoc Committee contended that in their country self-employment was reserved to nationals, that this was a 146 serious middle-class problem, etc. 3. The right to engage in industry and other branches of the economy on the stateless person’s own account is granted, on the basis of Article 18, on condition of being lawfully in the country. Thus Article 18 is not applicable to stateless persons residing outside the country where the self-employed activity is to be exercised; applicable in such cases is Article 7 (1), i.e. stateless persons not residing in the country in which they want to engage in self-employment or establish commercial or industrial companies will be permitted to do so only if, under the laws of the country, aliens in general, residing abroad, are authorized to do so under the same conditions. In short, the Parties to the Convention are requested to accord treatment more favourable than that accorded aliens generally, only to refugees “lawfully” in the country concerned. obligatory employment in a certain branch of economy for a certain period, as stipulated in the schemes of admission of refugees under IRO auspices (see SR.3, pp. 23-24). It would seem that Art. 17 deals with the right of employment in general, not with the specific conditions under which a stateless person was admitted. Once he agreed to these conditions, he could hardly claim that they were superseded by any provision of the Convention (see, i.a., the statement by Mr. Van Heuven Goedhart in SR.4, p. 4). 144 SR.9, pp. 10 and 14. 145 SR.7, p. 10. 146 SR. 13, para. 54 ff.