racter. The settlement of the law of prize must
necessarily precede any general resort to an international prize Court;
and if the coming Hague Conference does no more than settle some of the
most pressing of these questions, it will have done much to promote the
cause of peace.

I am, your obedient servant,
T. E. HOLLAND.
Oxford, February 20 (1907).

A NEW PRIZE LAW

Sir,--The leading articles which you have recently published upon the
doings of the Peace Conference, as also the weighty letter addressed to
you by my eminent colleague, Professor Westlake, will have been welcomed
by many of your readers who are anxious that the vital importance of
some of the questions under discussion at The Hague should not be lost
sight of.

The Conference may now be congratulated upon having already given a
_quietus_ to several proposals for which, whether or not they may be
rightly described as Utopian, the time is admittedly not yet ripe. Such
has been the fate of the suggestions for the limitation of armaments,
and the exemption from capture of private property at sea. Such also,
there is every reason to hope, is the destiny which awaits the still
more objectionable proposals for rendering obligatory the resort to
arbitration, which by the Convention of 1899 was wisely left optional.

Should the labours of the delegates succeed in placing some restrictions
upon the employment of submarine mines, the bombardment of open coast
towns, and the conversion of merchant vessels into ships of war; in
making some slight improvements in each of the three Conventions of
1899; and in solving some of the more pressing questions as to the
rights and duties of neutrals, especially with reference to the
reception in their ports of belligerent warships, it will have more than
justified the hopes for its success which have been entertained by
persons conversant with the difficulty and complexity of the problems
involved.

But what shall we say of certain proposals for revolutionising the law
of prize, which still remain for consideration, notably for the
establishment of an international Court of Appeal, and for the abolition
of contraband? It can hardly be supposed that either suggestion will win
its way to acceptance.

1. The British scheme for an international Court of Appeal in prize
cases is, indeed, far preferable to the German; but the objections to
anything of the kind would seem to be, for the present, insuperable,
were it only