as owner.

In burden and means of propulsion, the change is not less remarkable than in the diversity of interests in ship and cargo. The owner of a vessel is rarely the owner of the cargo, and cargo-owners are as often as not, of different nationality from the owners of the ship. The vessels, whether tramp steamers or mail boats, are enormously larger, and it is the rarest occurrence that the owners of the ship and cargo are the same.

Within the same period noteworthy changes have been made in jurisdiction, procedure, and the material law of prize. The Naval Prize Act of 1864, the Prize Courts Act of 1894, and the Prize Courts (Procedure) Act of 1914 with its elaborate rules, are all being put in force for the first time. Immense changes have been made, too, in the material law of prize by Conventions to which Britain is a party. The Declaration of Paris of 16th April 1856, conceding immunity from capture to enemy goods under the neutral flag, and to neutral goods under the enemy flag (in each case saving contraband of war), the Hague Conventions of 1907 on the status of enemy vessels on the outbreak of hostilities, on the conversion of merchant vessels into war vessels, on certain restrictions on the right of capture, and finally on the rights and duties of neutral States in maritime warfare, are subjected for the first time to the test of a great naval war. And to these Conventions, imposing limitations on the rights of the Crown, there is now added one of a different class, the Declaration of London, which, with certain modifications, is declared by Order in Council of 20th August 1914 to be binding on Britain, while M. Renault's Explanatory Report is, without any modification, declared to be binding on our Prize Courts.

Under the Acts now in force, jurisdiction in Prize resides in the High Court of Justice, and all matters of Prize are assigned, subject to Rules of Court, to the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division of the High Court, with appeal to

the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. The matters in which the Prize Court has jurisdiction fall into the two main classes of Droits of Admiralty and Prizes of the Crown, with cognate matters of prize salvage, joint capture, bounty, petitions of right.

The right of the Crown in prize being a prerogative right may be waived or limited by Treaty, Convention, Order in Council, or Proclamation, and such limitations bind the grantees of the Crown. But the prerogative of the Crown cannot be extended beyond the limits of municipal law to prejudice the rights of owners of property by mere declaration of the Crown itself. How far the Declaration of London, as construed by M. Renault's Report, may limit the rights of the sovereign is not yet clear, though many difficulties are certain to present themselves for solution.

With very commendable brevity, Viscount Tiverton has succeeded in stating the main rules of Prize law in a chapter headed General Law. There is little in the statements themselves to excite comment, though the references in the foot-notes show every variety of authority from decisions of Lord Stowell and Hague Conventions to a Royal Proclamation so recent as the 20th of August. The most important part of his book is an analysis, running to just less than 100 pages, of the elaborate Procedure Rules of the Court of Prizes, framed by a Committee under the Chairmanship of Mr. Butler Aspinall, K.C., the well-known Admiralty lawyer, and issued shortly after the outbreak of war. The analysis, with its comments and references, cannot fail to be useful to practitioners before the Prize Courts.

Prize Court procedure is now regulated by the Rules of Court in Prize Proceedings which came into force on 5th August last, in substitution for Rules made by Order in Council of the 18th July 1898 and 20th October 1898. These rules are of an elaborate nature with Appendices of

Forms, Tables of Court Fees, and Tables of Practitioners' Fees. They make great and important changes on traditional Prize Court procedure. As before, it is the duty of the actual captor to deliver up the ship to the Marshal and file the necessary affidavit of papers. But, whereas it was formerly his duty to put in a libel, i.e., to petition the Court to hold an inquiry, the rules now direct that every cause for condemnation as prize, whether the ship and goods are brought in, or whether they have been destroyed, lost, or in the case of goods removed from the ship, must be instituted in the name of the Crown by its proper officer, although the Crown may, through its proper officer, allow the proceedings to be conducted by the captors or any parties to whom the ship would be condemned as prize. The proper officer is the King's Proctor, or other law officer or law agent for the Crown, authorised to conduct Prize proceedings on behalf of the Crown within the jurisdiction. The writ cannot be issued until a statutory affidavit as to the ship's papers has been made by the captor. The writ is a direction to owners and parties interested in the ship or cargo, to enter appearance within eight days after the service of the writ, and a warning that, in default of appearance, the Court may proceed in the cause and give judgment in absence.

A still more important alteration relates to the evidence competent at the hearing of a cause in Prize. In Lord Stowell's day the next step after notice to interested parties to appear, was for the Court by its own officers to examine the captured vessel, its papers and cargo, and to administer interrogatories to the persons found. on board. At this stage the captors were not examined, nor were they allowed to examine the claimants or the captured persons. The evidence taken by the Court was called evidence in preparatory on which counsel for the interested parties were entitled to be heard. The Court,

if possible, gave its decision on this evidence alone. It further proof were allowed, the proceedings then took more closely the form of a trial between litigants, the captors and claimants produced evidence, led argument, and finally judgment was given. In the new rules evidence in preparatory is abolished. Under Order XV, r. 2, the evidence to be given at the hearing in causes for condemnation of ships other than warships is thus summarised by the author :—

I. The affidavit as to ships' papers and exhibits

2.

thereto;

Affidavits of the officers of the capturing ship; 3. Evidence, either oral or upon affidavit, of witnesses tendered by any party; and

4. Such further evidence as the Judge may admit.

Provision is made for taking evidence before the hearing, with the consent of the Court, before the Judge or Registrar or an Examiner appointed by the Court.

Lack of space prevents us from dealing with the further elaborate alterations in procedure, the general effect of which is to model Prize Court proceedings to the forms of an ordinary litigation. In its present shape, a cause in the Prize Court has but the remotest resemblance to an inquiry on the Admiral's quarterdeck. It can hardly be described with Dana (Note 186 to Wheaton's International Law) as an inquest held by the State upon certain property to discover whether it has been lawfully captured or not.

The alterations in the material Law of Prize since Lord Stowell's day are much more important than the alterations in procedure. How far the decisions of Lord Stowell are binding on the Prize Court it will be for that tribunal to decide, but as the author points out, these decisions purport to apply the law only as it existed at the date when given; for they profess to accord with the Law of Nations, and

this being founded on reciprocity is clearly susceptible of alteration and improvement. The alterations by treaty are numerous and extensive, and so far as the treaties are ratified by all or most of the belligerents, they may well be taken to form part of the Law of Nations. In their essence they are primarily limitations on the rights of the Crown, which the Crown may enforce at its pleasure. Unless incorporated by Act of Parliament, they do not alter the municipal law and cannot prejudice the rights of a subject. Most of the Hague Conventions, e. g., those on Days of Grace, Restrictions on the Right of Capture, Conversion of Merchant Vessels, and the Rights and Duties of Neutrals, fall within the former class. Difficult questions as regards the rights of neutral subjects, will no doubt come before the Court under the Declaration of London, which regulates the right of belligerent interference with neutral commerce during war. The Government has taken advantage of the unratified state of this famous instrument to make important modifications on some of its principal provisions. These are set forth in the Order of Council of 20th August above referred to.

It is worth pointing out that the critics of the Declaration who maintained that its rule adopting the doctrine of continuous voyage in absolute and excluding it in conditional contraband, would, in a war between this country and a Continental Power, afford our opponent a permanently open back-door in an adjacent neutral country, are amply justified by one of the modifications which the exigencies of the present war has forced the Government to make. As regards continuous voyage the modification does nothing less than abolish the distinction between absolute and conditional contraband, all for the purpose of cutting off the supplies which might reach Germany through Holland. Under section 4 (5) of the Proclamation of 20th August, and notwithstanding the provisions of section 35 of the