_Enemy Property at Sea_
PRIVATE PROPERTY AT SEA
Sir,--The letter which you print this morning from Mr. Charles Stewart
can hardly be taken as a serious contribution to the discussion of a
question which has occupied for many years the attention of politicians,
international lawyers, shipowners, traders, and naval experts. Mr.
Stewart actually thinks that Lord Sydenham's argument to the effect that
"the fear of the severe economic strain which must result from the
stoppage of a great commerce is a factor which makes for peace" may be
fairly paraphrased as advice to "retain the practice because it is so
barbarous that it will sicken the enemy of warfare." He goes on to say
that this argument "would apply equally to the poisoning of wells and to
the use of explosive bullets."
It may be worth while to contrast with the attitude of a writer who
seems unable to distinguish between economic pressure and physical
cruelty that taken up by a competent body, the large majority of the
members of which belong to nations which, for various reasons, incline
to the abolition of the usage in question. The Institut de Droit
International, encouraged by the weight attached to its _Manual of the
Law of War on Land_ by the first and second Peace Conferences, has been,
for some time past, working upon a _Manual of the Laws of War at Sea_.
At its Christiania meeting in 1912 the Institut, while maintaining the
previously expressed opinion of a majority of its members in favour of a
change in the law, recognised that such a change has not yet come to
pass, and that, till it occurs, regulations for the exercise of capture
are indispensable, and directed the committee charged with the topic to
draft rules presupposing the right of capture, and other rules to be
applied should the right be hereafter surrendered (_Annuaire_, t. xxv.,
p. 602).
The committee accordingly prepared a draft, framed in accordance with
the existing practice, to the discussion of which the Institut devoted
the whole of its recent session at Oxford, eventually giving its
_imprimatur_ to a Manual of the law of maritime warfare, as between the
belligerents, in 116 articles. As opportunity serves, the committee will
prepare a second draft, proceeding upon the hypothesis that the right of
capturing private property at sea has been surrendered, which, in its
turn, will be debated, word for word, by the Institut de Droit
International.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
T. E. HOLLAND.
Oxford, November 4 (1913).
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