2. Mr. Bowles asserts it to be "an unquestioned doctrine of the Law of Nations that war abrogates and annuls treaty obligations between belligerents." One would have supposed it to be common knowledge that large classes of treaties are wholly unaffected by war. Such are, for instance, what are called conventions transitoires, because their effect is produced once for all, as in the case of cessions of territory; and, notably, treaties entered into for the regulation of the conduct of war, such as the Geneva Convention, many of The Hague Conventions of 1907, and the Declaration of Paris itself, which Mr. Bowles appears to think would ipso facto cease to be obligatory between its signatories on their becoming belligerent.
It is a pleasure to be able to agree with Mr. Bowles in his wish that the Naval Prize Bill, if reintroduced, should be rejected, though I would rather say "withdrawn." You have already allowed me (on July 10) to point out that [199]if the Convention and Declaration are to be effectively discussed in Parliament they should be disentangled from that Bill, into which the Convention, and, by implication, the Declaration, have been incongruously thrust. This practically non-contentious Consolidation Bill, after several times securing the approval of the House of Lords, has hitherto for several years awaited the leisure of the House of Commons, but was suddenly reintroduced last Session, apparently as an unobtrusive vehicle for the new and highly debatable matter contained in the two above-mentioned documents. May I now repeat my suggestion that "the debatable questions arising under the Convention of 1907 and the Declaration of 1909 should first be threshed out in discussions on a Bill dealing with these questions only; and that the decision, if any, thus arrived at should be subsequently inserted, freed from hypothesis, in the Consolidation Bill"?
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
T. E. HOLLAND
Oxford, December 28 (1910).
Sir,—I have read Professor Westlake's letters upon the Declaration of London with the attention due to anything written by my very learned friend, but, although myself opposed to the ratification alike of the Prize Court Convention and of its complement, the Declaration, do not at present wish to enter upon the demerits of either instrument.
There is, however, a preliminary question upon which, with your permission, I should like to say a few words. My friend justly observes that in dealing with the Declaration "the first necessity is to know what it is that we have before us"; and he devotes his letter of January 31 to maintaining that the Declaration must be read as interpreted by the explanations of it given to the full Conference by the Drafting Committee, of which M. Renault was presi[200]dent. Professor Westlake supports his opinion by a quotation from the reply of the Foreign Office in November last to the Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce (Miscell. 1910, No. 4, p. 21). I may mention that a similar reply had been given, a year previously, by Mr. McKinnon Wood to a question in the House of Commons. The source of these replies is doubtless to be found in a paragraph of the Report, addressed on March 1, 1909, to Sir Edward Grey, of the British Delegates to the London Conference, which runs as follows:—
"It should be borne in mind that, in accordance with the principles and practice of Continental jurisprudence, such a Report is considered an authoritative statement of the meaning and intention of the instrument which it explains, and that consequently foreign Governments and Courts, and no doubt also the International Prize Court, will construe and interpret the provisions of the Declaration by the light of the Commentary given in the Report." (Miscell. 1909, No. 4, p. 94.)
It is desirable to know upon what authority this statement rests. I am aware of none. The nearest approach to an assertion of anything like it occurred at The Hague Conference of 1899, when the "approval" accorded to "the work of the Second Committee, as embodied in the articles voted and in the interpretative Report which accompanies them" was alleged by M. de Martens to amount to an acceptance of the Report "comme un commentaire interprétatif authentique des articles votés." (Miscell. 1899, No. 1, p. 165.) The drafting Report presented to the Geneva Conference of 1906 is merely said to have been "adopted" (Actes, p. 286); and M. Renault's Report to the Conference of London was similarly merely "accepted," although he presented it as containing