SOMETIME WHEWELL INTERNATIONAL LAW SCHOLAR OF CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY AUTHOR OF "THE LAW OF PRIVATE PROPERTY IN WAR" 54 THREADNEEDLE STREET, E.C. SWEET & MAXWELL, LIMITED 3 CHANCERY LANE, W.C. 1911 ΤΟ JOHN WESTLAKE, ESQ., K.C., LL.D., D.C.L. THE DOYEN OF ENGLISH INTERNATIONAL LAWYERS IN SINCERE RESPECT FROM A GRATEFUL PUPIL PREFACE. "THE Declaration of London" has become a burning question for the general public, which usually leaves discussions of International Law to professors and academical persons. As, however, the Declaration, on the one hand, is a very complex document, not easily intelligible by the layman, and, on the other hand, the general notions as to the present state of the laws and usages of maritime war are very vague, there has been not a little misunderstanding of the purport and effect of the international agreement. In this edition of the Declaration I have endeavoured to explain its contents as a whole and in detail, and to correct some erroneous opinions about the changes which it would introduce into our Prize Law. I have based my commentary partly upon the material in the Blue-Book containing the Correspondence and Documents respecting the London Naval Conference, which drew up the Declaration (Misc. No. 4, 1909); and I have also made use of legal articles on the Declaration in The Law Quarterly Review, The Journal of Comparative Legislation, The American Journal of International Law, and The Law Magazine and Review, by the Rt. Hon. Arthur Cohen, K.C., Professor Oppenheim, Sir John Macdonell, Mr. Denys Myers, and Dr. Baty. Of the many criticisms published during the last two months in the press, the three letters of Dr. Westlake, which appeared in The Times while my book was in proof, seemed to me to contain the most weighty and the best considered appreciation of the Declaration, and I could not forbear from adopting some of the points there made. I am under obligations of a different kind to Mr. Gibson Bowles' book on "Sea-Law and Sea-Power," a considerable part |
