Inquest.

American writer a Court of Inquest. It is not a A Court of court essentially or primarily for ascertaining the rights and duties of the parties, that is the rights and duties of belligerents and neutrals as between one another, but it is a court designed to ascertain whether captors have been conforming to International Law.

You will observe that, for every important breach of International Law, the Government of the person committing the breach is primarily responsible, on the principle that every State is liable for the acts of its subjects. It may succeed in evading that liability. It may be able to say, "it is impossible for us to keep an effective control over the acts of all our citizens;" but primarily every State is responsible for what its citizens do, whether in fact it can control their acts or not. There are some citizens for whose acts it is especially responsible; those citizens, for instance, who are appointed to carry on the war; and with respect to these the State is not only primarily liable but liable from first to last, and absolutely liable. That being so, it becomes a matter of extreme importance to a Government to keep a check upon its own citizens, to prevent their committing breaches of International Law, and to see that when any act of a peculiarly hostile character is done that that act has been performed with all the necessary caution and obedience to rule. It becomes of extreme importance to a belligerent State to secure that its citizens do not prey upon neutrals on the

The State must control

its own citizens.

plea of preying upon belligerents. It becomes likewise of extreme importance to each belligerent State that its forces do not invade neutral rights under the plea of punishing breaches of neutrality. It becomes, further, of extreme importance to each belligerent State that its citizens do not confound the property of neutrals with the property of belligerents when it happens to be mixed up. In fine it becomes, as has been said, important that a belligerent State should secure that its citizens observe all necessary caution and conform to the rules of International Law.

Every belligerent State has certain Courts of Justice instituted for the purposes of the war only. The sole object of these courts is to ascertain that every hostile act, of a certain amount of importance, be publicly stamped by the authority of the State itself. The purpose of the Prize Court, then, is not primarily to ascertain what are the rights and duties of neutrals and belligerents in any particular case, but to ascertain that an act already done by a citizen of the belligerent State which institutes the prize tribunal has been done conformably to International Law.

The act having been already done, the State pronounces upon its validity. The act is only provisionally done, the whole legal consequences of the act done are as yet suspended, and the State decides whether they shall follow or not.

These then are the general principles upon which Prize Courts have been established. They rest upon the necessity of every State keeping a sharp control

of Prize

generally

maritime

over the acts of those of its citizens whose duty it is to carry on the war; and the occasion of that control is the necessity of determining the legal validity of every important act done in the past. But it happens that these particular courts confine their attention to maritime captures. This is the result of a number of historical causes which I need not dwell upon. Generally speaking, Courts of Prize and Jurisdiction Courts of Admiralty only have jurisdiction in cases Courts of maritime capture, or in cases where, at any rate, limited to the navy or ships of the country have, to a con- captures.. siderable extent, contributed to the capture. You will find however that in a few cases Courts of Prize have jurisdiction over captures on land, but in these cases some operations of the navy have contributed to the capture. It is rather a fine point to determine what is the jurisdiction of the English Court of Admiralty in the matter of prize. Under recent Acts of Parliament, the English Court of Admiralty has had its jurisdiction extended to booty taken on land. But that does not touch the question I am at present considering; as to what is the ordinary International practice.

commissioned

Having described what the general object of a Prize Court Court of Prize is, I am going on to define more in territory of particularly the rules regulating the constitution and captor. the procedure of these tribunals. First of all, the Prize Tribunals must be commissioned in the territory of the captor. The only case in which they may take action, or be set up, in a neutral country is when the neutral country itself is concerned to ascertain that an act of violence, done by one of the

belligerents in its close neighbourhood, does not in any measure compromise its neutrality. There are In what cases two cases in which a neutral country may exercise

Neutrals may

Jurisdiction.

One is when
In this case

exercise Prize jurisdiction through a Prize Court. the seizure is made in neutral waters. it becomes a matter of great importance to ascertain how far any of its citizens are concerned in that act. The other case is that in which the vessel captured is found to have been fitted out in neutral territory before it set out on its course of active service in behalf of one of the belligerents. In this case it becomes of great moment for the neutral to relieve itself from the charge of an apparent breach of its neutrality.

Consular Prize
Courts.

English Prize
Cou.ts.

At one time it was thought possible,-and became customary, for belligerents to institute what were called Consular Prize Courts in neutral States, so that when a capture was made by a belligerent the ship might be taken into the nearest neutral port, and be dealt with by the Consular Court of the belligerent. This practice however has been given up in the present day, and Consular Prize Courts are now not allowed. The obvious reason of this is that there is not the same security for the interests involved being protected in a neutral territory as there would be if the whole of the proceedings were in the territory of a responsible belligerent.

As regards the constitution of Prize tribunals, I may say that the history of this constitution differs in different States. I shall therefore take the Prize tribunals of England as a specimen, because they are, perhaps, the most important to all of us. The

Prize tribunals of England are a little different from

those of the United States.

Eden.

I am going to refer you, first of all, to a great Le Caux v. case in which the whole history of Courts of Prize was examined into judicially, and in which Lord Mansfield gave a very elaborate judgment. You will find the Case in Douglas' Reports (vol. ii. page 594, Le Caux v. Eden), but it is not so much that case itself to which I would call your attention,important as that case itself is,-as another case, the circumstances of which are related in a note to the report of that case. This last is the case of Lindo v. Rodney and another. On this occasion Lord Mansfield delivered a very elaborate judgment, in which he described the mode in which Prize Courts were constituted, and detailed their functions. I will read one or two passages from the report of this case, because it affords the highest authority you can have. First of all I will give the distinctions between the two functions of the Court of Admiralty. In one of its aspects it is called an "Instance" Court, and in the other aspect it is a Prize Court. You will see how the line is drawn between these two functions in the remarks made by Lord Mansfield :

"It appears," he says, "that this jurisdiction in matters "of prize, (whether it be coeval with the Court of Admiralty, or, which is much more probable, of a later institution, "beyond the time of memory) though exercised by the

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same person, is quite distinct. He is appointed Judge "of the Admiralty by a Commission under the Great "Seal, which enumerates particularly, as well as generally, every object of his jurisdiction; but not a word of Prize.

Lord Mans

field in Lindo v. Rodney.