I beg to move that the following new Clause be read a second time:—

I beg to second the new Clause. I think the House will agree, merely from the recitation of some of the names, that this tribunal is really one of the most grotesque which has been set up, certainly under any convention or even in any country. The representation that we get on this Court is ludicrous if you compare it not only with our great naval power and with the fact that we own something like half the shipping of the world, and considering that this Court has got to deal with all sorts of intricate mercantile and commercial questions, and has got to decide whether, under various circumstances, merchant vessels have been properly captured or not, or whether compensation shall be paid to them. Really, to say that out of a Court of fifteen we should only have one representative, it is almost impossible to believe that any public body would ever agree to anything of the sort. If you have a Court of this kind it is a great thing that its composition should be settled and fixed, but that is the last thing that you have in this Court. It is desultory and constantly changing. You have not the slightest security that the same set of men will be dealing with a difficult question which will come before them, and that you will have the best experience you can get from all these countries. Just think of the variety of this Court. It is composed first of all of men of every colour. You get white men, black men, yellow men, half-coloured men, and, in fact, men of all colours of the rainbow, and you get men of every sort or kind of experience.

Eight of these judges are supplied by the great Powers and the other seven are on a curious shifting panel of this motley assembly of various other smaller Powers and nine form a quorum, so that it is perfectly possible, under this curious system, that you might have a very few representatives of the great Powers and the rest of the quorum shall be made up by these representatives from Guatemala, San Domingo, and San Salvador. Again, I suppose this Court will come to its decisions by a majority. We know that in other places than Courts small minorities have remarkable power, and it is quite possible that, in these cases, many of which are most difficult, you will have, indeed you are bound to have, differences of opinion and divisions between the judges of the great Powers, and you are likely to have questions affecting our position in time of war decided by one vote of some South American Republic. I am not going into questions as to what the Bill does with regard to the principles and the administration of justice and equity, but I do ask the House to observe this. Here you have a number of Powers which are going to appoint judges, Powers which have been defaulting Powers, and some of them bankrupt Powers, during the last forty or fifty years. I ask what are the notions of justice and equity of a Power that refuses to pay interest on its national bonds? And yet these are the gentlemen who are going to be put on this international tribunal, and who are to have the same voting power as a judge who comes from this country. After all, what is this wonderful Prize Court going to do? You have to look at other portions of the Bill to see that. To this Court appeals will go if not decided in two years, and when they go there, what happens? The decision of that Court on the appeals from our Prize Court are final, and not only that, but when the decree has been given it becomes the duty of every Court in this country to enforce the decisions. You may have a decision by the Supreme Court on a question not covered by the Declaration of London, or the existing rules of international law, and it is based on ideas of justice and equity. The judges of tins international tribunal might take an entirely different view on questions of justice and equity, and what happens? The Courts of this country have to enforce decisions which in their opinion and in the opinion of the Prize Courts of this country—and everybody knows the reputation they have had in the past—are contrary to justice and equity. If that is so let us have at least a tribunal so composed that we may have some confidence in it. Let it be confined, or largely confined, to the representatives of the great Powers—great civilised countries like France and Germany, which we know have great jurists and on whose decisions we would have some sort of reliance, but to say that such questions of justice and equity are to be decided by these coloured gentlemen from the South American Republics is so great a travesty that it is really almost impossible for me to understand how the Foreign Office should ever have consented to such a thing.

This tribunal, so constituted and so remarkably equipped for deciding high legal points, is going to have questions of the most delicate kind, questions of the highest complexity, referred to it. What has it got to do? It has got to deal with three sets of law. First of all you have got all those rules drawn up under the Declaration of London. Now one question arises at once—namely, whether the commentary of Monsieur Renault on these rules—

The discussion of that question would not be in order.

I do not want to go into the rules. I only want to point out that the composition of this Court is singularly inefficient for dealing with those delicate questions. I only wish to point out the class of questions this tribunal will have to decide.

If there are delicate questions, the hon. Member will be able to make that clear without discussing the rules.

I will assume that the House is well aware of the questions which will come up under the Declaration of London. I say, with great respect, that I only wish the country also had as full information on the subject, because then I do not think there would be the slightest question whether this Convention should pass. On your suggestion I shall refrain from dealing with, enumerating, or referring to all the particular questions which this Court will have to decide, and I shall confine myself entirely to the composition of the Court. I think I have shown that it is really an amazing thing that these decisions, on which the life of this country depends in time of war, and that the rules which are going to bind naval commanders in time of war, and on which the supply of food to this country depends in time of war, are to be taken away from our Courts, and that their decisions are to be handed over to a foreign tribunal composed in such a manner, and consisting of such extraordinarily incongruous elements, drawn from South American Republics and countries which have no seaboard of their own. Their representatives cannot be seized with the knowledge of prize law which has been acquired by study on the part of those representing countries like our own, which have followed the sea for a thousand years.

I think it appeared quite clearly from the speeches of the Mover and Seconder of the Amendment that this is really a root and branch Amendment which is intended to destroy the whole principle involved in the establishment of an International Prize Court. That is a point which was settled on the Second Reading of the Naval Prize Bill, but I think it is necessary to discuss the merits of the objections to this Court. The House will appreciate that the intention of the Powers which met at this great Conference in London was to set up a Court which should represent all the nations of the world. That, to the hon. Member for Taunton (Mr. Peel) seems a ludicrous position. We will examine whether it is ludicrous or not. That was the intention, and the proposal that was made to give representation on this Court in proportion to maritime interests was not a proposal that commended itself to the great maritime nations represented in London. The House will remember that it was the great maritime nations which drew up the constitution of this Court—the nations who alone ought to be represented according to the views of these two hon. Members. They said "No, it is not a sound position. We must bring all the nations of the world into this agreement," and I think I shall be able to show a very strong case for bringing in many of these nations and the absurdity of the argument that they should not be brought in.

The right hon. Gentleman must not misrepresent me. I did not say that nations outside should have no representation at all. What I proposed is to give them three instead of seven.

The interruption is quite irrelevant and has nothing to do with my argument. The argument was that the great maritime Powers seriously considered the proposition of dealing with the matter in some such way as that proposed by the hon. Member and rejected it. They came to the conclusion that all the Powers should have some sort of representation on this tribunal. The general reasons why they came to that conclusion are not reasons which I need labour with the House. If you adopt this Amendment you reject the Prize Court Convention; but the object of the Amendment is to reject it. It is because hon. Members object to an International Prize Court that they are raising these objections. That is why I think that the objections of the hon. Member for Taunton (Mr. Peel) in which he used very strong words such as "travesty," "fantastic," and so on are themselves fantastic. It might have occurred to the modesty of the hon. Member that the great maritime nations would not have put forward a fantastic court against their own interests. This is not a thing that was contrived by the influence of the smaller Powers, but the deliberate decision of the great maritime Powers. I think I can leave that point, but I may point out this—that a great many of those nations, though they are not great maritime Powers, have a tremendous interest in oversea commerce. No one can deny that the Argentine Republic has an enormous and growing interest in oversea commerce, much to the benefit of Great Britain. The hon. Member for York (Mr. Butcher) referred in terms of derision to the composition of the Court. He took the first year. I will do the same. It will be composed as to a majority of the eight great maritime Powers. Who are the next Powers? The Netherlands, an important maritime Power; Norway another; Spain—surely Spain has a right to a voice in this matter; and the Argentine to which I have referred. Surely all these Powers have a right to a voice on a question which will affect them—not because, perhaps, they are great naval Powers, but because they are very much interested in the transit of goods oversea. And it is quite a delusion to suppose that because a Power may be what is called a minor Power it cannot produce a good jurist. Look at the names of some of the men who are members of the permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague. One is M. Lohman of Holland. M. Gram of Norway is another eminent jurist. Sweden and Greece has each another. Nobody doubts the competence as a jurist of M. Drago who represents the Argentine Republic. Belgium has another eminent international jurist. The whole argument is a fallacy. And then when you come to these minor Powers upon whom ridicule has been cast, when it comes to an international agreement, I do not see why ridicule should be cast upon any Power or upon the colour of its people.

I did not east ridicule on their colour. I merely said that these gentlemen were not highly educated on international law.

The hon Gentleman said they represented all the colours of the rainbow. It is not good ridicule, but it is ridicule. It does not follow that they are obliged to appoint any jurist other than they choose. They are not obliged to appoint a jurist of their own if they have not got one. When you come to these deputy judges hon. Members can see that these deputy judges will only act in the absence of the judge, and therefore the whole of that argument is a perfectly trivial argument and amounts to nothing at all. I would like to direct attention to one other consideration. The whole objection is to an International Prize Court. What is the practical alternative? It is to have the case considered in the Court of the belligerent which has done the damage. Is the alternative before the House, the International Prize Court to whom you only apply if you are dissatisfied with the decision of the belligerent's Court, a disadvantage? I cannot imagine how any man who will look fairly at the subject for a moment will allege that it is. How can it be a disadvantage to us if, after we have gone into the Court of some foreign country and got a decision against us, we have an appeal to an International Court, and, mark you, by the constitution of the Court, a Court chiefly composed of neutrals, and therefore perfectly independent and able to give an unbiassed judgment on the matter? The Division on this Amendment will decide an important question, whether or not the international agreement that sets up an International Prize Court is to be ratified by this country or not, whether we are going to go back to a state of affairs in regard to prizes which everybody who knows anything of the subject admits to be as unsatisfactory as can be, or are going to make the great advance which this international agreement will bring about.

If this Bill is to be carried I think it ought to be advocated in speeches of a somewhat different tenour from that to which we have just listened. There is absolutely nothing in the speeches of my hon. Friends who moved and seconded this Amendment to lead to the sort of treatment which the right hon. Gentleman thought fit to extend to them. He says that their objections are trivial, but he had very little to say in justification of that attitude, and he seems to think that any opposition to this Bill hardly requires any answer at all. It is to be carried through, and any discussion is a mere empty formality. The real thing is the voting which is to take place. The right hon. Gentleman has said that this Court was constituted in virtue of the consent among the nations, that what was desirable was a Convention or Court representing all the nations of the world, if that was the aim, surely, in a body of the kind, some adequate regard should have been paid in the matter of representation to the magnitude of the interests which each country had at stake. The principle has been neglected in the composition of this tribunal. The right hon. Gentleman put it as if this Court was to be a sort of little parliament representing all the nations of the world. If that were the proper idea the interests of the nations of the world ought to be measured and considered in the composition of the Court. But that is not the idea which ought to have been applied by those who were engaged in this Convention. What they were engaged in considering was a Court. They were not engaged in considering a parliament, and what they had to endeavour to secure was that they should have a Court of thoroughly good composition whose judgments would command the confidence of the civilised world. No one can say of this Court that its judgment would command the confidence of the world. The right hon. Gentleman repeated the charge which he made on a former occasion that the real objection was to the Internatoinal Court of Appeal. A more unfounded charge was never made.

Did you hear the speech of the hon. and learned Member who moved the Amendment?

I heard a good deal of it, and I heard nothing to justify what the right hon. Gentleman said.

The right hon. Gentleman will excuse me. I referred to the opening sentence of the hon. and learned Member's speech, which the right hon. Gentleman did not hear.

I did not hear the opening of the speech, but I should be very much surprised if it expressed a general objection to the principle of a Court of International Appeal. I would respectfully point out to the right hon. Gentleman that the real question to which he ought to address himself is the composition of this Court, and whether it is adequate to discharge its high functions, in such a manner as to give satisfaction to this country and the other countries of the world. I venture to say that the wit of man could not have devised a worse tribunal for this purpose than the tribunal which is constituted by this Bill; and its bad composition is largely explained by the revelation which the right hon Gentleman has made to this effect, that what we are considering is not how to constitute a good Court composed of eminent jurists whose decision would command respect, but to have a representation of all the countries of the world. That is not the way to constitute a Court that would be competent to deal with points of detail and with questions of very great difficulty and of very great complexity. The principle of the composition of this Court is absolutely vicious. It is a great deal too large. Fifteen judges is an absurd number. This Amendment is at all events a step in the right direction. It is extravagant to suppose that you could get fifteen jurists of established reputation, thoroughly cognisant of international law, and competent to deal with such questions. But, more than that, the Court is to be fluctuating in its composition, nine members are to constitute a quorum, and you do not know which of the nine will be sitting, and a Court of that kind is not the sort of Court you want to deal with such questions. You want a Court constant in its composition, and much smaller in size, for this reason, that as soon as you have a large body it is impossible to suppose that its members will all be of the same standing that you could secure if it were more limited in its numbers.

What will come before this Court? I am not going to review the composition of the Court, as my hon. and learned Friend the Member for York has already done that, but what I want to point out is this: You will have on this Court a balance of seven judges appointed in rotation by the minor Powers. Of the whole Court of fifteen, eight will be appointed by the great Powers and seven by the minor Powers. Some great question of policy comes before that Court involving vital interests of this country as against some other maritime Power, it may be. When the question is going to be decided there is some difference of opinion among the great Powers on the point. Some of the great Powers may think with us. The interests of others might be in an opposite direction. Will there be any confidence with this floating balance of seven people appointed from among the minor Powers, that there will not be a vast amount of intrigue and influence brought to bear to secure the votes of these Powers in one way or other. If it had been desired to set up a Court whose decision would not command confidence, you could not have set to work in a more effectual way than by creating such a tribunal as that which is embodied in this Convention. The blunder was made when you had the true model before your eyes. The right hon. Gentleman said that there was an objection to the principle of international arbitration and an International Court of Appeal. We have before our eyes The Hague Tribunal of Arbitration, and the admirable work it has done. How is it that The Hague Tribunal has worked so well? It is because it is not too large in composition. It has consisted usually of five members, and on that tribunal you have secured the services of jurists of acknowledged eminence. You ought to have followed that model, and provided in this Convention for a tribunal of relatively small numbers, and taken security that it should consist of men whose position as jurists is such as to command the confidence of the whole world. Although the Amendment is an improvement of the Bill, it leaves the Court too large. It reduces the representatives of the minor Powers to three, and that would be a great improvement. But, in my view, even on the model of The Hague Tribunal, the Court ought to consist of five members, and you ought to have on that Court only men who are competent to do the work. You do not want a sort of Convention fluctuating between the idea of a Court and a sort of Parliament of the nations. When you have two objects in view, the result is that the work is badly done. I trust the House will pause before it lends its sanction to submitting our most vital interests to the final decision of such a tribunal as this.

The Amendment before the House is that the Court should be reduced from fifteen to eleven members. The right hon. and learned Gentleman opposite (Sir R. Finlay) has supported the Amendment by arguing that the Court ought to be composed of five persons. I should doubt whether that is very relevant to the Amendment before the House; but whether he argues for five members or the hon. and learned Member for York argues for eleven, either of those Amendments and views are really fatal to any Prize Court Convention at all. Take the argument of the hon. and learned Member for York, who demurred to the construction put on his speech by my right hon. Friend (Mr. McKinnon Wood). But really the construction of my right hon. Friend was not an unfair one, and the same construction applies to the hon. Member (Mr. Peel) who supported him. He took the particular cases of individual countries, and he asked with regard to those countries, What knowledge have they of international law, what interests are they likely to have in the questions which come before the Court. If that is an argument at all it is an argument for saying that certain countries ought to be ruled out of the possibility of any representation at all. You can only get a Prize Court Convention by international agreement, and you will not get agreement between any large number of Powers at any Hague Conference to set up a Court which draws such an invidious distinction as to rule out individual nations of the world from any possibility of being represented upon even the minority. I doubt whether you would get a single other nation to vote with you. Even if all that was said against this Court was true, and I do not for a moment admit it is, but supposing it were, it would still be a Court on which the majority was composed of neutrals, and it would be more favourable to commercial shipping which has grievances than a Court solely composed of the belligerent, and which is necessarily the Court of somebody who is judge in his own Court. That is really what brought the nations to meet together at The Hague to devise the Prize Court Convention. The decisions of the Court of the belligerent are bound to be unsatisfactory in commercial cases. If they go in his favour of course he is satisfied, but they do not, and, as a rule they do not go in favour of the plaintiff unless a very strong case is made out. You cannot expect the party aggrieved to feel confidence with the judgment of the Court of the belligerent. From that Court at present there is no appeal. Nations may admit an appeal in a particular case where it arises now from a belligerent Court to The Hague Tribunal, but you can only bring a case before The Hague Tribunal by agreement between the belligerent and the neutral who is complainant that there shall be an appeal in that particular case. Once a case has arisen and a belligerent Court has decided, and we found this in dealing with the Russian Government, you cannot get an appeal. The only way you can get an appeal from a belligerent Court to an impartial Court, in which the belligerent is not to be judge in his own case, is by a Prize Court Convention, to which the nations agreed in advance that they will refer cases. That is a great gain on existing practice. The right hon. and learned Gentleman (Sir R. Finlay) said that he is not opposed to the principle of arbitration, but that it is to the number he is opposed, and to the only way by which the principle can be applied. The whole thing threshed out at The Hague Convention was this, and in no other way than this can you get an agreement to have an International Prize Court. The great Powers have the majority on this Court. They stipulated for that. The representation which is given to the whole of the Powders of the world outside the Powers named in Article 15 of the Prize Court Convention is less than is given to the few Powers named in Article 15, precisely because the interests of those Powers are considered to be greatest in the question. That is not all. Whatever hon. Members may argue with regard to admitting the smaller Powers to this Court, I think they must admit you cannot have an International Prize Convention unless you have agreement amongst the great Powers. We should have got no agreement at The Hague Conference except on the lines of this Prize Court Convention. They took the risks of unfavourable decisions. They are content with a tribunal assuring them of a majority, but giving a representation of seven to the other Powers you will not get their consent to anything else than that, and if you do not get the consent of the great Powers you will not have a Prize Court Convention at all. The right hon. and learned Gentleman has really been arguing against the whole Prize Court Convention by bringing forward counsels of perfection. He wants to have a tribunal whose decisions will, he says, command the consent of the civilised world, and for that tribunal he wants to have five persons only, of such distinction and such eminence that their decisions will command the consent of the whole civilised world. That means a Court on which you have five Powers represented.

Why?

You cannot have more than five in a Court in which you have five.

They are not representatives, they are judges. Several Powers can agree upon a judge, and to treat them as representatives is, I submit, a complete misconception.

I quite see the point, but they must be drawn from some nation. I do not speak of them as representing a particular nation on the tribunal, but representing a nation in the sense of being drawn from it. As a matter of fact, the majority will always be neutrals, and in that sense not representative of any nation in any case to be tried before the Court, but five can only be drawn from five nations. If you have a much more limited Court, which the right hon. Gentleman recommends, you have one composed of individuals, however distinguished, drawn from a very limited field, and on which the bulk of the smaller Powers of the world can have no chance of representation. However eminent those individuals may be, you will have a Court that, which by its prestige and general competence, will command the confidence of the civilised world. You must have a Court drawn from a comparatively wide area, if it is to be such that its decisions are to command universal assent, and if it is to be such as to get the assent of the nations to a Prize Court. Our representatives went into this at The Hague Conference, and it was discussed with all the great Powers exhaustively. We were all in favour, for the reasons which I have stated, for something which would put an end to the really intolerable condition of affairs under which you have no appeal from the decision of the Prize Court of the belligerents themselves. And, after discussion amongst the nations of the world, this was arrived at by agreement between them. This is, I believe, the best tribunal to which you can get international assent, and without which you can have no tribunal at all. I would urge the House to reject the comparatively small consideration put forward of reducing the Court from fifteen to eleven, but which, although it is comparatively slight, would absolutely upset the agreement come to at The Hague Conference, and be fatal to the establishment of a Prize Court.

There are two points dealt with by the right hon. Gentleman (Sir E. Grey) to which I should like to refer at once. In the first place, he has taken this argument, which I suggest as a very bad one, in a matter of this kind. He said if you cannot get a Convention, this is the substance of it, with a Court that is satisfactory, it is better to have a Convention whatever the constitution of the Court may be.

I did not say the Court was not satisfactory. I considered it was satisfactory. I was arguing against the possibility of devising a more satisfactory Court. It is not fair to say that I did not say it was satisfactory.

I do not want to draw an unfair inference, but I put the substance of his argument as that. You have a Convention which many of us indeed think has constituted a very unsatisfactory Court, and the question we are now raising is as to the constitution of that Court. I do not think it is an answer to that argument to say that you are bound to take the Court because the Convention has agreed to it, and that if you do not accept this Court that you cannot, for the moment at any rate, have any International Prize Court at all. I think that is a wrong way of looking at it, as I shall point out by and by. We are bound at the outset, as the greatest maritime nation, with the greatest interests, both of commerce and of war, not to submit our interests to a Court which in our view is not satisfactory, and cannot therefore be trusted. I start from that basis, and may I deal with the other argument which the right hon. Gentleman addressed to the House. His argument was that the rights of neutrals would be better protected by the international tribunal than by the tribunal of a particular belligerent. I say that is not at all right so far as we are concerned. They may in some instances no doubt be right. Take the position of England and the English Courts. On every single point our law as we apply it is more favourable to neutrals than the law to be applied by the Internationl Court. I cannot go into the matter in detail, but in regard to foodstuffs, the question of contraband, the conversion of merchantmen during voyage into war vessels, and the sinking of neutrals; in short, in regard to every question with which the International Court will have to deal, the law administered by this International Court will be less favourable to neutrals than the law administered at the present time by English Courts on English principles. I challenge anybody to make any answer to that allegation. Our maritime law is the admiration of the civilised world.

The statement of the hon. and learned Member may be true as regards the interests of foreigners, but British ships appear not before British Prize Courts, but before foreign Prize Courts. The important question for British ship-owners is whether the practice of foreign Prize Courts is better.

There is a three-fold answer to that. In my view there has always been a misapprehension in the mind of the right hon. Gentleman on this point. As a matter of fact and practice, the influence of English decisions has been so immeasurably greater than the decision of any other Prize Courts that the gradual tendency has been even for belligerents to approach our system. That is a most important fact. There is another point in regard to which there has always been misapprehension. When you get an international code laid down by various decisions, it will override what I may call the municipal code of the various countries represented on the International Court. That is an extremely serious matter so far as we are concerned. It means that our maritime law, which is undoubtedly most favourable to neutrals, and it is greatly to our honour that it is so, will be superseded by a harsher code, and we shall be compelled to put that harsher code in force against neutrals, although we consider it inconsistent with justice and equity. We shall have to do that in our own Courts, because after the International Prize Court has given its decision, that decision will be sent to this country, and it is part of the system of an International Court that its decrees shall be enforced in this country. The right hon. Gentleman is under a misapprehension if he gathered from the speeches of the Mover and Seconder of the Amendment that they were directed against the constitution of an International Prize Court. I agree that if you could get a properly constituted Court and lay down a satisfactory code to be administered by that Court it would undoubtedly be an advantage to all countries, as far as maritime matters are concerned, to have an International Code and an International Court. No Court ought to be constituted on the doctrine of representation as against the doctrine of the efficiency of its members. In country we have always done all we could to prevent our judges being elected as representatives; we have always contended that they should be jurists, and as jurists approach every question from an impartial and juridical point of view. There has been a difference in that respect between our Courts and the Courts in America. In no country in the civilised world is there more respect for the Courts than there is in the United Kingdom, the reason being that our judges represent no one, but are chosen for their great juridical knowledge and act impartially as regards all interests.

Ridley.

I do not know whether that ought to be withdrawn?

I think that the hon. Member made an offensive suggestion respecting one of His Majesty's judges. I do not know if the hon. Member has anything to say?

I withdraw unreservedly, I regret I made any remark.

As regards the extremely important question of the constitution of this Court, I do not want to reiterate or to attempt to reinforce what has been said. No one who has the least experience of Courts can conceive that you can have an efficient Court consisting of fifteen members. In such a Court every member shirks responsibility. You want a sufficiently small Court that every member can appreciate the responsibility that is thrown upon him individually. That is a crucial matter in the constitution of a Court of this kind. The hon. and learned Member for York (Mr. Butcher) does not dissent from the proposition that the smaller Powers must be consulted as regards the constitution of the Court. What he said was—and it has not been answered—that, taking the Court as at present proposed, seven members coming from the smaller Powers and nine being a quorum, in most important cases decisions binding all maritime law in the future might be given by those who have no interest themselves in these great questions. There is no disputing the fact that, as at present constituted, without calling in-question particular countries, you might have a decision of the most vital interest to us as a maritime country, which would bind us for so long as this Court is in operation—I assume we shall follow the code which the Court will lay down—and that decision might be given by the representatives of countries which have no navy and no commerce, such as Luxemburg or a large number of the smaller South American Republics, for whom one has every respect in one way, but at whose discretion one has never put the rights of humanity or the rights of this country.

It would not be in order on this Amendment to deal with the special points with which this Court will have to deal, but there are two general considerations which cannot be put out of sight when dealing with the constitution. The first is that you will get a maritime code which may be most disastrous to the interests of this country; because I presume that when that maritime code has once been laid down it will be the duty of the First Lord of the Admiralty and others who have to deal with our Navy to give instructions in accordance with that code. In many respects that would be a most disastrous thing to do. Secondly, I know that the hon. and learned Gentleman opposite has a subsequent Amendment upon that point. It is an extremely serious thing when you consider that there may be a conflict between this maritime Court and our own municipal Courts. Are we going to put upon these Courts the enforcement of principles from which for centuries we have dissented, and dissented, not only on selfish grounds and when they were advantageous to us, but on far wider grounds. As neutrals we have taken the most lenient view: we have taken the widest view in order that the commerce of the world in the case of war should be interfered with as little as possible. I am one of those who think that foodstuffs ought to be free imports under all conditions. It would be to our interest as a great Power, but when you go in the other direction, in a reactionary way, when you adopt word for word, really the principles of Russia as against our own on the question of neutral vessels, then we should take the greatest care that the Court administering these great duties and having this great responsibility should be constituted in the best possible manner. It is impossible to say that the Court constituted as it is by this Convention should be satisfactory—at any rate, to those who are used to the Courts of this country, our own method of procedure, and our own important position.

The whole argument of the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for South Bucks (Sir A. Cripps) seemed to proceed on the supposition that we, as neutrals, will be under the new Court and new conditions in a very much worse position than we are at present.

I said "all neutrals."

"All neutrals" would include ourselves; therefore we, when neutrals, will be in a very much worse position than we are at present. I hope I have the hon. and learned Gentleman's assent that I am not—

I will not repeat my arguments, but I cannot assent to that.

At any rate, the whole basis of the hon. and learned Gentleman's argument has been on the supposition that we are neutrals. I would like to remind the House of the Second Reading Debate. The whole opposition to the Bill then was on the supposition that it would damage us when we are belligerents. In the course of that Debate we were frequently told by learned Members on both sides that if it were only the question of considering our position when we were neutrals the Bill would be satisfactory. I remember in particular the very long and learned argument from the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Leslie Scott), an argument based on the very considerable practice that he has in these matters in the Law Courts. He distinctly laid it down that if we were only required to contemplate Great Britain as a neutral Power in future wars this Bill would be found satisfactory. If he and other Members on the opposite side of the House used that argument on the Second Reading, what becomes of the argument that we have heard from the hon. and learned Gentleman who has just sat down? The real fact, of course, is that we shall be in a much better position as neutrals than, we have ever been before. For one thing, we shall know exactly where we are. We shall get the same treatment from all countries. The hon. and learned Gentleman (Sir A. Cripps) said we as neutrals should be very much worse off, and he referred incidentally to the action of Russia. Let me remind him of the cases of the "Knight Commander" and the "Oldhamia," cases which I have no doubt he and most Members of this House know perfectly well, and which were most unsatisfactory to us. These things occurred in the course of a war in which we were neutrals. These cases could not possibly arise under the present circumstances.

Let me call the attention of the House to a very important matter which has not been referred to in this Debate. I refer to the actual wording of Article 15 of the First Schedule. This seems to me to remove a great deal of misconception when it is properly understood. It reads:—

"The judges and deputy-judges appointed by the other contracting Powers sit by rota, as shown in the table annexed to the present Convention; their duties may be performed successively by the same person. The same judge may be appointed by several of the said Powers."

That contemplates the notion that when Powers like Salvador, Honduras, and Ecuador and other distant Powers have to appoint a judge or deputy-judge they will appoint, not some lawyer from their own State, but some man of recognised European and international ability, who will be easily accessible to sit at The Hague. Such has already been the practice in certain arbitrations and other cases that have been raised at The Hague. It is to raise a prejudice against this Bill that it is supposed that we shall have men, yellow, black, and other colours, as suggested by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Taunton (Mr. W. Peel), and it seems to me quite beside the mark. It raises entirely wrong and false prejudices. Why should men of different colour to ourselves be less capable of acting just as justly and as capably as men of like colour to ourselves? Secondly, and more important, it entirely ignores what is undoubtedly going to be the practice under this Bill when it becomes law, and that is that the Prize Court judges will be selected. Again and again undoubtedly the same men will be selected by different Powers, because of their world-wide reputation as jurists, and because of their ability for the position. The more I go into this Bill the more I feel that it is a just and great measure, and that the criticisms which have been directed against it this afternoon have utterly broken down.

The hon. Member who has just spoken is in the happy position of being able to contemplate this country in a state of permanent neutrality. If that were likely to be the case, one would not, perhaps, feel the same concern about the Court that it is to regulate these maritime laws, because all the questions that would arise would be in the main commercial questions; and probably after a lapse of years, if not in the first instance, by some reasonable adjustment between the Powers, we should arrive at a state of normal justice in dealing with these questions. But the tribunal which is to sit is not to sit in a state which will by any means be that of permanent neutrality for this country. It is not only to regulate the conduct of British navies in time of war, but it is to regulate the maritime law for this country so long as it exists. This tribunal which is to be set up is not only to be an administrative tribunal, but a legislative tribunal. Outside of matters which are settled by the Declaration of London in regard to naval warfare and naval prizes, there is a considerable area of contentious questions which will remain open, because the interests of this country and the policy of this country are so diametrically opposed to the interests of Continental Powers and other foreign Powers, and the views of policy of those various Powers, that we could not come to a settlement. What is to become of those questions? What becomes of open questions? This tribunal to be set up is to deal with them in the manner it thinks just and equitable, and the tribunal under the Bill having laid down its decision of what it thinks just and equitable on these questions, the Prize Courts of this country are to enforce it. That is a position it seems to me impossible to contemplate with indifference, and one has to look at the interests affected and the nature of the tribunal to deal with them, and the laws which that tribunal has to administer and the position of this country in respect of them. In regard to these questions—I am not speaking of the settled questions covered by the Declaration of London, some of them not decided very favourably to the past policy of this country—I am speaking of the unsettled questions. Those questions all the experts in naval warfare tell us are questions upon which the policy of this country has been guided by a greater experience in maritime warfare than that of any other Power. Our prize law has not been law settled by Parliament upon its view of what was just and right, or settled by students or by casual discustions. Our prize law was worked out by Lord Stowell and other eminent men during a period in which this country was fighting for its existence, and there is no rule in which our law differs from Continental law which does not spring from the British policy embodied in our law—policy which in the long run would work for the maintenance of our position. Apparently it is regarded as a desirable thing that this country, having held its own in the past in face of the tremendous maritime difficulties which it had to face, having attained an undoubted maritime supremacy, being at present confronted with very serious competitors, should put out of the hands of the British Courts and of the British Parliament the decision of what is right in maritime law, and should leave it to a body which cannot be properly described as a Court but is rather a delegation of the Powers. That is a way we should not consent to deal with the most vital British interests. With regard to the constitution of the Court, if it was a Court of the nature of The Hague Tribunal, these great interests might at some time come to be regarded as subordinate to the interests of international peace. But we are not upon the threshold, so far as anyone can see, of international peace, yet we are to frame great administrative Acts which are prepared for a state of international war for which we cannot hope to escape ourselves.

In that state of the matter is it reasonable that Parliament should consent to substitute for judges, and for a code which at any rate has worked with the very highest practical benefit to this country, judges who are not in truth judges, but who are delegates, and delegates not selected, as far as we are aware, with any view to their particular qualifications, with the tremendous responsibility to be imposed upon them, not in an international sense selected by the various nations of the world, but who are nominated as judges by the various countries with a view to what they imagine is their own interest? I do not imagine any Continental Power is going to select a judge that takes the British view upon this question. Would anyone say that any of the nations of the Continent would take the British view as to whether it is just and equitable to convert a merchantman upon, the high seas into a ship of war? That is the kind of question that will have to be dealt with. How is it possible there should be confidence in the decisions of Powers who take an adverse view to ours upon that matter? I say nothing about the particular Powers who are to nominate judges: observations will occur to everybody on reading that list of a Power which it is not necessary to name. I wonder who is there when dealing with a matter, say, of commercial interest, who would find it difficult to say the direction in which this Power would choose its judges in such a vital matter? But leaving apart questions of the particular nominators or the security you would have for anything in the nature of a judicial tribunal outside the names of those Powers, neighbours of our own, in whose desire to do the best they can do we are all agreed, outside of these all you would provide is that fifteen judges should be nominated by a very great body of the nations of the world, and there you leave the matter. To my mind there is no urgent national necessity which warrants this country at the present time for stepping out of the proved security of its own institutions in matters of prize law to the insecurity and peril of this future in which it is to be at the mercy of its critics and competitors. With regard to this subject and to the position and magnitude of the tribunal, which is to be a kind of exaggerated jury, with no qualification for its disinterestedness, I venture to submit to the House we are not at present in a position of certainty which justifies us in making this great new departure. We are not certain with regard to the law to be administered and the judges to be ascertained. We are not ready to leave the administration of the law to a body of unascertained persons sitting with very little control, so far as we are concerned: If it is a question of retaining this International Court because it is the best that we can have, then, for my own part, I think that, highly desirable as it is in view of the peace of the world that every possible question should be submitted, to arbitration, we are not justified in submitting to this tribunal the great questions which will be in issue when this Court is set up.

The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs seems to be very hard to please. I think it is possible to meet any serious objection he puts forward to this Clause. It is quite possible to any man reading this Clause to propose Amendments, so that instead of saying "the Prize Court shall be composed of eleven judges only, of whom eight shall be appointed," and so on, you might say a smaller number of judges, or shall consist of jurists of repute, if we should reach the stage at which such an Amendment can be moved. I do not know whether the House would give leave to my hon. and learned Friend to withdraw the Clause as it stands and move it in an amended form. It is quite clear by some such formula as that we could meet the difficulty put forward by the right hon. Gentleman. It has been said that you cannot by invidious distinctions rule out the representatives of smaller Powers. The answer to that argument is that you have already set up those invidious distinctions in the Schedule and the list of contributory Powers, and it is too late to say that you could not exclude some of the Powers brought in to participate. If you have a Court of this magnitude it will not be a tribunal at all, but a mere international conference for the alteration and not for the declaration of the law. If we are to have these smaller Powers, why not have Tunis? I have known a conference where Tunis was represented. Why do we have Luxemburg? Is there any doubt about the way the representative of Luxemburg will vote? If we are to have an international tribunal at all it is open to us to ask in the case of the great British decisions of the early part of the nineteenth century and the end of the eighteenth century how can it be shown that those decisions have been against neutrals. In what way can it be shown that this Court can give any decisions in favour of neutrals which are more favourable than the tendency of those decisions? In what way can it be shown that the decisions of this tribunal will not consistently be worse to the interests of this country, which depends upon foreign supplies for food and raw materials, and which may be acting on its own defence against foreign naval Powers? Those are my objections to this tribunal as it stands. The principle of representation is radically at fault. The body you are setting up will not be judicial, and it will not even be a tribunal, but a mere conference. Its decisions will be inspired and influenced by the principle not of reasoning, and still less of experience, because the inexperienced Powers will be in the majority; it will be inspired by a principle which I may call the principle of gravitation. Its sympathies, and eventually its decisions, will be attracted to and gravitate around the interests of the Powers which are the most active and aggressive. I do not speak without experience, and my experience has been that where you have international conferences the general result is to level down both the sense and justice of any international law you may be seeking to amend, and to level it down to the standard of the least experienced, and by no means to obtain a higher standard of justice.

The argument of the right hon. Gentleman opposite appeared to be that you must have this particular Bill, otherwise foreign countries would not agree to have the Convention at all. I think it would have been very much better to have had no Prize Bill at all than have one which will do a great deal of harm. We have a right to have more than one representative out of fifteen, considering that we own half the shipping of the world, and yet we have only got this one vote, and our great Colonies, which, after all, have Governments of their own and great seaboards and a very considerable amount of commerce, have no representation at all. It cannot be right to select Luxemburg with one vote because it has only a few hundred thousand inhabitants, and it is situated within the German Zollverein. How is she going to vote? There can hardly be any doubt about that. Then there is the place called Costa Rica and Switzerland. Neither of them have a seaboard, and they have got no ships, and yet you have islands like Australia and New Zealand and enormous countries like Canada with no representation at all. I submit to the right hon. Gentleman that he would have done much better to have disagreed with the Powers, and said "No, if you cannot agree to give us fair representation in accordance with our population and our shipping, we will not have anything to do with the Convention at all." Surely the right hon. Gentleman has given his country away. We were fighting for our lives hundreds of years ago, and does the right hon. Gentleman think for a moment that this country would have stood a thing of this sort. In my opinion they would either have been hung or sent to a lunatic asylum. It certainly seems to me that the right hon. Gentleman has no business to give his country away, and our Colonies and shipping as well, without this subject going before the people of this country. I hope that hon. Gentlemen opposite will just for once in a way think first of their own country and afterwards of other countries.

I want to say a few words upon the composition of this tribunal, which appears to me to be nothing less than an outrage. Remember that some of these countries which are going to appoint judges to this tribunal are not allowed to judge white strangers within their gates. This is a question of life and death to a great country. Several of the nations included—I need not mention them by name—are not allowed to judge in the very simplest matter which may arise in the case of a white man in their country. The representatives of such countries are to be put on the Courts which are to decide matters of life and death to this country and this Empire. The right hon. Gentleman has spoken of Luxemburg and the kind of judge who will be appointed to represent that country. There is no question as to the sympathies of Luxemburg, because that country would be practically forced to appoint a judge with German sympathies. Can any man say that the so-called Republic of Panama would appoint anyone who was not in sympathy with American ideas and the Munro Doctrine? If such States as I have mentioned, which are not in any sense independent, are to appoint judges, why should such great independent countries like Canada Australia, and South Africa be altogether left outside the scope of this Prize Bill? The right hon. Gentleman the Financial Secretary has said that all Powers should have a right to be on the tribunal and the Foreign Secretary said you cannot rule out individual nations. Then why have individual nations been ruled out? I do not profess to know as much geography as the right hon. Gentleman opposite, but I have heard of Abyssinia, It is an independent country, but it is to have no vote, while Haiti is to have a vote. I have also heard of His Majesty of Afghanistan. He also is to have no vote. There is the Sultan of Oman and Muscat, but he is to have nothing to say. The smaller nations on the Court are not obliged to appoint their own countrymen. They are practically under the dominion or in the scope of the Triple Alliance, and it appears to me they will appoint judges to please nations whom they want to please, and upon whom their existence practically depends. You cannot see Luxemburg, Panama, Haiti, and Santo Domingo appointing judges in whom we can have any confidence whatever, and for those reasons I hope this will go to a Division, in which case I shall be in the Lobby against the Clause.

The hon. Member who has just spoken referred to the omission of the great Dominions and Colonies of this Empire. May I remind him that at the recent Imperial Conference the code this Court is going to administer was brought up and the whole of the Colonies and Dominions with a single exception approved of the Declaration of London and obviously approved of the composition of the Court which is to administer that code. Sir Wilfrid Laurier—

Yes, he has gone.

We are not discussing the Declaration of London.

The composition of the Court and the law the Court is to administer was before the Premiers at that time, and they approved of the Court and the manner in which it was to be constituted. This Court is not going to be put in the place of the National Courts of the different countries. It is a Court of Appeal. We have now only the National Courts. If we are a neutral we have to go to the Prize Court of the belligerents. Is it not much more likely that a Common Court with a large proportion of neutrals upon it would give decisions in favour of neutrals than do the National Courts at the present time? An observation has come from hon. Gentlemen opposite that the law the Court is going to administer will be less favourable to us on the whole, but if you look at the code that has been adopted for it you will find our view of that law has in most cases been adopted. [HON. MEMBERS: "No, no."] It is only in one or two outstanding matters that our view has not on the whole been carried. Is it not more likely in a case where justice and equity is to be the rule that a Court composed very largely of neutrals would give a decision in favour of neutrals. It does not seem to have been recognised that upon this Court, as well as the judges who are to take part in the decision, Article 18 gives this right:

"The belligerent captor is entitled to appoint a naval officer of high rank to sit as assessor… A neutral Power which is a party to the proceedings, or the subject or citizen of which is a party, has the same right of appointment."

I submit, therefore, that on the whole the Court as it is to be constituted is far more likely to give decisions in favour of our views of neutral rights, just the same as if you look at the code you will find that in the main our view of those subjects has been adopted.

The right hon. Gentleman opposite seemed to think that on this side of the House there was an objection to an International Court. There is no objection on this side of the House to an International Court. Personally, I think it would be a good thing if the Court was fair, but I do not think this Court, as it is proposed to be constituted, is a fair Court to us, looking at the predominant interests we have at sea compared with other countries. There is another point. Nearly every single point or every point of importance to British interests which was produced at the Conference in London to determine the code was hardly discussed or was thrown over by the foreign delegates. First of all, it handed the whole of our British maritime interests to a foreign Court. The point of importance, of course, from the naval officer's point of view is that it does not forbid privateering on the high seas, and that will amount to piracy.

The Declaration of Paris did that.

When this question was brought before the Conference and the Convention, the foreign delegates refused even to discuss it. It is an important point to us. I want to give my vote for this Amendment, because those who have thought over this question object to the constitution of the Court on the ground that it is not a Court at all parallel to our interests at sea, which are predominant over those of other nations; that they have got no code, and whenever any subjects are presented at Conference in which British interests are concerned the Conference either will not discuss them, or will vote in a direction totally adverse to British interests. That is why I give my vote for the Amendment.