Russian Prize Law
Sir,—Mr. Gibson Bowles has, I find, addressed to you a letter in which he attempts to controvert two statements of mine by the simple expedient of omitting essential portions of each of them.
1. Mr. Bowles having revealed himself as unaware that the mode in which I had cited a group of cases upon destruction of prizes was the correct mode, I thought it well to provide him with the rudimentary information that, “in referring to a decided case, the page, mentioned is, in the absence of any indication to the contrary, invariably that on which the report of the case commences.” He replies that he has found appended to a citation of a passage in a judgment the page in which this passage occurs. May I refer him, for an explanation of this phenomenon, to the words (now italicised) omitted in his quotation of my statement? It is, of course, common enough, when the reference is obviously not to the case as a whole but to an extract from it, thus to give a clue to the extract, the formula then employed being frequently “at page so-and-so.”
2. I had summarised the effect, as I conceive it, of the group of cases above mentioned in the following terms: “Such action is justifiable only in cases of the gravest importance to the captor’s own State, after securing the ship’s papers, and subject to the right of the neutral owners to receive full compensation.” Here, again, while purporting to quote me, Mr. Bowles omits the all-important words now italicised. I am, however, maltreated in good company. Mr. Bowles represents Lord Stowell as holding that destruction of neutral property cannot be justified, even in cases of the gravest importance to the captor’s own State. What Lord Stowell actually says, in the very passage quoted by Mr. Bowles, is that “to the neutral can only be justified, under any such circumstances, by a full restitution in value.” I would, suggest that Mr. Bowles should find an opportunity for reading in extenso the reports of the Actaeon (2 Dods. 48), and the Felicity (ib. 881), as also for re-reading the passage which occurs at p. 386 of the latter case, before venturing further into the somewhat intricate technicalities of prize law.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
T. E. HOLLAND
Eggishorn, Suisse, August 26 (1904).