I will not to-day trouble you in detail with the very curious history of the clause; which, as originally proposed by Germany, merely prohibited (a commander ?) from announcing that the private claims ("reclamations") of enemy subjects would be unenforceable.

It is astonishing that no objection was raised by the British or by the American delegates to the subsequent transformation of this innocent clause into something very different, first by the insertion of the words "en justice," and later by the substitution of "droits et actions" for "reclamations." The quiescence of the delegates is the more surprising, as, at the first meeting of the sub-committee, General de Gundel, in the plainest language, foreshadowed what was aimed at by the clause.
Art.

23 (_h_) is, I submit, incapable of rational interpretation and should be so treated by the Powers.

If interpreted at all, its sense must be taken to be that which is now, somewhat tardily, put upon it by our own Government.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant, T.E.HOLLAND.
Oxford, November 6 (1911).
I may perhaps refer here to my _Laws of War on Land_ (1908), p.
44, where I describe as "apocryphal" Art.

23 (_h_) of the Hague Convention No.iv.of 1907; and to my paper upon that article in the _Law Quarterly Review_ for 1912, pp.