The Conference of 1907 declined, however, to define existing law, holding that its business was solely to consider what should be the law in future.

After long discussions, in the course of which frequent reference was made to views expressed by the present writer (see _Actes et Documents_, t.
iii.pp.

991-993, 1010, 1016, 1018, 1048, 1171), the Conference failed to arrive at any conclusion as to the desirability of prohibiting the destruction of neutral prizes, and confined itself to the expression of a wish (_voeu_) that this, and other unsettled points in the law of naval warfare, should be dealt with by a subsequent Conference.
This question was, accordingly, one of those submitted to a Conference of ten maritime Powers, which was convoked by Great Britain in 1908, for reasons upon which something will be said in the next section.
The question of sinking was fully debated in this Conference, with the assistance of memoranda, in which the several Powers represented explained their divergent views upon it, and of reports prepared by committees specially appointed for the purpose.

It soon became apparent that the British proposal for an absolute prohibition of the destruction of neutral prizes had no chance of being accepted; while, on the other hand, it was generally agreed that the practice is permissible only in exceptional cases.

(See _Parl.