One is glad, therefore, to notice that the Prime Minister's reply to Mr.A.Herbert was of the most guarded character.

The settlement of the law of prize must necessarily precede any general resort to an international prize Court; and if the coming Hague Conference does no more than settle some of the most pressing of these questions, it will have done much to promote the cause of peace.
I am, your obedient servant, T.E.HOLLAND.
Oxford, February 20 (1907).
A NEW PRIZE LAW Sir,--The leading articles which you have recently published upon the doings of the Peace Conference, as also the weighty letter addressed to you by my eminent colleague, Professor Westlake, will have been welcomed by many of your readers who are anxious that the vital importance of some of the questions under discussion at The Hague should not be lost sight of.
The Conference may now be congratulated upon having already given a _quietus_ to several proposals for which, whether or not they may be rightly described as Utopian, the time is admittedly not yet ripe.

Such has been the fate of the suggestions for the limitation of armaments, and the exemption from capture of private property at sea.

Such also, there is every reason to hope, is the destiny which awaits the still more objectionable proposals for rendering obligatory the resort to arbitration, which by the Convention of 1899 was wisely left optional.
Should the labours of the delegates succeed in placing some restrictions upon the employment of submarine mines, the bombardment of open coast towns, and the conversion of merchant vessels into ships of war; in making some slight improvements in each of the three Conventions of 1899; and in solving some of the more pressing questions as to the rights and duties of neutrals, especially with reference to the reception in their ports of belligerent warships, it will have more than justified the hopes for its success which have been entertained by persons conversant with the difficulty and complexity of the problems involved.
But what shall we say of certain proposals for revolutionising the law of prize, which still remain for consideration, notably for the establishment of an international Court of Appeal, and for the abolition of contraband?
It can hardly be supposed that either suggestion will win its way to acceptance.
1.

The British scheme for an international Court of Appeal in prize cases is, indeed, far preferable to the German; but the objections to anything of the kind would seem to be, for the present, insuperable, were it only for the reason which you allowed me to point out, some months ago, _a propos_ of a question put in the House of Commons by Mr.
Arnold Herbert.