24 of the Treaty._Cf.supra_, p.

2.
* * * * * SECTION 9 _The Naval Prize Bill_ The first two letters in this section contain the criticisms of the Bill to which allusion is made in the first lines of a letter of later date, q.v._supra_, p.36.On the rejection of the Bill, see _ib._, note 1.
THE NAVAL PRIZE BILL Sir--A paternal interest in the Naval Prize Bill may perhaps be thought a sufficient excuse for the few remarks which I am about to make upon it.

The Bill owes its existence to a suggestion made by me, just ten years ago, while engaged in bringing up to date for the Admiralty my _Manual of Naval Prise Law_ of 1888.

It was drafted by me, after prolonged communications with Judges, Law Officers, and the Government Departments concerned, so as not only to reproduce the provisions of several "cross and cuffing" statutes dealing with the subject, but also to exhibit them in a more logical order than is always to be met with in Acts of Parliament.
The Bill was thought of sufficient importance to be mentioned on two occasions in the King's Speech, and has been several times passed, after careful consideration, by the House of Lords; but pressure of other business has hitherto impeded its passage through the House of Commons.
It has now been reintroduced, this time in the Lower House, with an imposing backing of Government support; primarily, no doubt, with a view to facilitating the ratification of The Hague Convention for the establishment of an International Prize Court of Appeal.

For this purpose, several pieces of new cloth have been sewn into the old garment, and I may perhaps be allowed to call attention to three or four points in which, on a first reading, the new clauses strike one as needing reconsideration.
Tactical reasons have, no doubt, operated to induce the Government to include in the Consolidation Bill the provisions for which statutory authority must be obtained before it will be possible to ratify the Convention; instead of first introducing a Bill having this sole object in view, and afterwards, should this be passed, inserting the new law in a reintroduced Consolidation Bill.
The course adopted necessitates an otherwise unnecessary preamble, and the qualification of the new Part III.