CASES AND OPINIONS

ON

INTERNATIONAL LAW.

ON

INTERNATIONAL LAW,

AND VARIOUS POINTS OF ENGLISH LAW
CONNECTED THEREWITH.

COLLECTED AND DIGESTED FROM

ENGLISH AND FOREIGN REPORTS,
OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS, AND
OTHER SOURCES.

WITH

NOTES CONTAINING THE VIEWS OF THE TEXT-WRITERS
ON THE TOPICS REFERRED TO, SUPPLEMENTARY
CASES, TREATIES, AND STATUTES.

PART II. WAR.

PART III. NEUTRALITY.

BY

PITT COBBETT, M.A., D.C.L. (Oxon.),

STEVENS AND HAYNES,
Law Publishers,

13, BELL YARD, TEMPLE BAR.

(v)

PREFACE.

THE publication of the present volume has been greatly delayed owing to the uncertainty that prevailed with respect to the ratification by Great Britain of the Declaration of London and the International Prize Court Convention. For if it had been found practicable, having regard to the larger national interests involved, to accept those Conventions and to effect the necessary changes in the domestic law, one of the results would certainly have been to free the law on many of the topics included in this volume, of much of its present complexity and uncertainty. But inasmuch as there appeared to be no prospect of an immediate settlement of this question, and in view, too, of the probability that the rules embodied in the Declaration of London will in any case have to be taken count of in the naval wars of the future (a), it was thought advisable to proceed to publication without further delay, even at the cost of presenting the subject-matter, at many points, in a form far less concise and in terms less conclusive than might otherwise have been possible.

The systematic notes-which, with the Excursus, practically form a connected treatise, after the example of Volume I.-have necessarily been retained in the present volume. These, as has already been pointed out, were rendered necessary by certain fundamental changes--necessitating, indeed, a complete revision of many of the previous conceptions that had taken place in the international system in the period immediately preceding the publication of the first volume, which were at the time very inadequately reflected in the current text-books, or the editions then available. This method of treatment involved, no doubt, a departure from the

(a) As to the reasons for this view, see infra, pp. 285, 387.