reudenberg_, [1915] 1 K.B. 857, _at_ p. 874.

_Enemy Ships in Port_

ENEMY SHIPS IN PORT

Sir,--The action taken by the United States in seizing German merchant
ships lying in their ports will raise several questions of interest. It
is, however, important at once to realise that, apart from anything
which may be contained in old treaties with Prussia, their hands are
entirely free in the matter. The indulgences so often granted: to such
ships during the last 60 years, notably by themselves in the Spanish War
of 1898, under endlessly varying conditions, have been admittedly acts
of grace, required by no established rule of international law.

The United States are also unaffected by The Hague Convention No. vi, to
which they are not a party. It is therefore superfluous to inquire what
construction they would have been bound to put upon the ambiguous
language of Section 1 of the Convention, which proclaims that "when a
merchant ship of one of the belligerent Powers is, at the commencement
of hostilities, in an enemy port, _it is desirable_ that it should be
allowed to depart freely," &c. It might perhaps be argued that our own
Prize Court might well have refrained from treating this section as if
it were obligatory, and have founded its decisions rather upon
international law, as supplemented by a non-obligatory custom. Be this
as it may, it would seem that the policy of the United States has to
some extent felt the influence of Convention vi. in announcing that
seizure will, provisionally, only amount to requisitioning.

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
T. E. HOLLAND.
Oxford, April 7 (1917).

CHAPTER VI

THE CONDUCT OF WARFARE

The three following sections relate to the waters in which
hostile operations may take place. Section 1 probably calls for
no explanatory remark. With reference to Section 2, dealing
with certain spaces of water more or less closed to belligerent
action, it may be desirable to state that the letters as to the
Suez Canal were written to obviate some misconceptions as to
the purport of the Convention of October 29, 1888, and to
maintain that it was not, at the time of writing, operative, so
far as Great Britain was concerned.

This state of things was, however, altered by the Anglo-French
Convention of April 8, 1804, which, concerned principally with
the settlement of the Egyptian and Newfoundland questions,
provides, in Art