ything outside of the
ratified agreement being _res inter alios acta_. I should not be
justified in asking you to allow me to repeat the contents of my letter
of Monday last in support of this view. The pleadings are, I think,
exhausted. "Therefore let a jury come."

I should like, however, to point out that I did not, as my friend seems
to think, attribute the acceptance of the Report to the delegates
"singly." It was, no doubt accepted by all present without protest. My
colleague will, I am sure, pardon me if I add that I cannot concur in
his exegesis of my citations from Ullmann and Fiore.

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
T. E. HOLLAND.
Oxford, February 25 (1911).

THE DECLARATION OF LONDON

Sir,--It is satisfactory that so high an authority as Mr. Arthur Cohen
distinctly accedes to the view that the Declaration of London ought not
to be ratified as it stands. I should, however, be sorry were his
suggestion accepted that the Declaration and the argumentative report
which accompanies it might be ratified together. The result would be
_obscurum per obscurius_, a remedy worse than the disease.

I shall ask leave to add that, if Mr. Cohen will take the trouble to
look again at my letters of February 10 and 25, he will cease to suppose
it possible that in writing "the pleadings are, I think, exhausted,
&c.," I meant to convey that no further discussion of the merits or
demerits of the Declaration was required. On the contrary I expressly
limited myself to a consideration of the preliminary question, whether
interpretative authority would rightly be attributed to the report in
question, stating that, while opposed to the ratification alike of the
Prize Court Convention and of the Declaration, I did not, for the
present, wish to enter upon the demerits of either instrument; and ended
my first letter by suggesting the reference to a Royal Commission of
"the vitally important questions of theory and practice raised by the
Convention and the Declaration," as needing "calmer and better
instructed discussion than they have yet received."

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
T. E. HOLLAND.
Oxford, March 1 (1911).

THE DECLARATION OF LONDON

Sir,--After Tuesday's debate in the House of Lords it may be hoped that
not even "the man in the street" will suppose the Declaration of London
to be anything more than an objectionable draft, by which no country has
consented to be bound. Every day of the war makes more appare