Thomas Erskine Holland

Upon quite a different subject, I should like to answer the question propounded in your article, as to the weight now to be given to the Declaration of London, by saying that no weight should be given to it, except as between Powers who…

Would it not also be desirable to take this opportunity of severing the enlistment articles of the overgrown principal Act from those forbidding the despatch of ships fitted for hostilities and restricting the hospitality which may be…

Is it too much to hope that similar aids to the understanding of complicated legislative proposals will be systematically provided in the future?

This requirement is not satisfied by the Bill, which, even if passed in the present Session, would preserve intact till 1915 the rights of proprietors of trade-marks, while somewhat harshly rendering forthwith illegal the user of the…

Though myself strongly in favour of placing, at the proper time and in an appropriate manner, legislative restrictions upon the general use of the emblem and name, I can hardly think the Bill now before Parliament to be well adapted for…

Upon several disputable and delicate questions the Government of the United States has not hesitated to express definite views; and they are not always views which the Government of our own country would be prepared to endorse.

What naval men most want is definite guidance, in categorical language, upon those points of maritime international law upon which our Government has made up its own mind.

Our code might be better arranged than its predecessor, and would differ from it on certain questions, but should resemble it in clearness of expression, in brevity, and, above all things, in frank acceptance of responsibility.

It is worth considering whether something resembling the United States code would not be found useful in the British Navy.

If, for instance, a flag of truce has been fired upon, in contravention of the law of nations, the jurist will uphold and proclaim more strongly than ever the rule that a flag of truce is inviolable.

Sad experience teaches us that in every war there are numerous violations of law which must unavoidably remain unpunished, but this will not cause the jurist to abandon the authoritative principle which has been violated.

Should we be deceiving ourselves if we admitted that a belief in the law of nations, as in a sacred and necessary authority, ought to facilitate the enforcement of discipline in the Army and help to prevent many faults and many harmful…

Every State, even the most powerful, will gain sensibly in honour with God and man if it is found to be faithful and sincere in respect and obedience to the law of nations.

No State will lightly, and without unpleasantness and danger, expose itself to a just charge of having neglected its international duties; it will not do so even when it knows that it runs no risk of war on the part Of neutral States.

He is persuaded that his declaration will find a hearing in the conscience of those whom it principally concerns, and a powerful echo in the public opinion of all countries.

It is for this very reason that the jurist is impelled to present the legal principles, of the need for which he is convinced, in a clear and precise form, to the feeling of justice of the masses, and to the legal conscience of those who…

We know also that war, which moves nations so deeply, rouses to exceptional activity the good qualities as well as the evil instincts of human nature.

This is what makes it possible to proclaim an international law of war, approved by the legal conscience of all civilised peoples; and when a principle is thus generally accepted, it exerts an authority over minds and manners which curbs…

Men of nations readily disunited and opposed--Germans and French, English and Russians, Spaniards and Dutchmen, Italians and Austrians--are, as a rule, all of one mind as to the principles of international law.

We see a general legal persuasion ever in process of more and more distinct formation uniting all civilised peoples.

Laws of war are consequently more than ever important and necessary, since, in the differences of culture and opinion which prevail between individuals and classes, law is almost the only moral power the force of which is acknowledged by…

Since compulsory service has turned standing armies into national armies, war has also become national.

If in our own day a law recognised by the civilised world forbids, in a general way, the soldier to make booty in warfare on land, we have here a great advance in civilisation, and the jurists have had their share in bringing it about.

I acknowledge unreservedly that the customs of warfare have improved since the establishment of standing armies, a circumstance which has rendered possible a stricter discipline, and has necessitated a greater care for the provisionment of…

To open and facilitate the settlement of trifling disputes between nations by judicial methods, war being unquestionably a method out of all proportion in such cases.