The existing system is the fruit of practical experience extending over several centuries, and, though it may need, here and there, some readjustment to new conditions, brought about by the substitution of steam for sails, is not one which can safely be pulled to pieces in a couple of months.
Holland defends the existing prize law system as a product of centuries of experience that should not be hastily changed.
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More from Thomas Erskine Holland
I would submit that such a Report as that which accompanies the Declaration of London has no claim to the sort of interpretative authority which has been attributed to it; nor is it desirable that the requisite steps should be taken for…
Its admirers have, however, too long preserved it, perhaps sub spe rati, in a state of suspended animation, using it by way of, as they supposed, a convenient handbook of maritime law for the purposes of the present war, though subject to…
It would be calamitous should a practice be introduced of attempting to cure the imperfect expression of a treaty by tacking on to it an equally authoritative reasoned commentary, likely, as in the present case, to be enormously longer…
The fact is that the vitally important questions of theory and practice raised by the Convention and the Declaration need calmer and better instructed discussion than they have yet received.
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