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
Success can come only from the religious moral education of individuals and from the feeling of honour and sense of justice of commanders who enforce the law and conform to it so far as the exceptional circumstances of war permit.
We see a general legal persuasion ever in process of more and more distinct formation uniting all civilised peoples.
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.
Never will an article learnt by rote persuade soldiers to see a regular enemy (sections 2-4) in the unorganised population which takes up arms 'spontaneously' (so of its own motion) and puts them in danger of their life at every moment of…
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