Thomas Erskine Holland: “Into this has now been incongruously thrust a set of clauses intended to give effect to a novel and highly controversial…”

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.

To put an end to this confusion, I venture to suggest that, in concert with our Allies, the Declaration should be finally consigned to oblivion.

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…

Already in the first weeks of the war England had renounced the Declaration of London, the contents of which her own delegates had recognised as binding in international law.