% INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 
important stage in the movement; they conformed to 
the basic principles of war under the conditions then 
prevailing. Neutral traders afford very real assistance 
to belligerents by carriage of goods to and for them, 
and modern means of communication and the complexity 
of the social and economic organisation of the world are 
such that, just as the Prize Courts of the United States 
were justified by their extension of the doctrine of 
Continuous Voyage, so the Prize Courts of Great Britain 
were similarly bound to take cognisance of the new 
conditions. The Arbitral Tribunal which adjudicated on 
the claims against the United States under the Treaty 
of Washington, 1871, in practically all their awards 
supported the decisions of the American Prize Courts. 
Viewing the decisions as a whole, it is believed that 
there is no greater extension of the principles of Inter- 
national Law by the decisions of the Prize Courts under 
review than in the American cases. International Law 
must take cognisance of existing conditions. 
The work of the English Prize Court was very heavy ; 
the number of cases dealt with was great. Altogether 
a sum of about £15,000,000 was allocated to the 
Naval Prize Fund, and about £8,000,000 went to the 
Exchequer, to which Department belong the droits of 
Admiralty, as distinct from the droits of the Crown, 
which were allocated to the Naval Prize Fund by the 
Naval Prize Act, 1918. 
In connection with the work of the Navy it is 
necessary to advert to a practice, which became the 
ordinary one during the war, of diverting neutral vessels 
for search in port, instead of effecting this operation at 
sea, as was the practice in the old wars. The legality 
of this practice, which is an extension of the undoubted 
Iv