I, F, Das Urteil des Prisenhofs,

„177

über die Prisenhoffrage mit größtem Mißtrauen verfolgt!). Der uünverständliche
 Invasionswahn ließ sie in der geplanten Institution
nichts anders erblicken als ein Mittel in der Hand englandfeindlicher
 Mächte, um die größte Seemacht der Welt zu stürzen. Der
Prisenhof wird’s mit fremden Regierungen abkarten, um England
immer ins Unrecht zu setzen. Der hochherzige Brite wird allein
stehen gegen 14 übelwollende, auf Englands Nachteil bedachte Prisen-1)

 Siehe z. B. The Times, Saturday, September 14, 1907, p. 9: „The Danger
Point at the Hague“: „.... It may or may not be desiderable that, in the general
interests of commerce and of peace, we should submit the deeisions in such questions
of our own highest Courts to revision by an international tribunal. But, if it be
desiderable to make this great departure from our traditional practice, it can hardly
be prudent that we should make it until we have some definite knowledge of the
law which is to supersede our own. Up to the present we have no such knowledge,
The scheme to which we have assented in committee provides that, where there are
NO conventions between the parties to an appeal, and no clear rules of international
law which govern the case, the tribunal is to decide it „on general principles of
justice and equity“, "That means, in plain langnage, that they are to decide it as
they think fit, Are we really prepared to have the settled judgments of the Privy
Council overridden by decisions based upon no more precise and positive rules than
this? This is no idle question of self-love or of prejudice. No doubt is possible
either as to the scope of the powers which it is proposed to grant the new Tribunal,
or as to the domain in which they are to be exerecised. The reporter on the project
has expressly proclaimed that in certain circumstances the Court is „called to make
law“. It is a grave matter for any nation to give an extraneous tribunal the power
to make law for it. It is immeasurably grave when this law may seriously, or even
fatally, affect that nation’s rights and means of self-defence, What are the subjeets
upon which, by our action at the Conference, we are inviting a body of foreign
jurists to „make law“ for us? They include contraband, blockade, the treatment of
neutral prizes, and the treatment of belligerent vessels of war in neutral ports — questions
which would cover such cases as those of the Knight Commander and of the coaling
and provisioning of Admiral Rozhdestvensky’s fleet in French waters, It is unnecessary
 to dwell upon the quite exceptional importance of these subjects to this
country. We have repeatedly vindicated our views upon some of them by war, or
by the threat of war, They are not regulated by conventions; few foreign publieists
would admit that the rules which our Courts have laid down upon them are clear
rules of international law. There is no chance that the Conference will lay down
rules upon them. Upon all of them the delegates are hopeslessly divided. It follows
Ihat, if the Prize Court is created, that body must determine them, with nothing to
guide it or to check it but its subjective views of „Justice and equity“, Is England
prepared to leave them to such an arbitrament? Does not common prudence bid us
to follow the example of our sagacious ally, Japan, and to take time for the minute
and careful study of a scheme that touches us so nearly, before our delegates commit
us to it? Let us make changes in our maritime law, by all means, if changes are
desiderable. But let us first make quite sure what these changes are, let us ponder
well their effects, let us make them for ourselves by definite agreements, and in no
case let us delegate to others the power to make them for us, and perhaps against
us, The Conference is weary and longs to be dissolved. It has our sympathy, but
Great Britain cannot jeopardize the power of her fleets in order that it may separate
with a delusive semblance of achievement“. In demselben Sinne The Times, Monday,
September 16, 1907, p. 7; Saturday, September 21, 1907, p. 9.
Pohl, Deutsche Prisengerichtsbarkeit.