INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 
executive acts, not, as was the case in other countries, 
after judicial process. In examining all these decisions 
Dr. Colombos has noted wherein they conform to or 
differ from the older law, and in a number of cases he 
has criticised the decisions both of the British and of 
the other Prize Courts. The criticism will in all cases, 
I think, be found to be made in an impartial spirit; 
and though I do not always find myself in agreement 
with the author, his comments are never made in a 
carping or narrow-minded spirit. Dr. Colombos has 
drawn on material some of which has not hitherto been 
made public—in particular, the transcripts of the official 
shorthand writers in the English Courts, which were 
made in a number of cases which have not vet been 
reported. As regards the cases decided in other Prize 
Courts, Dr. Colombos has gone to the official records. 
He has produced a work which by its clearness and impar- 
tiality will prove valuable both for the practising lawyer 
and for the general student of International Law. 
On September 6, 1914, Sir Samuel Evans took his 
seat as Judge of the first English Prize Court which had 
sat since the close of the Crimean War. Sir John Simon, 
who was then His Majesty’s Attorney-General, in his 
opening speech, dealt with the principles of the law 
which the Prize Court administered, and claimed with 
justice that English Prize Courts had in the past given 
decisions which had commanded general confidence and 
received the admiration of all countries interested in 
the Law of Nations.® In the following pages the results 
of the work of these Courts, whose labours are even now 
scarcely at end, are set forth. It is believed that 
1 The Chile, [1914] P. 212. 
1