40 PRIZE LAW DURING THE WORLD WAR 
Droits of the admiralty, on the other hand, were not to be paid 
into the prize fund.? 
Sec. 30. Decisions of the Naval Prize Tribunal. In numer- 
ous cases the naval prize tribunal was called upon to decide 
whether the proceeds from particular captures were ‘droits of 
the Crown” and therefore payable into the prize fund, or whether 
they were “droits of admiralty” and not so payable. With a 
view to establishing certain general principles which could be 
applied in the decision of the various cases which arose, four 
typical cases were submitted to the tribunal in December, 1918, 
and opinions were duly rendered in each of them.? 
As regards certain cases, such as those involving the capture 
of enemy ships and cargoes on the high seas or in enemy ports, 
there was no dispute, the proceeds of such prizes being admitted 
to be “droits of the Crown” and therefore payable into the 
naval prize fund; on the other hand, the proceeds of ships and 
cargoes seized in British ports were admittedly “droits of ad- 
miralty” and therefore belonged to the Exchequer. The chief 
difficulty arose over the proceeds from the sale of contraband 
goods, and this because of the new methods of dealing with such 
goods. During the late war owing to the difficulty of examina- 
lion at sea the practice was adopted of diverting neutral merchant 
vessels suspected of carrying contraband, to convenient British 
ports where the goods were seized by the customs authorities, so 
that the seizures were no longer, as formerly, made by naval offi- 
cers at sea.® Were the proceeds of prizes taken in this way to be 
regarded as “droits of the Crown” or “droits of admiralty”? 
Lord Phillimore speaking for the naval prize tribunal quoted at 
the outset from the decision of Lord Stowell in the Maria Fran- 
coise * to the effect that “all rights of prize belong originally to 
the Crown, and the beneficial interest derived to others can 
.owed. This provision of the Act was applied in the case of the Breslau, a 
German cruiser which was pursued into a mine field by the air forces form- 
ing a part of a squadron blockading the Dardanelles (VIII Lloyd 446). 
In all of the wars of importance in which Great Britain was a belliger- 
ent, for more than two centuries, except the war with Turkey in 1807, it 
had been the practice by Statute, proclamation or Order in Council to grant 
to ships belonging to the British navy all prizes taken by them, except those 
which the Crown had already granted to the Lord High Admiral and subject 
also to the qualification that the Crown always had the right to release a 
prize before adjudication and could not be required to proceed to adjudi- 
cation. The Derflinger and Other Vessels, IIT Br. & Col. Pr. Cas. at p. 505. 
But, as stated above (Sec. 28), by an Order in Council of August 28, 
1914, the old practice was abolished and it was provided that the net pro- 
ceeds of all seizures and captures should be paid into the consolidated fund. 
Os Abonema and Other Ships, VIII Lloyd 284; III Br. & Col. Pr. Cas. 
VSee Sec. 443 infra. 46 Rob. at p. 203.