affairs, appointed by the head of that ministry. The Siamese Prize Court of first instance consisted of three or more "judges" appointed by the King.1

Sec. 9. The Marshal of the British Prize Court. An important part of the machinery of the British Prize Court are the offices of marshal and registrar. The office of marshal appeared early in the history of the development of the prize jurisdiction, his duties at first being the execution of monitions, warrants, attachments and other orders of the Court. Later he came to be charged with the custody of prize property and with the duty of appraising and selling condemned prizes.2 In consequence, largely, of the increasing number and value of prizes which were "droits of admiralty" these duties acquired an importance which they did not possess in the beginning. Under the existing rules and practice the marshal is charged with a variety of other duties: the service of writs and warrants, the making of applications to the judge for the removal, sale, custody or preservation of prize property, and the execution of the judge's orders thereupon; he pays into the Court the proceeds of the sale of condemned property, keeps accounts thereof and submits them to the Court for its examination, releases to claimants property ordered by the Court to be restored, and executes the orders of the Court generally.3

Sec. 10. The Registrar. At an early date the now important office of registrar also appeared as a part of the machinery of prize adjudication, the duties of which were the keeping of the records of the Prize Court, the issuing of official forms and the collection of fees. In the eighteenth century the registrar became the custodian of the proceeds of the sale of prizes and until 1813 he received personally the interest thereon. In the latter part of the eighteenth century he was charged with ascertaining the amount of freight and demurrage due when such allowances were awarded by the Court and also the amount of costs, expenses and damages when they were allowed by the 'Decree of July 20, 1917 (Art. 6).

Roscoe, History of the English Prize Court, p. 19.

See the Prize Court Rules of 1914 as to these duties; also Tiverton's Prize Law (index). In the case of the Cairnsmore: The Gunda (IX Lloyd 374; III Br. & Col. Pr. Cas. 797) the Judicial Committee declared that it was the duty of the marshal to exercise all due care and diligence for the safety of goods placed in his custody but held that it was not his duty to insure them for the benefit of the owners and that if he insured them to cover his own liability the cost of such insurance was not chargeable to the claimants on release of the goods, unless they assented to the insuring of them.

Roscoe, op. cit., p. 18.

1

Court. Under the existing rules and practice, writs and warrants are issued out of his office, he advertises writs for condemnation and the fact of service, affidavits are filed with him, appearances are entered in his office, he has the custody of the ship's papers, he may administer oaths and receive affidavits, he reviews the marshal's accounts and reports to the Court the amount which he finds to be due the marshal, prepares bail bonds, issues instruments for the release of property, hears examination of witnesses when the Court so directs, keeps the records of the Court, etc. The Court is authorized by the Prize Court rules to appoint one or more Trinity Masters or other assessors, on application of any party, or without such application if it thinks proper, to advise it upon any matters requiring nautical or other professional knowledge-an authority which was sometimes exercised by Sir Samuel Evans during the late war. Sec. 11. The Prize Claims Committee. In consequence of the decisions of the Prize Court that British, allied or neutral mortgagees of enemy property or pledgees of bills of lading of enemy cargoes had no rights which were enforceable in a Prize Court, the government very early in the war appointed a prize claims committee to consider the claims of third parties interested in ships or cargoes condemned by the Prize Court and to report to the government such cases as in its judgment were meritorious, in order that the Crown might in the exercise of its bounty redress, if it chose, hardships which the Prize Court held that as a court of law it had no jurisdiction to do. The prize claims committee is said to have made it a rule to entertain no claims which could be supported in the Prize Court. Among the claims which were paid out of the Treasury upon recommendation of the committee were: a claim for necessaries supplied by a coaling company (the Adolf); a claim for general disbursements on account of a ship (the Concadoro); a claim for wages to seamen (the Australia); a claim for dock dues (the Ulla Boog); and a claim for tonnage (the Werner Vinen)-all being expenditures made by the claimants before the war. Other claims of the kind were: mortgages of British subjects on German vessels (the Emil); advances made on the security of shipping docu

1 Order XVI.

See for example, the cases of the Marie Glaeser and the Odessa and Cape Corso, infra, Sec. 293.

'See the Statement of the Attorney General in the case of the Odessa and Cape Corso, I Br. and Col. Pr. Cas., p. 166 N. 1, and the Solicitors' Jour. and Weekly Rep., Dec. 12, 1914.

The Adolf and Other Vessels, X Lloyd at p. 58.

ments (Cargo ex Achaia); liens of unpaid vendors (Cargo ex Derflinger); the claim of English ship brokers for commissions (the Ulrich), etc.

Sec. 12. The Naval Prize Tribunal. By the Naval Prize Act 1918 provision was made for the establishment of a special body known as the Naval Prize Tribunal charged with determining whether in particular cases of capture the proceeds of the sale of condemned prizes were to be regarded as "droits of the Crown" and therefore payable into the Naval Prize Fund, which fund was to be devoted to the payment of prize bounty to the captors, or whether they were "droits of the admiralty" and therefore not payable into the said Fund. The tribunal was composed of three members under the presidency of Lord Phillimore 2 and it was called upon to render decisions in a considerable number of cases.3

Sec. 13. The Committee on Contraband Trade. In the early months of the war (November, 1914), the British government created a special inter-departmental body known as the contraband committee to examine and report upon claims for the release of cargoes detained where prize proceedings were not necessary and yet where the evidence of ownership was not sufficient to justify the Crown in consenting to their release. Of the institution of this committee and its work, Sir Edward Grey said:

"In order, therefore, to ameliorate the situation we established a special committee, with full powers to authorize the release of goods without insisting on full evidence of title being produced. This committee dealt with the utmost expedition with a large number of claims. In the great majority of cases the goods claimed were released at once. In addition to the cases dealt with by this committee a very large amount of cargo

As to all these cases see the Adolf and Other Vessels, X Lloyd 54. In this case the Naval Prize Tribunal adverting to certain claims in respect of necessaries, wages, mortgages and other charges which the Prize Court had no jurisdiction to allow, said:

"The Treasury has paid, or will pay, the claims upon the recommendation of the prize claims committee. But they are confessedly not claims of a nature which could have been established in prize proceedings, and therefore they are not claims which would have been ordered by a Prize Court to be paid by anyone or out of any funds, and therefore we must disallow them. It is satisfactory to think that this decision follows the practice with regard to such matters as grants of prize in former wars. In cases where a claim was established by a third party as mortgagee, bottomry bond holder. or as having a lien on a parcel of cargo, the Crown made a grant to him of its bounty out of the national Exchequer, and not out of the proceeds of the prize, and the captors took the whole proceeds undiminished and free of any charge."

The other two members were Admiral Callaghan and the Rt. Hon. Sir Guy Fleetwood-Wilson.

See Secs. 29-31 infra.

was released at once by the Procurator-General on production of documents. Claimants therefore obtained their goods without the necessity of applying to the Prize Court and of incurring the expense involved in retaining lawyers, and without the risk, which was in some cases a considerable one, of the goods being eventually held to be enemy property and condemned."1

Sec. 14. Division of Jurisdiction as Between Different Prize Courts. Where a state set up more than one Prize Court, as was done in Germany, Great Britain and Russia, the jurisdiction of each court, over particular captures, by reason of the place, was regulated by national legislation. Generally this jurisdiction was determined on the basis of the port into which the prize was brought. In Germany the competence of each of the two Prize Courts was determined on the basis of the territorial jurisdiction of the prize office (Prisenamt) and the competence of the latter was determined by the port into which the prize was brought.2

The Prize Court at Hamburg was given special jurisdiction over prizes taken into foreign ports (for example the Appam, see Sec. 68 infra), of prizes which had been destroyed (for example the Frye, see Sec. 2, supra) and of prizes which had been released before their arrival in port.

In Great Britain the matter was more important by reason of the large number of courts throughout the Empire, upon which prize jurisdiction was conferred. By a special act of parliament of September 18, 1914, the jurisdiction of the Prize Courts in Egypt, Zanzibar and Cyprus was regulated. Aside from this special regulation, the jurisdiction of each Prize Court was determined by the port into which the ship was taken or seized or in which the cargo was seized. Captors were free to take their prizes into any port they chose, although Lord Parker in the case of the Louisiana suggested that other things being equal the most convenient, the nearest available, and the least congested. port should be preferred, providing the taking of the prize into such port would involve the least danger from the risks of war. Sec. 15. Transfer of Cases from One Prize Court to Another. By the Prize Courts Act of 1915 it was provided that where proceedings were pending in any case against a ship or

3

'Spec. Supp. to 9 Amer. Jour. of Int. Law (July, 1915), p. 82. See also the observations of the Naval Prize Tribunal as to the function of this Committee, in The Abonema and Other Ships, III Br. & Col. Pr. Cas. at p. 305. Decision of the Imperial Chancellor July 20, 1917. Reichsgesetzblatt 1917, p. 638.

'V Lloyd 248; III Br. & Col. Pr: Cas. 61.

cargo, the Court might at any stage of the proceedings, on application of the Crown, transfer the proceedings, so far as they related to the cargo, to some other court, if it was satisfied that the proceedings would be more "conveniently conducted in any other Prize Court." It was in pursuance of this act that the case of the Bangor commenced in the supreme court of the Falkland Islands was transferred to the Prize Court of London and by it decided.1 It was also, apparently, in pursuance of this act that the proceedings in the case of the Roepat and the necessary record thereof were transferred from the Natal provincial division of the supreme court of South Africa (at Pietermaritzburg) to the Prize Court at London.2

Sec. 16. Enforceability of Prize Court Orders in Other Jurisdictions. By section two of the above mentioned act it was provided that a Prize Court might upon application of the Crown declare that any order or decree made by it should be enforceable within the jurisdiction of any other Prize Court and should upon like application have power to enforce any decree or order which another Prize Court had declared to be enforceable within the jurisdiction of such first mentioned court. And by sec. 3 it was provided that where the proceedings were removed from one court to another, either court might direct that any expenses incurred in the removal should be borne by the cargo or ship. In the case of the Erna Woerman3 the Cape of Good Hope provincial division of the supreme court of South Africa declined to order the transfer of the proceedings to the Prize Court at London for hearing there, for the reason that no application therefor had been made by the Crown. But in pursuance of Article 2 of the above mentioned act the court declared that the order for the sale of the cargo already made by the Court, was enforceable within the jurisdiction of the Prize Court at London and it directed that the sale of the goods then within the jurisdiction of the Court be removed for sale to the jurisdiction of the London Prize Court. It was further ordered that the expense incurred by the removal of the goods from South Africa to the jurisdiction of the Prize Court at London should be borne by the goods and that the proceeds of the sale be remitted to the South African court.

V Lloyd 308; II Br. & Col. Pr. Cas. 206.

Cases decided in the Prize Courts of South Africa, p. 103. So the proceedings in the case of the Vulcan Coal Company were transferred from the Prize Court for Egypt to the Prize Court at London (VIII Lloyd 146, note). 'Ibid., p. 119.