Excerpt from The Law of Private Property in War, With a Chapter on Conquest: Being the Yorke Prize Essay for 1906

This book is based upon the Essay which won the Yorke Prize at Cambridge University in 1906; and the Author's chief excuse for adding to the already unwieldy mass of literature, which is being piled up about International Law, is that, by the regula tions which govern the Prize, publication has been thrust upon him. It is hoped, however, that the treatise may find some small justification beyond this compulsion. Undoubtedly the subject with which it deals is in the air. The events of the war between Russia and Japan and the approach of the meeting of the second Hague Conference, which it is hoped will form a code of the laws of war on sea, have combined to arouse public interest in the development of the International Law of War and Neutrality. Public opinion has greater influence in deter mining changes in this branch of jurisprudence than in any other, because these changes depend finally on the common consent of nations, which is but the expression of the united opinion of the people; and this in turn must be guided by the expositions of jurists. The aim of this book is to formulate, from a study of the chief authorities, the general principles which underlie modern usages, to point out where particular practices are obsolete and violate those principles, and to suggest the lines upon which reform may proceed. It may seem by its title to clash with an elaborate treatise which has recently been written on War and Commerce by Mr. Atherley-j ones, but its scope is at once narrower and wider. It avoids as far as possible lengthy historical disquisitions, and it does not seek to trace a path through the wilderness of single instances. It is more concerned with present usages and tendencies, and it covers the effects of war in all its relations to private property, as well of enemies as of neutrals, and both on land and on sea.

It is clearly differentiated also in scope from the standard treatises on International Law, for it deals exclusively with that part of the law which affects private persons, and aims rather at interesting the student than satisfying the lawyer.

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