prudence while at the same time doing homage to the generous initiative of the United States.

His Excellency Sir Julian Pauncefote proposes to put to a vote the question whether this matter comes within the sphere of the work of the Conference. His Government is of the opinion that it does not.

According to his Excellency Mr. White, it appeared to the United States delegation that the Conference is just as competent to examine this question as many others which have been solved here.

He would keenly regret to see it eliminated so radically. He agrees with the PRESIDENT that the time is not favorable to discuss this subject although it interests all the Powers assembled here.

The best solution, in his opinion, would be to submit the question to the Conference assembled in plenary session, which will decide whether it is proper to discuss it now or to entrust its examination to a subsequent conference.

And, if it is not wished to go any further, even this latter solution will be supported by the United States delegation.

The latter does not wish to cause any discord which would be detrimental to the results attained on other very important questions; it wishes merely to see this proposition, which was made in good faith, submitted to the Conference in plenary session. There, it will not oppose referring the question to a subsequent conference.

Mr. Rahusen, without wishing to enter into the merits of the case, will make two observations:

1. He endorses the ideas of his Excellency Mr. WHITE as regards the question of competency.

The Conference takes up the question of private property on land. Why might it not likewise examine the question of private property at sea?

And, moreover, for what reason should they be treated differently?

2. He suggests the idea of having the Governments favoring the idea of inviolability bind themselves together by special treaties.

A precedent has already been created by some Italian treaties of commerce. The President observes that the second Commission has received instruc[22] tions from the subcommission to deal with this question; these instruc

tions were backed by Mr. CROZIER. It must therefore pass on the question whether it wishes to have the examination of the subject referred to a subsequent conference. The Conference may or may not approve the decision which has been reached by the Commission. But at all events the latter constitutes an intermediate jurisdiction between the subcommission and the Conference, and as such it ought to make its opinion known.

His Excellency Sir JULIAN PAUNCEFOTE has nevertheless raised the important previous question of competency. This question will have to be decided.

Mr. Scheine observes that the Conference has thus far dealt only with the laws of land warfare. The instructions which he has received from his Government in no wise relate to the laws and customs of maritime war.

He concludes from this that the Russian Government has not considered this subject as coming within the program provided by the circular of Count MOURAVIEFF and he will refrain from taking part in the discussion of this ques

tion.

His Excellency Mr. White insists that this question, which is doubtful and

of such great importance, be submitted to the Conference in plenary session in order that it may decide it.

The President proposes that the Commission utter a vau that the question be referred to the examination of a subsequent conference. If this vau is adopted, it will be submitted to the approval of the Conference.

An exchange of views takes place between the President, his Excellency Mr. White, Mr. Bourgeois, his Excellency Sir Julian Pauncefote, and Messrs. Rolin and Miyatovitch.

The recommendation proposed by the President is adopted, except that France, Great Britain and Russia abstain.

Mr. Bourgeois abstains because the uttering of a vau implies competency in his opinion; but, the question whether the Commission is competent or not has not been decided.

Section IV is adopted.

The President recalls the fact that a vou regarding this section was proposed by his Excellency Mr. EYSCHEN and adopted by the second subcommission: to entrust to the examination of a subsequent conference the determination of the rights and duties of neutrals.

The Commission likewise adopted this vau, which will be submitted for the approval of the Conference.

The sixty articles proposed by the subcommission having therefore been adopted, the PRESIDENT calls the attention of the assembly to the legal character which ought to be given to them as a whole. The drafting committee entrusted with the consideration of this question, agreed, after a conscientious discussion, on the form of the act which is to contain them. It was of opinion that this work ought to be called a convention rather than a declaration.

The title of the act will be: "Convention concerning the laws and customs of war on land.”

The purpose of this Convention will be to adopt a uniform basis for the instructions which the respective Governments are to give to their land forces in case of war.

The principle is expressed in the preamble, which was unanimously approved by the drafting committee.

The committee was unanimous in its opinion on another point: it is desirable that the different acts of the Conference be drafted as far as possible in the same form.

The text which has been prepared therefore constitutes but a preparatory work which will be submitted to the Drafting Committee of the Final Act; the latter may modify it for the purpose of attaining the desired uniformity.

Mr. Rolin reads the preamble proposed for the draft convention and remarks that the largest part thereof is borrowed from the declaration made by Mr. MARTENS and adopted by the second subcommission at its meeting of June 20.

On motion of Baron Bildt and his Excellency Count Nigra, it is decided to substitute the word more for entirely in the first line on page 2.

Chevalier Descamps declares that he has not yet had time to ask the opinion of the first Belgian delegate regarding the text of the preamble.

The preamble of the draft convention is adopted under reservation of subsequent amendments and referred to the Drafting Committee of the Final Act.

At the request of Captain CROZIER, the President states that the adoption

of this preamble by the Commission does not yet obligate the respective Govern

ments.

Count de Macedo renews the reservations which he made in regard to the ten articles adopted in the first subcommission.

He hastens, however, to add that he recognizes the importance of the work with which the Commission is engaged at this moment.

[23] In regard to the final provisions, the President remarks that he deems it useless to deal with them here. The Drafting Committee of the Final Act which will also deal with other acts of the Conference, will work out the final wording proper to be given these provisions.

Jonkheer van Karnebeek does not share this opinion. The instructions given the Drafting Committee of the Final Act relate only to the form and not to the contents. Now, it is a question here of the substance of the Convention. In fact, the final provisions mention the signatures and adhesions of the Powers represented at the Conference, without providing for the case of adhesion of a Power which had not participated therein. It is nevertheless evident that this is a fundamental question. The Convention would not be complete in content without mentioning this matter. It is necessary therefore to know whether the Powers not represented at the Hague Conference will be permitted to accede to the Convention.

In the opinion of the President there is no doubt as to the privilege of the nations not represented at the Conference to accede, but this accession would constitute but a question of form, so that it evidently devolves upon the Committee on the Final Act to find a general form of wording which shall be submitted to the approval of the Conference in plenary session.

Jonkheer van Karnebeek asks why these final provisions were submitted to the Commission if the latter is not the authority to pass upon them. He states furthermore that they are incomplete on one very important point and he desires to have this deficiency supplied.

Colonel Gross von Schwarzhoff thinks that as a matter of fact numbers 1 and 2 of the final provisions relate rather to questions of substance than of form; he therefore asks that they be discussed in Commission.

These two numbers are read and adopted subject to final wording. Jonkheer van Karnebeek defines the scope of his proposition, which goes further than mere technical form; it is a fundamental question and he wishes to know whether this Convention will be open or not to those who may wish to accede thereto later on.

Mr. Bourgeois says that he thought of the same thing. He is of the same opinion as Messrs. VAN KARNEBEEK and GROSS VON SCHWARZHOFF. But because of the very importance of the provision in question he prefers to entrust its wording to the Committee on the Final Act, which will be able to take into account the general provisions adopted in regard to the other matters studied by the Conference and will be able to reach a decision in conformity with them.

Jonkheer van Karnebeek says there is no reason why the question of accession should be decided in the same manner in the case of every particular convention adopted by the Conference.

Baron Bildt sees no objection to the Second Commission's expressing its

opinion regarding the substance of the final provisions, in order to furnish a hint to the Committee on the Final Act.

Jonkheer van Karnebeek does not oppose this view.

A discussion takes place between the President, Mr. Rolin, and Jonkheer van Karnebeek.

The latter proposes to add a sixth article worded as follows:

The Powers which did not take part in the Hague Peace Conference are allowed to adhere to the present Convention.

For this purpose they must notify their adhesion in writing to the Netherland Government, which shall make it known to all the other contracting Governments.

After an exchange of views between the President, and Messrs. van Karnebeek, Rolin, Descamps, and Motono, the proposition of Mr. Van Karnebeek, seconded by Mr. DESCAMPS, is unanimously adopted, save the abstention of Spain and France, in the sense of an indication to be given to the Committee on the Final Act.

Articles 3, 4, and 5 of the final provisions are likewise adopted in the same sense and with the same abstentions.

The meeting adjourns.

[24]

Annex to the Minutes of the Meeting of July 5

REPORT PRESENTED BY MR. ROLIN

To the second subcommission was assigned for study the subject, "Revision of the Declaration concerning the laws and customs of war elaborated in 1874 by the Conference of Brussels but not ratified up to the present date." This is the seventh of the subjects for discussion enumerated in the circular of his Excellency Count MOURAVIEFF, dated December 30, 1898 (old style).

It is proper at the outset to define more exactly this subject by recalling that it is very clearly seen from the entire record of the Conference of Brussels that that Conference was concerned with the laws and customs of war on land only. Consequently, our subcommission has been constantly governed by the idea that its own competence was limited to a similar extent. It was for this reason that the subcommission in its meeting of June first merely placed on record the proposition of Captain CROZIER, a delegate of the United States of America, looking to the extension of the rules with respect to immunity of private property on land over like property at sea. For the same reason the subcommission also preferred to leave to the Commission the solution of the particular question whether the rules regarding bombardments are to be applied in cases where ships at sea direct their fire towards points on the coast.

The first care of the subcommission was to determine the method of its deliberations. For the basis of its discussion the text of the articles of the Declaration of the Brussels Conference of 1874 was taken, but in a somewhat different order. The order of the various questions was immediately settled as follows in the meeting of May 25:

66

1. Prisoners of war (Articles 23 to 34).

2. "Capitulations" and "Armistices" (Articles 46 to 52).

3." Parlementaires" (Articles 43 to 44).

4. "Military power with respect to private individuals" and "Contributions and requisitions" (Articles 36 to 42).

5. Articles 35 and 56 relating to the Geneva Convention.

6. "Spies" (Articles 19 to 22).

7. "Means of injuring the enemy" and "Sieges and bombardments" (Articles 12 to 18).

8. Internment of belligerents and care of the wounded in neutral countries" (Articles 53 to 55).

9. "Military authority over hostile territory" (Articles 1 to 8).

10. "Those who are to be recognized as belligerents; combatants and non-combatants" (Articles 9 to 11).

This order of discussion, intended to reserve the most delicate questions for the end, was adhered to by the subcommission on the first reading, except that after deliberating on the text of Articles 36 to 39 of the Brussels draft concerning the military power with respect to private individuals, the subcommission passed at once to the next numbered subject, the fifth, reserving Articles 40 to 42 on contributions and requisitions for examination at the same time with the chapter on military authority over hostile territory (No. 9 above and Articles 1 to 8).

Afterwards, however, on the advice of the drafting committee appointed in the meeting of June 12,1 the subcommission adopted a draft in which the articles are arranged in four sections, the first two sections being divided into chapters and the whole arranged in a new order that seemed more methodical. This draft is the one submitted to the Second Commission, and here annexed under the title, "Draft of a Declaration respecting the laws and customs [25] of war on land." In order to establish constant correlation between that text and the present report, the report is divided into sections and chapters corresponding to those of the draft declaration.

Before passing to the detailed examination of the draft now submitted, the Commission's attention should be called to several communications, more or less general in their bearing, that have been made to the subcommission in the course of its discussions.

At the beginning of the meeting held on June 10, General Sir JOHN ARDAGH, technical delegate of the British Government, read a statement to the effect that in his personal opinion, which could not commit his Government, it would be a mistake to ask "that the revision of the Declaration of Brussels should result in an international Convention."

Without seeking (said Sir JOHN ARDAGH) to know the motives to which may be attributed the non-adoption of the Brussels Declaration, it is permissible to suppose that the same difficulties may arise at the conclusion of our labors at The Hague.

In order to brush them aside and to escape the unfruitful results of the Brussels Conference . . . we would better accept the Declaration only as a 1 This drafting committee was formed of Messrs. BELDI MAN, Colonel À COURT, Colonel GILINSKY, Colonel GROSS VON SCHWARZHOFF, LAMMASCH, RENAULT, General ZUCCARI, and ROLIN, the latter in the capacity of reporter. Except on a special occasion the committee was presided over by Mr. MARTENS, president of the Commission and of the subcommission. As Mr. RENAULT was not able to be present at the last meetings, his place was taken by General MOUNIER.