COMMERCE IN WAR.
Commerce in War. By L. A. Atherley-Jones, KC,, M.P. Assisted by Hugh H. L. Bellot, M.A., D.C.L. (Methuen and Co. 21s. net.)—Recent years have seen a considerable output of books on international law, written from another point of view than the old treatises. They are not concerned with spinning subtleties about the ultimate sanctions of the science, but they take the working practice of nations, and aim rather at giving practical guidance to those engaged in international activities. The rules laid down have, of course, none of the certainty of those founded
on statute or a long series of decisions, for it lies with any nation at any moment to change the practice and declare, for instance, an entirely new theory of contraband. The volume before us, by Mr. Atherley-Jones and Mr. Bellot, deals only with practical questions of commerce, and aims at proving useful "not only to the lawyer, but to the shipowner and shipper, and also to that large class of public servants—diplomatists and consuls— who are compelled, many of them in remote parts of the earth, to discharge weighty and responsible functions in the protection of British commerce." The authors do not deal with all the commereial questions raised by the late Russo-Japanese War, such as wireless telegraphy, but they give excellent summaries of the law as to the chief matters, such as contraband, blockade, carriage of property at sea, search, capture and recapture. The method followed is an admirable one. First there is a history of. international practice since the Middle Ages, then a summary of present-day practice among the different Powers based on treaties and proclamations, and finally an analysis of the case law. So far as we have examined the digest it seems carefully and lucidly framed, and the book should fulfil the authors' desires and make an excellent manual of practice.
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