CAPTURED VESSELS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIX, Issue 253, 25 September 1939, Page 8

CAPTURED VESSELS.

THE LAW OF PRIZE. AUCKLAND, Sept. 22. The fair and impartial manner in which Great Britain administered the Law of Prize during' the Great War was commented on by Mr J. Stanton, Auckland city solicitor, when discussing the fate of ships captured during wartime in an address to members of tlie Auckland Creditmen’s Club . Mr Stanton said the Law of Prize was administered by a Prize Court which sat during wartime only. In England such a Court had not been in session from the time of the Crimean War till the Great War, and again since just after the Great War till the present time. It differed from other Courts, in that appeals were not to the House of Lords but to the Privy Council. The capture of a ship during war did not mean that , the ship and its cargo automatically became the property of the nation which made the capture. Mr Stanton said. It was the duty of the successful captain to take the prize to his own country and submit it to the Prize Court. If reasonable grounds for the capture were not shown, the owners of the ship and the cargo could claim heavy damages. In dealing with enemy ships, the Prize Court was not confronted with any great difficulties. Certain vessels such as hospital ships were exempt from capture, though in the Great War Germany sank eight in the Mediterranean and used her own hospital ships for fighting purposes. A mass of intricacies arose where neutral ships were concerned, among which was the difficulty of determining what goods should be regarded as contraband or useful for the enemy’s war purposes. As in the present war, belligerent countries generally published lists of goods which they would regard in this category. The usual British principle that a man is believed innocent till his guilt is proved did not apply to the Prize Court. Mr Stanton said. Tb’e reverse was the case, the onus being on the owners of ships and cargoes to prove their innocence in connection with trade with the enemy. Proceeds from the capture of ships and cargoes were paid into a naval prize fund and distributed among the personnel of the naval forces engaged in the capture.