HC Deb 11 May 1906 vol 157 cc37-8
MR. HART-DAVIES (Hackney, N.)

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the text of the finding of the St. Petersburg Admiralty Court on the sinking of the ss. "Knight Commander" has yet been translated; if so, whether its purport can be communicated; whether any answer has been received to the claim made on the Russian Government by the captain and the crew for their personal losses and damages; and, if not, what further steps His Majesty's Government purpose to take to bring the matter before the Russian Government with a view to an early settlement.

(Answered by Secretary Sir Edward Grey.) The text of the judgment of the Supreme Prize Court at St. Petersburg has been translated, and has been communicated to the legal representatives of the owners of the "Knight Commander."

The effect of this decision of the appeal court is, in short, that a large portion of the "Knight Commander's" cargo was rightly condemned by the lower court as contraband, that this portion exceeded half the cargo, and that the ship was therefore rightly declared a prize under the Russian rule; that the commander's action in sinking the vessel is not a circumstance for the Prize Court to deal with at all, but a matter of naval discipline; that the Russian naval prize code contemplates the sinking of neutral ships as well as enemy ships, and behind that code the court cannot go, despite all that may have been written by international lawyers on the subject; that where the destruction of a vessel is necessary in the interests of a belligerent, parties interested ought not to suffer; but as ship and cargo have been adjudged prizes, the chief loss falls on the State, and owners of innocent property must recover compensation by initiating claims before the Prize Court.

No communication in regard to any of the claims arising out of the sinking of this vessel has been received from the Russian Government since this judgment was delivered, and His Majesty's Government are at present considering, in communication with the Law Officers of the Crown, what further steps they can properly take in the matter.