§ MR. HUNT (Shropshire, Ludlow)I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, at the present Naval Conference, the question of submitting the validity of captures of an enemy's merchantmen by a belligerent Navy to an International Court of Award is to be discussed.
I beg also to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the question of returning captured merchant vessels to the enemy from whom they were taken is to be discussed at the present Naval Conference.
§ SIR EDWARD GREYExcept as regards a few clearly defined cases enumerated in Article 3 of the Prize Court Convention of the Second Peace Conference, the general question of the treatment of enemy merchant vessels is not one within the juridsiction of the proposed International Court. That question accordingly forms no part of the programme of the present Naval Conference.