PULLING OFF THE MASK

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 161, 27 March 1918, Page 8

PULLING OFF THE MASK

.THE DUTIES OF. THE PRIZE COURT. Sir Samuel Evans, in tho British Prize Court, recently/ condemned as prize the steamship Hamborn, flying the Dutch flag, on the ground that she was enemy owned, though professing neutral adherence. It was the duly of the Prize Court, his lordship said, to. penetrate through all forms of technicalities to realities. Owners were hound by the flag they adopted, but captors were not. It had been laid down that it is no inconsiderable part of the ordinary occupation of a Prize Court to pull off the mask and exhibit tho vessel in her true character. Nominally owned by a limited company registered in Holland, six companies appeared on the stage history of this vessel—the Hamborn Steamship, tho Vulcan Transport, tho Vulcan Coal, the Kaiser, the Rhine, and the Loliberg Companies. The first three registered in Holland, tho last three in Germany. The vessel was named after a German town, and the whole of the share capital of the Hamborn Steamship Company was held in «qual shares by the two Vulcan Companies, whose directors were all German and lesident in Germany, All the shares in the Vulcan Transport Company except two "were held by the Kaiser Company; the remaining two' wore held by Thyrsen and Company; a German firm of Mulheim. All : the directors of the Kniser Company were Germans resident in Germany, except one Hungarian. Tho other German companies were shareholders in the Vulcan Coal Company. No one other than enemy subjects was a director, manager, or shareholder in any of the companies supposed to have an interest in the Hamborn, or had a pfennig in it, and why three companies were registered in Holland his lordship did not Know.

The Court had not been told whether there were similar provisions in the law of Holland with reference to the ownership of a Dutch vessel by foreign companies to those contained in our Merchant Shipping Acts, hut this ship, despite Dutch registry and flag, was owned and governed by German subjects, and must therefore be condemned as prize and confiscated to tho Crown. Tho Declaration of London said a ship's character was to he determined by the flag Bhe was "entitled" to fly. Whether with the facts disclosed the Dutch Courts would hold the vessel "entitled" to fly the Dutch flag- ho did not know, but tho British Order-in-Council of October 20, 1915, superseded Article 57 of tho Declaration by the Prize Court rules. The claimant's plea "ad misericonlinm" that the 6hip had bo time to change her flag as. emanating from an enemy lacked not only force or favour, but was devoid even of n sense of decency.