PRIZE SHIPS.

Taranaki Daily News, 13 February 1922, Page 5

PRIZE SHIPS.

GERMAN MERCHANT VESSELS. A DECISION REVERSED. By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright. Received Feb. 12, 5.5 p.m. London. Feb. 10. The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council reversed the Prize Court’s decision condemning as prizes three German merchant ships each under eleven hundred tons, which were seized in London and Liverpool on the outbreak of war and requisitioned by the Admiralty, of which one was grounded ajid another was lost, being torpedoed by the Germans. The Judicial Committee held that the German owners were entitled to the benefit of the Hague Convention, under which merchant ships in enemy ports on the outbreak of war must not be confiscated, .but merely detained. Lord Sumner, delivering judgment, said that while Germany may have flagrantly disregarded the obligations under the Hague Convention which fettered her freedom of action, it did not follow that she intended to repudiate a convention under which she stood to gair largely in the long run and thereby give Britain the right to treat herself as released from corelative obligations. The judgment entitles German owners to compensation from the British Government for the torpedoed steamer.—Aus.-N.Z. Cable Assn.