CHAPTER IV.
CONVENTIONS AND LEGISLATION Not a few International Conventions necessitate, before they can be ratified, in order that their provisions may be carried into effect, a certain amount of municipal legislation.
The letters which follow are concerned with some measures introduced into the British Parliament for this purpose, relating respectively to Naval Prize, to the Geneva Convention of 1906, and to Conventions signed at The Hague Peace Conference of 1907.

It is with criticisms of Bills dealing with the last-mentioned topic that this chapter is mainly occupied.
GOVERNMENT BILLS AND INTERNATIONAL CONVENTIONS Sir,--You have already allowed me to point out how singularly ill-adapted is the resuscitated "Naval Prize Consolidation Bill"[1] to inform Parliament upon the highly technical points as to which a vote in favour of the Bill might be supposed to imply approval of the Government policy.
Two other Bills have now been presented to the House of Commons in such a shape as to raise a doubt whether the wish of the Government, or of the draftsman, has been that the topics to which they relate shall be discussed _en pleine connaissance de cause_.
The "Geneva Convention Bill"[2] is intended to facilitate the withdrawal of reservations subject to which the Convention was ratified by Great Britain.

These reservations, upon which I insisted at Geneva, somewhat to the surprise of my French and Russian colleagues, relate to Arts.

23, 27, and 28 of the Convention, one of the effects of which would have been to impose upon our Government an obligation to carry through, within five years, an Act of Parliament, making the employment of the Geneva emblem or name, except for military purposes, a criminal offence.
Any one who knows something of the difficulties which beset legislation in this country, especially where commercial interests are involved, will see that the performance of such an undertaking might well have proved to be impossible.

Though myself strongly in favour of placing, at the proper time and in an appropriate manner, legislative restrictions upon the general use of the emblem and name, I can hardly think the Bill now before Parliament to be well adapted for its purpose.