Professor Westlake supports his opinion by a quotation from the reply of the Foreign Office in November last to the Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce (_Miscell._ 1910, No.

4, p.

21).

I may mention that a similar reply had been given, a year previously, by Mr.McKinnon Wood to a question in the House of Commons.
The source of these replies is doubtless to be found in a paragraph of the Report, addressed on March 1, 1909, to Sir Edward Grey, of the British Delegates to the London Conference, which runs as follows:-- "It should be borne in mind that, in accordance with the principles and practice of Continental jurisprudence, such a Report is considered an authoritative statement of the meaning and intention of the instrument which it explains, and that consequently foreign Governments and Courts, and no doubt also the International Prize Court, will construe and interpret the provisions of the Declaration by the light of the Commentary given in the Report." (_Miscell._ 1909, No.

4, p.