On theoretical grounds the practice seems to have little basis for existing. It is not in harmony with the modern view of war which seeks so far as possible to eliminate the element of personal gain and to limit the operations of war to strictly state agencies. It encourages war on commerce. Its use savors of privateering. It offers a constant temptation for infringing neutral rights by making illegal captures. With the abolition of privateering and the present views of naval strategy its usefulness as an encouragement for seamen and a means of increasing the efficiency of the navy have departed. It accentuates the gambler's chance which is contrary to all modern ethics. Sailors, the same as soldiers, should receive fixed pay for their services, and not be compelled to rely for their salaries, in part at least, upon the uncertain chance of prize money. Bentwich says of prize money: "The present custom of dividing among the captors the proceeds of sale after adjudication of a prize court preserves in maritime war that taint of belligerent greed and of interested attack upon private property which is against the spirit of modern warfare and which has been declared illegal in land operations."[14] Though prize money as given in England was an institution of great international importance in the balmy days of privateering especially during the reign of Elizabeth when it was largely responsible for the romantic careers of England's empire builders, for the wholesale capture of Spanish galleons and for England's naval supremacy, it does not seem to have been of any particular importance to any one outside of the naval service of Great Britain since the abolition of privateering. Practically it is valueless. Theoretically it is bad. It should be abolished. _NOTES._ Chapter VI, Part 2. [1] Common Law fully admits the legality of pressing sailors into service, see Blackstone, I, 419. [2] Influence of Sea Power upon History, pp. 132-138; Lord Palmerstone also deprecated the value of commercial war, Political Science Quarterly, 1905, xx, 711. [3] Atherley-Jones, op. cit. 529, 534. [4] Atherley-Jones, op. cit. 530. [5] The Declaration of London, Chap. iv. The Declaration of London however is not officially ratified by Great Britain, see Bentwich, The Declaration of London. [6] England's delegates, Messrs. Twiss, Westlake, Lorimer, and Bernard gave the only dissenting votes to the proposition favoring the abolition of the right to capture private property at sea, Institute of International Law at its meeting at the Hague in 1875, see Revue de Droit International, 1875, vii, 288. England also opposed the proposition at the Second Hague Conference, in 1907, see Second Hague Conference, Acts and Documents, iii, 832.