A body of customary law on the subject would thus grow up without legal sanction, but of great value in promoting uniformity and preventing the ill-feeling which would arise from conflicting decisions in different cases involving similar questions. Those who have taken any part in deciding questions affecting wages or trade conditions have found the need of some standard to appeal to, and felt the danger likely to arise from giving decisions either less or more favourable to either party than had been given in other districts in similar circumstances. In an analogous way, decisions of the prize court of one country are quoted in the courts of other countries, although they are not binding on them. International Law did exist, and had an important practical influence. Diplomatists did appeal to it, and the prize tribunals, in administering the law, stated distinctly that they would be guided by and would apply the principles of that law, even if the orders issued by the administrative Government of their own country were at variance with it. The decision of the Privy Council in the case of the _Zamora_ establishes the principle that the law which prize courts will follow is International Law, and that they will do so though some Order in Council may conflict with it. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 4: How strong this belief was among many of those who had often been in opposition to the British Government was shown at a meeting in Bombay early in the War. The enthusiastic speech of the chairman, the late Sir Pherozeshah Mehta, one of the ablest and most persistent critics of British rule in India for very many years, is one to be remembered.] CHAPTER VI CONCLUSIONS REACHED We may now state in order certain definite conclusions which appear to follow from the arguments urged above:-- 1.--It is to be expected that during the next thirty years, a period less than that which has elapsed since the Franco-German War, the scientific knowledge of the means of carrying on offensive warfare will have made such advances and become so generally applied, that, if another world war breaks out, not only will material damage be caused which can never be repaired, but the best part of the human race will either be destroyed or suffer deterioration as disastrous as complete destruction, and that this result will be accompanied by appalling misery. 2.--Unless there is a real assurance of peace, even if actual war does not break out, the maintenance of armaments and the preparation for war would place a burden which would be absolutely intolerable on the leading nations of mankind.