We now reach the explanation of the Declaration itself, on which we shall try, by summarizing the reports already approved by the Conference, to give an exact and uncontroversial commentary; this, when it has become an official commentary by receiving the approval of the Conference, would be fit to serve as a guide to the different authorities--administrative, military, and judicial--who may be called on to apply it. Seeing that the Conference unanimously accepted the Report, there is expressed in it and by it the real and true meaning of the individual articles of the Declaration as the Conference itself understood and intended it. Every attempt to procure an inconsistent interpretation must come to grief on this fact, and so the Report is in this sense 'binding'. The ratification of a treaty extends, of course, not only to the words themselves, but also to their meaning, and if the Conference which produces an agreement itself unanimously applies a definite meaning to the words of the agreement, there cannot remain any doubt that this is the meaning of the verbal text. Nevertheless, the contrary was maintained in England by a party of men of legal eminence, and the explanation of this is only to be found in the fact that these English lawyers were applying to the interpretation of the Declaration the rules which govern the interpretation of English statutes. The only way to enable the English Government to ratify the Declaration seems to be a statement by the Powers at the time of ratification that the interpretation of the Declaration expressed in the General Report is accepted on all sides. [Sidenote: Some proposals for the avoidance of difficulties in interpretation.]