The original form of the addition to Article 23 which the German delegates proposed was as follows: 'de declarer eteintes, suspendues ou non recevables les reclamations privees de ressortissants de la Partie adverse' (see proces-verbal of the 2nd meeting of the 1st sub-Committee of the 2nd Committee, 10th July, 1907). There is nothing to show that any explanation was vouchsafed to the effect that the proposed addition to the article was intended to mean more than its wording necessarily implied, though there is a statement by one of the German delegates in the proces-verbal of the 1st meeting of the 1st sub-Committee of the 2nd Committee, on July 3rd, which in all probability must have referred to this particular amendment, though the proces-verbal does not render it at all clear; nor is the statement itself free from ambiguity. An amendment was suggested and accepted at the second meeting to add the words 'en justice' after 'non recevables,' and in this form the sub-article was considered by an examining committee, was accepted and incorporated in Article 23, and brought before and accepted by the Conference in its 4th Plenary Sitting on the 17th August, 1907. The subsequent alteration in the wording must have been made by the Drafting Committee, but cannot have been considered to affect the substance of the provision, as in the 10th Plenary Sitting on October 17th, 1907, the reporter of the Drafting Committee, in dealing with the verbal amendments made in this Convention, merely said, 'En ce qui concerne le reglement lui-meme, je n'appellerai pas votre attention sur les differentes modifications de style sans importance que nous y avons introduites.' Nor is there anything to indicate any such far-reaching interpretation as the German White Book suggests in the report which accompanied the draft text of the Convention when it was brought before the Plenary Sitting of the Conference (Annex A. to 4th Plenary Sitting). It merely states that the addition is regarded as embodying in very happy terms a consequence of the principles accepted in 1899. The result appears to Sir E. Grey to be that neither the wording nor the context nor the circumstances attending the introduction of the provision which now figures as Article 23(h) support the interpretation which the writers you quote place upon it and which the German White Book endorses. Sir E. Grey notices that, in the extract you quote, Monsieur Politis, after placing his own interpretation upon the article, remarks that it is quite foreign to the hypothesis of the occupation of territory and ought to be removed from the Regulations and turned into a Convention by itself. If this interpretation were correct, this remark of Monsieur Politis is certainly true: but the fact that the provision appears where it does should have suggested to Monsieur Politis that it does not bear the interpretation he puts upon it.