494 award settling, inter alia, a rate of one shil ling and nine pence per ton as a hewing rate. The owners and miners were free to contract on the basis of the award. In January, 1903, the miners of the Rhondda Lodge, one of the lodges of the Employes' Federation— being dissatisfied with the above rate, downed tools without notice and went on strike, and threw idle the mines of Messrs. Snedd'on and Laidley, Limited. These own ers, parties to the award, proceeded against the federation for penalties fixed in the award. The proceedings were in the Arbi tration Court, and it was admitted during argument that the officers of the federation had tried to dissuade the particular lodge from acting as it had done, and had repro bated the strike; also that it was customary, in the case of contracts in that industry, that fourteen days' notice was necessary in order to enable a master or a miner to legally ter minate the contract of service. The court held that, as regarded the federation, no breach of the award had occurred. The fact that the officers of the federation, immedi ately on learning of the resolve of the Rhondda miners to strike, endeavored to get them back to work was held to be con clusive that the federation was not liable. There remained the miners of the Rhondda Lodge to be considered. The various points settled in and provided by the award had been observed. But the award had not made any provision to compel a continuance of the contract under the terms of the award. So far as the points settled specifically in the award were concerned, the miners had observed them, so that a refusal to continue to work, not having been provided for, was not a breach of the award. However, as the miners had struck work without giving .the usual fourteen days' notice, they would be liable to prosecution as strikers under a pro vision of the Arbitration Act. The position caused by this decision is not such as was to be expected from the work of a court whose business it was to bring about a state of permanency in industrial matters. The ex pense and labor of finding an award was
thrown away, as, on the judgment, it was in the power of either of the parties to termi nate their contract under it by giving four teen days' notice of their intention. And, if the miners chose to terminate the contract without giving such notice, then the employ ers could only prosecute them—a proceed ing not of the most satisfactory nature. For ii might be that in a given case there would not be sufficient gaol accommodation in the country to hold the strikers. The decision will also suggest possibilities in the way of keeping clear a party under an award from penalties, even when certain elements of that party should be guilty of breaches. For the employés, there seems to be a smack of the "heads I win, tails you lose" principle about the decision, from which there is no appeal, save to the ever-sitting court of public opin ion. This court has expressed its decision very plainly, but it lacks the necessary ma chinery, at present, for executive action. THE question of floating mines on the high seas (says The Laiv Times. London), for whose solution there are, on the admis sion of the Rev. Dr. Lawrence, lecturer on International Law at the Royal Xaval Col lege, Greenwich, no precedents to guide us," brings home to the minds of jurists the fact, so difficult of realization, that, whereas successful efforts have been made to codify the rules of land war, little has been done to codify the rules and usages of war at sea, which are in a deplorably imperfect condi tion. An international naval war code can not be found save so far as its beginnings may be traced in The Hague third "Conven tion for the adaptation to maritime warfare of the principles of the Geneva Convention of the 22nd Aug. 1864," a convention which both the belligerents in the Russian-Japan ese war have signed, and by whose rules they are accordingly bound : (see Taylor's Treatise on International Public Law. p. 495). Although the high seas, which are now almost the only example of the terri tory of no one," like the territories of the bel ligerent Powers, constitute a legitimate the
