A. 9794
Dear Howard,
22
23
23rd February, 1932.
(2.!)
121)
Many thanks for your letter of the 20th instant
(received last night) about the Hong Kong piracy case.
afraid that I did not make my meaning clear.
I am
I did not intend to suggest that our Acts could be
construed as having given jurisdiction over a foreigner who
committed on the high seas an act which did not fall within
the definition of piracy jure gentium, but rather that the
particular section to which I drew attention was one of the
provisions of our law constituting a series of offences which,
taken together, comprise the crime of piracy as so defined.
:
As I read the judgment of the Full Court of Hong
Kong, they decided two points. First, that when faced with an
indictment for piracy they could only have regard to the
municipal definition of that word and could not acquire
jurisdiction from any definition attached to it by international
law; a view which seems to me to be quite unexceptionable.
Second, that the definition which English law had attached to
the word "piracy" necessitated robbery as one of its elements;
a view about which there may perhaps be more doubt, though so
P.T.O.