Page:Handbook of maritime rights.djvu/104

90 At the Conference of Paris in March, 1856, Lord Clarendon finally, at Count Walewski's invitation, surrendered the rights which had only been waived at the commencement of the war.

I will not stop here to inquire into the authority on which Lord Clarendon acted. The mystery which surrounds this point has never yet been cleared up. Certain it is that he said himself in the House of Lords, on Lord Colchester's motion on the subject, that he and his brother plenipotentiaries "had not confined themselves to the strict limits of their attributions."

But I will say a few words on the legality of his act. True it undoubtedly is that the Crown can make treaties with Foreign Powers without the previous consent of Parliament. It is one of its undoubted prerogatives. But there is a constitutional limit to this power, and that is that it may not make a treaty in violation of a municipal law of the country. In exemplification of this I may