London, July 3.
Posers were Jevelied to-day by the Bench of five judges, presided over by the Lord Chancellor (Viscount Sankey) on its examination of the question of whether actual robbery essential element in the rime of piracy, with special reference to the trial of Chung Tam-kwong and twelve others at the Hongkong ses sions in February, 1
The posers were directed at Sir' Lesije "Scott, "Solicitor-General 1922, no is appearing on behalf of the Secretary of State for the Sir Leslie argued that robbery was necessary to constitute piracy.
The Lord Chancellor puta hypothetical case of persons boarding the ship and killing everybody but not stealing anything, Sir Leslie, replying, said he deduced from' the argument that. it was not piracy according to the Taw Lord Aikin—"Or if a shot below the water-line Dut nothing stolen from it?
Sir Leslie then fell back on authorities to show that robbery was an essential concomitant Previously, Sir Leslie made a reference to the verdict against the accused in the Hongkong. trial and to the decision of the Full Court there that robbery was necessary to support a piracy" conviction, The Attorney-General, Sir Thomas Inskip, contended that the essential element in piracy was that such acts were done without the authority of 2 sovereign state, or a politically organized society, and for private ends. Robbery and depredation, he said, were not necessary ingredients of the offence Reuter uly, 5.
The five Lords at the end of three days of arguments by Government Iawyers, have decided to ponder over it and publish their answer later.
The matter arose over an incident in Far Eastern waters in which two junks chased and fired on a_cargo junk, Two steamships and a British Warship intervened and saved the attacked vessel The jury found the Chinese crow in the attacking junks guilty of piracy, but the Supreme Court in Hongkong freed them on the ground that no piracy had been committed, as there had been no robbery, Legal authorities dating to the 16th Century were cited, but no ease was unearthed to cover the disputed point—Reuter,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.