The Freedom of the Seas
W HATEVER views may be held regarding the freedom V 1' of the seas there can be no question about its being a living issue at the present moment. That in itself means_pnagress, for a change in a practice so long regarded.' in this country as fundamental cannot be effected, and should not be, till the subject has been explored from every angle, not only by the expert, but by the ordinary citizen who has been taught that his preservation in time of war depends on the maintenance of what are rather loosely termed Great Britain's belli- gerent rights.
. But discussion of the freedom of the seas needs to be clarified at the outset. Like the Monroe Doctrine, it is apt to be canvassed with earnestness and sometimes with passion. by disputants who have not troubled to discover wheiher they, mean the same thing by it and may not be any too certain, individually, precisely what they understand it to mean themselves. That is not surprising, for the freedom of the seas doctrine, since it was, so to say, popularized by President Wilson by inclusion as the second of his Fourteen Points, has been commonly confused with various proposals with which in fact it has nothing in common.
Freedom of the seas is not an amalgam of various demands that have been put forward in the past for the defence of the rights of neutrals in time of war as against the rights of belligerents. It does not, in particular, include the familiar proposal for the immunity of private property at sea, except in the case of contraband. That once desired reform embodies a double fallacy. It is idle to suppose that in the naval warfare of the twentieth century any kind, of distinction between public and private property can be preserved. Except for luxury articles, which a belligerent nation is far too straitened financially to want to import in any case in war time, everything carried to its shores serves directly or indirectly the purposes of the war, and, apart from that, if the dis- tinction were in fact preserved the belligerent government would give its orders for rubber and cotton and wheat circuitously and by subterfuge through private traders.
But the first fallacy is followed by a second. With the distinction between public and private property has vanished almost as completely the distinction between contraband, conditional contraband, and non-contraband. The Declaration of London lists which apportioned commodities under those three categories are as obsolete as Noah's Ark. Every naval State in a naval war is going to issue its own contraband list, as Great Britain did in 1914 and 1915, and that list will lengthen out till it covers practically every necessity, not merely of military, but of civilian life. The idea of reforming the existing practice by granting immunity to private property other than contraband is a survival of the discussions of twenty years ago, and it had better survive no longer.
The choice between the existing practice and something different must be sought elsewhere if sought at all. And it is reasonable to begin by asking why in fact it should be sought at all. The practice led in 1917 and 1918 to the throttling of Germany. Why, in that case, change it ?
The case against the existing practice broadly is that if it is maintained by Great Britain as a belligerent in the future it almost certainly means war with the United States—that war which in every other connexion is unthinkable, but is not unthinkable at all if it is a question of interference with the merchant-vessels of a United States fully capable of defending those vessels, and determined in case of need to do so.
The point need not be laboured. It is a contingency on which no one desires to dwell. But it is commonly agreed by all who know the inner history of those years that American vessels could never have been treated as they were in 1915 and 1916 if the American navy then had been as strong as it is being made to-day. President Wilson, in this matter, at any rate, was expressing the views of the whole of his countrymen when he authorized Colonel House in November, 1918, to say that if the principle of freedom of the seas were not accepted the European Allies could " count on the certainty of our using our present equipment to build up the strongest navy that our resources permit, and as our people have long desired." That is precisely what America is doing to-day under a very different President from Wilson, and the gravity of the situation lies not merely in the contemplation of a potential clash between the two Anglo-Saxon navies, but in the fact that feeling is per- sistently embittered and all hope of the limitation of armaments dispelled as long as opposing views are held in Whitehall and in Washington on this vital issue.
But there is a different case against the existing practice of practically unlimited interference with neutral merchant Shipping in time of war. It has been said that thanks to that practice we succeeded in throttling Germany in 1918. That 'is largely true, but it spells crass 'blindness to facts to argue from that particular instance to the general. Germany's sole access to the high seas happened by the fortune of geography to be through a bottle-neck which 'it was relatively simple for the British fleet to close. Only isolated commerce-raiders got through the cordon, but when they did it took, according to Lord Jellicoe, twenty-five of our cruisers to run down each of them. Suppose we were at war with some other naval power with an extended coast-line and a score of ports from which raiders could slip out to harry British com- merce. The feeding of Britain's millions would be a very different matter then.
Look, moreover, at the other side of the picture. It is true that in the end we throttled Germany—though here, too, it is well to remember that Germany was almost wholly blockaded by land as well as sea, which will not be the case with all our potential adversaries. But Germany through, her submarine campaign came near in 1917 to throttling us. A convincing case can very nearly be made for the contention that the interests of an island nation, dependent for its very existence on sea, borne supplies, would best be served by an agreement protecting all merchant shipping from interference. That theory, however, need not be argued, for it breaks down fatally at a vital point. No belligerent could concede absolute immunity to trading vessels. There must always be the essential reservation " except in regard to contraband," and, as has been shown, the definition of contraband is now such that the exception is almost co-extensive with the rule.
What alternative then remains ? One and one alone, and it is well that attention should be concentrating so largely upon that. The embarrassment, and probable futility, of attempting to draft agreed rules for the case of a still possible war between individual States is no longer necessary, for what the League Covenant in occasional cases legitimizes the Kellogg Pact specifically excludes. If that instrument is honoured there will be no war between individual States. Even the " *elf- defence " qualification is not relevant, for defence is only called for against attack, and every nation of the world, with two, no doubt temporary, exceptions, has pledged itself never to attack. Thus the issue narrows suddenly down to the case, of a violation of the Kellogg Pact. Is that event to be followed in effect by a general :mêlée or by police action ? The Pact itself says nothing as to that. The League Covenant, binding on its .Own members, but not,' of course, on the United States, says a great deal, and very AefinitelY. There is to be united police action against 'the Offender, and where there is action of that type there can be no neutrals within the League. Each nation of its own act would cut off its own traders' intercourse with the offend- ing State. Outside the League unfortunately there would still be neutrals, conspicuous among them the United States. Her traders would have to be stopped by the League's police squadrons and the consequences that would entail might be grave.
But now comes the Kellogg Pact superimposed on the Covenant. Virtually, it may be said that any war anywhere is a violation of the Pact and as such it- must concern the United States as much as any nation in the world. Her Government may, or may not, be willing to join in police action. It is hard to conceive that it would deliberately interfere with it. That is in some respects a delicate question and it must be handled with circumspection. But here and here alone is the starting-point of all future discussions on naval warfare, freedom of the seas, and Anglo-American relations. If covenants mean anything, the war of the future is to be a war to will the a violation of_ the peace. That wi impair the freedom of the seas for no one except the State that has forfeited all rights by violating its bond. "War would were be war," objected Clemenceau in 1918, re " if the were freedom of the seas." "War having been renounced," it may be retorted in 192'9, " there need be no obstacle to the freedom of the seas."
Much, of course, remains to be discussed, particularly as to the part the United States would be prepared to play in joining with her fellow-signatories of the Pact, first of all, in deciding when police action' was necessary and, secondly, in carrying such action out: But notable progress will have been achieved if henceforth the dis- cussion, both in its political and its strategic aspects, -is concentrated on the single case of joint armed action against a State false to its pledge never to resort to "private war." It is no longer possible to conceive of the oceans as at once a highway and a battle-ground. Wilson's stipulation for absolute freedom of navigation outside territorial waters, except as the seas may be closed in whole or in part by international action for the enforee- ment of international covenants, has entered the realm of practical reality.
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