BRITISH SEA AIMS.

Press, Volume LIII, Issue 15917, 2 June 1917, Page 10

BRITISH SEA AIMS.

GUABDIANSHIP OF FREEDOM

[The iollcmins is pnblisW bj- the Bureau and forwarded on by the Secretary of tlie Royal Colonial Institute.]

LONDON", April 7. | It has long.been an accepted maxim of Britons themselves that their control of the seas, iised openly and obviouslv for tho equal benefit of all nations must seem to everyone a thing beneficial and justified in its exerciso by daily events. While peace endured, the seaborne trade of the world -went smoothly on. and all countries -were • free to take their part in it. Seamen who went, about their business in the waters of the two liemispheros were bound to come in contact with British authority; they conformed to the rules laid clown by British ssa tradition for their conduct on the seas; and none in those days complained. Were any honest neutral captain asked if in all his comings and . goings over tho high seas, in and out. of British ports, lie bad ever been interfered with unreasonably, ho would answer "No." Scandinavian and Dutch j seamen have said, freely and many j times, that to British guardianship they . owed the security and freo use of the | seas; other and' larger nations would , bavo admitted the debt, perhaps less; openly, but tihey would have admitted it. Nor did any neutrals ever see in this guardianship any fear that thoir olemental rights to voyage and trado in freedom "wouldi over bo threatened. It '"was natural that, in war. this faith of the smaller nations should be re-examined by them with some doubts and uneasiness. For tho first t-imo they have seen the British Navy at _war. They have realised, as they could not realise in peace, how enormous was its strength. They have had German agents to point out the obvious menaco • to them that lay in such power, if it were to be ambitiously and unscrupulonsly used. Above all, their wholo j faith in the groat States has been shaken by tho partial indication of tho ■ German doctrine that might is right. 1 These things in themselves were ] enough to account for uneasiness among ( small neutral States. But some of ] thom have felt directly tho power of ; the British Fleet. _ It is well known that very many individual neutrals have worked fo# Germany on the sea; that Germany has spent largo sums in ongaging them in this duty, ,and that ; many have been, caught jed-handed by our 'Fleet. What has happened to them? They liavo lost their cargoes and their ships, but they themselves have been allowed to go unmolested. Neutrals niay well compare the way in , which ,we havo treated' these men, German agents doing German work, with ! Gorman savagery towards neutrals in . tih© persons of the owners and crews of such ships as tho Blommcrsdijk, while - engaged on their lawful business uneonnected with the war.

Neutrals should rocognise that there are these men in. their own countries doing German work; that these wen speak with prejudice, that it is to their own personal advantage to protest against British sea power, and, if possible, 'to influence their Governments against it. They, however, no more ( represent genuino noutral opinion than do tho Germans themselves. But apart from these interested noutrals there are others who chafe at the changes that war has brought, at the new restrictions, at tho continual evidence of j a vigilant and übiquitous power on the seas. They chafo the moro bccausc in peace timo tho sea power of Great Britain has been so little irksome to theni. Yet they should understand against what and for what Great Britain is fighting. They know, better perhaps than most Englishmen, how openly and complacently Germans spoko of the groat possessions of the British Empire, as riches held in store for them, tho younger and more virile nation, which they would take bv right when the time came. Such talk was habitually used in the of both Eng- ■ lishmcn and noutrals. To the former it seemed too bombastic and ridiculous to bo worth notice. But neutral s knew that it was not idlo boasting, but was said with serious and jjrim intent. They knew that Germany threatened nothing less than 'tho whole existence of tho British Empire. They know, too, that Aot only is that Empire held secure solely by a fleet than can command all sea.s, but that oi; the fleet depends the very existence of the people of these islands. That perpetual übiquitous vigilance at sejf is to Great Britain an elemental act of defence. It is no more menacing and aggressive than the occupation of its frontier fortresses by , a land Power. | Wo may admit that it might become ' menacing and aggressive more easily even than a great army. But Great Britain may wetjk think that she has somo claim on rao confidence of tho weaker States when she s;iy s that her use of the soas for her protection in war timo is no mcnace to their trade and t possessions, nor a threat against tlic full freedom of the seas, for all States, when peace returns. She may . claim their corrfidonee because she can point to a hundred vear.s of unchal- ; lenged supremacy at sea that has never j been used aggressively. I One hundred years ago Great Britain ! was at war with the Dutch. They had • an East Indian Empire with forty million inhabitants, and groat and fertile : island areas rich in minerals and spices; : and all tho wealth of tho East. This treasure was defended by a- few small ships of war and by forty thousand sol- j diers, almost entirely occupied in the suppression of disorders among savage tribes far from thoir base. The British fleet took Java, but when peace was declared it wa.s given back to Holland again. Her East Indian Empire was left untouched. That particular example of Great ' Britain's use -of her naval power, even , in war, i* recalled for a special reason. In the Preanger Regencies the finest • part of Java, there stands the effigy of the head of the last man who made trouble for the Butch in that : -Agion. That was two hundred years

years ago. From that time until this present war there has been no disturbance of any kind among the contented people of the Sunda Straits. Since the war th§rc has been u rising. It was fomented by the agents of Germany, who was at pcace with Holland, and these agents men who for years had received every hospitatlitv and commercial consideration in tlie'clubs and business houses of Batana, Samarang, and j Soorabavn. Neutrals who ask what has become of tho freedom of the seas, may well wonder that so much of it remains to them, when they think of what tho seas would have been had Germany and not Groat Britain controlled tliem. Here and there before the war, sea captains might bo heard complaining of unfair and harsh treatment. If you asked for particulars yon found always that it was in some" German African port. German ships enjoyed every privilege of the seas on tho harbours of territorial waters of other lands, yet never, unless it served their interests, did they offer these privileges to foreign seamen. They would tell you that they had no time for the courtesies of the sea; that their business was to build up a dominating German sea power. About twenty years ago thero wero some cases of German hooliganism at sea. Tho seamen of the neutral coun- . tries could afford to smile at thom. They had no thought then that Ger- | many would on© day be a great sea I power. But later, remembering tlicso things, seeing Germany set herself to the task of making a great fleet, wliilo Great Britain seemed inclined to weaken hers, neutral seamen began to ' fear for themselves. Those who wero far-seetn gamong them said no less than j this, that if Great Britain wero , matched by Germany the 6hinpin.fr oi [ the smaller States would in timo disappear from tho seas. And now if you | ask any one of these neutral seamen, with his experience of the seas in war whether he would come and go moro freely with Germany as sea mistress, he would say that in these circiiinstances either his ship would bo lving in dock or carrying trade under a German flag. When Europe was too busy with wars a hundred years ago, to spare any energies to deal with tho Barbary Corsairs, the admirals of .tho new United States Navy took that work into their own hadtis. It has been a legitimate source of pride to America that Europe owes to her the disappearance of the pirates of the Mediterranean Sea. To-dav a pirato stronger, more grim, more audacious, and fortified with an obscene selfjustification, .threatens not only the Mediterranean Sea, but all the seas or the world. Great Britain ha-s in her hands tho guardianship of their free- | dom. She defends it m war. as sM , held it in peace, for tho benefit of all nations. j . l