FREEDOM OF THE SEAS

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 87, 7 January 1919, Page 8

FREEDOM OF THE SEAS

, , .._, 1- _ HOW QUEEN ELIZABETH-SETTLED ! . IT; , i ■" ......»■ : No phrase has been 'more'constantly [ and speciously employed by our Teutonic ] enemies 1 than that of the "freedom of the ! i-esi." It is invariably involved with an i absurd pretension that' they nre the deJ of the world's rights in this tci speetv i It is therefore, perhaps,-desirable to ; remind-ourselves, by dipping into his- ,| tory; that not only did the freedo\n of i the seas exist equally for ail rations ] until Germany's atiempt to usurp world- ; wide domiiianon debarred it tc her and | her allies, but also that Great Britain I'hris'been entirely resppnsible for insti- ! tuting, and maintaining throughout the i centuries, this common heritage to' riavi- ; gators., Indeed, the great prosperity of j the German Empire has been one'outI come of British maritime policy, j President Wilson has.included the frce- • dinn of' the seas among his Fourteen j Points; but the principle is already rootI ed in the moral habits of mankind. Andj j to .make, it; so, ' England asserted the j principle by force, as far back as the | sixteenth century. . I In 1514 .n Papa! Bull awarded to Spain j and Portugal all the continents opened to j Europe by the discoveries df Columbus and Vasco da Gama, and inhabited, under pain of the sentenco of excommuni- | cation, "ail. persons from travelling for I'merchandise or for any'other cause to j the said lands or islands/found or to be j found, discovered or to be discovered, i towards the West nnd South." I This practically confined tho oluer nations of Europe to their territorial waters. ■ •It wus not until 1578 that Drake, openly disregarding the Papal Award, rounded Cape Horn, burst into the Pacific, (visited the Moluccas, and returned to England by the Cape of Good Hope. The Spaniard's'beard was sjnged with a vengeance! An open rupture with Philip was now invevitnble, and in order to challenge!the Spanish monopoly Elizabeth was "at length forced to deny the validity of the Pope's Award, which she piesently described as a disputed "donation of the Bishop of Rome." "Prescrip- . tion," she asserted in 1580, "without possession availeth nothing.". In words that anticipate the dawning problem of aerial navigation she argued that "the use of the sea and air is common to all . . . as neither nature nor public use and custom permilteth any possession thereof." Some eight, years later the defeat of the Spanish Armada shattered the attempt to restrict the freedom of the seas. British sea-power opened the high seas to the world, and, notwithstanding the cft'orts directed against Britannia from time to time,' no sustained interference with the world's shipping has occurred until the advent of the German submarine. In 1612 or thereabouts Bacon wrote: "Surely at this Day ... the Vantage of Strength at Sea (which is one of the Principall Dowries of this Kingdome of Great Brittaine) is. Great." Let the nation's leaders now look to it that they maintain this, "vantage" and preserve intact-our priceless dowry.— From the "Daily Mail."