“Getting Right” with America

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 52, 24 November 1928, Page 17

“Getting Right” with America

H T T requires but little familiarly with the past history of the United I States to realise that the suspicion with which Britain’s naval I proposals are regarded has its roots in a determination to maintain unimpaired the traditional American theory of neutral rights,” says the Glasgow Herald. “When she was a second-rate naval Power America fought tenaciously to assert the widest possible interpretation of a neutral’s trading privileges. It was always Britain, as the greatest sea Power of the day, with whom she came into conflict. And now that she has not merely been formally admitted to a position of naval parity with Britain but feels confident that in emergency she commands resources whereby she could outmatch Britain in building, she is less and less disposed to accept any restriction on her view that the seas should be entirely free to her shipping in time of war. - “The support which public opinion within the United States gives to the naval expert’s claim to complete parity with Britain is not based to any extent on a belief that war between the two countries is a likely contingency, but .on an insistency that, should Britain eve? be implicated

in a war with another Power, America must be in a position to secure that her trade shall proceed free from search or interference. “The underlying assumption, of course, is that Britain will maintain the theory of sea-power and the doctrine of the right of blockade which have been her peculiar possession for so long. But will she? Only if she considers them essential to her safety. It has always been the accepted belief that they are. “But the events of the war years, particularly the employment of the submarine, have created doubts and have led to the growth of a feeling that the whole implications of maritime warfare should be examined afresli, and the traditional attitude only maintained if it can be clearly justified. In this examination is surely to be found a promising method of approach to the Anglo-American problem. “We ought to ask ourselves whether the traditional view, potent source of conflict with America as it obviously is, must be maintained in its entirety. And if the answer is in the negative, then the way is. opened up for the commencement with the United States of informal discussions designed to place the laws of neutrality on a basis compatible with the conditions of to-day, and so remove from Anglo-American relations the one chronic and