THE MEANING OF FREE SEAS

Evening Star, Issue 16626, 8 January 1918, Page 8

THE MEANING OF FREE SEAS

Herr Naumann turns to “the freedom of tho seas ” as th,e key to the “ economic international law ” which Germany requires. He says Pacifists and naval- ' ists will agree that there can no longer be any serious talk of a free sea in time of war between world Powers. But that moans that the demand for the freedom of the seas has only the limited meaning that m time of peace every shipowner can enter every port and there unload, and load goods.” Herr Naumann thinks that the general concession of this right will easily be admitted as soon as there is any real desire on all hands for peace. But he is afraid that auch a general admission of right might not be sufficient for the hated Germans, " now that ail the world is filled 'with thoughts of boycott.” He has visions of German ships arriving in Entente harbors armed with the decisions of the Peace Congress, only' to find an anti-German syndicate monopolises all the cranes. As "he plaintively remarks, “it cannot be required that the German seafarer shall he welcomed as a friend, hut he must be able to live in an hotel.” Consequently, “the spirit of the Paris Economic Conference must ho officially broken through, and one must construct rights for aliens, in case 1 free world-citizenship is denied.”