Poverty Bay Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, TUESDAY, MAY 22, 1928. THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 16651, 22 May 1928, Page 6

Poverty Bay Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, TUESDAY, MAY 22, 1928. THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS

Colonel House, tho American Warwick, friend, counsellor, unci almost the. creator of Woodrow Wilson as President, lias contributed an article to the Contemporary, advocating the freedom of .the seas as a true and direct way to international naval 1 disarmament. That it would also be a step towards more- peaceful conditions between nations, lie, probably, has also in mind, lie says that '' with the freedom of the seas guaranteed by covenant between nations, there would bo no incentive for the United States, France. Germany, or Russia, or other Powers, to maintain navies larger than sufficient for police purposes." If freedom of the sens were possible, by treaty of mutual covenant, it would do away with the international law of blockade as firmly established in American and British Prize Courts. In the early years of the war with Germany, and before America had joined the allies, the application of the law of blockade io American merchant ships caused ill-feeling. The .Spectator says that, "the uninstructed mass of Americans remember ..that their overseas trade was controlled and they • resent that recollection." The .same journal, dealing with naval disarmament in a late number, adds this comment: "There is a great need of comprehension between us in what is called in America 'the freedom of the seas.' We •,have more than once hinted for the need of coming to an understanding about it, because we believe that Americans have been persuaded that the Allies in the war got advantages to which they had no right over the United States Government before May. 1917." The temptation Colonel House offers to the British Empire is that Great Britain through "the freedom of the seas" would have her Dominion overseas trade assured under all conditions, and that submarines would have, to confine their activities to battleships. The question remains—it is a pcrtinant one—are the covenants of a treaty as good a security for the contracting Powers as an efficient naval force 1 ? Colonel House does not evade this question. He cannot forget the violation of the covenants of treaty by Germany in its raid at the outset of the war upon Belgium. Ho meets this rather by suggestion than direct answer. Wrongdoing, he suggests, always brings down punishment upon the wrongdoer. In the case of the .war he says "the consensus of opinion is that had German not violated Belgian territory probably she would have won the war, since Great Britain, at least, would not have entered the lists in time to check her." The proposal is open to a serious objection that it gives a rogue nation greater opportunity to carry through with success its evil deeds. Such a one cannot, be starved into right doing. The value of the present law, as a weapon against, an aggressor nation, was foreseen in the framing of the covenant which is basic to the League of Nations' Article 18. Colonel House points ".this out himself as an objection, but meets it.by the fact that America is not within the League of Nations, whereas /the large part the President took in the initiation of the League created an assumption Unit America would be one of the subscribing parties. The Colonel says: "We must fake the situation as it is, not as we would like to have if. With the United States outside the League, it is essential that another way be found to avoid a prolific source of war—hence a revision of the laws relating to the seas is imperative if peace between the groat maritime Powers is to be assured:" "Pertinax," a brilliant French journalist, has contributed to 'the Spectator a friendly forecast, as to the resiliency of the British Empire. He points out that pessimistic, forecasts, in the past, of foreigners, as 1o the continuance, as a first-class Power, of Great Britain, and how entirely erroneous these forecasts have proved to have been, Foreigners have rather made it a fashion to •sneer at the placidity of John Bull, but somehow or other/by luck, by sheer tenacity, or by a kindly Providence who cares for. those who endedvor to do the right. Great Britain has always come through apparently overwhelming difficulties, i gained strength, and accumulated possessions. "Pertinax" remarks upon.

the ; pessimism of Great >Britain's foreign critics and gives his own acc.ounc as to the cause of the failure of their jeremiads. "What may be the explanation of that tenacious pessimism? To some degree hostile feelings may account, for it. • However, it seems to be rooted deep in the fact that throughout the various phases of its development, the political and economic organism on the other side of the Channel has been confronted with new situations which called for a quick process of adaptation, for a racial shifting and reshaping of all received notions. Judging from what the Continental States would have clone in analogous circumstances, the political observers of Europe failed to allow ample enough margin for the natural aptitude to change ami recuperation possessed by their insular neighbors." "Pertinax" is severe upon the Dominions as hampering rather than strengthening the Empire by narrow views held at present. They desire to hold the earth and not occupy it. Australia, he says, has managed to "build up a proletariat while having no population commensurate to its agricultural resources." The Dominions are "building a check to a more rational distribution of British man-power all over the Empire." But still he is hopeful of us. In due. time we shall come to a better mind. "Can it be imagined that even in the Dominions, during the next quarter of a century, public opinion will remain what it is to-day»" There is some truth in this. The people of the Dominions are jealous as to those, .who offer to come to settle among them. The overflow of Great Britain consists, for the most part, of men and women, extruded from specialised industries, who, as adults, are, not fitted for the ordinary conditions of overseas life. It is only of quite recent years that the attitude of the Dominion peoples has been understood, and Great Britain has begun to study how to fit her emigrants, so as to suit them to conditions they will have to face. There is another side to the picture. Great Britain has an immense mercantile fleet, consisting of over 4.000 ocean-going vesels, and employing officers and men, to the number of 250,000. In addition there are 20,000 fishing boats manned by (55,000 fishermen. Freedom of the" seas, if effective, would protect the lives of these men against the perils of war, from which they suffered so grievously (1914-1918). Such men arc worth saving. No nation has their equals. Freedom of the seas, guaranteed by America, Japan, Great Britain, France and Italy in a kind of Locarno pact, should lie effective. Which would bo the greater risk —the risk of a rogue nation creating a navy secretly, and breaking its pledges, or the risk of another great Avar, when nations, ouco again, are arming behind smug faces and half hearted .protestations that they are, doing nothing of the kind? British sailors can be submitted to no experiment. Freedom of the seas must get beyond experiment before the Dominions could agree to its adoption. Great Britain, with much more cause, could take no risk. The 'King's'son, and heir to the throne, has accepted a great position—the head of the Mercantile Marine, as an honor not an obligation. But, and upon this the whole question will turn, would the British mercantile marine be safe if there were no British ileet and they were dependent upon ants and pacts? The ultimate solution which is to neutralise any prospect of international annihilation through war, is to be found in the future in some international recognition of the sancity of life, and the supremacy of the force of truth and moral principle over guns and submarines.