The Rangitikei Advocate. TWO EDITIONS DAILY. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 1919. FREEDOM OF THE SEAS

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XLV, Issue 11748, 7 February 1919, Page 4

The Rangitikei Advocate. TWO EDITIONS DAILY. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 1919. FREEDOM OF THE SEAS

RIGID definitions are, of course, much more difficult than loose phrases and catchwords. Vague propositions, and principles, which seem reasonable and alluring, gOmetimesonly need to be reduced to scientifically concrete form to*, become" ridiculous. That has been the fate of the bare formula of the “Freedom of the Se?s, ” upon which the Germans and President Wilson have been so insistent for the last two or three years. We have now been favoured with the American definition, and it turns out to be a mere puerility—one of the most incongruous and illogical conceptions that ever was revealed to a waiting world. It could hardly have been made more ridiculous if the intention of the framers lial been to briifg it into disrepute. It sets out with the preliaiinary provision that no nation shall possess a fleet so large as to ha able to control the seas. Now, nobody would be inclined to contest this interdiction if be could be securely guaranteed that there would never be any necessity for ocean control —that he would not be attacked and forced to defend his territory, and fa is liberty. But the American formula goes on to anticipate war between nations, and proceeds to lay down rules for the behaviour of belligerents npm the seas. But even the quoted de- : finition very badly needs defining, i

What does “control’’ of the seas mean? What, in the magnitude of its scope and the consummate nature of its sweep, would he considered to be “control?” And who is to be the arbiter as to whether a fleet has reached such dimensions as to control the seas and to enforce its reduction? Then again “control” may be on a graduated scale. Britain proved itself quite competent to prohibit the use of the great seas by the Germans, and, therefore, in a sense, which might be the American sense, iFwas control of the seas. The second and third conditions in the table of embargoes still farther indicate the irrational idealistic nature of the people who conceived them. They state that sea rules laid down in time of peace shall be unchanged while war is progressing,'and that every nation whether belligerent or neutral, shall be held to strict accountability by the League of Nations for the observance of sea rales in time of war. Bless their innocent souls, the rules that are laid down in times of peace are inevitably broken or ignored in time of war. It was one of the most solemn undertakings or international procedure that no merchant or passenger vessel was to he sunk by a belligerent without taking the most hum ine precautions for the safety of the civilians aboard It was ordained in fact that when captured a ship was to be taken to port as a prize. Germany was one of the nations represented at the Conference at which the most humane principles of naval usage were passed into international law and its representatves were the most piously benignant in their professions. But when the Germans found themselves unable to use the seas for commercial purposes, and were being gradually starved into submission, laws neither human or divine prevented them from taking the most ferocious methods possible to break the cold, inflexible ana implacable cordon that was hemming them in. Germany was the cornered rat and acted the part, and would do so again with just as much contempt for international law or the dictates of a civilised humanity as she has already done. There is always something of the beast lurking under the strata of humanity, laid down in the human psychology by thousands of years of improvement, and there are other peoples besides the Germans tor which we should not care to guarantee good behaviour under similar circumstances. Britain would never ha inhuman, but we do not believe there is a nation on the planet which would preserve its respect for international obligations if it found itself being inexorably vanquished and had a chance cf winning by breaking international regulations made in a time of peace.

It is amusing to see that every nation is to be held to strict accountability for not observing rules in tima of war. and that no neutral shall ship contraband to a belligerent. The whole fabric of carefullybuilt and precise naval laws would vanish in the smoke of the first shot. In fact the League of Nations is not worth a moment’s thought if its functions are to regularise war in the way of the Marquis of Queensbury’s rules for pugilism. If it is going to be of any nse to a warweary and disgusted world it must absolutely interdict war for all time—it must be put down with no less a cruelty than war itself. It must make cannon obsolete. If war is to be tolerated under any circumstances armies and fleets will tend to grow as before the war and good metal will be melted in thousands of the world’s workshops into all kinds of lethal weapons for mutual massacre.