The Waikato Times. With which la Incorporated The Waikato Argus. WEDNESDAY, MAY 8, 1929. BRITAIN AND AMERICA.

Waikato Times, Volume 105, Issue 17705, 8 May 1929, Page 6

The Waikato Times. With which la Incorporated The Waikato Argus. WEDNESDAY, MAY 8, 1929. BRITAIN AND AMERICA.

All Englishmen who are trying to modify or end the clash of purpose between Great Britain and the United States will be grateful to Mr John W. Davis, a former Ambassador in London, for an article which he has contributed to the American Foreign Affairs. A more balanced, more Lolerant, Or more lucid article it would be difficult to conceive. Sea custom and sea law aro presented in terms which any intelligence can understand, and Mr Davis makes constructive proposals which seem a good starting point for discussion. Mr Davis says in effect that the Three-Power Naval Conference at Geneva was doomed from the outset because there had been no preparation, but apart from the lack of preparation the chief weakness of the Conference was that strategy dominated it. “Emphasis on strategy always deflects policy. It is policy which ought first to bo determined so that in the end it may control strategy.” It is ridiculous to blame naval experts for Insisting on wide margins of safety; that is their business. The real solution is to make strategy amenable to policy, and to be sure of policy first. From the Three-Power Conference Mr Davis passes to the practices and socalled laws of the sea. Senator Borah lightly proposed that there should be a recodification of the rules governing belligerents and neutrals in war, on the basis of the inviolability of private properly; hut as Mr Davis points out, there is “no such' accepted law” about the inviolability of private property as Mr Borah assumes. The real position, as Mr Davis sees it, is this: The British Admiralty says that as an island Great Britain regards domination of the sea in time of war as essential to her existence- Mr Davis admits that she is justified in pointing out that she has ensured Freedom of the Seas for everybody in peace, and further that when she dominated the seas in war she did so in the cause of liberty—as

in the wars against Spain and France, and yet again in the Great War. The British doctrine has never, of course, been willingly accepted by other Powers; but every naval Slate has tried in war to exercise such powers of search and capture as were within its capacity- Thus, although the United Stales fought Great Britain in 1812 in the name of neutral rights, the boot was on the oilier leg during the American civil war. In that war the Fedcrals discovered that the old-fashioned rules of blockade were not elastic enough for their purpose, and in trying to force Great Britain to recognise their blockades they invented the doctrine of ‘‘Continuous Voyage." This doctrine was useful to Great Britain in the last war, and it may be added that the blockade against Germany was never screwed lip to its full rigour until America came into the war and insisted on doing it. It will be seen that there has been rather a conflict of capacity than a conflict of law. As regards Great Britain's traditional claims, Mr Davis says that Jefferson s protest holds good. Jefferson declared that when two nations were at war neutrals ought to be free to carry on their commerce as though the war did not exist, with the exceptions that neither of the parlies at war should be furnished with munitions, and that the blockades of particular ports should be respected. That was said, of course, long before such things as long-distance blockades were dreamed of or anybody foresaw that goods of every kind and description —not merely munitions —would help a nation to prolong a war. Discussion of what is loosely called Freedom of the Seas has become the most hopeful line of advance towards naval limitation, if only because it is generally doubted now whether a formula of “parity" is attainable, the needs of Great Britain and America, in regard to the classes of ships required, being quite different. And it is not a fact that thinking Americans want Freedom of the Seas in an unreasonable sense. Every American seaman would tell you that he takes into account the strong possibility of America herself having some day to declare a blockade in her own hemisphere. It is significant that in 1907, at the Hague, the Americans refused the British offer to abandon the principle of contraband. In these circumstances Mr Davis takes as the foundation of his suggestions the Kellogg Pact. It is inconceivable, he says, that if a country regards the Pact seriously it should wish to supply necessaries to any country which had demonstrably broken the Pact. That principle only needs to be stated to be universally received. But a difficulty arises—who is to determine wnen the Pact has been broken? Mr Davis proposes that Great Britain and America should in such circumstances hold a conference to decide the point. That is good so far as it goes, but it docs not cover the whole Acid- Mr Davis points out that Great Britain, for instance, might be forced into “an oldfashioned private war” by an aggressor who could not actually be convicted of having broken the Pact- He considers that in such a case Great Britain ought to forgo the right of blockade That may seem a hard saying, but Mr Davis reflects that Great Britain would And compensation in the freedom of ail the neutrals in the world to trade with her. When one comes to think of it, the saying is not so very hard after all. It is notorious that even under the present rules ability to enforce a blockade is conditioned by the strength and the complaisance of neutrals. Britain might be little hampered by having her limits of action Axed in advance, and being saved the usual neutral ill-will.