710 T. C. CHAMBERLIN 
Omninational Confederation, if you please, in which all peoples who 
engage in international exchange in any appreciable way shall be 
represented in proportion to their participation. Some details of 
the mode of organization will be discussed later. 
2. While the high seas are thus recognized as common com- 
mercial highways, there are certain straits and lesser waterways of 
other types that are not now equally open to unrestricted commerce. 
It is proposed that all these shall be opened to general commerce 
and that they shall be placed in the care of this Omninational 
Confederation, whose duty it shall be to see that this freedom of 
use by all the nations is maintained. The freedom of these straits 
is not, however, to displace those proper restrictions relative to 
coastal and internal waters that, by common consent, are regarded 
as essential to national safety and the interests of domestic com- 
merce. | 
3. A very special problem is the provision of outlets and inlets 
for peoples occupying lands in the heart of Europe and elsewhere 
completely surrounded by the lands of other peoples. Commercial 
highways for these peoples can therefore only be thoroughfares on 
land. In solution of this critical problem, it is proposed that there 
shall be provided under the authority of the proposed Confedera- 
tion omninational rights of way on the land, on which shall be 
located railways, roadways, and other thoroughfares, so placed and 
so maintained as to constitute world-ways for intercourse between 
these peoples and the rest of the world. 
Pre-eminent domain.—As a basis for establishing and adminis- 
tering these common highways, it is proposed that the Omninational 
Confederation shall assume the right of pre-eminent domain on the 
ground of common welfare in precisely the same way that states, 
provinces, municipalities, and even townships now exercise the 
right of eminent domain. 
These world-ways as barriers against aggression.—The proposed 
world-owned land-lanes are to be so chosen as to constitute also 
barriers against aggression. As the property of the world at large, 
taken over for the common welfare under the principle of pre- 
eminent domain and placed in charge of the Omninational Con- 
federation, it will be within the province of this representative body 
