December 5, 1918 
LAND feP WATER 
The Freedom of the Seas: By Arthur Pollen 
No phrase has given rise to more discussion, on both sides of the Atlantic, than 
"The Freedom of the Seas." It is, clearly, a subject of vital interest to Great 
Britain, and will be one of the most important questions for deUberation and 
settlement at the Peace Conference. In this- — the first of two articles — Mr. 
Pollen analyses the divergence between the American and the British point of view. 
TWO days before these pages are in the readers' 
liands, the President of the United States will be 
on the high seas, the chief of America's peace 
delegates to Europe. No American has ever left 
the shores, first won from the barbarian and the 
wilderness by British settlers three centuries ago, on any so 
great a mission. No visitor to Europe has ever been assured 
of so great a welcome. His coming is the crown of the Great 
Alliance which has secured the freedom of the world against 
the most powerful and the best calculated attack it has ever 
sustained. France, Great Britain, Russia, Italy, Belgium, 
Serbia, and Montenegro, have sacrificed wealth, treasure, and 
life beyond calculation or belief to win this victory. And 
victory could not have come as it did and how it did, had not 
the United States joined them when Russia, worn out and 
shattered imder the strain of war, fell away from the cause. 
The Allies are indebted to America for two enormous 
services. In the summer of 1917 the authoritative character 
of American naval advice succeeded, where all other advice 
had failed, in persuading the British Admiralty to adopt the 
principle of convoy. It was this that saved the sea com- 
munications of the Allies. Exactly a year later the newly 
raised American armies, pouring into France at the rate of 
50,000 men a week, were a determining factor in converting 
the repulse of Germany's last onslaught into the overwhelming 
defeat that we have seen. And it need not be said that 
but for the sea communications saved the year before, the 
American Army could not have taken its place in France. 
It is as well to remind ourselves of the Allies' sea debt to 
America, because the President's coming is supposed, to 
portend an important discussion of the principles on which 
sea-power should be used. If we are to get this discussion 
into its right relation, we must start with a clear apprehension 
of the share sea-power has taken in this last four years of 
ferocious fighting, rapine, enslavement, and martyrdom. 
Now, looking back on this vista of bloody sacrifice, certain 
truths stand out as incontestable. It cannot, for instance, 
be questioned that, but for the absolutely irrational heroism 
of Belgium, the German invasion of France would have been 
ante-dated by at least ten days. The self-sacrifice of^this, 
the least warlike of the nations, made it possible for France 
to get her army together, for the first small English force 
to join it. The struggle that lasted from August 20th until 
September 14th was the first decisive action of the war. 
The German plan was ruined. And the heroism of Belgium 
ruined it. Then followed six weeks of an attempt to retrieve 
what had been lost — when the heroism of the British soldiery 
saved the day. From then on it was clear that our force in 
France could hold, and if the losses in coal and engineering 
resources which the invasion had caused that country could 
be made good ; if the man-power of Great Britain could be 
trained, organised and armed ; if Russia could be adequately 
supported, that ultimate military preponderance would be 
on the Allied side. The realisation of these hopes depended 
entirely upon sea-power. 
Broadly speaking, the anticipations based upon what sea- 
power could do have been realised. It is therefore an incon- 
trovertible truth that if the German threat to freedom has 
been thwarted, that the first acknowledgment of the world's 
debt should be made to the British Fleet. But we can go 
further. For four years and three months the ships of 
Great Britain have looked for the enemy, to fight him when 
he was found, and have chased the enemy's merchant ships 
off the sea. And to the measure to whfch their Government 
has permitted it, they have prevented neutral ships frcm 
bringing him comfort and supplies. In all this period there 
is not recorded against the British Navy a single act of doubt- 
ful humanity or doubtful chivalry. The noble tradition 
maintained for centuries — that no unarmed ship should be 
assaulted ; no civilian, whether belligerent or neutral, 
wounded, imperilled, or even unnecessarily inconvenienced ; 
no neutral, or even enemy, property seized and made prfze 
without due form of law ; in all this the British Navy has 
been true to its history. And, lastly, I take it that there 
can be no question that, had the Navy frcm the very begin- 
ning been unhampered by the reistrictions voluntarily put 
upon its activities by the unratified Declaration of London, 
had neutral traders not been permitted to supply the enemy 
with things essential to war — and in vast quantities- — that 
the end of the war would have come much sooner. 
I repeat, then, that there are three truths about the war 
which are incontrovertible. 
First ; without sea-power array edagainst them, the Germans 
must have won, and won decisively in very few months. 
Secondly : The sea-power, which has brought victory, 
has been exercised without a single act of inhvimanity cr a 
single exercise of force of a harsh, illegal or oppressive kind. 
Thirdly : Had sea-power been free to exert its full pressure 
from the first, the enemy would have been exhausted and 
incapable of further effort many, many months ago. 
Now, if these statements are correct, if the world can now 
look forward to a long period cf peace with the chimera of 
military autocracy definitely erded, it is surely a most extra- 
ordinary paradox of that peace that there should be, so far 
as is known, but one subject of acute controversy between 
the victorious Allies, and that subject the question of naval 
armaments and the regulation of their use in war ! It is a 
matter of great mcment to us to realise exactly what the 
issues are and how they have arisen. 
Early in last January, the President of the United States 
appeared before Congress and set before the world the 
principles that, in his opinion, should goyern the peace 
settlement. The Germans accepted these principles in 
October last and, with one exception, and with one addition, 
the Allies accepted them later. They excepted the clause 
dealing with what is called " the Freedom of the Seas" ; they 
extended the principle of reparation — already stipulated as to 
the damage done in the invaded and occupied territories- — 
to all damage of a civilian nature occasioned by Germany's 
unprovoked aggression. Shortly after the signature of the 
armistice it became known that the President intended comirg 
to Europe, and some of those reputed to be in his confidence 
informed the world, that a chief motive for this departure — 
a thing without precedent in American history — was his 
desire personally to advocate his views on the very point 
to which the Allied statesmen had demurred. This naturally 
drew public attention, first to the fact that the disagreement 
between the President ar.d at least seme of the Allies was 
an acute difference ; and next, that the President himself 
attached exceptional importance to carrying his views into 
action. 
Before trying to elucidate what these views are, I must 
draw attention to certain significant features of the situation. 
Less than a month ago the American people elected a new 
House of Representatives and replaced ore-third of the 
members of the Senate. The election did not create origin- 
ally a very great deal of interest, nor was it being fought 
on any sharply defined party lines, until the President midt 
' an appeal to the country to strengthen his hands by votifi^ 
democratic, so that a peace in conformity with his ideals 
could be urged on Europe with the endorsement of the 
American people behind it. The President's intervention 
was unusual. Ordinarily the Chief Executive takes no share 
in elections held in the middle of his term of office. The 
intervention of Mr. Wilstn has inevitable results. The 
issue at once became a personal one — because the President 
had made it so. If the ccuntiy responded to his appeal, 
it would be adopting the policy he has made his own. li 
it declined its support, whatever other authority there policies 
might have, they would lack the endorsement of the American; 
electorate. In the event the Republicans won. The " four- 
teen points" accepted with certain qualificaticnsby the Allies. 
and by the Central Powers have not been accepted by the 
American people. 
That the President's personal weight in America — and 
infcrentially in Europe^ — must therefore be less than it was 
has been stoutly maintained by his political opponents. 
There is better ground for saying that his executive autlrrily, 
in so far as treaty making is concerned, is lessened. When 
the fourteen points were announced, the President's paity 
had a working majority in the Senate. To-day that majority 
is gone. And as the Senate is, with the President, the treaty- 
