LAND 6? WATER 
December 5, 1918 
in so far as treaty making is concerned, is lessened. When 
the fourteen paints were announced, the President's party 
had a warking majority in the Senate. To-day that majority 
is gone. And as the Senate is, with the President, the treaty- 
making organ of tlie United States Government, the import- 
ance of this change is eiormous. It is for this reason that great 
pressure has been brought to bear upon Mr. Wilson, both 
tj coasult with Mr. Lodge — the Republican leader of the 
Senate— and his colleagues beforedetailing his views in Europe, 
and to assaciate some of these gentlemen with himself in 
his mission. Up to the time when these lines are written, 
however, Mr. Wilson has given no indication that leads one 
to S'jppjse that he intends either to show his hand before 
le wing America, or to bring with him representatives of those 
wh") ultimately mast share the responsibility for the peace 
treaty. 
In the meantime, controversy on the " League of Nations," 
the "freedom of the saas," and disarmament, goes forward 
vigorously. The election having gone against the President, 
it is natural that these distinctive features of his policy 
should be attacked, for it was on these that he seems to have 
, mada the election turn. But we should be deceiving our- 
selves if we supposed, because these matters are in debate, 
that we can ignore the very deep and very widespread feeling 
on then whicli Mr. Wilson will express. And, above every- 
thiag, we muit recollect that it is to the last degree impro- 
b.ible that ev^cn a Republican Senate \v3uld throw Mr. Wilson 
over if, after maturely weighing all the indications now coming 
tJ hiti of Amarican public opinion, he puts forward a pro- 
gramme, and the Allied governments accept it. 
Mr. Wilson's Policy 
There has been no indication of the President's views since 
Januiry last. After making the address to Congress, in 
which the fourteen points were first given out, he on January 
2 2nd addressed the Senate. On this occasion he expounded 
his views about- naval armaments at greater length. Let -us 
begin with the first speech. It is the second of the fourteen 
poin s with which we are concerned. It runs'as foUows : 
Absolute freedom o' navigation upon the seas outside 
territorial waters alike in peace and in war, except as the 
seas may be closed in whole or in part by international 
action for the enforcemsnt of international covenants. 
To understand the meaning of this we must, it seems to 
me, take it as referring to a state of things created by the 
settlement to which the whole document refers. This settle- 
ment is to follow after open covenants of peace have been 
arrived at ; w'.ien there are no private international under- 
standings ; whea economic barriers have, as far as possible, 
bcei removed ; when armaments have been reduced to the 
lowest point "consistent with domestic safety" ; and when 
an association of nations offering guarantees of political and 
territorial independence for all States shall have been formed. 
And, as a preliminary to any of these things, the territorial 
problems raised by the war are to be settled on principles of 
justice and nationality, and all colonial claims adequately 
and impartially adjusted. Clause 2, then, with which we 
are concerned, applies to a state of things when the peace 
of the world i; established by the Congress and henceforth 
is virtually in the keeping of a League of Nations. 
In these circumstances, Mr. Wilson seems to propose two 
drastic changes in the international sea law as it is practised 
to-day. Where a war is declared or sanctioned by the league, 
the seas may be closed altogether against any neutral trader 
who wishes to bring supplies to the recalcitrant belligerent. 
Should, however, the war not be countenanced by the league, 
then neither belligerent is to interfere with the neutral traffic 
to the other. In the first case, the interference with the 
neutral is not to be limited by any of the present rules that 
exist in his favour. There is to be no distinction between 
blockade and other measures ; none between contraband 
and other eiemy property. The neutral trader's activities 
are to bs stopped absolutely and altogether. Clause 2, 
therefore, instead of weakening the law of the sea, strengthens 
it to an extent which no one outside of Great Britain has 
ever dared to propose for the last 200 years. But, of course, 
it strengthens it only where the war is sanctioned by the 
League of Nations. Where the war is not sanctioned, sea 
war — ap.art from battle or invasion — ^is forbidden altogether. 
It is the existence of the league which is the governing condi- 
tion, first, for the creation of a new licence for the (sanctioned) 
belligerent ruthlessly to oppress his enemy, and, secondly, 
for an absolutely complete licence to the neutral to trade, 
where the war is not so sanctioned. These are great changes 
from the present law, as will be apparent when we come to 
consider what that law is. For the moment, I content 
myself with drawing attention to the fact that Mr. Wilson 
perfectly realises that, where a war is legitimate, all neutral 
traffic with an enemy can rightly be stopped. 
It seems to me that no objection can be raised to this point 
at all, if we assume that the world can agree to leave the 
decision, as to when war is justified and when not, to the 
judgment of the associated countries. If, that is to say, we 
can imagine a state of affairs when each country will cease ' 
to be primarily concerned with its own defence, and the protec- 
tion of its own exterior interests ; when the exaction of 
justice, where subjects are injured abroad, and the enforce- 
ment of treaty obligations are to pass out of the hands of 
the injured nation and into t^e hands of a tribunal made up 
of all nations— then, clearly, no one nation's interest can be 
hurt by such a rule as this because those interests will 
ex hypothesi be safe. 
But if we pass on from the speech of January 8th to the 
speech of January 22nd, we find Mr. Wilson dealing with 
the problem of sea war, quite apart from any League of 
Nations. 
It would appear, then, from this speech that, whether 
a League of Nations is formed or not, it would still 
be his policy, if possible, to get the Allies to accept a new 
code of sea law. The Senate speech first of all advocated 
that every great people should have a free and direct outlet 
to the sea guaranteed to them, either by the cession of terri- 
tory, or by the' neutralisation of direct rights of way. " The 
paths of the sea alike in law and in fact should be made free," 
because such freedom is the " sine qua non of peace, equality, 
and co-operation." On this subject, no man in the world 
can speak with greater authority. We in this country, 
at least, should never forget the extraordinary service that 
we owe Mr. Wilson. When he was candidate for the Presi- 
dency in 1911, he was party to an election programme which 
to some extent excluded non-American shipping from the 
Panama Canal, and, if I remember right, subjected all such 
shipping to a differential rate of tolls. After he had become 
President he convinced himself that these provisions were 
inconsistent with America's treaty obligations to Great 
Britain, and, in the face of real hostile opposition from his 
own supporters, forced Congress to repeal the provision he 
was personally pledged to maintain. Few more signal acts 
of political courage are recorded of any statesman, living or 
dead ; and in urging the freedom of the sea in times of peace, 
both in law and fact, he is now certainly on the strong ground 
he has made his own. 
But when he passed on to the problems created bj' the great 
naval armaments and international regulations for their 
use, the President was on more debateable ground. He sug- 
gested that internatiortal practice and international sea law 
should be " radically reconsidered," so as to make the seas 
"practically free in all circumstances." For there could be 
no trust and intimacy between the peoples .of the world 
without such changes, because the " free, unthreatened 
intercourse of nations is an essential part of the process of 
peace and development." The problem was intimately 
connected with the reduction of armaments because there 
could be no sense of safety and equality, " if great and pre- 
ponderant armaments are to continue henceforth, here and 
there, to be built up and maintained. " He seems to say : 
"If preponderating armaments exist, then they threaten 
war. If there is war, the free use of the sea is threatened. 
Let us try, therefore, to get a reduction of armaments, so 
that war could be less likely, and a change in the rules of 
war which would make war less burdensome, if, after all, 
it cannot be avoided. " 
That this is his line of thought appears more clearly when 
he points out how great are the concessions which Great 
Britain, the predominant sea-power, has already made from 
the rights she formerly upheld. "She has abandoned," 
he told the Seriate, " non-belligerent rights of visits of search ; 
has sacrificed the old doctrine of indelible allegiance, which 
supported her earlier policy of impressment, has accepted the 
principle of free ships, free goods, and has placed her com- 
mercial policy on a free trade basis. She claims for the most 
part no special advantage in the ports of her Colonies. Again, 
it was she who issued invitations for the naval conference 
of London, 1908-09, her delegates to which pursued a course 
which forbids the idea that she then designed an offensive 
use of her sea-power. , 
" During the present war Great Britain has widely extended 
her belligerent rights of blockade, but this was in retaliation 
for Germany's inhuman uSe of the submarine. In general, 
Britain's position can be stated this way. Being set near 
thfe continent, she cannot afford to regard the problem of 
sea-power as separable from the problem of land-power. 
To decrease the striking power of her navy, without there 
being a corresponding limitation of the huge standing armies 
of the continent, would be morally to surrender the continental 
