To these apprehensions of the Germans, England may answer that in peace times German commerce is secure. But immunity in war as well as in peace is necessary. Therefore, the Germans do what other nations would do in like circumstances, take the matter into their own hands. They build a navy strong enough to make England hesitate to attack their merchant marine. It is an understandable attempt to protect what is an absolutely vital interest. But for Germany to build a navy capable of measuring arms with the British Navy is intolerable to Great Britain. It is useless for Germany to protest that she will not use her fleet aggressively. So long as she can use it aggressively, she is a menace to England's life. England must prevent Germany from building a navy equal in power, for if she is defeated at sea, her fate is sealed. Germany must be threatened on land by France and Russia or she will be able to devote her energies exclusively to her navy and thus out-build England. Given this situation, an Anglo-German war is inevitable.
Nor is the situation in the North Sea unique. Once this conflict of interest begins, it spreads everywhere. Germany may not have Morocco or Tripoli because with a foothold and a naval base on the Mediterranean, she could exert pressure there in order to change conditions elsewhere. Similarly the Pacific commerce of Russia is at the mercy of Japan; her Black Sea traffic at the mercy of Turkey, or whoever controls Turkey, her Baltic Sea traffic at the mercy of Germany, Denmark and England. No wonder Russia demands Constantinople, which will at least open the inner doors of the Black Sea. But if she gets Constantinople, she controls the whole Danube traffic of Austria, Hungary and Roumania, and she herself is menaced by British and French fleets at Malta, Gibraltar and Aden.
What is the probable, or at least possible, policy of Russia in such circumstances? Not immediately, not inopportunely, but in the right season? Clearly it is to build a navy which will secure her control of the Mediterranean and thus protect her outgoing trade from Odessa and Batum as well as her incoming trade. Although not pre-eminently a naval power, Russia must ultimately seek to accomplish what Germany tried to do—make it dangerous for England to menace her Mediterranean and Red Sea trade even in war times. But to secure naval supremacy in the Mediterranean means to threaten Egypt and India, thus breaking the neck of the British Empire. Given the present unfreedom of the sea, therefore, Great Britain's vital interests oppose those of Russia as they now oppose those of Germany.
This is the meaning of the historic British policy of the right of capture at sea, the right of blockade, the right to use naval power to work injury to the trade of hostile countries and to prevent colonial expansion. The policy is a menace to the British Empire and to the independence of Great Britain herself. It stimulates other nations to outbuild Great Britain. And in the end that is at least a possible contingency. If a generation or two from now Russia and Germany should unite, Russia attacking in the Mediterranean and aiding Germany in the North Sea, the British Empire would be put to a severe test. There might be no way of saving Egypt and India or Holland and Denmark and these outposts gone, Great Britain might be menaced and attacked at leisure. If her navies were defeated she would starve. The rules of naval warfare, which Britain has so long upheld, would be turned against her.
It is thus to Great Britain's real interest to surrender this doctrine. In the present war it has been of value, but only because Germany and Austria were surrounded by powerful enemies, and all adjacent neutral powers with sea bases were small enough to be intimidated. The blockade of a nation is to-day of little value unless adjacent nations can also be blockaded. The railroad unites all land nations. If France had been neutral in this war, Germany could not have been blockaded, for a British threat to blockade France would have thrown her into the arms of Germany. Even if Italy had remained neutral, an effective blockade might have forced Italy into the war on the side of the Teutonic powers. England is using a weapon which at the most means a serious loss to her enemies but which effectively turned against her would mean instant death.
There are certain powerful groups in England who are obstinately opposed to any revision of the sea law in favour of neutral and belligerent nations. They feel to-day, as Pitt felt in 1801, when the doctrine was advanced that a neutral flag might protect enemy's property. "Shall we," asked Pitt, "give up our maritime consequence and expose ourselves to scorn, to derision, and contempt? No man can deplore more than I do the loss of human blood—the calamities and distresses of war; but will you silently stand by and, acknowledging these monstrous and unheard-of principles of neutrality, insure your enemy against the effects of your hostility!... Whatever shape it assumes, it (this doctrine) is a violation of the rights of England, and imperiously calls upon Englishmen to resist it, even to the last shilling and the last drop of blood, rather than tamely submit to degrading consequences or weakly yield the rights of this country to shameful usurpation."[[1]] This doctrine, rather than accept which Pitt was willing that England should fight to the death, was quietly accepted by Great Britain in the Declaration of Paris (1856) and, half a century later (1909), the Declaration of London protected neutral rights even more strongly. But the spirit of Pitt is by no means dead. The Declaration of London failed of ratification in Parliament partly because of mere factional opposition and partly because of ancient pride in England's naval supremacy. It was held that Britain being the strongest naval power should uphold all naval rights and all necessary naval aggressions both against belligerents and neutrals.
The argument advanced in support of this position is that so long as the enemy disregards international law in land warfare Britain has the right to disregard the laws of sea war. If Germany violates Belgium's neutrality, why should England surrender her power to put the maximum pressure upon her unscrupulous enemy?
This argument, however, begs the whole question, whether it is to Britain's real advantage that the naval law go back to what it was in the days of Pitt and Napoleon instead of being progressively liberalised. Britain is not only the greatest naval but overwhelmingly the greatest maritime nation in the world. She has something to gain and everything to lose from a reaction towards the unregulated sea-warfare of 1801 (and 1916); she has much to gain and little to lose from the establishment of a true freedom of the sea.
So long as England persists in a reactionary naval policy she will be menaced by every nation which feels itself menaced by her, and by every future development of naval warfare. The harshness of the British attitude in this matter of naval warfare leads to such brutal reprisals as that of the German submarine campaign against merchantmen. That campaign was not without its influence in laming the commercial activity of Great Britain; had the war broken out ten years later, with Germany better equipped with submarines, the result might have been far more serious. A future submarine war carried on by France against England might be disastrous to the island kingdom. Even the German campaign, hampered as it was by the fewness and remoteness of the German naval bases, might easily have had a crippling effect upon British industrial life but for the pressure brought to bear upon Germany by the United States. In the long run England cannot have it both ways. She must either defend her commerce from submarines alone or else accept a revision of the naval law.
Fortunately there are men in Great Britain who accept this broader view. "One of the promises of victory," writes the Englishman, H. Sidebotham, "is that Great Britain will be able to review her whole naval policy in the light of the experience gained in the war. Sir Edward Grey has himself indicated that such a review may be appropriate in the negotiations for peace after victory has been won."[[2]]