The Morgan City daily review. (Morgan City, La.) 1916-1920, 1917-08-10
HOW THE WAR CAME TO AMER
ICA.
CONTINUED from page II

W S1ipPSA ASAA cPANoa w GA -
Seven Seas. So while we could watcl
the triumphant march and the tragi
counter-march Of Napoleon's gran'
army with detached indifference
his Continental Blockade and tn
British Orders in Council at once at
fected the lives Of our citizens in
timately and disastrously.
So it was in the case of the Bar
barry pirates. We had no interest il
the land quarrels and civil wars Of
the Barbary States, but we tough
them for obstructing the freedom Of
the seas.
And in the decades ever since, al
though the imagination Of our PEG.
pie has been engrossed in the i'm.
mense labor Of winning the West
our Department of State has neve,
lost sight Of the compelling interest
that we have upon the seas, and has
constantly striven to gain the assent
Of all nations to maritime code
which should be framed and enfor-
ced by a joint responsibility. Various
watchwords have arisen in this long
controversy. We have urged the in
volatility Of private property at sea
we have asked for a liberal
free list and a narrow definition of
contraband. One salient idea has
guided our diplomacy. The law of
the sea must be founded not on
might but on right and be changed
or set aside by the will of any one
nation. Our ideal has been not a
weakening but a strengthening Of
legal restraint by the free and
agreement Of all. We have asked
nothing for ourselves that we do not
ask for the whole world. The seas
will never be free, in our American
meaning, until all who sail thereon
have had voice in framing sea
laws. The just governance of the
seas must rest on the consent of the
governed.
No other question of international
polity has found the great powers
more divided. But in our insistence
On this fundamental principle, we
nave been strengthened by the sup
port of many other countries At
lines we have had the support of
Great Britain. No one of our Secre-
aries Of State has more clearly de-
lined our ideal than has Viscount
Grey, recently British Secretary Of
State for Foreign Affairs. None Of |
'ur statesmen has ever gone sofar |
Is he in advocating limitation of the |
'igh.s of belligerents Of the sea. 1t |
vas on his initiative that the inter-
naval conference was sum-
noned to London in 1909, and it
vas under his guidance that the
eminent international lawyers and
diplomats and admirals who gather
d there drew up the Declaration of
london.
While there were in the Declara-
ion sections that did not quite meet
ur approval and that we should
ave liked to amend, the document
vas from our point of view a ire
step in advance. For al
hough, like any efforts to concise
7 formulate the broad principles of
guilty, it did not wholly succeed in
8 purpose, it was at least an honest
tempt to arrive at an agreement
n a complete international code of
ca law, based upon mutual consent
nd not to be altered by any belli-
erent in the heat of the conflict.
But the Declaration of London
'as not ratified by the British Par
ament, for the point of view pre-
ailing then in England was that a
over dependent almost wholly up
Its navy for protection could not
afely accept further limitation sup
n action at sea unless there were
ompensating limitations on land
overs. And this latter concession
ermany consistently refused to
AXE. The conference there Gore /
anne to naught. And the London
eclarat;on having been rejected by
re stc1ng.s: maritime power, its in .
orsement was postponed by all 9TH I
: countries involved. Our mo- ]