The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1917-07-13

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freedom of the seas.
This effort was born of our vital
need. For although it was possible
for the Republic to keep aloof from
the nineteenth century disputes that
rent the Continent of Europe, we
could not be indifferent to the way
in which war was conducted at sea.
In those early years of our national
life, when we were still but a few
communities ranged along the At
lantic coast, we were a seafaring peo-
pie. At time when our frontiers
men had not yet reached the Mis-
sissippi, the fame Of our daring clip
per ships had spread to all the Seven
Seas. So while we could watch the
triumphant march and the tragic
countermarch of Napoleon's grand
army with detached indifference, his
Continental Blockade and the British
Orders in Council at once affected
the lives Of our citizens intimately
anu ulSdSITOuSly.
So it was in the case of the Bar
barry pirates. We had no interest in
the land quarrels and civil wars of
the Barbary States, but we fought
them for obstructing the freedom of
the seas.
And in the decades ever since, al
though the imagination of our peo-
pie has been engrossed in the i'm
mense labor of winning the West,
our Department of State has never
lost sight of the compelling interest
that we have upon the seas, and has
constantly striven to gain the assent
of all nations to a maritime code
which should be framed and enforced
by joint responsibility. Various
watchwords have arisen in this long
controversy. We have urged the
inviolability of private property at
sea, we have asked for 3 liberal free
list and narrow definition of con-
traband. But our main insistence has
not been on any such details. One
salient idea has guided our diplo-
macy. The law of the sea must
be founded not on might but on
right and common accord, upon a
code binding all alike, which can not
be changed or set aside by the will
of any one nation. Our ideal has
been not weakening but strength
ening of legal restraint by the free
will 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 franz
ing sea laws. The just COVER
nance of the seas must rest on the
consent of the governed.
No other question of international
policy has found the great powers
more divided. But in our insistence
on this fundamental principle, we
have been strengthened by the sup-
port of many other countries. At
times we have had the support of
Great Britain. No one of our Sec
retaries of State has more clearly de-
fined our ideal than has Viscount
Grey, recently British Secretary of
State for Foreign Affairs. None
of our statesmen has ever gone so
far as he is advocating limitation
of the rights of belligerents on the
sea. 1t was on his initiative that
the international naval conference
was summoned to London in 1909,
and it was under his guidance that
the eminent international lawyers
and diplomats and sdmirals who
gathered there drew up the Decls-
ration of London.
While there were in that Decla-
ration sections that did not quite
meet our approval and that we should
have liked to amend, the document
was from our point of view a tre-
mendous step in advance. For al
though, like any effort to concisely
the broad principles of
equity, it did not wholly succeed in
its purpose, it was at least an hon
est attempt to arrive at an agree
ment on a complete international
code of sea law, based upon mutual
consent and not to be altered by
any belligerent in the heat of the
conflict
But the Declaration of London was
not ratified by the British Parlia-
ment, for the point of view pre-
vailing then in England was that
q power dependent almost wholly
upon its navy for protection could
not safely accept further limitations
upon action at sea unless there were
limitations on land