cruisers as are necessary to prevent privateering. If that be done, the world as divided now would come to permanent peace." It will be asked, to what extent can real guarantees be given for a lasting realization of this "Open Door" and "Freedom of the Seas" program? They are conceivable. Nevertheless we do not deny that to safeguard the "Open Door" and "Freedom of the Seas" it will be essential that assurances be given backed by treaties.. A substantial part of the guarantee of the future peace is precisely to be sought in the further development of international law. . . and in a system of international treaties. 8 The draft Constitution of the League of Nations, drawn up and worked out in detail by the leader of the Centre Party, Herr Erzberger, contains some provisions for the internationalization of the high seas, as well as of international waterways: Members of the League are to recognize the principle of the freedom of the seas. Straits and canals and connecting seas, in so far as both banks are not in possession of the same Federal State, will be internationalized. Their fortifications will be retained and guarded by a commando consisting of contingents from all the Federal States, and commanded in turn every three years by a delegate of the neutralized States. The Federal States will proclaim the safety of private property on the high seas. Naval prize law and blockade law are to be abolished. Exercise of the right of blockade is reserved to the League, and only to the League as such, against any Federal State which violates the constitution of the League or which takes up arms against a Federal State. Ships of Federal States and their cargoes shall be given the same treatment by each Federal State as is given to that State's own vessels. Oversea cables are to be controlled by a committee of the League. The members of the League are to renounce the raising of troops in their colonial territories. All States and colonies situated in Africa are to be perpetually neutral States." In an interview, published in the Paris Matin, of February 2, 1919, Herr Erzberger is reported to have said: By freedom of the seas I mean the complete freedom of trade for 7 From a speech delivered on January 9, 1915, at the Republican Club, New York, by Herr Dernburg. 8 Excerpt from the Anti-annexationist petition of the New Fatherland League presented to the Imperial Chancellor and the members of the Reichstag early in June, 1915. 9 See Daily Review of the Foreign Press, September 24, 1916. all peoples upon all maritime routes, upon all straits as well as on the open sea. In times of war, by freedom of the seas I mean the abolition of the right of blockade and of the seizing of ships as well as of prize courts. And I connect with this freedom of the seas that of the air. It should be forbidden to all enemies to make aërial attacks, in such wise that the air, as well as the sea, will be reserved for the transport of things essential to life. In a recent speech to the German National Assembly at Weimar, on February 14, 1919, Count Brockdorff-Rantzau, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, is reported to have said: Freedom of trade, however, presupposes freedom of the seas, and that is why the point in the Wilsonian program, which speaks of the freedom of the seas, is one of the most important for Germany. In this respect it is of much less importance for us what the rules of naval warfare happen to be. We will not speak now of new wars, but rather of the peaceful use of the sea routes, their coasts and their ports. Regarding this main point of the future peace conditions there is as yet no clarity. The Entente, last autumn, reserved its approval to this, and the conditions which they have drawn up to place before Germany in connection with the promise of the delivery of foodstuffs and with the prolongation of the armistice lead it to be feared that they are desirous of robbing Germany of the whole of her mercantile fleet. What, however, does freedom of the seas represent for us if we have no ships to sail upon them? How can we bring our importations and exportations into line with our economic requirements if, for this purpose, we have only foreign tonnage to use, which may possibly be only unwillingly lent to us by other nations at profiteering prices. If it be desired to compel Germany, without a mercantile fleet, to enter the League of Nations, this would represent a violent subversion of her economic development, and such a thing could not be done without cramping convulsions which would continually constitute a threat to general peace.10 The German scheme for a League of Nations, drawn up by a German Society of International Law and submitted to the German Government with the proposal that it be used as a basis for peace negotiations, also contains provisions intended to secure "freedom of movement and trade" on the high seas, as well as on waterways, roads and railways, and in the air.11 11 10 See London Times, February 17, 1919, p. 9. Among the authorities on international law, the leading advocate of the principle of internationalization as applied to the high seas and international waterways appears to be Walter Schücking, Professor of International Law at the University of Marburg. Professor Schücking proposes the following "radical solution" of the problem of the freedom of the seas: realize at the outset the Because in the past the As the final basis of all difficulties, we absence of a state regulation of the sea. fundamental principles of the free seas have been applied in effect in a purely negative way, in that the sea never recognized a master; only by reason of the absence of any state regulation of the sea is it possible to use the open sea as a theatre of war, to use permissible or prohibited means of warfare that may result in a complete stoppage of neutral shipping. If, however, we want to win real freedom, then there is no other way but to institute a supremacy. . . . True freedom on the seas can only be established by organizing a supremacy, the supremacy not of one, but of the totality of all States. It is necessary to establish an imperium over the sea, and none can doubt its possibility. Since we experience today how one nation, like England, can exercise a real tyranny on the sea, how much less would the nature of the fleeting waves or the extent of the sea be an obstruction to the establishment of a supremacy of the sea by the League of Nations, as was plainly seen to be developing out of the Confederacy of Nations at the Hague Conferences? Whoever considers this fantastic, let his attention be called to the fact that already previous international law had developed the idea of an international police power at sea for certain common tasks of seafaring states. That was true in the fighting of piracy, in the slave trade, control of the North Sea Fisheries, the protection of the underseas telegraphic cable, and the fight against the trade in brandy in the North Sea. It is only necessary to develop these tendencies. Instead of collective agreements, as usually concluded between a majority of States for stated purposes, we must make use of the universal treaty in which the whole civilized world is interested; instead of single parts of the seas placed under international control, we must put all the seas of the world under such control; instead of a merely particular police regulation, for example, the struggle against slave traffic at sea, the international sea police must be used for the general police purpose of repressing any violation committed by any one nation upon the sea. With this object in view, the international character of the sea territory must be established. The sea should be placed under the organized supremacy of all for the free use of all. Then the law of prize, of contraband and blockade, danger zones, and all substitutes of such means of warfare could be done away with. The best logic would require that in case of a war at sea, no battle should be permitted upon this international sea territory, except when such action between two nations takes place within such territorial or coastal limits as legally belong to them or within limits analogous to the situation on land. If one does not wish to go that far, those highways for international trade upon which depend the great sea traffic between continents must be made unconditionally secure. And since, between nations, right, unsupported by might, is as valueless as might unsupported by right, the carrying out of this legal régime would have to be insured by means of an international sea police, as was meritoriously proposed before the World War by the London Professor of International Law, Von Vollenhoven. Where hitherto the policing of the sea has been exercised in common, this has actually happened, inasmuch as the states had mutually yielded certain privileges to their warships, even with respect to vessels under a foreign flag. For the future, we need an international sea police that is international in its organization. It must be built upon the system of a single-nation contingent, which will be governed by an international command; and it must be seen, too, that no single nation should maintain a separate fleet which is stronger than that of the international police. Thus this program of organization of an international sea police stands in close connection with the demand for an international limitation of armament at sea. That it is possible to have an international military executive has been proved. To show that we have had them in the past, I need only recall the China campaign against the Boxer uprising, or the joint march of the Great Powers against a stronghold of the Montenegrins in Albanian Skutari during the Balkan wars. Excepted from internationalization would be naturally the coastal waters, which even today lie under the territorial powers of the coast state. But when it comes to the straits that are necessary for international sea traffic, and are not, like the canal between the North Sea and the Baltic, of primary importance in national strategy, such straits and canals should be completely internationalized. National coast fortifications, which are not used for the defense of their own country, but are used only to exercise a supremacy over sea-routes that are indispensable, like the one of Gibraltar, should be razed. It is different in regard to the Bosphorus, because the Turkish capital must be protected from an attack by sea; but here also the assurance of the coast state must be given to the shipping interests of neutrals, so that an absolute bar against neutral commercial ships cannot be maintained when Turkey becomes involved in war. The Suez and Panama Canals must be duly internationalized by the stationing at those places of an international sea police. In regard to the Panama Canal, it will be shown, if and how far the United States are willing to sacrifice something themselves, when it behooves them, according to the program of the President, to subordinate the interests of national power to the peace interests of humanity. As mentioned pre viously, if it is necessary to station an international fleet police at all international straits and canals sufficient for their protection, there must, in addition, be available an organized international fleet which, upon decision of an international Hague authority, can go forth to punish anyone who has violated the freedom of the seas.12 Between the two extreme schools of the believers in sea-power and the internationalists, there are a few German authorities, like SchultzeGaevernitz and Stier-Somlo, for example, who profess to believe that the freedom of the seas can best be attained and preserved by a balance of sea-power between the leading maritime nations. They deny that Germany has been aiming at a domination of the seas, and maintain that she merely wishes to take her rightful place among the great sea Powers. Thus, Schultze-Gaevernitz: Germany is fighting for freedom of the seas, consequently for humanity, yea, even for France! Germany does not aspire for herself to a naval preponderance which, anyhow, she would not be strong enough to maintain, but to a balance among several naval Powers in which she would have rights and an influence equal to those of the strongest Power. On this condition (but on this only, which alone is capable of insuring the existence of her posterity), Germany does not even at this day reject all idea of disarmament.13 We have hitherto considered the various schools or points of view in Germany regarding the best means or methods of obtaining and preserving the much-desired freedom of the seas. Let us now try to determine the real meaning which Germans attach to this phrase. German authorities and representatives of German opinion of all schools appear to be in substantial agreement as to the meaning or real purpose of this freedom so far as Germany is concerned, though they differ widely as to the degree of freedom which it is possible to attain. In general, they make little pretense of humanitarian or idealistic aims, although the claim is occasionally put forward that they are acting in the interests of "humanity" or of "mankind." Whether the thought is fully expressed or not, to the average 12 See Der Bund der Völker, 1918, pp. 149-155. 18 See pamphlet by Schultze-Gaevernitz, entitled Frei Meere, 1915. For the views of Stier-Somlo, see his pamphlet (1917) entitled Die Freiheit der Meere und das Völkerrecht, pp. 119 ff. |