Our Relations With Great Britain
I
IN some eighteenth-century diplomatic correspondence, I once found a letter from an ambassador at a small court, in which he explained to his sovereign that the treaty he had been instructed to arrange was being opposed by the King’s mistress. He had hopes, however, of ousting this lady from the monarch’s affection, and installing in her place one of his friends.
No nation is a single-minded unit. None has a precise and unalterable policy. This is as true in modern Britain as it was in the petty courts of the ancien regime. As ‘personal government’ gives place to democracy, the subject matter of diplomacy becomes the changing combinations of political parties rather than the scarcely less erratic caprices of a sovereign. To-day ambassadors are less interested in the king’s mistress, and more in his ministers.
The Foreign Office of a country is a political prize for which opposition parties are always striving. Most of the diplomatic correspondence which has come out of Germany in the last decade has been full of speculation on the chances of the ‘War Party’ winning control of the office on Wilhelmstrasse. Some months ago I discussed Pan-Americanism with a diplomat from Argentina. He cherished the idea of a League of American Republics, but was pessimistic over the outlook. Again and again he met my arguments with the retort, ‘Root, Knox, Bryan! Who’s next?’ ‘Continuity of foreign policy’ is an ideal which all nations desire and none attain.
So it happens that nations which ardently desire to live in friendship sometimes find their governments at odds. This general truth of diplomacy has been often illustrated in the history of Anglo-American relations.
Most of our historians are agreed that if George III had enjoyed enlightened, forward-looking ministers, we might never have seceded. But our forefathers found the policy of Lord North’s ministry unbearable. However, as soon as the Liberal, Fox, won control of the British Foreign Office, it became easy — in spite of the wounds of the war — to settle our outstanding controversies.
Since those days the governance of Britain has been controlled, now by the spiritual descendants of Lord North, now by the liberal progeny of Fox. The two great, political parties of England have been inspired by these two political philosophies. The issue between them has rarely been clean-cut. Some Members of Parliament who call themselves ‘Liberals’ would seem to us ‘Standpatters,’ and some whom we would call ‘Progressives’ have sat on the Unionist benches. But in general a Tory Ministry has meant the dominance of the policies of Lord North. A Liberal majority has meant the triumph of the ideals of Fox. The political upheavals in Great Britain have always been speedily felt by our State Department. At times, the ‘tie of blood ’ which binds us to the mother country has been thinner than air; at times, thicker than water.
A recent example of this oscillation in British policy was furnished by the crushing of the Boer Republics. The war was the work of those who had inherited Lord North’s ideas. We were overwhelmingly pro-Boer in sympathy. But the Tories’ mismanagement of the campaign was so flagrant that they were driven from office. Our relations with the mother country — which had been as bad as well might be — rapidly became better as soon as it was evident that the new ministry was inspired by the ideals of Fox.
There was little in the war itself of which Britain could be proud, but there is no page in her history more praiseworthy than the settlement which eventually followed it. The creation of the South African Union, and the granting of self-government to the defeated Boers, will always rank as one of the finest achievements of political history. It is little less than amazing when we recall our own clumsy, brutal Reconstruction policy after the Civil War.
If we should plot a graphic chart of Anglo-American relations — the curve sweeping up when our intercourse was cordial, sliding down when our friendship cooled — it would be almost identical with a curve which recorded the rise and fall in British politics of the influence of Liberalism.
There never has been, and probably never will be, friendship between our Democracy and the Tories of England. They are the ‘Die-hards’ — as bitter in their hostility to popular rule as any aristocrats of the world. Fighting desperately at home to preserve their special privileges against, such as we, they do not desire our friendship.
We, as a nation, are too hybrid to be swayed by considerations of race. Such ‘ Anglo-Saxonism ’ as Homer Lea — an English-speaking Bernhardi — preached is meaningless to a large part of our citizens. We are not pro-EngLish, we are pro-Liberal.
England was the first of the modern nations to experiment in democracy, and in the legislative side of government she has surpassed us all. She deserves the proud title of ‘The Mother of Parliaments.’ But she has made no successful efforts to democratize her navy, her army, or her diplomatic service. The caste system is still supreme in these administrative branches of government, which become dominant when war is declared. Parliament, by accepting the ‘Coalition,’ has abdicated — for the duration of the war — before the officials of the Admiralty, the Army, and the Foreign Office. Most of those who govern Britain to-day are drawn from the social caste which is most outspokenly hostile to us, and to our ideals of democracy.
II
The difference of opinion between the United States and Great Britain over the rights of peaceful commerce on the seas had been growing steadily less since the War of 1812. We have not objected so much to Britain ruling the waves, — she has generally been just, — as to her claim that she alone has the privilege to enact the laws by which the seas should be ruled. Gradually British opinion has come to accept the theory — held by all maritime nations as well as by us — that those who are to be policed should have some voice in framing the police code. At the Naval Congress of Paris in 1856, the British listened to the opinions of others, took their advice in certain matters, and gave up some of their claims to a one-party dictatorship. By summoning the Naval Conference of London in 1909, they went much further — almost all the way — toward accepting the modern thesis, that International Law rests on the general consent of those interested and not simply on the will of the mightiest.
Insistence on this principle, that International, as well as Municipal, Law rests on the consent of the governed, has been the key-note of our foreign policy. Once the divine right of kings is abandoned, there is no other basis for International Law. The evolution of British naval policy, as witnessed by the Paris Convention and the Declaration of London, has brought them constantly nearer to accord in these matters with us and the rest of the world.
The controversy between neutrals and belligerents over their respective ‘rights’ in naval war is not unlike the conflict between labor and capital. As both parties in this latter dispute would like to enjoy all the profits of industry, there can be no definite and permanent agreement. Labor will not be satisfied till capitalism is abolished. So neutrals will not be able to realize all their aspirations till war is abolished.
However, temporary truces are frequently arranged between labor and capital. The ‘ bosses’ have abandoned their ‘ right’ to work children more than eighteen hours in the mines. As soon as Labor had won this concession, it launched new demands. In a similar way, neutrals and belligerents have at times reached accord. It was a victory for the neutrals when the ‘Right of Search’ was defined. They at once expanded their claims. Just as labor legislation shows a continual clipping of the prerogatives of the employers, so, in the gradual evolution of a sea code, there has been a steady increase in the ‘rights’ accorded to neutrals by ‘usage’ and general consent.
The claim most earnestly pressed by neutrals, of late, has been the right to know what to expect. The greatest injuries to legitimate commerce in war times have been caused by the uncertainties arising from the changing and arbitrary decrees of the belligerents. Neutrals have tried to secure general acceptance of a ‘law’ which would make it ‘illegal’ for a belligerent to change the rules of war during a war. American diplomacy has been active in this direction for many years. Generally at peace ourselves, we have sought to protect and expand neutral rights. But the two principal planks of our international platform have been: (1) Law rests on general consent; (2) Law, like the life it governs, must evolve, but its codification and amendment require calm thought and discussion, which should be the work of peace. The laws of war should not be altered under the influence of the hatreds engendered by hostilities. Almost any code which meets these two requirements would seem better to us than the chaos of individual caprices.
In maintaining such doctrines we have had the best of company. With the exception of the Crimean campaign, Britain has never been a belligerent in a European conflict since the Napoleonic epoch. So, for ninety-seven out of the last hundred years, Britain has been a neutral. Her people had acquired the habit of neutrality and its point of view. They have not only the largest navy in the world, but also the largest merchant marine. The protection of their stupendous cargoes, when their neighbors went to war, became their supreme interest.
When, in the Chinese War, the French put rice on their contraband list, Britain led the world in protest against this interference with legitimate neutral trade. The Russo-Japanese War brought up the same question. Japan was a large importer of cereals from India. This trade was an appreciable element in the prosperity of the colony. Russia, hoping to shorten the war by economic pressure, announced her intention to treat grain as contraband. The British Foreign Office asked us to coöperate with them in a protest against this illegal innovation of putting a ban on food stuff. The Rt. Hon. Sir Edward Fry, writing on the lessons in International Law to be drawn from that war (‘The Rights of Neutrals as illustrated by Recent Events’), came to this conclusion: ‘If we are to weigh the convenience of belligerents against the convenience of neutrals, it would seem that the interests of the latter ought to prevail.’
This became the official doctrine of the Liberal Asquith ministry. The ‘rights’ of neutrals have had few more eloquent defenders than His Majesty’s present Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. Sir Edward Grey has gone further in trying to limit the rights of belligerents than any of our own Secretaries of State. He summoned the principal maritime nations to a Naval Conference at London in 1909. The task before the delegates was carefully defined in the invitation. They were not to legislate, but to codify. They were not to create new law, but to harmonize the existing customs of the different nations and to edit them in a unified code. General agreement on a precise code which, accepted in peace, should not be changed during a war, was the object desired. Sir Edward’s ideas on the subject, presumably approved by the ministry, are expressed in his instructions to Lord Desart, the chief of the British delegation. They are to be found in the Blue Book, Miscellaneous No. 4, 1909. These few quotations indicate their tone. In section 4 he writes that the object of the conference is: —
‘The coöperation of the Powers . . . in formulating in precise terms a set of rules relative to the law of prize, which should be recognized as embodying doctrines held to be generally binding as part of the existing law of nations.’
In the next section: ‘The end in view being certainty and uniformity.’
In section 13: ‘ ... It appears to be generally agreed that no such additions [i.e. additions to the list of Contraband drawn up at The Hague] ought in any case to be admissible, except in the case of articles which cannot be utilized for other than warlike purposes. A rule to this effect, or preferably, a rule preventing any additions whatever at the outbreak or after the commencement of war, might well form part of the proposed convention.’
In section 18: ‘ . . . His Majesty’s Government are now desirous of limiting as much as possible the right to seize for contraband, if not eliminating it altogether.’
The Conference lasted less than three months and agreed on the ‘Declaration of London.’ Lord Desart’s report of his labors is published in the same Blue Book.
' . . . The view in favour of accepting the list [of Contraband] as it stands finally prevailed, it being agreed on all hands that the establishment of a strictly defined and generally recognized list, even if slightly defective, would be infinitely preferable to the continuance of the uncertainty which had resulted from the conflicting claims and practices of different nations. . . . We . . . have secured the adoption of a free list which will place it beyond the power of belligerents in future to treat as contraband the raw materials of some of the most important of our national industries. . . . We obtained recognition of the fact — which was not seriously disputed — that, as a body, these rules do amount practically to a statement of what is the essence of the law of nations.’
The Declaration of London did not entirely satisfy any one. The questions raised were too complex to be definitely settled in so short a conference. But the delegates, although pointing out faults in detail, agreed that this code was ‘infinitely preferable’ to the former chaos.
However, the Declaration met with successful opposition in the British Parliament—at a time when the Budget, the Education Bill and everything else proposed by the Liberal Ministry was being killed by the Lords. A reading of the Parliamentary record shows that almost every one who spoke against the measure belonged to the permanent opposition. When the strongest naval power refused to accept this code, it was of course reduced to the mere statement of ‘ a pious wish.’ Having failed of ratification in Parliament, the Declaration of London was not in any sense British law. It was, however, in the opinion of Lord Desart, and the eminent jurists, admirals and diplomats who had sat with him at the Conference, ‘a statement of what is the essence of the law of nations.’
From our point of view the Declaration was a new step forward toward the acceptance of our contention, that International Law rests, not on the force of one nation, but on the consent of all. The general ratification of the Declaration, amended where it was faulty, became the objective of all who wished to extend the domain of law.
The adverse vote in Parliament did not produce a change of heart on the part of the Liberals, with whom we had so cordially coöperated at the Conference and whose ultimate victory at Westminster we expected. The Declaration of London, in its spirit, if not in all its wording, remains the expression of opinion of those in Britain with whom we have so often been friends in the past — whose friendship we desire in the future. Although its ratification was defeated by the party of Lord North, we have every reason to believe that an entire accord in naval matters is possible between the United States and the Liberals of Great Britain.
III
Simultaneously with his Proclamation of Neutrality President Wilson sent a circular note to all the belligerents, recalling the confusion which has always resulted from the lack of a generally accepted code of sea law, the injury to neutral commerce incident to such chaos, and emphasizing the possibility of grave diplomatic friction likely to arise from this uncertainty. He then suggested that, at least for the duration of this war, all should accept the Declaration of London.
This placed a sharp dilemma before the British Government. Sea power was the main weapon — almost the only immediate weapon — which they could bring to the aid of their allies. Should they limit the effectiveness of the navy by submitting to the generally accepted ideas of International Law, or should they, borrowing their enemy’s motto, Might makes Right, exercise this sea power to the utmost?
We may be sure that the Cabinet meeting which discussed Mr. Wilson’s suggestion was stormy. The Liberal ministers, whose theories of International Law were so well known, favored the acceptance of the Declaration of London. The Sea Lords demanded a free hand. The arguments pro and con must have been much the same as those which later divided the Kaiser’s ministers on the submarine issue.
The answer at last decided upon was a verbal compromise by which the Lord Norths of the sea got what they wanted. The Foreign Office edited a reply which said that Britain accepted the Declaration of London in principle, subject to certain ' additions and modifications.’ But, of course, the basic principle of the Declaration was that no nation should alter it in the heat of war. It was on this point that Sir Edward Grey had especially insisted. If Britain was determined to amend the code to suit her convenience, other belligerents would do likewise. Our State Department, not waiting for further replies, withdrew the suggestion. The British Cabinet had decided that there was to be no sea law. Whichever nation won naval supremacy would enforce its own will. Might was to replace Right.
The realpolitik verdict on Britain’s decision must depend on the balance between the gains of illegality and the loss of support and respect among the friends of law. It is an exceedingly difficult calculation. There has been some gain to the Entente Powers from the policy adopted by Britain; how much gain is uncertain. It is a matter of statistics, which have been elaborately hidden or elaborately falsified by the interested parties. Not more than a dozen high German officials know the actual effect on their country of the illegalities of the British blockade.
According to the Declaration of London, it was obviously impossible for a maritime power to reduce by hunger an enemy nation which enjoyed a neutral land frontier; but after two years of war it is still uncertain whether this object can be obtained even by a wholesale repudiation of legal restraints. By scrupulous observance of the generally accepted concepts of International Law, the British fleets could have exercised great economic pressure on the Central Empires. By the régime of Orders in Council they have undoubtedly exercised greater pressure. This uncertain degree of added pressure is the credit side of the balance, the gain.
The loss resulting from this policy is even harder to estimate. Germany began this war by an assault on International Law which shocked all the world. The moral position of the Entente, as the champions and protectors of the rights of nations, was exceptionally strong. This advantage was largely thrown away by the claim that the doctrine of Might makes Right, which they called immoral when their enemies applied it on land, somehow became justifiable for them at sea. With the exception of Italy, no one of the original European neutrals has yet joined the Entente. Germany has done better in this matter. In general, the Germans have made great progress in regaining the sympathy of the European neutrals, which they had lost by the crime of Belgium. More gradually, but more surely, the British naval policy has alienated neutral sympathy.
‘Legality’ is of course a changing, evolving concept. The British offense against the modern standard of law consists not so much in any particular acts — although some of them have been flagrant — as in the brusque denial that nations with smaller navies have any voice in defining the law. The Sea Lords have decided on what they would like to do and His Majesty’s Privy Council has announced that this is the law. It is primarily against this attitude — the old familiar attitude of Lord North — that we have protested. The wisdom, expediency, or equity of these Orders in Council does not offer so vital a question as the claim that a British Council can create the Law of Nations. This is the heart of the controversy. Can His Britannic Majesty’s advisers legislate for all the world?
Our administration was doubtlessly gratified when, in the case of the steamship Zamora (7 April, 1916), the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council decided in our favor. The highest tribunal in the Empire decided that prize courts must administer International, not Municipal, Law; that the Orders of the Crown were therefore not binding on the prize courts except in so far as they accorded with the generally accepted doctrines of the Law of Nations. However, the gratification was short lived. This adverse ruling by their supreme judicial authority has not visibly influenced the British policy. The Privy Council has ignored this decision and continues to issue new Orders quite as objectionable as the old.
We can only speculate as to what Sir Edward Grey thinks of the situation. Has he suddenly come to believe that acts which were held to be wrong if committed against British commerce are now right when committed by the British against others? Or has he been effaced by the British Junkers and, no longer directing British policy, is he now reduced to the rôle of registering it and trying — not very successfully — to justify it? Whether he approves of it or not, he must realize that t he notes he now signs in reply to the protests of his former friends are in absolute contradiction to all the ideas of right and justice he advocated before the war. Neither the Liberal ministers who still hold on in the Coalition Cabinet, nor the highest judicial authorities of the Empire, are able to control the party of Lord North which has installed itself in the Foreign Office.
IV
The naval policy decided upon by the British Cabinet has not been so onerous for us as for the neutrals of Europe. In times of peace our export trade scarcely reached ten per cent of our production of wealth. Even if it were all held up, it would not ruin us. The maritime nations of Europe are in a more serious plight. It was a rather ghastly joke that, when the Belgian Commission came to America to lay their grievances before the President, they crossed at Washington delegations from other neutral countries of Europe who had come to ask our protection against Great Britain.
The situation of Holland is typical of the problems which, with slight variations, face the other neutrals of Europe. Sixty years ago, at the Naval Congress of Paris, all the powers agreed that the blockading of a neutral coast is illegal. Great Britain is not at war with Holland, but no ships can trade in Dutch ports to-day without British consent; and this consent cannot be had unless the owners sign an unneutral agreement to boycott Germany. Reluctance to submit to this agreement, or the bare suspicion that the submission is half-hearted, is punished by long detentions in British ports. It does not take many weeks of such idleness to wipe out the year’s profit of a great ship.
The Dutch government has been forced to sanction the ‘Overseas Trust.’ This arrangement is not only the denial of neutrality, but also a humiliating surrender of sovereignty. It means that government officials must assist the British Navy in suppressing Dutch commercial rights. Even if the British cannot starve their enemies into submission, they could easily famish the Dutch. So the ministers of Queen Wilhelmina have had to bow to force majeure and, like the Greeks, accept the bizarre British doctrine that it is moral for neutrals to help the English but a deadly sin to trade with Germany.
One means used by the British to force ‘benevolent neutrality’ on the Netherlands was the refusal to sell coal to neutral ship-owners unless they signed the agreement not to be neutral. However, some of the neutral shipowners did not like to sign away their independence and decided to run their ships on the inferior and cheaper German coal. To this symptom of rebellion against British sea-rule, the Admiralty replied by an announcement that ‘ bunker coal of enemy origin ’ would be confiscated as contraband. To-day no ship can trade in the North Atlantic unless she buys her coal from British collieries. This is perhaps the most flagrant violation of International Law on the British record. It is not merely a case of denying the obligations of the Declaration of London or the Paris Convention. All British precedents in the Law of Prize — long back before the Napoleonic era — are explicit that only cargo merchandise is seizable. The British courts have always held that ‘things needful to the working of the ship or the comfort of the crew ’ are above suspicion of contraband. But — Might makes Right, in the practice, if not in the professions, of the present government of Britain. It is not only the legal opinions of other nations they scorn, but also the decisions of their own jurists.
This matter of the bunker coal is typical of another phase of the question. The injury done to the enemy is indirect and small. The harm done to all the North Sea neutrals is immediate and great. The profit to the British coal-dealers from such a forced monopoly is obvious.
The closing of the Suez Canal to all but British and Allied ships is a measure for which no military necessity has been shown. But it forces the Dutch colonial mailships to take the route around the Cape. Every one in a hurry to go or send goods to the East now chooses the competing British lines. In the same way the English shippers have captured much of the Dutch transatlantic trade. The amazing prosperity of British shipping is well known and bitterly discussed by the Dutch.
The interference with neutral mails — whatever the military advantage — inevitably works to the profit of British commerce.
It is hard for the Dutch to believe that such measures — so vexatious to them, and so profitable to their rivals
— are decided upon for the defense of the realm. In suspecting the members of the British government of commercial dishonesty, the Dutch are probably unjust. The officials who decide on these measures are lordly gentlemen, far removed from knowledge of, or interest in, ‘mere trade’; too often they are equally removed from consideration for the rights of others. But even if the British government can prove that none of their Sea Lords hold shares in the shipping lines or coal companies which have profited from their naval policy, or have sold ‘short’ on the stocks they have ruined, it will take many years to reëstablish the tradition of British ‘fair play’ in the commercial world. This is part of the loss which must be balanced against the immediate gain of the British policy.
Why the people of England — the Liberals whose friendship we have always valued — have permitted their government to throw away the valuable asset of ‘good will’ is a mystery to all who have not watched the working of the ‘Defence of the Realm Act.’ The Censor has not allowed the people of England to know anything about it. Censorship of the newspapers and enlightened public opinion are mutually exclusive. And the British Censors are rigorous. The Press Bureau not only hides from the people the hostility and distrust which is growing in all neutral countries, and even among their allies: it fosters fables. Last May, in London I found every one indignant that the heartless Germans were preventing us from sending relief to Poland. No one dreamed that we and every one else felt that the obstruction came primarily from London.
The Press Bureau fosters the belief that the neutrals — and the neutrals alone — are waxing fat off the war. The facts, of course, are that everywhere the war furnishers are growing rich. The American shell-manufacturer is paying higher wages and underselling his European competitors. Great as are some of our ‘new fortunes,’ they are not to be compared with those which are piling up in belligerent countries. Few of our industries can rival the profits of the Anglo-Malay Rubber Company or the Creusots of France. But the greatest prizes are going to the shipping companies, the coal-owners, the bankers and food speculators in Britain. The Censor does not encourage publicity on such matters. And whoever dares to speak in defense of the rights of neutrals is met by the crushing retort, ‘Oh! The neutrals. They have no reason to complain. They are getting rich.’
The effect of the British naval policy on us has been similar to that on Holland, although it has not been so ruinous. While we have had many specific material grievances, the force of our protests has come from outrage at a policy which has seemed to us rankly illegal — a policy hostile to all idea of legality. During her long years of neutrality, Britain has always been quick to use her sea power to enforce her trading rights. As soon as she finds herself a belligerent she denies all her old theories. Sir Edward Grey asked the world to agree not to alter the contraband list during hostilities. Now that his own country is at war, he signs note after note announcing new alterations. The ‘Free List’ which, Lord Desart said, ‘will place it beyond the power of belligerents in the future to treat as contraband the raw materials of some of our national industries’ is abolished, now that it is a question of the industries of other nations.
Great Britain, when neutral, has led the fight to secure inviolability of neutral mails. Now, with the shoe on the other foot and the might of her navy behind her, she denies that there are any rights in the matter. Modern history records no such rank violation of the mails as we now witness.
Another example — if one is needed — of this British ‘double standard’ of international morality is furnished by the excitement caused by the arrival in our waters of the submarine Deutschland and the British announcement that certain firms, domiciled in America, are to be blacklisted.
When the Austrian government appealed to us to take a moral rather than a narrowly technical attitude toward neutrality and to refrain from helping one belligerent against the other, we were fairly overwhelmed by the volume of British argument to prove that it was the essence of righteousness for a neutral to sell munitions to any belligerent who could carry away the goods. We were threatened with all sorts of calamities if we passed an embargo against the export of munitions to the Entente. Now, when a German ship evades their blockade, we are to be punished unless we refuse to sell raw materials to their enemy.
An effort to enforce by might rules which do not work both ways is the essence of arbitrary tyranny. Our indignation against the British naval policy is the greater, because, during the years of Liberal government, we had formed the habit of expecting them to champion justice and equity.
v
The Germans are, of course, pleased that British policy has given them so sound an argument in their correspondence with us. They are quite right in calling our neutrality hypocritical, if, after having forced them to limit their naval action in accordance with our interpretation of International Law, we do not, with equal vigor, protect our rights from British aggression.
German lawlessness has differed from that of Britain in that it has also been murderous. But, however much the horrors of the Belgian invasion, the tragedies of the Lusitania and the Sussex may have enraged us, the present policy of the British government makes intervention on their side impossible. Those of us who are most inclined to take active measures to stop German ‘ frightfulness ’ find ourselves equally disinclined to fight on behalf of the thesis that British convenience is the law of the seas. Dislike for German theory or practice, or our very special fondness for France, cannot alter the fact that His Britannic Majesty’s Cabinet, although more suave, has been just as quick as the Kaiser’s to act on the doctrine that ‘Might makes Right.’
It has been easier for us to remain neutral than it would have been if the English had kept their heads level and refrained from ‘hitting below the belt.’
So long as the British government maintains its present attitude there is little that our diplomacy can do at London beyond ‘watchful waiting.’ It takes two to reach an accord, just as much as to make a quarrel. There is no use in working for such a community of nations as we desire so long as Britain insists that whatever suits her convenience is right. However, there is great hope for a rapprochement in the future. The maintenance of the Lord North position will be difficult after the war. The Tory policy implies isolation.
All nations which have ships upon the seas must desire that law, not the whims of one nation, shall rule the waves. They will not willingly submit to a sea code dictated by a distrusted commercial rival, and the scrap of paper on which Britain had promised fair play at sea has been torn up. It is not only the present neutrals who dispute Britain’s arrogant claims. Two of her allies, France and Italy, are maritime nations. Russia hopes to become one. The British, to retain their single-handed naval supremacy, will have to outbuild all the world. And real money, even in England, will be scarce after the war. The only alternative to this impractical Tory policy is one of making friends. And friends can only be won by a liberal policy, which admits that others besides the strongest have rights.
After this war, Britain — unless she suffers utter defeat — will have the strongest navy in the world and one of the greatest armies. Inevitably the Tories will be tempted to use these tools for the realization of the age-old dream of Imperial world-domination. The modern, forward-looking men of Britain will hold true to their ideals and will seek the means to remove from us this scourge of war. No event of our day will be more important in determining the kind of world our children will live in, than the outcome of the political struggle to win control of the British government and Foreign Office, the struggle between the policies of Lord North and the ideals of Fox.
We of America have every reason to desire cordial cooperation with the British Empire. It is hard to see what they can gain by driving us into hostility. Unfortunately, rapprochement is at present impossible, for the spirit of Lord North presides over the councils of Downing Street. So it is the business of our diplomacy to watch with the closest attention the internal politics of Britain and to be quick to welcome any change in the government which means that our offers of friendship have a better chance of acceptance.
The Irish controversy offers a test case to those of us who have no better means of appraisal. At no time since the outbreak of the war has the issue between progress and reaction been so sharply drawn. If Lord Lansdowne and his friends succeed in their project of suppressing Irish unrest with bayonets, it will mean that our Liberal friends have suffered a new defeat. If Ireland is pacified by a tardy grant of justice, it will indicate that our friends are regaining powder.
But until there is some visible change in the British ministry there is small hope of cordiality between Washington and London.