In the first place, what is neutrality as the meaning of the word is applied to international relations? The dictionary tells us that it is the state of being a neutral nation during a war in which states taking no part in the contest continue friendly relations with both belligerents. It sounds easy, does it not? But if, after exhausting the resources of diplomacy, of conciliation, of intermediation, and of arbitration, the cause of dispute between two nations is so deep-rooted antipathetically to national traditions, to national welfare, to national existence itself, as to cause them to resort to the arbitrament of force, each belligerent nation will demand from neutral nations such assistance from time to time in the course of the struggle as may seem likely to assist the one, or handicap the other in the prosecution of the struggle. Indeed, from the dawn of commercial relations between nations, it has been the desire of neutrals to continue the commercial relations of peace subsequent to the establishment of belligerency. Each belligerent seeks to weaken the other to the point where further resistance can no longer be offered. The classic method is the actual application of physical force to the armed forces of the enemy. Successful in this, then, still by actual physical force, to dominate the social, economic, and political activities of the people and the government of the nation. Seldom does this classical form eventuate completely. When the struggle is prolonged, in order to weaken the opponent, it is necessary to prevent further accretion to his rapidly depleting stock of material required for immediate use by the armed forces for the prosecution of a struggle; then to cut off the supply of provisions and the necessaries of life to the armed forces, and finally to cut off this supply to the nation as a whole. In most great wars this last procedure has been the prime and culminating factor in determining the subjugation of the vanquished to the will of the victor.
Because a belligerent desires to insure adequate supplies for himself and to interdict similar supplies to his opponent, a neutral, desiring to continue commercial relations with a belligerent, must always expect to encounter restrictions upon activities that are legal in time of peace and which the neutral desires to be considered as legal so long as he is not a belligerent. This requires the safe passage on their “lawful” errands of the neutral’s commercial carriers across the open sea no matter what the destination may be. If one belligerent nation is in a position to effectively interdict the commerce of a neutral with the other belligerent and establish safe lanes for the passage of neutral commerce to his own ports, the belligerent whose free commercial relations with the neutral are severed immediately considers ways and means to accuse the neutral of partiality; in other words, of a breach of neutrality. It may then be expected that retaliations on the commerce of the neutral by the suffering belligerent will take more and more radical forms, tending more and more to open violation of the accepted formulas of the rules governing intercourse between nations; to the greater and greater irritation of the neutral.
History shows us that the course of events at widely separated periods has been singularly alike. A weak neutral suffers humiliation in having to accede to the demands of a stronger belligerent power. A strong neutral, when its voice is raised in protest, is listened to with respect proportionate to the degree of effect its power may have upon the balance of power existing between the two belligerents. Sometimes, the protest of the neutral being acceded to, there results an outcome of the struggle different from that which might otherwise have been the case.
Judging from their attitude on the question of an adequate navy, many of our people today are of the opinion that it will be entirely practicable for our country, in case of war between two nations, to establish absolute neutrality on our part as regards two belligerents by forbidding all intercourse of a commercial nature with either of the belligerents, or to accomplish the same end by some other course of action short of a threat or the use of force. Let us look into this matter more closely.
Self-interest governs as between nations as well as between individuals, and the summation of individual self-interest determines the self-interest of the nation. Time will not permit to detail the immense interests involved for the economic activities of the United States in the demands from both belligerents in 1914-16 for the supply of materials of all kinds. Nor is it possible to go into details concerning the efforts of the belligerents to interrupt our commerce with the other, and the many methods used to persuade or to coerce us to accommodate ourselves to their desires. The history of these years just prior to our entrance into the last war is too recently made to need this, but if the sea power then available to the United States (1914—16) had been sufficient to have made it apparent to either belligerent that its exercise against that belligerent would have jeopardized victory, it is certain that the United States commerce would never have suffered the restrictions, and our government the indignities, that ultimately brought public opinion of the United States to favor participation in the war.
At that time many of us considered that the problems of neutrality which then confronted us were new in history, at least in the history of the United States. Nothing is further from the fact. It is interesting to consider for a moment the experience of the United States during the first decade and a half of the last century during the latter part of the so-called Napoleonic wars.
After the victory of Napoleon in the Battle of Jena, to all intents and purposes, England alone blocked the ambitions of Napoleon for world empire. No one perceived more clearly than did the Emperor that unless the British were finally subjected to his will dreams of world empire must dissolve. At this time the old thirteen colonies of Great Britain on the Atlantic seaboard, now the United States of America, had a commercial tonnage on the sea second only to that of Great Britain. In fact, the merchant shipping of the United States constituted the bulk of neutral shipping in the world of that day. Not only did this country furnish raw materials of vital necessity to the two belligerents, but her domestic market, especially for manufactured goods, was of the highest value to Great Britain, then at the beginning of her marvelous industrial expansion of the nineteenth century.
Britain was compelled to restrict the flow of American produce to the continent of Europe. Napoleon, realizing the advantages to Britain of the American market, desired to interdict the commerce of the United States with Britain, not only because of Britain’s necessity for raw materials, but because the American market gave aid and succor to the industries of Britain, which, in turn, gave financial life blood to the support of the British fleet. Whichever power, Britain or the Empire, was able to control the sea must eventually exercise her will upon the other. Sea power was the controlling factor. Britain, realizes the power of her fleet, never lost confidence. Diplomatic when she wished, clever always, arrogant when it seemed advisable, she continued to apply the inexorable pressure of her sea power.
Britain claimed, and with truth, that many seamen of English birth were serving in the merchant marine of her former colonies. Many of these seamen had become naturalized Americans. At that time, Britain refused to admit the right of her subjects to forswear allegiance to her; by the same token, declaring the naturalization laws of the United States to be of no effect. It would have been entirely legal to remove British seamen from American merchant ships when those ships were in British waters and subject to British law. Britain chose to ignore the commonly accepted international ruling of the period that on the high seas legal jurisdiction resided in the government of the flag flown by the merchant ship, and that the right of search of neutral merchant ships on the high seas was limited in purpose solely to determine the identity of the ship, her port of destination, and whether unneutral service, as shown by her clearance, her cargo, or her passengers was intended. Merchant vessels of the United States were stopped on the high seas by the armed ships of Britain, and men believed by the boarding officer to be British citizens were removed. Mistakes were inevitable and often seamen of American birth were seized. Protests of a weak neutral were of no avail.
Britain declared a blockade of the ports of the continent of Europe occupied by the forces of the French Empire. Even the great British Navy was not sufficiently large to make this blockade effective by the stationing of a force off each port sufficiently strong to make likely the capture of vessels attempting to enter or leave the port. She therefore resorted to an order in council, requiring all neutrals to proceed to a British port for inspection and search to determine whether a British license should permit them to proceed to a continental destination. Many American merchant ships were seized, condemned, and sold. The protest of a weak neutral was without effect.
Napoleon decreed that any American merchant ship that called at a British port or submitted to search by a British vessel on the high seas would be seized and confiscated upon arrival in a continental port of Europe. The weak American neutral was between the hammer and the anvil. The protests of a weak neutral were unheard.
Remember Britain was engaged in a life struggle requiring exertion on her part to the utmost limit of her strength. She was eager to take a chance on any policy she considered might serve to conserve her strength until applied sea power might strangle the resistance of her enemy. Weak as was the neutral, small as was our power on the sea, the alternative confronting the American government was war or some measure short of war not requiring the use of force as an instrument of national policy.
At this time Britain was engaged on all sides, and the addition of as small a force as America had available might easily make itself felt out of proportion to its actual applied power. The battle fleets of Britain were held in check by the heavy ships of the Empire. The smaller vessels left at Britain’s disposal were the only ones she could use to enforce her decrees of restriction upon the seaborne commerce of America. For America to seek out these vessels to engage them in combat would serve to divert their attention from American merchant vessels, and so these American merchant vessels would have more chance to get through the so-called blockade into the ports of the continent of Europe where commodities brought quadruple the American price. Moreover, our light cruisers might well play havoc with a portion of the seaborne commerce of Britain.
But America chose to adopt an embargo—to forbid her merchant ships to leave her ports. The embargo continued for fifteen months. Within two months after the laying of the embargo, more than one hundred American ships were found in Passamaquoddy Bay, just over the Canadian border, and as many more in the harbor of St. Mary, just over the Florida border, loading and discharging cargoes destined for English and French ports. It was said that in the winter of 1808 there were 700 sleighs engaged in transporting goods from Vermont to Montreal. We have had more than one bootlegging problem to confront since we became a nation.
The embargo was without effect to influence the policy of either the Empire or of Britain. Indeed it was a boomerang. The original minority opposition to the embargo policy soon became a majority, and the following Congress abolished the law. It was three years, however, before war was finally resorted to and in the meantime the Empire had lost much of its power and the comparative influence of our sea power was by that time materially reduced. Many and brilliant were the exploits of the frigates and smaller vessels of the navy of the United States. To the amazement of the British, English seamen were beaten at their own game. But when peace was finally declared, the treaty between Britain and America contained no reference to the impressment of seamen!
In one of his later works, written more than a quarter of a century ago, Captain Mahan said:
If war is always avoidable, consistently with due resistance to evil, then war is always unjustifiable; but if it is possible that two nations, or two political entities, like the North and South in the American Civil War, find the question between them one which neither can yield without sacrificing conscientious conviction, or national welfare, or the interests of posterity, of which each generation in its day is the trustee, then war is not justifiable only; it is imperative. In these days of glorified arbitration it cannot be affirmed too distinctly that bodies of men—nations—have convictions binding on their consciences, as well as interests which are vital in character; and that nations, no more than individuals, may surrender conscience to another’s keeping. Still less may they rightfully pre-engage so to do. Nor is this conclusion invalidated by a triumph of the unjust in war. Subjugation to wrong is not acquiescence in wrong. A beaten nation is not necessarily a disgraced nation, but the nation or man is disgraced who shirks an obligation to defend right.
A short time ago while in a bookshop, I got into conversation with an intelligent salesman while searching for a recent publication on silver and its possible relation to a double standard of value. The conversation soon passed to the reduced purchasing power of China and thence to Japan. I asked him what he thought of the recent sensational book by a prominent Japanese general officer urging the preparation for the inevitable war between Japan and the United States. I ventured the opinion that such books served no good purpose. The apparently serious reply of my friend amazed me. It was: “It makes no difference because there will be no more war”! It made me think of the words of St. Paul who was all things to all men, written in the tenth chapter of his Epistle to the Romans, speaking of the Israelites: “For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God but not according to knowledge.”
Many pacifists, those who advocate that national safety lies in disarmament, have a zeal for peace but not according to knowledge. They have given their hearts to the cause of peace but not their heads.
Let us seek for peace with our heads as well as our hearts. Let us seek out all methods for composing national differences short of the use of force. But let us not anticipate the coming of the millenium when the “sucking babe shall play on the hole of the asp and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice den.” With the millenium will peace be on earth to nien of good will, for only then will all men be of good will.
I have in mind one of the foremost scholars and educators of America whose vision and intelligence is preëminent, whose dicta are listened to, and rightly, by thoughtful people throughout the world. His reasoning is cogent and profound, his logic is impeccable, and his eloquence persuasive in the highest degree. His conclusions are sound. But his vision, his intelligence, his reasoning, his logic, and above all, his eloquence, have blurred his perspective. He believes the remedies he offers for the ills of the world, the solution he presents for obscure world problems can be put into operation at once, and the international safeguards at present relied upon discarded. He says:
Prosperity and security have ceased to be national; they have become subject matter for international coöperation.
Well and good, and let such international coöperation come soon, but while it is on its way, let us not abandon those national safeguards for security and prosperity that have so far served. The time for abandonment of these safeguards will come gradually, as the new international coöperation becomes established in international good faith—that is with the nearer approach of the millenium when all men shall be of good will.
The President, in the course of his speech on Armistice Day, 1931, spoke these significant words:
Peace is the product of preparedness for defense, to the patient settlement of controversy and the dynamic development of the forces of good will.
It is the result of the delicate balance of that realism born of human experience and of idealism born of the highest human aspirations for international justice.
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Look where we will, the field which opens before the American Navy is vast and demands alike the highest powers of the mind, and the intensest effort. I firmly believe that no century has yet ever unfolded more superb possibilities than the twentieth century will unfold to you; but conversely your responsibilities are at least commensurate with your opportunity. Your task is to carry your country through the dangers which will beset her as she climbs the path to economic supremacy; a path in which errors such as those committeed by England in 1774 may be fatal.—Brooks Adams.