Page:The League of Nations and freedom of the seas.djvu/11

 of the Seas denotes the abolition of the right of capturing private property afloat. They would deny to belligerents not only the admitted right to capture neutral property under the law of blockade and contraband, but would also make the trade of the belligerents equally immune, either altogether or in so far as it was not contraband that is to say, that no matter how fiercely navies contend peaceful merchants and fishermen shall be free to go about their business as though no war were in progress.

What such a revolution would mean to Naval Warfare is clearly not recognized, presumably because of the obscurity which for landsmen has always surrounded it. No such curtailment of belligerent rights has ever been suggested for the land. It is obvious to every one that if in time of war peaceful merchants and husbandmen were allowed to go their way unmolested by requisitions and free to pass where they would, armies could obtain no results. Even if battles could be fought at all, they could lead to nothing. Battles are fought not for their own sake or merely to destroy the enemy's forces. Their ultimate object is the power which the destruction of the enemy's means of resistance gives for so paralysing his national life that he has no choice but to submit. If non-combatants and private property were immune from interference the nation could not be coerced nor the fruits of victory garnered.

With the less familiar contests on the sea, this has