Page:The League of Nations and freedom of the seas.djvu/12

 never been so self-evident. To the great majority of landsmen, Naval Warfare seems a far-off struggle in which fleets contend in defence of their coasts and cruisers prowl for booty. It is not generally understood that fleets exist mainly to give those cruisers liberty of action against the enemy's commerce, nor that, unless the cruisers can push their operations so far as actually to choke the enemy's national life at sea, no amount of booty they may get will avail to bring the war to an end. It is only by the prevention of enemy's commerce that fleets can exercise the pressure which armies seek, in theory or practice, to exercise through victories ashore; and it is only by the capture and ability to capture private property at sea that prevention of commerce can be brought about. Without the right to capture private property, Naval battles become meaningless as a method of forcing the enemy to submit. Without that right a Naval victory can give nothing but security at home and the power of harrying the enemy's undefended coasts—a form of pressure which no one would care to sanction in these latter days.

It comes then to this—that if Freedom of the Seas is pushed to its logical conclusion of forbidding altogether the capture and destruction of private property at sea, it will in practice go far to rob fleets of all power of exerting pressure on an enemy, while armies would be left in full enjoyment of that power. The balance of Naval and Military power, which has