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 Freedom of the Seas 
 
 By 
 
 Hon. Daniel F. Cohalan 
 
 Justice of the Supreme Court 
 State of New York 
 
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 Published by the 
 FRIENDS OF IRISH FREEDOM 
 
 280 Broadway, New York 
 
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 INTRODUCTION 
 
 IF I were a man of riches, I would put this pamphlet in 
 the hands of every man and every woman in our 
 America. 
 
 The author is one of the ablest among the Justices of 
 the Supreme Court of New York. He is a man of cul- 
 ture, a man who has read much, observed much, and 
 thought more. All the ore he has dug from the mines of 
 literature, of science, of philosophy, of history, he has 
 passed through the crucible of his own meditation and 
 weighed in the balances of his own judgment. Both on 
 the bench and in his study, Justice Daniel F. Cohalan is 
 an honest man. 
 
 The facts and the forecasts which he has set forth in 
 these printed pages that follow should be taken to heart 
 by every American, by every friend of human freedom, 
 by every man who truly desires to set his feet in the path 
 that leads to the shrine of the whole world's liberty. 
 
 This little work is one of the torches that light the 
 way to that shrine, uplifted here and there by wise and 
 brave men, who love the great family of mankind to 
 which we all belong. 
 
 —Philip Francis. 
 
 
The Freedom of the Seas 
 
 By Hon. Daniel F. Cohalan, Justice Supreme Court, 
 
 New York 
 
 The position of England as the dominant world power was made 
 secure for some generations to come, in the opinion of the English 
 diplomats, when their demand that the freedom of the seas should not 
 he brought up for the consideration of the Peace Conference, was assented 
 to by the representatives of the United States. 
 
 Astute, experienced, trained men, skilled in diplomacy, they secured 
 for themselves before the Conference even met, that which was of the 
 greatest value to them. They left for its consideration, only questions 
 that, while of the utmost importance to the individual nations and peoples, 
 counted practically for nothing, so far as the control of the world was 
 concerned. They were confronted on the part of America by men with 
 small knowledge of world affairs and who had little or no experience in 
 dealing with trained diplomats. 
 
 The representatives of the British Empire were secure; — were certain 
 of their position of dominance from the outset, and could afford to look 
 with great complacency upon the Conference, governed, so far as they 
 were concerned, by conditions which made it impossible for them to lose. 
 
 They realized— because the subject had been studied by their pre- 
 decessors for generations; and they had the advantage of all the accu- 
 mulated knowledge thus acquired; — they knew that the nation that con- 
 trolled the seas would control the world. Hence, when — as may be be- 
 lieved to their utter astonishment — they succeeded, by a slight show of 
 insistence on their part, in having the representatives of the other countries, 
 in the majority at the Peace Conference, agree to their proposition that 
 the freedom of the seas might not be discussed there, they secured, as 
 they believed, the very thing they had accused Germany of struggling 
 for in the war — namely the practical control of the world. 
 
 How adroitly and easily and yet how thoroughly this was done is 
 evidenced by the testimony of Premier Clemenceau as reported in his 
 speech on September 25th last in the Chamber of Deputies in his reference 
 to Great Britain and the freedom of the seas. 
 
 "As regards the freedom of the seas, England has no need to demand 
 it of any one. She already has it, and there are none to dispute it. I have 
 already told you in this very place, and you applauded me, how I related 
 to President Wilson a conversation I had with Premier Lloyd George 
 on this subject: 
 
 "Lloyd George said to me: 'Do you recognize that without the 
 British fleet we would have been unable to continue the war?'" 
 
 "I replied: 'Yes.'" 
 
 "Then Lloyd George said: 'Are you disposed to prevent us, should 
 the case arise, from doing the same thing again?'" 
 
 "I replied: 'No.'" 
 
 "I reported this conversation to Mr. Wilson and he was not at all 
 troubled by it. Mr. Wilson said: 'I have nothing to ask of you which 
 could displease or embarrass either of you.'" 
 
SEA CONTROL IS WORLD CONTROL 
 
 It has become a truism, as Admiral Mahan and other naval writers 
 have proved time after time, that any nation that can control the seas 
 can dominate the world. These writers have proved it from the experi- 
 ence of history and one will need only to glance casually at the story of 
 the nations that led civilization for centuries past, in order to see how 
 completely true is this fact. 
 
 Spain more than three hundred years ago, — when she was in the 
 height of her glory and power; when she ruled Europe, — swept the seas 
 with her ships. It was not until the fleets, the privateers and buccaneers 
 of England broke the Spanish sea power that the English were able to 
 emerge from their Island home and dominate the people they reckoned 
 with beyond the confines of their damp and foggy Island in the North 
 Atlantic. 
 
 Holland was commercially the first power in Europe when Von 
 Tromp with the broom bound to the mast head, swept the shores of 
 England, looking for some English fleet which would stand and fight 
 against the Dutch. 
 
 Three-fourths of the surface of the earth are covered by the oceans, 
 and it has been through the control of the seas, more or less strongly 
 held during the last three centuries, that the British Empire has 
 grown from its small beginning to its present alarming size, when 
 the King of England rules every third person on earth and almost 
 every third square mile of land as well as all of the oceans of the earth. 
 
 That any nation should possess such power is not alone without 
 precedent, but it is a menace to the liberty of all the other peoples 
 of the earth. Tyranny through all the ages of history, has been the 
 necessary consequence of the possession of arbitrary power. While 
 philosophic writers set forth at great length many reasons for assert- 
 ing that benevolent despotism is the ideal form of government, the hard 
 fact remains in the experience of mankind, that Abraham Lincoln, the 
 greatest of all Democrats, spoke the truth when he said that God 
 Almighty never made one people good enough to rule over another 
 people. 
 
 If this is true when it has to do with the relationship of two small 
 or neighboring peoples, it is even more so when one people, no matter 
 how great we may admit their gifts to be, are put in the position 
 of ruling over one-third of all the people of the earth. 
 
 THE CECILS— THE RULERS OF ENGLAND 
 
 The British Empire is so immense in size; so tremendous in influ- 
 ence in all other countries; so powerful in directing the course of 
 other nations, that one rarely stops to think that in the last analysis, 
 it is only another name for the governing group who dominate, control 
 and direct its activities. 
 
 That group is only a handful in number and is made up of the 
 families which, generation after generation, have supplied the rulers 
 of England and through that, the rulers of the British Empire. The 
 very heart of this group is the family of the Cecils which since Eliza- 
 beth's time has almost continuously been the dominant and controlling 
 power of England. Who they are one can easily ascertain: as to how 
 they secured the major part of their wealth and landed holdings, let 
 us take the statement of David Lloyd George, Premier of England, 
 some time since their dreaded foe, now, for the moment, their cher- 
 ished spokesman. He said in the debate in the House of Commons 
 on May 16th, 1912, of the Cecils: "What is the story? Look at the 
 whole story of the pillage of the reformation. They robbed the Catholic 
 
church; they robbed the monasteries; they robbed the altars; they 
 robbed the almshouses; thev robbed the poor and they robbed the 
 dead." 
 
 Sometimes the Cecils rule in person; sometimes they rule through 
 others. Sometimes they openly guide the English ship of state and 
 at other times permit the helm to be turned over nominally to some 
 one else — but actually, they are always in control. For hundreds of 
 years, they have acted openly whenever what would be termed the 
 reactionary forces were in control — whether called the Tories, Conserva- 
 tives, Unionists or some other high sounding name which was only a 
 cover for the rule of the privileged few over the mass of the needy 
 many. At other times, when it suited the fashion of the hour to make 
 the masses believe that the day of the special privileged class was 
 waning, they controlled the foreign policy of England through those 
 who were supposed to represent the masses. It is a fact that even 
 English Liberals or Radicals cannot deny that the foreign policy of 
 England remained practically the same under all administrations since 
 England started to build up her Empire on all the continents and most 
 of the islands of the seas. That policy has always been consistently — 
 directly when they dared or could — indirectly when they were forced 
 thus to act — to build up the English Navy and through it to gain and 
 hold the control of the great highways of commerce that command 
 the seas of the world. For generations past they have carried that 
 policy to such an extreme as to insist that their navy must be equal 
 at least to that of the two powers in the whole world that were 
 nearest to them in strength and they have greatly boasted that they 
 were determined to rule the seas. 
 
 THE ENGLISH DIPLOMATS 
 
 Profound students of human nature, the greatest master diplomats 
 the world has ever seen, the statesmen of England realize the tremen- 
 dous power of appearing always to be standing for the rights of 
 humanity and because of that, even in their most selfish contests, they 
 have claimed to be fighting against the forces of evil and arrayed on 
 the side of civilization and justice. It matters not whether they were 
 fighting against a Catholic King of Spain or a Protestant President of 
 a South African Republic; an infidel Sultan of Turkey or a Pagan 
 Emperor of China, they always availed themselves, so far as they 
 could, of the good opinion of mankind — in general by insisting that they 
 were fighting for right and for liberty and by putting their opponents 
 in the position of appearing to lead the dark forces of evil and injustice. 
 
 The result has been, down through the centuries, that they have 
 made for the English a reputation of being a liberty-loving people; a 
 people who loved justice and favored progress. Although they have 
 been put to it to explain how, no matter which side won the war they 
 have gained in territory, in treasure, in power, they have managed by 
 their extraordinary diplomatic skill, which amounts to genius, and by 
 use of their weapons for making opinion through propaganda (long 
 before others were awake to a realization of the power of such methods) 
 to hold among great masses of sensible men in every country on earth, 
 the name of standing for right in most of their quarrels. All the 
 time they have been building up their Navy and adding to their sea 
 borne commerce until, ^ to-day England, though practically bankrupt 
 and insolvent, is sanguine of recuperating her fortunes and regaining 
 her financial power if she can retain for a couple of generations her 
 supremacy and dominance on the ocean. 
 
THE ENGLISH FLEET 
 
 To-day her fleet serves a two-fold purpose. In the first place it is 
 the means by which she holds together the Empire which < is 
 scattered all over the world. In the second place — and of no less im- 
 portance to her — it is the one weapon by which, if it be left in her 
 possession, she hopes eventually to win the contest now going on 
 between England and the United States for the commercial supremacy 
 of the world. 
 
 We may as well face conditions as they are in the hard, practical, 
 common sense way in which the statesmen of England face the situa- 
 tion. They are under no illusions about the contest before them, before 
 they can become the complete masters of the world. 
 
 For three hundred years England has been following the policy 
 laid down by Elizabeth of breaking down the nations which, through 
 chance or choice, have become her commercial rivals. In that time, 
 she has broken down the power of Spain, of Holland, of France and 
 of Germany and for a time, because of the way in which American 
 commerce was swept from the sea during the Civil War by privateers 
 built and manned and armed in England, she hoped to have success- 
 fully disposed of America as an actual or possible commercial rival. 
 
 To-day, — and entirely as a consequence of our entry into the war, 
 which in the last analysis we won, — for had it not been for the con- 
 tribution of men, of money, of resources, made by us, the result of 
 the war would have been entirely different, — to-day, the United States 
 is the only first-class power left on earth that is solvent, that is self- 
 supporting, that requires no assistance from without its own borders. 
 But our industrial growth has been so vast and so rapid that we 
 produce in eight months of^ the year as much as we can consume in 
 a year. Because of this fact we are actually dependent upon the 
 markets of the world to keep our factories running and our industrial 
 population employed. There must come an inevitable contest between 
 the United States and the British Empire for those markets and in that 
 contest one or other of these countries must triumph and one or 
 other of those countries must be vanquished. 
 
 THE INEVITABLE CONFLICT 
 
 The Marquis of Salisbury, the head of the House of Cecil, saw 
 this plainly two generations ago, when he said that America and Eng- 
 land were "rivals in every port and in every Court." It is attaching 
 no blame to the statesmen of England and it is in no spirit of hostility 
 to her people that one points out the fact that what the statesmen of 
 England believe is necessary for her welfare is attained, — if possible, 
 by the genius of her diplomats, if necessary, by the marshaled array of 
 all the forces of her allies and of those parts of the Empire that 
 produce fighting men. Thus has it been since the days of Henry the 
 Eighth and his virgin daughter, Queen Bess. Thus will it be so long 
 as the genius of the Cecils and their associates, either by skill or by 
 force, can bring success to the English side. 
 
 This is no new game with the statesmen of England and there 
 is very little left for them to learn from bitter experience. This world 
 war, just brought to a successful end by America's contribution to it, 
 is not without its precedents in the long history of British Imperialism. 
 Time after time she has struggled for great prizes in all parts of the 
 world and in the main, no matter who bled, or who paid, England 
 gained in power. Close as she came to colossal defeat and absolute 
 destruction in the recent war; certain as was her annihilation but for 
 the assistance of America; — (which her spokesmen like Sir Douglas 
 
Haig are beginning now to minimize and ignore) — she came just as 
 close one hundred years ago when England was pitted against the 
 genius of that unmatched man — Napoleon Bonaparte — and if it had 
 not been for the assistance then given to England in the last battle 
 by her cousins, the Germans, England would have gone down to in- 
 evitable defeat and the British Empire, instead of being one of the 
 two remaining Empires on earth, would have then vanished as a dream, 
 as have the mighty Empires that in this last war were smashed into 
 impotent parts. 
 
 ENGLAND'S CONTROL OF THE SEAS— WHAT IT 
 MEANS TO HER 
 
 Weighted down with debt at the end of the Napoleonic crisis— a 
 debt relatively almost as great as the present debt— British statesmen 
 managed to pull their country through because of their hold upon and 
 of their mastery of the seas. Through that mastery they practically 
 drove from the ocean every country that did not submit to their con- 
 trol, and took to themselves the lion's share of the profit made in the 
 carrying trade of the world. 
 
 England when compared with the great lands of the earth is a 
 little country of 50,000 square miles. Her ships carry to her the raw 
 material of all the lands of the earth in order that they may be manu- 
 factured^ by her skilled artisans, and by her industrial classes into 
 articles in demand by the rest of mankind. 
 
 These ships, freighted with these materials, carried to England 
 from all parts of the earth, carry back the manufactured articles from 
 England, sold to the people of these countries — articles manufactured 
 out of the materials they had produced — and turned back to them after 
 England has made a large profit in handling, manufacturing and selling 
 the articles. In that way, at the expense of all the rest of the world, 
 England has accumulated treasures and gained power and strength in 
 every corner of the globe. 
 
 She became not only the world's work shop but the world's banker. 
 There from every land went those who sought assistance in the de- 
 velopment of countries, in the building up of industries, in the con- 
 struction of railroads, in executing public works, in improving in any 
 way the material conditions of life. This was all a source of immense 
 profit to England and because of it she has been able to make in a 
 hundred ways the profit of the honest broker, and amass in a hundred 
 ways still more wealth, still greater power. 
 
 She brooked no opposition where it could be overcome, but if 
 other countries prospered and grew she looked with complacency on 
 their growth so long as she controlled the seas, always secure in the 
 thought that their growth necessarily contributed to her wealth and 
 added to her power. 
 
 ENGLAND IN THE CIVIL WAR 
 
 For a decade in the middle of the last century, England was greatly 
 worried over the extraordinary progress made by the American mer- 
 chant marine. She viewed w T ith alarm the growth in size and in num- 
 ber of our clipper ships w T hich carried American freight and American 
 commerce to every port on the earth. 
 
 When the unfortunate division arose between the North and the 
 South in the sixties. England promptly hastened to the assistance of 
 the Confederacy ana with the privateers built and armed by her, suc- 
 ceeded in driving the American mercantile marine from the seas, with 
 great consequent profit to herself. It has been estimated that for fifty 
 
years after the Civil War, England made on an average a profit of 
 three hundred million dollars per year out of carrying the ocean borne, 
 commerce of America. 
 
 Is it any wonder that she did her best to cause the defeat of the 
 United States during the war of the Rebellion and to drive from the 
 seas the Flag of the nation that had become a successful rival through- 
 out the world? 
 
 ENGLAND AND THE CONTINENT 
 
 England looked with complacency upon the industrial progress and 
 growth of Germany until that growth sought to question the naval 
 supremacy of England. From the hour that Germany was able to build 
 ships which crossed the Atlantic and came into the New York Harbor 
 in less time than British ships could come, many thoughtful observers 
 believed that the doom of Germany was sealed. The Germans might 
 with safety build up their military power on the continent so far as 
 England was concerned, without protest or interference, but the moment 
 in which Germany invaded England's chosen field, that moment Germany 
 had to contend against the diplomatic skill which had never been beaten, 
 the power of bringing about a coalition that had rarely if ever been 
 exercised in vain. 
 
 Many students of history believe that Napoleon could have mastered 
 Europe with the assent or support of England if he had not crossed to 
 Africa and had not threatened India and the British Asiatic dominions. 
 
 In the same way modern Germany came into existence with the full 
 consent of England, tore Alsace-Lorraine from France; Schleswig from 
 Denmark, and placed an indemnity of five billion francs upon the beaten 
 France amid the admiring plaudits of the English governing classes. 
 Germany might have ruled the continent to her heart's content, as an 
 ally of England, if she had not the audacity or folly to attempt to sup- 
 plant England on the seas and rend from her weakening hand the trident 
 of Neptune. 
 
 A despoiled Poland might writhe for one hundred and fifty years 
 under the conquering heel of a Hohenzollern without a protest from 
 England, but any attempted interference in the profits and the power 
 that came from the control of the seas, meant that Germany in this 
 generation, like Spain, like Holland, like France in other days, must 
 fight for her existence. But that is another story. 
 
 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL GROWTH AND ITS 
 
 CONSEQUENCES 
 
 To-day we of America are interested in problems that are to afreet 
 the future of mankind. We have here in our country a population of 
 110 million people and so great has been our industrial growth that we 
 produce in less than eight months of every year, all that we can possibly 
 consume in the entire year. F'or four months of each year we are de- 
 pendent upon the markets of the world to find a sale for our surplus 
 products in order that our people may be kept constantly at work. To 
 reach these markets it is a physical necessity to cross the oceans of the 
 earth. To reach them now we have the mercantile fleet that was brought 
 into existence by the exigencies of the war. This will enable us to 
 carry our raw materials and manufactured products into every corner 
 of the globe. Under our own Flag, we may thus reach in every land 
 at their ports of entry, every purchaser who seeks such materials as we 
 have for sale. 
 
 In doing this, we must come into competition with Englishmen 
 already there and we must seek, in friendly rivalry, to take from them 
 
 8 
 
which 
 
 war. 
 
 iquanimitv 
 
 «po„ I ; s i t ch hu c^ a pe n tfr„ e o^tstsu^sted'r 11 with *»-■■ 
 
 of a friendly nature? Of com J T, I™„ y V " r J° ng con "»«e to be 
 admiration for the country tha saved ,£ a F s m En S h t shmen a " fi »ed with 
 themselves from complete ruVn thev will PS? ft*™™ ann J hiI a.t>°« and 
 individual cases the Englishman i a likeahl M? Vu <for ln ™ny 
 sense of gratitude for those who saved them 1^' m f" ayed . by a 
 protest, the natural strain which wM com, t tf • W '" , bear v' ithout 
 having to divide a market whi'cn' tSe'y fSMSSL fe« 
 
 Knghsh trader will look with ever inrre.Li K>? Waterloo— the 
 
 into his special field made bv ?!?* Pn L ? " g ttern . ess on the inroads 
 
 «^.ss.tE5w5S3SSs£5 s s ; 
 
 THE EMPIRE'S OUTLOOK 
 
 her triumph in seizing for herself advantages' of aU kind, a, thl "T* 
 ofTmer,^ ^"^ "* » & Ww 2l?3fi£%o'& 
 
 mmmmm 
 
Empire outside of England can an observer find that contentment, 
 peace and progress which it is the British boast that all who dwell 
 therein possess. 
 
 THE ENGLISH AT HOME 
 
 Let us look briefly at the situation in Great Britain itself. There 
 the masters of the Empire, the small group who have directly or 
 indirectly in their hands the power and wealth which go with govern- 
 ment, find themselves for the first time in their history confronted by 
 a conjunction of mighty forces that are considering not the redress 
 of more or less heavy grievances, but the wiping out of the present 
 caste system of government with all its traditions and its differing classes 
 and replace it by the rule of an aroused and aggressive proletariat. 
 
 This is the nightmare that mars the hitherto pleasant existence of 
 the Cecils and the Balfours and their assistants, the Georges, the Asquiths, 
 the Greys, the Smiths and the Carsons. This is the menace, the danger 
 and nearness of which may for a brief time deter the governing classes 
 from using their sea power to prevent America from reaching the 
 markets of the world in order to keep them, as they believe they should 
 be kept, entirely for England. 
 
 The three great Unions of Great Britain — the Miners, the Railway 
 Men and the Transport Workers, are now demanding the nationalization 
 of all the coal mines of Great Britain, and Robert Smilie, their 
 extraordinary leader, said at the recent Trades' Congress in Glasgow, 
 that this was not intended to be the end of the program, but only a 
 step in the march to take over all forms of industrial activities. 
 
 The war carried on by the leaders of the English governing classes 
 has aroused the British masses to a realization of their power and to 
 the full measure of what they believe to be the necessities of the hour. 
 They are no longer satisfied to be the hewers of wood and the drawers 
 of water for the privileged few, but are now insistent upon having not 
 alone some say in what is going cm, but if they have their way — upon 
 assuming entire control of the activities of their country. 
 
 Jack Cade may have been the precursor of Robert Smilie in demand- 
 ing that the people should govern, but the fate which overtook him is 
 not likely to be Smilie's, who to-day stands much more chance of being 
 Premier of England than he does of following Jack Cade to the scaffold. 
 The three great Unions acting in concert in the month of March last, 
 compelled, with the intervention of the government, a settlement of their 
 demands by the capitalists. This will require the payment annually of an 
 additional "five hundred millions to the industrial workers of Great 
 Britain. Out of whose pockets is this immense sum to come? Not out 
 of the pockets of the capitalists of England unless the hand of the 
 diplomat of England has lost its cunning. 
 
 If industrial peace can be brought to Great Britain for a generation 
 by this and similar concessions, repeated if necessary time after time, 
 the capitalists of England will look, as in the past they have not looked 
 in vain, to have the burden taken from their shoulders and placed 
 on those who are the competitors of England or who may be compelled 
 to pay her toll for the freight going over the seas that God Almighty 
 intended should be for the use of all mankind. 
 
 ENGLISH COAL 
 
 With the additional price placed upon the production of coal by 
 the increase the miners have wrung from the coal owners, the English 
 
coal is driven from the markets of the world, unless it is to be kept 
 there by England's control of the carrying trade of the world. 
 
 English coal, since England became the work shop of the world, 
 has been used by her to build up her power in many ways — but in no 
 way more successfully than as an article of export in order to make up 
 bulk with her manufactured articles— manufactured from the raw ma- 
 terials imported to England from every quarter of the globe. 
 
 Ships which enter her ports laden to the gunwales with raw 
 material needed to keep her factories working and her people employed, 
 would have gone back loaded very lightly with the smaller bulk of 
 manufactured commodities if it were not that she could make up the 
 difference in bulk in British coal. This can no longer compete with 
 American and other coals to advantage as it formerly did, and England in 
 order to keep control of the world markets must continue to export coal. 
 This she can do only by controlling the ships which ply the seven seas 
 and carry on the commerce between the different races of mankind. 
 When we consider that the economic unrest and industrial discontent 
 are growing by leaps and bounds and the power of her organized groups 
 of workers is growing apace; that the people are utterly dissatisfied with 
 existing conditions and the tremendous burden of debt which the war 
 imposed — and have a growing realization of their importance to England 
 coming to them with every succeeding concession made to them — 
 we find the evidence that trouble for the governing classes in England 
 is only beginning. 
 
 When to this is added Jhe dissatisfaction among her allies with 
 the way in which, as usual, England has seized the lion's share of the 
 spoils of war; the ever increasing distrust of her fairness by the nations 
 which were neutral in the recent war — nations which while small in area 
 are big in mtelligenceand power to make opinion throughout the world 
 — it is evident that it will require all the famed genius of English 
 diplomats to keep England afloat as a going concern unless she can 
 make some sort of a deal that shall put at her command the practically 
 limitless resources of America. 
 
 THE ENGLISH ATTEMPT TO CONTROL AMERICA 
 
 The ingenius Cecil and the Slim Smuts felt that they had found the 
 needed help in the British plan of a League of Nations which was 
 adopted by Mr. Wilson and which they felt would be swallowed by 
 the Senate of the United States as easily and enthusiastically as it 
 was by the American Representatives at the Peace Conference. If 
 that plan had been adopted, as England fondly hoped it would be, 
 the governing classes of England could look with entire satisfaction upon 
 the future. They would have harnessed to their chariot wheels the 
 invincible might of America. They would have been guaranteed for 
 all time in possession of all their stolen loot, by the liberty loving 
 people of America. The lands, with all their wealth, which they stole 
 from their possessors throughout the length and breadth of the world, 
 would continue indefinitely to be theirs, through the power of America. 
 
 The vantage points gained by the closing of the great seas would 
 continue to be England's. Gibraltar torn from Spain; Malta rent from 
 France; Suez stolen from Egypt and with France euchered out of her 
 half of the loot; Aden taken from Arabia— all the vantage points all 
 round the globe — all their coaling stations; their naval stations, Esqui- 
 mault, Halifax, Bermuda— aimed at the heart of America; England's 
 control of the seas, and through it her over-lordship of the world 
 would have been hers, humanly speaking forever, not in spite of America, 
 but with the connivance, assent and guarantee of America. No^ more 
 colossal scheme of aggrandizement has ever been dreamed of in the 
 
 11 
 
history of mankind. No more gigantic bunco game was ever thought 
 of than this effort, in the name of peace, to make a permanent condition 
 of the hideous system of conquest, of robbery, of injustice which is 
 called the British Empire. But the England which had its way at 
 Paris and which hoped to beguile and cajole the Senate of the United 
 States has had a rude awakening. The representatives of America who 
 were willing to give to the British Empire six votes in a proposed 
 League to the one vote given to these United States, the mightiest 
 nation of freemen in the world to-day, seemed to have reckoned without 
 their host. It is probable that hereafter, any one who represents 
 America in any diplomatic conference will see to it as a matter of self- 
 interest, if not as a matter of self-respect or love of country, that 
 there shall never be laid for ratification before the representatives of 
 a proud and self-respecting people, any plan that would deprive America 
 of her rights, while assuring to England the aid and assistance she so 
 vitally needs and the necessity for which is evidenced by her request 
 for a guarantee. 
 
 ENGLAND IN DESPERATE SITUATION 
 
 The diplomats of England will be put to it to keep the Empire a 
 going concern, with difficulties mounting for it in every quarter of the 
 globe; with an awakened and hostile Old World; with former allies 
 and opponents both looking to undo the work of the past; ready, if 
 compelled to do so, to undersell the British producer; with the British 
 producer harrassed by having to give larger wages to those who turn 
 01U his products and compelled to compete at once with the solvent 
 United States of America and the insolvent countries of Continental 
 Europe. 
 
 The English have only the proverbial Hobson's choice in the 
 matter, pn the^ Continent they are confronted by economic rivals 
 that are impoverished in wealth and are broken in power but which 
 have added to the habits of industry and economy, acquired through 
 generations, the sharp spur of dire necessity. We hear of a revived 
 industrial Germanic world where the industrial leaders retain their 
 organizing capacity and the industrial workers are seeking not chances 
 to shirk, but chances to work; not how few, but how many, hours 
 they may labor; not how little, but how much, they may produce. Con- 
 trast that with conditions in England and then looking to the West 
 contemplate with the Englishman the prospect of having to compete 
 with an America of unlimited resources and of incalculable power. Is 
 it any wonder if the English feel that they must avail themselves of all 
 their advantages if they are to survive not to speak of, if they are to 
 rule the world? 
 
 The English statesman must secure for his traders and merchants 
 and manufacturers a certainty of a market for their output. How can 
 he do that except by keeping the United States of America — the only 
 solvent competitor of England — out of the market? Give him the credit 
 of believing that he will do this by fair means if he can. Credit also 
 the fact that if he can persuade the American exporter to remain 
 outside the markets of the British Empire, persuade him he will. If 
 he can cajole him to do so, cajole him he will, and so of all the markets 
 in the world in which he is obliged to compete with the United States. 
 But if he cannot persuade or cajole or flatter him to remain outside or 
 give up the market entirely — and has only the means of coercion left — 
 the means by which the Spanish, Dutch, French and German traders 
 were made to loosen their grip upon the markets sought by England, 
 then coerce him he must in order to save himself from revolution at 
 home and destruction abroad. 
 
 12 
 
If as an alternative of internal revolution he is required to lay 
 aside his gratitude — forget that America saved him — in order to fight 
 with America, who will believe that for one moment he will hesitate 
 at the choice thus presented? 
 
 If the American Mercantile Marine which suddenly came into 
 existence cannot be otherwise disposed of, what is there in the history 
 of English statesmen to lead any student of history to believe that 
 they will hesitate to use the mighty and potent weapon which is in 
 their hands, in order to sweep it from the seas and thus free England 
 from her difficulties.'' 
 
 Why did these able diplomats of England insist that the question 
 of the freedom of the seas should not be even discussed at the Paris 
 Conference unless they realized its vital importance to England? 
 Of what use is the fleet unless it be for the purpose of making America 
 bend the knee as all other commercial competitors have been compelled 
 to bend it? 
 
 THE ENGLISH NAVY 
 
 Surely no one will believe that England intends to use her Navy 
 against a broken Russia or the scattered fragments of the Central 
 Empires? It is not required against the small neutral nations of Europe, 
 nor against the comparatively weak Republics of South America. It 
 is not needed to put Italy in its place or to be used against France which 
 Clemenceau and Viviani and their associates have turned into a con- 
 tinental vassal of England. It is not required against the smaller gov- 
 ernments set up throughout Europe largely as buffer states for France; 
 against an Africa turned largely into a British continent; a continental 
 Asia largely likewise turned into a British colony. A Canada and an 
 Australia many thousands of miles away from England do not require 
 it except as an instrument to keep them in order. 
 
 There are but two countries which now loom up as serious rivals 
 in power to the British Empire — Japan — the Island Empire and sole 
 survivor with England of all the Empires which so recently encircled the 
 globe — and the United States. 
 
 Against which is it likely to be used? Against Japan, the close 
 ally of England, which has just tremendously increased its power with 
 England and Wilson's assent, and which is a commercial rival of England 
 only in a small way, in spite of its taking over the silk and cotton 
 business to such an astonishing extent, lacking, until Shantung was 
 presented to it, the coal and iron necessary to any hope of becoming 
 a serious economic rival of England — or against these United States 
 of America? 
 
 The only serious rival of England economically in the future, is 
 the country whose system of government was founded as a protest 
 against the tyranny of England and which has set the tune by which 
 liberty-loving people have marched since the Declaration of Independence 
 was made by Thomas Jefferson and his associates in 1776. That rival 
 is America, which, since its beginning has been an object always of 
 distrust and generally of hatred upon the part of England — America 
 which gained her independence from England only after seven years 
 of bitter warfare, during which time England resorted to all the cruellies 
 and barbarities which she charged against her enemies in the late war. 
 
 America in 1812 fought for the freedom of the seas. America 
 maintained then the freedom of the seas — American statesmen taught 
 that the seas belonged to man and not to nations. America has no 
 territorial ambitions to be satisfied at the expense of any other nation 
 on earth — America whose existence is a mark of reproach to all the 
 monarchal governments of the world, is the menace to the practical 
 
 13 
 
statesmen of England which must be overthrown if England is to 
 continue to control the markets of the world. 
 
 THE ENGLISH VIEW OF AMERICA 
 
 Deep in their hearts the English statesmen are under no illusion 
 as to America's point of view. They know that the vast majority of 
 the people of this country sincerely believe in liberty and freedom for 
 all mankind; that they are not alone strict adherents of a Republican 
 form oi government but are tilled with the thought that eventually all 
 mankind shall share in the blessings which come with the ordered 
 liberty of a Republic. They know that a vast majority of the people 
 of America sympathize with every curtailment of special privilege in 
 favor of the rights of the plain people of England. They know that such 
 ideals are the magnet which has drawn such unprecedented growth 
 and prosperity to these United States of America and that all this is 
 having its effect not alone upon the people of Australia, of South 
 Africa, of Canada, of New Zealand, and upon the down-trodden millions 
 of India, of Egypt and the people of the scattered countries of Asia 
 and Africa upon which the English governing classes have set their 
 heel, but upon the masses of the people of England itself. They know 
 above all things that deep in the American breast there burns a fire of 
 sympathy for the people of Ireland and that America will never be 
 satisfied until England, whether by choice or compulsion, leaves the 
 shores of Ireland and permits her to resume her place among the 
 independent nations of the earth. 
 
 They know all this and they know that with the increasing popula- 
 tion of our country and with the growing demands of our people for 
 better living conditions, more and more will our industrial development 
 require that we find markets abroad for the output of our factories 
 and the product of our fields. Seeing the growth of the American 
 Mercantile Marine, which they cannot control, they must inevitably 
 come to the conclusion that it should be destroyed while there is yet 
 time and before our fleet has reached the point where neither the 
 British fleet nor any combination England may be able to make will be 
 able to destroy it. 
 
 ENGLAND'S NECESSITIES 
 
 just as other statesmen of England in their day required the 
 Spanish, Dutch, French, Danish and German fleets to be destroyed 
 and -the commerce of these peoples swept from the seas, so to-day the 
 traditions of England will justify the thought that when her interests 
 require that the fleet of America shall be destroyed, and American 
 commerce again swept from the seas, England will attempt to destroy it. 
 
 Many men will refuse to believe that England would adopt such a 
 course of action. Many even of our own statesmen, beguiled by 
 the honeyed phrases of English writers and spokesmen, will feel that 
 it is an outrage to question the good faith of England or to believe that 
 for her own selfish interest. England would forget the debt of gratitude 
 she owes to America who has so recently saved her. But men worthy 
 to be called statesmen remember that it is by the past we judge nations 
 as we judge men. There is no such thing as gratitude among those 
 who govern states, and England would not hesitate to do in the 20th 
 Century whatever her necessities might require her to do. The England 
 that in 1870 stood by and applauded the seizure of Alsace-Lorraine by 
 Bismarck and then saw it made one of the causes of war in 1914 would 
 not hesitate in the 20th Century to do what its interests required it to 
 do. The England which burned the Capitol of our country in 1813 and 
 burned Annapolis and Buffalo in the same war; the England which over- 
 
 14 
 
threw the little Republics of South Africa in order to get possession of 
 the diamond and gold mines of those countries would not hesitate now 
 to do what its governing class felt necessary for their interest. 
 
 If there be a new England as a result of the war, if those who judge 
 by the past judge her wrongly, let her set herself right with a doubting 
 mankind by agreeing to the disarmament of the fleet and its reduction 
 in size to a point where it will suffice for the defense of England against 
 any likely or unlikely invasion, and w^here it will cease to be a menace 
 to the liberty of mankind. 
 
 The last thing that Americans want to see is another great war. 
 They won the last war in order to put a stop, if possible, to all future 
 wars, and their sound common sense and keen judgment teach them that 
 the way to stop wars is to put it out of the power of any nation or small 
 groups of nations to dominate the world. The possession of such power 
 as the English Navy gives is a dreadful temptation to use it. Let it be 
 destroyed now that it can exist only for the purpose of offensive war — 
 now that its existence can no longer reasonably or honestly be defended, 
 on the ground that it is to be used as a defense against other great 
 navies. 
 
 Such action on the part of the governing class in England will 
 do more for them than a thousand reiterated protestations of their 
 devotion to peace. Actions speak louder than words. An England 
 voluntarily setting aside her control of the seas, means an England 
 mindful of the rights of others, instead of an England insistent upon 
 wronging all other nations. 
 
 It has just been arranged that she will not pay the interest upon 
 part of her public debt which is held abroad— the interest is to be 
 added to the capital — and yet the Chancellor of her Exchequer asks for 
 the stupendous sum of $700,000,000 to defray her naval charges for the 
 next year. The reduction of her navy to a defensive point would remove 
 this fearful load from the backs of her already heavily burdened people 
 and go a long way towards retaining her credit which is shaken as 
 never before. More than all it would remove from the minds of ob- 
 servant men of all races the fixed idea that England seeks and intends 
 to have absolute world power. 
 
 If there is a new England let her remove her army of occupation 
 from Ireland. 
 
 Her statesmen realize more than ever that America has been aroused 
 to see that England really holds Ireland not alone through hostility 
 to her people; not because they feel that the people of Ireland can never 
 forgive the wrongs of the past; not even because of the great profit, 
 amounting to more than $200,000,000 last year, that the English derive 
 from their hold upon Ireland, but because the physical control of Ireland 
 is necessary to the continued existence of British Imperialism. As 
 George Washington well said there would be no Irish question if Ireland 
 were some hundreds of miles distant from England. Its very proximity 
 — its position between England and the oceans of the world makes its 
 control vital to England in her control of the seas. The world now 
 realizes the position of Ireland and that its independence will mean a 
 great, contribution to the independence of Europe in that it will deprive 
 England of her present absolute control of all the waters that approach 
 Western and Northern Europe. Ireland is the outpost of Europe in the 
 Northern Atlantic and should be controlled by people friendly to all 
 of Europe and not to England alone. 
 
 England whose shores cannot be approached except by passing 
 Ireland will be shorn of much power and be no longer a menace to the 
 rest of the world if a free and independent Ireland, inhabited by a 
 normal population of eighteen or twenty million people, on terms of 
 amity and concord with all nations — a special ally or bitter foe of no 
 
 15 
 
other country — controls the Western approaches to Europe. It will 
 make for the freedom of the seas and for free and unrestricted trading 
 among all nations, as will no other single contribution that can be 
 made. Think what it will mean to the commerce of America — not 
 alone Irish commerce, freed for the first time in centuries from English 
 control, thrown open to the markets of the world and growing by leaps 
 and bounds; not alone the population of Ireland increasing to normal 
 size, but its value as a point of debarkation and distribution for American 
 commerce with all the countries of Europe. 
 
 Out of the chaos that is now Europe, must come in due time again, 
 the prosperity and commercial activity which go with the return of 
 ordered liberty. Out of the chaos which now exists must come with 
 the return of order, unnumbered demands for the American commodities 
 which the devastated sections of Europe will require for reconstruction. 
 With the return of a reign of law and order among three hundred 
 millions of civilized people will come renewed commercial intercourse 
 on a large scale, with America. 
 
 We must seek some points of distribution for such commerce. 
 Where can we so well find them as in Ireland, with its position of 
 comparative proximity to America; its unrivaled harbors; its sympa- 
 thetic people; its ideal location for sending goods in every direction 
 to the different parts of Europe? Add to all this that it is in no sense 
 our rival as a manufacturing nation, as are England, Belgium, Holland, 
 France, as was and will be again, Germany. Add to that that its harbors 
 are not crowded with shipping as are those of England. They are not 
 dotted with piers and wharves and quays that belong to our competitors 
 and that will, if we use English or Dutch or Belgium harbors, compel 
 us to load and unload after the ships of our rivals shall have loaded and 
 unloaded, or in out of the way places under difficulties and in some 
 places without needed security. 
 
 THE BRITISH NAVY A MENACE TO AMERICA 
 
 English statesmen are always ready with excuses to explain the situ- 
 ation in their own interest and to show how a competitor is at fault, but 
 they cannot now explain the facts that the continued existence of the 
 British Navy is a menace only to America, and that it is to continue 
 to exist only on the ground that use will be found for it in serving 
 the interests of England. 
 
 Jts upkeep is a tremendous charge upon the impoverished masses 
 of Great Britain. That can only be excused on the ground that it is 
 to be used in their interests in the immediate future and it can be 
 used only as a weapon of defense or of offense. It cannot be any 
 longer alleged with any probability of belief that it is to be used for the 
 defense of Great Britain, for no one now threatens England with 
 invasion. No one now threatens to shut off the food supply of England, 
 for which she is dependent upon the outer world for more than forty 
 weeks in every year. No longer can she point to the navies of Russia, 
 or Germany as a menace only to be met by her gigantic navy. Those 
 fleets have actually ceased to exist so far as they have not been annexed 
 to the British Navy. The only navies left are those of America, of 
 Japan, and of France. The others are negligible. Only very timorous 
 statesmen of England will fear France, their old rival, whom the sub- 
 servient and stupid policies of Clemenceau and his associates have 
 made into a broken vassal of England upon the # Continent. 
 
 Japan, the pagan Empire, with which the ruling classes of England 
 choose to ally her against all the white races of the world, has a 
 fleet which is no longer a menace to any country save America. 
 Japan has voluntarily put herself into a position where she is tied 
 
 16 
 
by the closest kind of an alliance with England. There remains America 
 alone. 
 
 IS ENGLAND SINCERE? 
 
 Some of the great liberals of England— of whom there are a few 
 in every generation — speak of her desire to lead in a movement for 
 world disarmament. They are splendid special pleaders for her but 
 they never have been able to influence her actions, eloquently as they 
 asserted that they spoke of her aspirations. Her Morleys and Brights 
 'and Massinghams are useful for ornaments and for foreign effect, but 
 they have not governed England or swayed her actions. Let her now 
 show that they really speak for her — let her disarm, not her Army, for 
 that is comparatively negligible, but her Navy, which is, humanly 
 speaking, all powerful. If she does this, she will prove that the leopard 
 can change his spots. If she does not, then let our statesmen awaken 
 and beware, lest Imperial England, running true to form, shall seek for 
 permanent world domination by the destruction of the American fleet 
 just as she temporarily has got it by the destruction of all her erst- 
 while competitors and rivals. 
 
 With general disarmament the future of American liberty is secure. 
 England urged the peace loving people of America to go into the war 
 on the theory that they were going to bring the right of self-deter- 
 mination and the application of the principles of democracy to all the 
 nations of the earth. How rude has been our awakening? 
 
 The spokesmen of England have accused us of many things in 
 the past — not alone her diplomats, her generals and her admirals, but 
 her novelists and poets, but no one of them has yet the distinction of 
 asserting that we were fighting for democracy in order to overthrow 
 her government, or take away any of her wealth. That fact should 
 dispose of any apprehension that the British Navy must continue to 
 exist for the defense of England as against us and leaves it no possible 
 use except as a weapon of offense against a rival of England. 
 
 Surely it cannot be needed against the broken remnants of Russia 
 or the Central Empires, the little neutrals, her vassal France, or the 
 vassals of France. It cannot be that they distrust England's close ally, 
 Japan. It leaves us back where we started. The British Navy can only 
 be used as a weapon of offense against the navy and commerce of the 
 sole remaining solvent and serious economic rival of England, to wit, 
 the United States of America. 
 
 England owes America billions of dollars. England has lost to 
 America, the financial leadership of the world. England by the destruc- 
 tion of America would regain the financial leadership and rid herself, 
 as the victorious opponent, of her debt to America. 
 
 English statesmen can see nothing in the continued growth of 
 America except the strengthening of England's great economic rival. 
 They, to their credit be it said, never work in the interest of any 
 country but England. These men who now rule the world, as they 
 believe, know that with the elimination of America they could securely 
 hold the world for centuries. 
 
 Our destruction would mean the overthrow of the greatest ex- 
 periment in democracy that the world has ever known. It would throw 
 back the world, England included, into the hands of the special priv- 
 ileged and ruling few. In every country of the world today the masses 
 are raising their heads against the classes, insisting that government 
 must exist in the future only for the welfare of all — and not for the 
 exploitation of the many by the chosen few. The destruction of the 
 greatest experiment in democracy as founded in America would mean 
 the renaissance of special privilege; the triumph of monarchial instttu- 
 
 17 
 
tions. It would be a greater set back to the world than was the de- 
 struction of Rome and mankind again would be compelled to struggle 
 for centuries before it could lift up its head to bring liberty and free- 
 dom to any quarter of the globe. 
 
 The struggle between America and the British Empire is inevitable. 
 It has already begun. It has entered upon its economic stage, driven 
 by the stress of circumstances which no group of statesmen or philos- 
 ophers can control. The two countries are driven to seek the same 
 markets; to strive for the same trade in order that their people may 
 live in comfort. The contest in its peaceful stage could be prolonged, 
 but not avoided, if some division of the markets could be made, if 
 some arrangement whereby there would be business enough for all 
 were possible. But such a condition exists only in the dreams of the 
 philosophers, not in the hard matter of fact concrete conditions of every 
 day life. 
 
 THE CONTEST IS HERE 
 
 The struggle is not to come, it has already been entered upon. 
 England has already shut us out from her own markets for many articles 
 and commodities which we produce. In ever}' one of her colonies, 
 England has a school of politicians who are openly urging closer trade 
 relations with the mother country, at the expense of her rivals. She 
 controls to-day, among other things, the rubber and wool of the world. 
 Slie is seeking control of the oil fields upon which depends the future 
 of transportation. Through her control of the cables and her system 
 of trade permits and passports she has already shut out the American 
 trader for all practical purposes from many of the markets of the world. 
 She is only as yet feeling her way, intent upon going at present as 
 far as she is permitted to go on and in the end as far as her power 
 will enable her to go. She has filled our country with her exchange 
 editors, lecturers, ministers, professors and propagandists in order to 
 flatter and cajole us and put the people off their guard. This is no 
 new devise for her. She strives to weaken and to destroy, as enemies 
 of America, those here who are her opponents and who cannot be 
 cajoled or coerced into taking her point of view of every question that 
 is to her interest. She is well served here not only by recent importations 
 and by her casual visitors to our shores, but by her Carnegie Fund 
 group and those of similar ilk, by the descendants of the Tories who 
 honestly believe that the United States should never have been separated 
 from England and who would rejoice to see it again united with the 
 British Empire. 
 
 A grave crisis confronts the statesmen of our country. 
 
 No greater problem has ever addressed itself to the courage and 
 foresight and statesmanship of any group of elected freemen. 
 
 We stand at the parting of the ways. After years of bloody war 
 which destroyed millions of lives and billions of treasure, the hopes 
 of mankind turned to the spokesmen of our country who appeared 
 in Paris, to have them end war, destroy tyranny and bring liberty 
 to all the oppressed peoples of the earth. The outcome of that eventful 
 conference is one of the outstanding failures of history. The marshalled 
 forces of special privilege have once again triumphed and to them 
 that had, has been given. The fly has walked into the parlor of the 
 spider. The ingenius novice has learned the lesson of the ages that the 
 amateur must bow to the skill of the professional and the amiable 
 Wilson has succumbed to the wiles and guile of the artful Lloyd George, 
 and to the grim arbitrariness of the practical Clemenceau. But with 
 the art of the experienced politician, he has presented to the world the 
 shadow of his performance as if it were the substance of his promise 
 
 IS 
 
and has tried to coerce the Senate to adopt without amendment, or even 
 examination, the British prepared League of Nations which would give 
 to England, under another name, the super-sovereignty of the world, 
 and reduce us to a position of humiliating subservience that would 
 destroy our independence and exhaust our power. 
 
 Our country hailed a year ago as the moral leader of the world, 
 with friends on all sides, is now scoffed at as a hypocrite and looked 
 upon by many of the Nations of the Old World as an enemy. We, 
 who won the war and destroyed Militarism are now in danger of setting 
 up the rule of Navalism so as to again enthrone might as the arbiter 
 of all disputed questions among the Nations. 
 
 Only the Senate can prevent this great wrong and restore our 
 country to the proud position it held so short a time ago. The Senate 
 is now the bulwark of America's liberty, and the hope of suffering 
 humanity. If it falters in its duty to safeguard the rights and sovereignty 
 of our country, America will fall as have fallen mighty democracies in 
 the past. If it lives up to its high traditions and considers above all 
 things the interests of America, it will preserve our country, save 
 human liberty and destroy, with injury to none who seek liberty, the 
 grim curse of Navalism which hangs like a heavy cloud over the fortunes 
 of mankind. 
 
 Mighty forces are working from without and within to swing 
 America away from her old moorings; to take her away from her moral 
 leadership of mankind and to subordinate her to the position of a satellite 
 swinging around the British Empire. Mighty are these forces; numerous 
 are their weapons; potent are their agents; plausible are their argu- 
 ments; but mightier still is the love of liberty among the great mass 
 of the plain people of our country and in the end, bitter as may be 
 the struggle, dark as may seem the way, the forces of justice and right 
 will triumph and America will be preserved from these attacks as she 
 has been from those which seemed about to overwhelm her in the 
 past — preserved to remain a Beacon light for those who seek liberty 
 and value it as the greatest gift which a Beneficent Creator has be- 
 stowed upon mankind. America will triumph in the end in any contest 
 which the British ruling class may force upon her, but it would be a 
 blessing to all mankind, and to no portion of it greater than to the 
 masses of England, if the United States Senators, the statesmen who 
 control in the last analysis the destiny of America and through that 
 largely the destinv of the world, should bring about by the defeat of the 
 British proposed League of Nations, an International Conference which 
 will consider as its first and most important problem the real freedom 
 of the seas and bv insisting upon naval disarmament, will destroy 
 Navalism — twin brother of Militarism— and thus bring permanent peace 
 to all the nations of the earth. 
 
 19 
 
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