"It need not be difficult either to define or to secure the freedom of the seas if the governments of the world sincerely desire to come to an agreement concerning it." At first thought, the most striking characteristic of these words of President Wilson in his address to the Senate last January is their optimism. Freedom of the seas, according to German authorities, is to be secured by various agencies, including the unrestricted use of the submarine and an independent Ireland. Primarily it is to be secured by the destruction of British naval predominance. Now British authorities have an inconvenient habit of stating that freedom of the seas was won long ago by means of the British navy, that it exists today in time of peace, and that its continuance depends upon Britannia ruling the waves. Our correspondence with Germany before we entered the war contains polite references to our coöperation with that country to secure freedom of the seas through recognition by treaties and international agreement of principles such as that of the immunity of private property, not contraband, from capture at sea. But Germany no longer thinks it possible to secure the freedom of the seas by the medium of scraps of paper, and other nations show an unflattering unanimity on this point, with regard to any scraps of paper to which the present German government might be a party. As to the submarine as a means of securing freedom of the seas, our entrance into the war is perhaps a sufficient indication of our estimate of it. The usefulness of an independent Ireland toward this end would seem even more likely to be limited. There remains the British navy, and it promises to remain.
And how are we to define the freedom of the seas? The term has been used in the past, and examination of our diplomatic correspondence will show that it has been used in this war, in three different ways. It has been used in protest against the appropriation by a single nation of definite areas of the high seas for exclusive uses. The sowing of mines and the proclamation of danger areas have led to its revival in this sense. It has been believed to mean the right of private citizens to continue sea-borne commerce in war time with a minimum of interruption. Our preoccupation with this usage of the term during the first years of the war won us a good deal of unpopularity with our present co-belligerents. It has been used with reference to the safety of human life on the sea. We are fighting Germany today upon this issue.