(2) For this purpose it must be borne in mind that the world has changed considerably since the last big conflagration, and that all the countries striving for humanity and civilization are now one big family, with interests, spiritual as well as commercial, interlocking to a degree that no disturbance of any part of the civilized globe can exist without seriously affecting the rest.  A disturbance in one quarter must make quite innocent bystanders involuntary victims, to the serious detriment of spiritual peace and commercial pursuits.

The great highway on which thoughts and things travel are the high seas.  I can with full authority disclaim any ambition by my country as to world dominion.  She is much too modest, on the one hand, and too experienced, on the other hand, not to know that such a state will never be tolerated by the rest.  Events have shown that world dominion can only be practiced by dominion of the high seas.  The aim of Germany is to have the seas, as well as the narrows, kept permanently open for the free use of all nations in times of war as well as in times of peace.  The sea is nobody’s property and must be free to everybody.  The seas are the lungs from which humanity draws a fresh breath of enterprise, and they must not be stopped up.

I, personally, would go so far as to neutralize all the seas and narrows permanently by a common and effective agreement guaranteed by all the powers, so that any infringement on that score would meet with the most severe punishment that can be meted out to any transgressor.

(3) A free sea is useless except combined with the freedom of cable and mail communications with all countries, whether belligerent or not.  I should like to see all the cables jointly owned by the interested nations and a world mail system over sea established by common consent.  But, more than this, an open sea demands an open policy.  This means that, while every nation must have the right, for commercial and fiscal purposes, to impose whatever duties it thinks fit, these duties must be equal for all exports and imports for whatever destination and from whatever source.  It would be tantamount to world empire, in fact, if a country owning a large part of the globe could make discriminating duties between the motherland and dominions or colonies as against other nations.

This has been of late the British practice.  German colonies have always been open to every comer, including the motherland, on equal terms.  Such equality of treatment should be the established practice for all the future.  The only alternative to an open sea and free intercourse policy would be a Chinese wall around each country.  If there is no free intercourse every country must become self-sufficient.  Germany has proved that it can be done.  But this policy would mean very high customs barriers, discrimination, unbounded egotism, and a world bristling in arms.  While the free sea policy stands for the true aims of international relations, namely, in exchange of goods, which must benefit either party, to be mutually satisfactory, it will engender friendly feeling among all the peoples, advance civilization, and thereby have a sure tendency toward disarmament.