[12] Brailsford’s War of Steel and Gold:  Chap.  IX.

PROTECTION OF COMMERCE

It is obvious, therefore, that if we confine ourselves purely to geographical conditions, and adhere to the principle that navies are required for the protection of coasts, we can at once reduce, within relatively small limits, the building of armoured ships.  The reason why large navies have hitherto been necessary is because it has been assumed that they do not merely protect coasts, but protect lines of commerce.  We have been told, for instance, that inasmuch as we cannot feed our own population, and our national food comes to us from Canada, America, the Argentine, Russia, and elsewhere, we must possess a very large amount of cruisers to safeguard the ships that are conveying to us our daily bread.  If we ask why our ships must not only protect our shores, but our merchandise—­the latter being for the most part a commercial enterprise worked by individual companies—­the answer turns on that much-discussed principle, the Right of Capture at Sea, which was debated at the last Hague Conference, and as a matter of fact stoutly defended both by Germany and ourselves.  If we look at this doctrine—­the supposed right that a power possesses to capture the merchandise of private individuals who belong to an enemy country in times of war—­we shall perhaps feel some surprise that a principle which is not admitted in land warfare should still prevail at sea.  According to the more benevolent notions of conducting a campaign suggested, and indeed enforced by Hague Conventions and such like, an army has no right to steal the food of a country which it has invaded.  It must pay for what it takes.  Well-conducted armies, as a matter of fact, behave in this fashion:  the necessity of paying for what they take is very strictly enforced by responsible officers.  Why, therefore, at sea an opposite state of affairs should prevail is really not easy to understand.  Most of the enemy’s merchant ships which have been captured in the recent war belong to private individuals, or private companies.  But they are taken, subject to the decision of Prize Courts, as part of the spoils of a successful maritime power.  I am aware that the question is an exceedingly controversial one, and that Great Britain has hitherto been very firm, or, perhaps, I might be allowed to say, obstinate in upholding the law of capture at sea.  But I also know that a great many competent lawyers and politicians do not believe in the validity of such a principle, and would not be sorry to have it abolished.[13] At all events, it is clear enough that if it were abolished one of the main arguments for keeping up a strong navy would fall to the ground.  We should then require no patrol of cruisers in the Atlantic, in the Pacific, and in the Mediterranean.  One thing at least is certain, that if we can ever arrive at a time when a real Concert of Europe prevails, one of the first things which it must take in hand is a thorough examination of the extent of defensive force which a nation requires as a minimum for the preservation of its independence and liberty.