The Dominion SATURDAY, MARCH 4, 1911. A LIBERAL BLUNDER.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1067, 4 March 1911, Page 4

The Dominion SATURDAY, MARCH 4, 1911. A LIBERAL BLUNDER.

Despite the length and frequcnoy of his recent speeches about tho Empire, Sir Joseph Ward has failed to refer to one topic which will be more practically important than any other that the. Imperial Conference will discuss. We refer, of course, to the Declaration of London, which wo have dealt with on several occasions lately, mainly with the object of telling the public something about it, but partly, also, in the hope that our delegate would give it enough attention to be able to let the country know the attitude he would take up. It is probably idle now to hope for any statement from him before jc leaves for London, but the matter is one of such great importance that it cannot be too much discussed. When the mail left London at the end of January the campaign against the Declaration, which was' developing into a steady sniping by last September, was in full action. The great value of the controversy, which was conducted without any party confusion—a fact singular and valuable in itself—was that it brought out some neglected facts of naval policy. Before noticing these, we shall give once more a resume of the ca-se for the pi'osecution. Tho chief objection is that the Declaration renders subject to capture by hostile cruisers all neutral ships carrying foodstuffs and other "conditional contraband" to ports in the United Kingdom, while it confers upon neutral vessels carrying cargoes to an enemy by way of neutral ports entire immunity from capture by British cruisers. There are other objectionable provisions: tho principle of the destruction of neutral ships is admitted, there is no prohibition against the conversion on tho high sea of merchant ships into commcrce destroyers, and the constitution of the Prize Court is virtually anti-British. It is everywhere agreed that the Foreign Office has utterly failed to meet the main charge. It will certainly be a good thing for a neutral Britain to have "food" protected against treatment as "absolute" contraband, as Sir Edward Grey claims, but what of Britain as a belligerent? I She is not merely as badly off as before, but worse off, since her supplies will be absolute contraband while her enemy's can be carried in neutral bottoms to neutral ports, for land-carriage to their destination, and so will be immune from capture. Do tho manifest advantages secured to a neutral Britain outweigh the fearful handicap imposed on Britain at war ? That, as wo said a month ago, is a question that nobody can solve: only experts in naval and foreign policy can calculate the weight of the odds 011 such a proposition. Tho London Nation welcomes the controversy as showing that "the only form of warfare which is at all conceivable between two Powers so unequal at sea as Great Britain and Germany is a war of blockado and commerce destruction." The real ambition underlying the expanding British programmes, it says, has turned, not on a great smashing battle,,but on tile hope of effectively blockading the German coast. The Germans, for their part, contemplate battle as little, and are building iu order to bo "just strong enough to break through a general blockade."- This

theory, as the Xatian points out, explains many things: "The Germans were sensitive about the espionage case, because they taw in it a proof that our Admiralty was studying the possibility of 'seizing one of the long chain of islands in the North Sea as a base for a blockade. They arc anxious that Holland shouicl fortify her coasts, because they affcct to fear that wc may find in them a base for a blockade more convenient than Rosvth." It certainly fits in with the theory that the Foreign Office, in defending Article 21 of the Declaration, entirely overlooks, as wc have seen, the case of Britain as a belligerent. Anybody can understand that if Britain is always to be at peace with other nations her best'plan is to get all the advantages possible for neutrals. But who can promise even that Britain will not be a party in the very next war 1 And who would gamble on even a greater promise than that?

So far as we have been able to discover there is not—there was not °,'. 1 January 28; anyway—any real dislike for the submission of the Declaration to the Imperial Conference. But that was doubtless owing to the almost universal dislike of those faults in the proposed new law that we have mentioned. AVcrc it not so plainly full of fearful dangers there might have been another tale to tell. As it is, one Liberal newspaper, while not backing the Declaration,. resented what it considered a further invasion of "the few rights. which still remain to the Commons in foreign affairs." The Conference must cither approve or disapprove the crucial articles, and in the second of these events ratification, which can' be effected without the explicit sanction of the Imperial Parliament, would bo taken as a direct defiance of colonial feeling as reposed in the Conference delegates. So far as the controversy has gone—and it has been a very thorough one, untainted by any party feeling—it must be said that'the Declaration has been shown to: be one that the colonies cannot wish to see ratified. At the same. tima .it is most unfortunate that a position has been created which seems to necessitate what wc consider a thing extremely undesirable at the present time, namely, the intervention of the colonies in the direction of British foreign affairs. There is every reason, of' course, why the' colonics should be consulted in matters of policy where they arc directly interested; A proper _ system of consultation would obviate such really pcrilou® necessities as the submission of the Declaration to the Conference. It is another case ,of the shortsightedness of modern' Liberal Governments in Britain. The colonies do not enter into their calculations, and the natural results are such things as an objectionable settlement of the New Hebrides question and a deep commitment of the Empire to a dangerous code of rules of naval warfare.