Neutrality and Common Sense

I

WHAT is this neutrality that we hear so much about? If we don’t know very clearly, we had better find out, because, with a world cowering under threats of war, it is just about the most important single word in the world to-day.

There is a very strong public opinion on one question among us. Perhaps never was any national opinion so emphatic and so nearly unanimous. It is this: our people don’t want to get into another European or foreign war. They want to keep out of war at almost any cost — except invasion.

Now the word ‘neutrality’ means keeping out of other people’s wars. It means taking no part, directly or indirectly, in war between other nations. That’s what our people mean and want, and it’s all they mean and want. But the moment we go from the word ‘neutrality’ to what it is proposed to do to be neutral, we find that some of the things we are going to do in the name of neutrality are not keeping us out of war at all. They are getting us into war as fast and as hard and effectively as they can without an open and outright declaration of war. They are doing in the name of what the people want the very things the people don’t want.

To understand the strategy and tactics of modem war, we start with the world at peace. No nation produces everything it needs to live. It looks to some other nations for some of their products and sends to them its own products in exchange. That interplay of trade becomes something like the flow of blood in the veins and arteries of a man. It is absolutely necessary for the orderly existence of nations. Great Britain, for example, produces only about 20 per cent of its breadstuff. Although we are a nation on wheels, we do not produce any rubber. We get it largely from halfway round the world. We don’t produce enough tin or sugar or coffee — in fact, we normally import more animal and vegetable products than we export.

Now, if a country goes to war, the first thing an enemy tries to do is to choke it to death by cutting off these necessary supplies which it does not itself produce. This is done by the right of search and seizure and by naval or land blockade. Enemy ships claim the right to stop all ships, neutral or belligerent, on the high seas and search them; and if they find goods going to their enemy they seize them, sometimes paying for them and sometimes not. This is search and seizure, authorized by the law of war. Also, it is legal to post a squadron outside an enemy port and allow no ship to go in or out. This is blockade.

Subject to this search and seizure, and the actual blockade of an enemy port, neutrals have always insisted that they had a right to continue their trade with other neutrals and even, at this risk, with the enemy. This right of neutrals we called ‘freedom of the seas.’

Up to the World War, we had insisted that vessels could not be sunk without search, as was done by the German submarines; also that to be effective the blockade of a port had to be actual, and that a belligerent could not, in effect, just blockade one of our ports, as the British did New York, and prevent our shipping to anybody without first getting British consent.

In the World War, we suffered both these indignities and finally went to war with Germany to vindicate our right to ship free from the danger of having our ships sunk without warning and without protecting the lives of merchant crews.

The Lusitania was sunk without warning, and with no attempt to search, although she was a belligerent ship. This destroyed American lives and did more to inflame our war spirit against Germany than any other one act. Yet the British had been equally flagrant in violating our rights at sea. The only difference was that the Germans destroyed lives. The British destroyed property.

We will remember that all the time we were drifting to war with Germany to vindicate ‘freedom of the seas’ there were plenty of people here who advocated peace — even if purchased at the price of giving up part of the ancient neutral right to free seas for which we had fought Britain and almost fought France.

We will remember also that Mr. Wilson turned his face away from that scuttle-and-run policy. He said we could not surrender those rights without leaving every neutral at the mercy of every belligerent and intimated that neutrality carried a duty to other neutrals — maybe to other belligerents — to assert and insist upon all our ancient rights upon the ocean.

The idea is this: if, upon the outbreak of war, the strategy among belligerents is to cut off the normal peacetime supplies of the enemy from other nations, how can a neutral be called friendly and impartial and yet, as its first act toward its embroiled friend, cut off all supplies which under international law it has a right to sell — even though it does so to ‘keep out of war’?

As Woodrow Wilson expressed it: ‘To forbid our people to exercise their rights for fear we might be called upon to vindicate them would be a terrible humiliation indeed. It would be an implicit, all but an explicit, acquiescence of the violation of the rights of mankind everywhere . . . what we are contending for is the very essence of the needs that have made America a sovereign nation.’

Though, as just shown, our rights were trampled on by both sides right up to our own entry into the war in 1917, we at least maintained those rights in principle even if for three years we did not fight for them. After the victory, it will be recalled that freedom of the seas was one of the Fourteen Points. That vexed question remains as uncertain now as it was in 1919.

II

The peace-at-any-price group in this country in 1917 wanted us to say that vessels or passengers venturing into a submarine-infested blockaded zone would do so at their peril. That was ‘scuttle and run’ from the right to ship as that right had been conserved before. This was all proposed in the interest of ‘keeping out of war,’ the synonym for which is ‘neutrality.’ Now it is proposed that we go much further than scuttle the right to sail dangerous seas. In the name of neutrality it is insisted that we cease also to sell to warring nations in certain circumstances. That is a proposal pregnant with grave consequences. It is important to understand all its implications.

This proposal comes in several guises and degrees. First, it is suggested that we sell no war material to an embattled nation, but let non-war material go as usual. Others say, ‘Sell nothing at all to a nation at war,’ and still others that we should sell only to the innocent party in war — not to the aggressor.

Now let us keep it clearly in mind that we are not talking about our old friend ‘freedom of the seas’ at all. This is something absolutely new. This new proposal has nothing to do with shipping. It looks to our giving up our right to sell, and is advanced as a neutrality measure.

In the first place, no nation ever got embroiled in a war by merely selling. When you sell a thing, especially for cash, your interest in it is gone. If we sell at our own seaports with no duty to deliver, would there be a possible chance of that transaction getting us into war?

But how about getting into war by the mere fact that we have refused beleaguered nations the right to buy? By cutting off their normal supplies, have we not committed against them an intensely hostile act?

Suppose we were attacked in the Pacific Ocean and instantly all neutral nations said: ‘If you fight you can’t have any more rubber, tin, silk, sugar, nickel, coffee, manganese, or platinum from us.’ All of these things are war necessities of which we do not produce a sufficient quantity. Depriving us of them would severely cripple our defense. How would we regard such a strangling refusal? We would not say, ‘Those nations are not taking any part in our war.’ We would think they were taking a decisive part and deliberately trying to cripple and defeat us. We would not say they were neutral. We would say, ‘They have become our enemies.’

And so — whether intentionally or not — they would become our enemies. Not only must a nation in modern war see to it that all her normal supplies keep on coming, but war consumption of every kind of thing is much greater than peace consumption. Modern war is more and more a vast economic contest in the procurement and production of things and in the hampering of the enemy in receiving the same things. Interference with accustomed source of a necessary supply is one of the deadliest imaginable acts of hostility to a nation beset by modern war. Refusal to sell to a nation does not constitute an act of neutrality. It is taking a hostile position.

Neither the French nor the English could have kept on without supplies from America. The withholding of supplies in the name of neutrality by so great a source of the world’s material may mean the issue of victory or defeat to other nations. It is this which we propose as national policy in the name of neutrality, or ‘ keeping out of war.’

This is not neutrality — it will not keep us out of war; and it is absurd and impractical for another reason. The country might be willing to withhold petroleum from a belligerent — petroleum is generally a rich man’s product. But suppose we decided not to sell cotton and wheat to Europe in a great war. Half our farmers would be threatened with bankruptcy. How long would such a restriction last? It would not last; and it would be wiser not to make ourselves ridiculous and venal by proposing it now. If in war we cut off the flow of things a nation has bought in increasing quantities because of a reciprocal trade treaty, would that be neutral?

III

On close analysis, another motive than keeping out of war will be found in all these proposals not to sell. That other motive is to discourage wars between other nations — to punish and discipline nations that go to war. That may be a very high ideal, but it is n’t keeping out of war. It is the same international altruism that got us into the World War. It is automatically getting into any important war that starts anywhere. If this confusion of motive and effect were made clear to our people, there would not be much sentiment for this restriction of sales.

The lending of money to a belligerent is a very different matter. When I sell a man goods, the transaction is complete with delivery. When I lend a man money, my interest in him has just begun. No nation has a continuing right to expect another to lend money or extend credit. We should be financially interested in no belligerent. The law now prevents our buying any stake in anybody’s war by lending money to a belligerent and that law ought not to be changed.

Selling warlike weapons also stands on a slightly different footing from selling normal supplies. But the instant you analyze a policy of refusing to sell arms to any belligerent you get into somewhat the same dilemma about whether this is not also taking part in war. When we refused to sell arms to Ethiopia, we were helping Italy because Italy has arms factories; Ethiopia has none. In pure principle I can see no more danger in selling arms than in selling anything else so long as we do not insist on the right to ship them. In principle, also, refusing to sell arms is not ‘having no part in war.’ It may be taking a vital part. This is especially apparent when we consider the proposal to ‘sell arms only to the innocent party in an aggression.’ That is worse than being un-neutral. It undertakes to punish one belligerent and aid another. It becomes a sort of alliance. It is one aspect of the growing curse of this modern age — the undeclared and vicarious war, such as the powers are indulging against each other in Spain.

Yet if, for the sake of the evil appearance and connotations of the merchandising of lethal weapons, we refuse to sell lethal weapons to anybody, let’s refuse and do it on the ground that we don’t want to be in that bloody business. But let’s not fool ourselves into thinking that we are being neutral or taking no part in war, or even ‘ keeping out of war,’ when we do that. The best excuse we can spell out for ourselves is that we are taking the same part toward both sides.

In my opinion this question of selling or not selling is wholly irrelevant. If we examine our history and the history of all neutrals who were sucked into wars, we shall see that the embroiling incidents had not to do with selling, but with shipping — the ageold and troublesome doctrine of free seas already discussed.

Our whole question is: ‘In the interest of neutrality and keeping out of war, in respect of how much of the old doctrine of freedom of the seas are we ready to scuttle and run?’

I have suggested that we sell everything except lethal instruments (munitions) to anybody who has the money, pays cash for it, takes it at our ports, and ships it away in his own bottoms. On this plan, which has been called ‘Cash and carry’ or ‘Come and get it,’ we have no further obligation and no further chance of getting mixed up in a war. I don’t suggest this as a counsel of perfection, but as the best practical approach to the problem.

But even with that I would not prohibit American merchants and shippers from selling or shipping at their own risk, or American passengers from sailing at their own risk on whatever ships in whatever seas they please. Of course, this does not mean that in any war we should abandon our trade with neutrals or submit our shipments to neutrals to seizure or sinking by any belligerent wherever they are found. It would go no further than to admit that belligerents can declare reasonable danger zones and in effect it simply says that the American flag will not protect American passengers, ships, and goods within those zones of reasonable blockade, whether paper or actual.

Even that is going a long, long way from the doctrines for which we fought in 1776 and 1812, nearly fought France, and came within a hair of trouble with England in the Civil War. It is scuttling and running from our ancient doctrines. Whether, and to what extent, we want to do it is a question of how far we are willing to go for peace at any price.

There is a considerable difference between saying that we will not protect our ships on the high seas when they venture into naval hornets’ nests and saying that we will not allow belligerents to buy at their own risk in war, even for civilian needs, as they buy in peace. There is no obligation to ship and to fight, even though there is a strong obligation from custom and past mutual benefits not to cut off from our markets powers with whom we are at peace.

The trouble with abandoning rights long recognized at international law is that you never know when you are going to stop abandoning them. The history of the whole world shows that the only rights of neutrals at sea in a hard-fought war are those they assert, have the force to protect, and are willing to fight for. Other nations in a death struggle for existence are going to respect the rights of innocent bystanders only to the extent that they do not dare infringe them. For that reason it may be not so much a question of how many rights we give up as how ready we are to defend the rights we decide not to give up. For be certain of this: whatever rights we intend to assert we must be willing to defend by force of arms.