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Page 24
Also, amid much that is shared by all the nations of European
civilization, there are, as is universally recognized, certain radical
differences of temperament and character, which tend to divide them
into groups having the marked affinities of a common origin. When, as
frequently happens on land, the members of these groups are
geographically near each other, the mere proximity seems, like similar
electricities, to develop repulsions which render political variance
the rule and political combination the exception. But when, as is the
case with Great Britain and the United States, the frontiers are
remote, and contact--save in Canada--too slight to cause political
friction, the preservation, advancement, and predominance of the race
may well become a political ideal, to be furthered by political
combination, which in turn should rest, primarily, not upon cleverly
constructed treaties, but upon natural affection and a clear
recognition of mutual benefit arising from working together. If the
spirit be there, the necessary machinery for its working will not pass
the wit of the race to provide; and in the control of the sea, the
beneficent instrument that separates us that we may be better friends,
will be found the object that neither the one nor the other can
master, but which may not be beyond the conjoined energies of the
race. When, if ever, an Anglo-American alliance, naval or other, does
come, may it be rather as a yielding to irresistible popular impulse
than as a scheme, however ingeniously wrought, imposed by the
adroitness of statesmen.
We may, however, I think, dismiss from our minds the belief, frequently
advanced, and which is advocated so ably by Sir George Clarke, that
such mutual support would tend in the future to exempt maritime
commerce in general from the harassment which it hitherto has undergone
in war. I shall have to try for special clearness here in stating my
own views, partly because to some they may appear retrogressive, and
also because they may be thought by others to contradict what I have
said elsewhere, in more extensive and systematic treatment of this
subject.
The alliance which, under one form or another,--either as a naval
league, according to Sir George, or as a formal treaty, according to
Mr. White,--is advocated by both writers, looks ultimately and chiefly
to the contingency of war. True, a leading feature of either proposal
is to promote good-will and avert causes of dissension between the two
contracting parties; but even this object is sought largely in order
that they may stand by each other firmly in case of difficulty with
other states. Thus even war may be averted more surely; but, should it
come, it would find the two united upon the ocean, consequently
all-powerful there, and so possessors of that mastership of the
general situation which the sea always has conferred upon its
unquestioned rulers. Granting the union of hearts and hands, the
supremacy, from my standpoint, logically follows. But why, then, if
supreme, concede to an enemy immunity for his commerce? "Neither Great
Britain nor America," says Sir George Clarke, though he elsewhere
qualifies the statement, "can see in the commerce of other peoples an
incentive to attack." Why not? For what purposes, primarily, do navies
exist? Surely not merely to fight one another,--to gain what Jomini
calls "the sterile glory" of fighting battles in order to win them. If
navies, as all agree, exist for the protection of commerce, it
inevitably follows that in war they must aim at depriving their enemy
of that great resource; nor is it easy to conceive what broad military
use they can subserve that at all compares with the protection and
destruction of trade. This Sir George indeed sees, for he says
elsewhere, "Only on the principle of doing the utmost injury to an
enemy, with a view to hasten the issue of war, can commerce-destroying
be justified;" but he fails, I think, to appreciate the full
importance of this qualifying concession, and neither he nor Mr. White
seems to admit the immense importance of commerce-destroying, as such.
The mistake of both, I think, lies in not keeping clearly in
view--what both certainly perfectly understand--the difference between
the _guerre-de-course_, which is inconclusive, and commerce-destroying
(or commerce prevention) through strategic control of the sea by
powerful navies. Some nations more than others, but all maritime
nations more or less, depend for their prosperity upon maritime
commerce, and probably upon it more than upon any other single factor.
Either under their own flag or that of a neutral, either by foreign
trade or coasting trade, the sea is the greatest of boons to such a
state; and under every form its sea-borne trade is at the mercy of a
foe decisively superior.
Is it, then, to be expected that such foe will forego such
advantage,--will insist upon spending blood and money in fighting, or
money in the vain effort of maintaining a fleet which, having nothing
to fight, also keeps its hands off such an obvious means of crippling
the opponent and forcing him out of his ports? Great Britain's navy,
in the French wars, not only protected her own commerce, but also
annihilated that of the enemy; and both conditions--not one
alone--were essential to her triumph.
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