§ Mr. CHARLES ROBERTSI have given notice of my desire to call attention to the question of the Right of Capture of Private Property at Sea; and to move, "That, in the opinion of this House, it would be desirable to establish by international agreement, as a principle of naval warfare, that enemy merchant vessels, except as carriers of contraband or in case of blockade, should be immune from capture."
Under the rules of debate I am not able to move that Resolution, but I would wish to raise the question, and to press it upon the representatives of the Foreign Office. I think it is a matter on which the House of Commons ought to express its opinion. There have been Debates on the point once or twice in recent years. I think there has never been a Division upon it. I am inclined to think that it is time that the House of Commons should press this matter more vigorously and more definitely upon the attention of His Majesty's Government. Those of us who wish to see this right of capture abolished would beg with all due deference to ask the Foreign Office whether it cannot enter into negotiations for the purpose of securing the abolition of this custom. I had purposely intended to attach this question to the Vote of the Foreign Office, though the discussion comes 298 as a postscript to the Naval Debates that we have been having during the last few days. I am thinking of it, however, not only as a question involving the proper method of carrying on naval war, but also in its wider bearings, and I fully agree it must be a question of international agreement. We could not be expected to surrender this right except on the understanding that other Powers agreed to do the same thing, and the whole matter does require, I fully recognise, an international agreement to he arrived at—a concert of Powers for the reform of the customs of naval warfare, and I am equally well aware that the terms in my Motion are, all of them, in need of close definition. But, at the same time, I hope that it may not be beyond the power of the Foreign Office to arrive at a concert of Powers for the purpose of the reform of the customs of naval warfare. I know it is said that such an idea is ridiculous, but it was just as easy to ridicule the idea of a concert of Powers in Europe for an arbitration tribunal, but in spite of all ridicule that has been done and has passed into the region of the commonplace. And so, for my part, I do not despair of the chances of arriving at agreement in reference to these very chaotic and anomalous customs of naval war.
The discussion on the Declaration of London, with which this subject is connected, prepared everyone for the difficulties that beset us, and I do not for a moment pretend that I, who cannot claim to have any expert knowledge of this subject, can speak with any dogmatism, but the bearings of the argument, as I think, are pretty clearly in favour now of the abolition of the right of capture, and it is therefore with that idea that I ask the attention of the House and the representative of the Foreign Office to this matter this evening. I have said that I want to deal with it for a moment, not merely as a question of naval strategy, but in its wider bearing. I think many persons who would be inclined to sympathise with the idea feel that it is an obscure and technical matter, best carried on by experts, of whom, as I say, I do not pretend to be one, in reference to a remote contingency that we all hope will not occur. But if we do not discuss these matters in times of peace we should certainly not have time to discuss them in times of war, and if a change is to be made it can only be made after a good deal of preliminary sifting and much 299 further discussion than we have had. I frankly confess I think this is a matter which ought to appeal not merely to experts in naval war, but also to those who realise the stress and strain of international competition in armaments, and it is in this connection I frankly admit I am attracted to this discussion.
We heard the First Lord of the Admiralty lay great stress upon the helplessness in which any individual Power finds itself in reference to this competition. I do not greatly quarrel with the line he took. To summarise his arguments he urged that international competition in armaments was impossible to avoid, and yet was a great disaster for all nations. It was, in fact, collective insanity for nations to continue and it might be national suicide for a single nation to stop. I cordially agree. I have always felt it is impossible for an individual nation to take any real step for the reduction of armaments and for the cessation of this international competition, but it is wholly possible to proceed by means of a concert and agreement amongst the Powers. Then, if that is the case, does it not come to this, that you should cut at the roots of international competition and that you should try and weaken the forces which are bearing upon all nations and impel them helplessly along the path which imposes these enormous, ever-growing, and incessant burdens. The prospects which the First Lord held out in the recent debate was a gloomy one. So far as military competition goes, one sees the end of it. You have the whole nations of the Continent in arms, but in the question of naval armaments where is the limit? The limit is an indefinite one, which depends upon the amount of money the nations of Europe are ready to pour into the bottomless abyss, and it is for that reason that I think we ought to welcome the chance of cutting at the root of this international competition and doing something which would operate on all nations. All I am asking now is, if it is a good thing to do it, it will not merely be good in time of war but in time of peace as well. It will have the effect of finding some remedy and restricting this international competition.
After all what is the stock argument of the jingoes in every nation? Their stock argument when it comes to a question of naval expansion, is the absolutely vital necessity of protecting their commerce in time of war. We all know the famous sen- 300 tence in the first German Naval Law. The whole argument for increase was based upon the necessity which every industrial nation must have which is dependent upon overseas supplies for the organisation of a naval force to protect its supplies and commerce upon the seas, and we have had the Noble Lord the Member for Portsmouth (Lord Charles Beresford) in recent debates arguing that our real danger is not so much invasion, but starvation, and that our real point of weakness is the trade routes and the necessity for protecting them. I think the Noble Lord will agree with me that if at all events you can remove commerce destruction and commerce protection from the programme of naval wars you would relieve the Admiralty of immense preoccupation and in that way if you suppressed this right of capture you would weaken and restrict those arguments which are urged with irresistible force in each nation that you must have an ever-greater and an ever-more expanding Navy in order to protect the commerce of the nations. This risk of commerce destruction provides the cheap fuel for the navy leagues of all nations in all their arguments and scare campaigns in favour of ever-greater and ever-expanding navies. I should like to urge this point upon the attention of the Government. I do not say this change need necessarily begin with all nations. We saw the great difficulty of getting agreements with all nations in the negotiations leading up to the Declaration of London, but it would be possible to get agreements with the United States which up to the present have never given up the right of privateering, and if you are to celebrate a hundred years of peace with the United States you might celebrate it in a worse way than by a treaty in which we and the United States should agree in this matter. Considering our relations with the United States, and the probability of never having war with them we might, I think, well make an agreement of that kind with advantage.
8.0 P.M.
I do not know how far the traditional attitude of Germany towards this question has been modified in recent years, but there has always been a party in Germany which has stood for this change, and the effect of making a single agreement upon a single point is very far reaching. We have seen that in our relations with France, and we have seen how a single agreement in reference to individual points spread an influence of good will which 301 revolutionised our relation with that country, and I cannot help thinking that if two nations are, as I believe they are, bent on peace in spite of the jingoes of both countries, an agreement upon this point might have a very far-reaching effect in removing suspicion and spreading an atmosphere of good will between the two countries. At all events in asking the Foreign Office to take steps in this direction we have to remember that it is our country which has always stood in the way of this change, and yet there have always been great names in our history who have believed the change not merely desirable in the interests of humanity, but also in the interests of the country itself. Cobden was certainly in favour of it, and his name will appeal to those upon this side of the House, and John Stuart Mill changed his mind and declared in favour of it after the Declaration of Paris in 1856. I believe it is also true that the late Lord Salisbury told Lord Avebury that he was now convinced that the right of capture should be surrendered. I know what the arguments of the Foreign Office have been in previous debates. What were the arguments that were used at The Hague? It was said we were surrendering a weapon that might be of real value in our naval wars. On the other hand, there are certain advantages which might accrue from it. We were not prepared to give up simpliciter, but we were prepared to surrender it as part of a bargain. If you are going to tie up a change which it is difficult to obtain with another change which is still more difficult the possibility of realisation becomes remote, and if you are going to say that you will only surrender this right of capture on condition that you secure as a quid pro quo some general agreement for the reduction of limitation of armaments I do not think that is a very hopeful mode of procedure. On the other hand, I do not deny that the best line of progress may be by the methods of bargain and negotiation, although I think the elements and terms of the bargain ought to be much more connected with the right of capture at sea. If you are to deal with the question practically, you have got to secure a larger amount of agreement than prevails at the present time as to the nature of contraband. You have to define under what conditions and in what circumstances a blockade is to be allowed, and we ought to get an agreement on the question of floating mines. Upon none of those points 302 was there a satisfactory arrangement in the negotiations leading up to the Declaration of London. I fully realise how chaotic the laws and customs of naval warfare are, but those three points are all interdependent and connected with the question of the right of surrender, and within that area there is sufficient opportunity for making a bargain with foreign countries if you wish to.
If the Foreign Office tells us it is impossible for them to come to any agreement without settling those points, I should not quarrel with them, but I do not think that the bargain which is to be come to, if they insist upon a bargain, should deal with questions which are only remotely relevant to the question itself, and if these three points could be fairly defined I think it might be quite proper for the Foreign Office to drop this right of capture without further conditions and without asking for further terms. I cannot, of course, deal with this subject at length, but no doubt many hon. Members have read Lord Loreburn's articles in the "Manchester Guardian," and I will only touch on certain points in reference to this question. In previous debates it has been argued that the surrender of this ancient custom of ours would leave our country disarmed and impotent in the case of a naval war. I think that rests on some vague reminiscence of the part which commerce destruction played in the old wars of the Napoleonic years, but we ought not to be dominated by Napoleonic traditions in a world which is very much changed from the world of a century ago. Supposing we left commerce destruction and commerce protection out of the programme of naval wars, is it really contended on the other side that there would be no use and no value in the British Fleet? Surely we should still have the power to destroy and crush the enemy's fleet. It is true that we cannot be invaded while our Fleet is in being, and yet it is said that we have no power to bring pressure to bear upon our enemies. That is an argument which it seems to me impossible to maintain. If you have a dominant and supreme Fleet which has swept the enemy's fleet off the sea, you can still use the traditional methods of naval war, for they are still open to us, to conquer the overseas and outlying possessions of the enemy. That was the method of the most successful war of the eighteenth century.
303 I think the advocates of commerce destruction and the right of capture put a far too high value on the methods of commerce destruction altogether. Take the Spanish-American War. Does anyone argue that commerce destruction played a very important part in that war? What decided the issue in that war was the destruction of the Spanish Fleet and then the capture of their outlying possessions. I do not know of any Power with which we should be at all likely to go to war where we could not bring this weapon of the Fleet to bear. My argument in this connection is that we can drop commerce destruction and yet have an effective and potent weapon of attack and at the same time a far greater security in our defence. I put it that when we are told from the other side that we are surrendering the one vital power of offence we possess, that is putting the weapon of commerce destruction on far too high a plane and attaching far too great value to it. We are told that at all events this is one of the most humane methods of making war. That I do not deny, but it does not settle the question, and yet I do not believe that we can treat this method of commerce destruction as one of those arcana imperii or State secrets we have got as a naval nation which it is of vital importance for us to maintain. Historically it is the lineal descendant of piracy. It dates from the time when subjects of the enemy were regarded as the enemies not merely of the State but of the individuals composing the nations which went to war. It dates from the time when sailors were allowed and expected to do a little buccaneering on their own. It really dates from a period when nations were either too poor or too weak to develop national navies, and they allowed privateers to make the war support itself by letting ships prey upon the commerce of the enemy.
This all links up with the custom of paying prize-money which we have heard about in the discussions on the Naval Prize Bill. The Admiralty found that the present custom of paying prize-money was quite impossible to defend. How can you justify a system under which, if a third-class cruiser captures one of the great liners, the crew thereupon becomes entitled to receive £1,000,000 or £1,500,000? Obviously if the argument is that commerce destruction is the legitimate use of a national power for the needs of the nation, 304 it is impossible to argue that it is just to allow private individuals to make their personal fortunes out of the use of a national power. When we were dealing with this question the Admiralty was willing to make a concession in regard to prize-money, and they suggested the pooling of the prize-money, but of course that has disappeared with the loss of the Naval Prize Bill. When the advocates on the other side press upon us that commerce destruction is a vital weapon which we who are not experts cannot appreciate the importance of, and when they say that in some mysterious way it is the very lifeblood of the British Navy, I think that is putting the question entirely too high and exaggerating enormously this particular method of war; and surely it is leaving out of sight other methods of naval war which have been far more effective in the past, and are likely to be just as effective in the future. My real argument is that although this method of fighting is not an inhuman method, yet it is a weapon which may recoil and produce grave disaster. We are told that it was this great weapon which produced the downfall of Napoleon, but I very much doubt that it would have produced the same result if it had not been for the land campaigns which ended at Moscow and Leipsic and Waterloo. If I am wrong on that historical point, I venture to say that the modern world in which we live has changed so vitally in the course of the last century that we have got to look at the question with fresh minds to realise the changed condition of the world in which we live…
It being a Quarter past Eight of the clock, and there being Private Business set down by direction of the Chairman of Ways and Means, under Standing Order No. 8, further proceeding was postponed without Question put.