all this young blood of the best
manhood of Europe might be spilled in vain.

(2) For this purpose it must be borne in mind that the world has changed
considerably since the last big conflagration, and that all the
countries striving for humanity and civilization are now one big family,
with interests, spiritual as well as commercial, interlocking to a
degree that no disturbance of any part of the civilized globe can exist
without seriously affecting the rest. A disturbance in one quarter must
make quite innocent bystanders involuntary victims, to the serious
detriment of spiritual peace and commercial pursuits.

The great highway on which thoughts and things travel are the high seas.
I can with full authority disclaim any ambition by my country as to
world dominion. She is much too modest, on the one hand, and too
experienced, on the other hand, not to know that such a state will never
be tolerated by the rest. Events have shown that world dominion can
only be practiced by dominion of the high seas. The aim of Germany is to
have the seas, as well as the narrows, kept permanently open for the
free use of all nations in times of war as well as in times of peace.
The sea is nobody's property and must be free to everybody. The seas are
the lungs from which humanity draws a fresh breath of enterprise, and
they must not be stopped up.

I, personally, would go so far as to neutralize all the seas and narrows
permanently by a common and effective agreement guaranteed by all the
powers, so that any infringement on that score would meet with the most
severe punishment that can be meted out to any transgressor.

(3) A free sea is useless except combined with the freedom of cable and
mail communications with all countries, whether belligerent or not. I
should like to see all the cables jointly owned by the interested
nations and a world mail system over sea established by common consent.
But, more than this, an open sea demands an open policy. This means
that, while every nation must have the right, for commercial and fiscal
purposes, to impose whatever duties it thinks fit, these duties must be
equal for all exports and imports for whatever destination and from
whatever source. It would be tantamount to world empire, in fact, if a
country owning a large part of the globe could make discriminating
duties between the motherland and dominions or colonies as against other
nations.

This has been of late the British practice. Ge