_That Germany would be willing to make peace on the basis of a free
neutral sea, guaranteed by the powers, was indicated in a letter written
by Dr. Bernhard Dernburg, ex-Colonial Secretary of Germany, and read at
a pro-German mass meeting held in Portland, Me., on April 17, 1915.
After an explanatory note Dr. Dernburg divided into numbered clauses his
letter, as follows:_
(1) Whatever peace is concluded should be of a permanent nature; no
perfunctory patching up should be permitted. The horror of all the
civilized nations of the Old World slaughtering one another, every one
convinced of the perfect righteousness of their own cause--a recurrence,
if it could not be avoided absolutely, should be made most remote, so as
to take the weight from our minds that 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. German colonies have always
been open to every comer, including the motherland, on equal terms. Such
equality of treatment should be the established practice for all the
future. The only alternative to an open sea and free intercourse policy
would be a Chinese wall around each country. If there is no free
intercourse every country must become self-sufficient. Germany has
proved that it can be done. But this policy would mean very high customs
barriers, discrimination, unbounded egotism, and a world bristling in
arms. While the free sea policy stands for the true aims of
international relations, namely, in exchange of goods, which must
benefit either party, to be mutually satisfactory, it will engender
friendly feeling among all the peoples, advance civilization, and
thereby have a sure tendency toward disarmament.
(4) Germany has been taxed with disregarding treaty obligations, tearing
up a scrap of paper--a solemn engagement of international character
regarding Belgium. I have the less reason to enter into this matter
since--if it was a breach of international law at all--it has been
followed up by all other belligerents by destroying other parts of that
code so essential to the welfare of the community of nations. Two German
men-of-war have been destroyed in neutral waters. The protests that the
Government of this country had to make against Great Britain's treatment
of international sea law and the rights of the neutrals are too numerous
to be recounted. Chinese neutrality has been violated in the grossest
way.
In disregard of all conventions, China is now being subjected to demands
incompatible with the rights of self-respecting nations. Egypt and
Cyprus have been annexed by Great Britain, disregarding all treaties.
Germany's diplomatic representatives have been driven from China,
Morocco, and Egypt--all countries sovereign at the time. The Declaration
of London, which had been set up by the Government of the United States
as the governing document, had to be dropped as such. There is
practically no part of international law that could stand the test.
Justice toward neutrals compels that international law should be
re-established in a codified form, with sufficient guarantees so as to
save, as far as possible, all the neutrals from possible implication in
a war in which they do not take part.
(5) Germany does not strive for territorial aggrandizement in Europe;
she does not believe in conquering and subjugating unwilling
nations--this on account of a spirit of justice and her knowledge of
history. No such attempts have ever been permanently successful.
Belgium commands the main outlet of Western German trade, is the natural
foreland of the empire, and has been conquered with untold sacrifice of
blood and treasure. It offers to German trade the only outlet to an open
sea and it has been politically established, maintained, and defended by
England in order to keep these natural advantages from Germany.
The love for small peoples that England heralds now will never stand
investigation, as shown by the destruction of the small Boer republics.
So Belgium cannot be given up. However, these considerations could be
disregarded if all the other German demands, especially a guaranteed
free sea, were fully complied with and the natural commercial
relationship of Belgium to Germany was considered in a just and workable
form. In this case Germany will not fail when the times come to help in
rebuilding the country; in fact, she is doing so now.
(6) Germany is a country smaller in size than California, but populated
thirty-five times as thickly as that State. She loves and fosters family
life, and sees her future in the raising of large families of healthy
children under the home roof and under the national flag. German parents
have no desire to expatriate every year a considerable number of their
children. This implies that her industrial development, which would
alone give occupation to the yearly increase of pretty nearly a million
people, should go on unhampered.
The activity of her people should have an outlet in the development of
such foreign parts as need or wish for development. Great Britain has
shown very little foresight in constantly opposing such efforts,
playing Morocco into the hands of France, a nation that remained
stationary for forty-four years, with little more than half of the
population of Germany, and with a system equally undermining religion
and morality in keeping families small for the sake of worldly comforts.
England, furthermore, constantly obstructed the German endeavor to
reclaim for the benefit of all of the world the granary in Mesopotamia.
A permanent peace will mean that this German activity must get a wide
scope without infringement upon the rights of others. Germany should be
encouraged to continue her activities in Africa and Asia Minor, which
can only result in permanent benefit to all the world. Americans have a
saying "that it will never do good to sit on a safety valve."
There is nothing in the program of my country which would not be
beneficial to the rest of the world, especially the United States. That
this is so the events of the last months have conclusively shown, and a
better appreciation of what Germany really stands for has recently
taken place. So, if I plead the cause of my country, I am not pleading
as a German alone, but as a citizen of a country who wishes to be a
useful and true member of the universality of nations, contributing by
humanitarian aims and by the enhancement of personal freedom to the
happiness of even the lowliest members of the great world community.
I am proud to say that I cannot only give this assurance, but produce
facts, and I beg to refer to the modern system of social reforms which
Germany inaugurated and carries through at an expense which is every
year larger by half than the expense of the military system.
The brunt of this war has not been borne by the men who fight, but by
the women who suffer, and it will be one of the proudest and most
coveted achievements that Germany will gain in rewarding in a dignified
and permanently beneficial way the enormous sacrifices of womanhood, to
alleviate to the extent of the possible the hardships and sorrows that
this war has brought upon them.
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