Germany, the United States,
France, Norway, Italy, and Japan all have great fleets of merchant
ships and do an enormous, some of them a rapidly increasing, seaborne
trade. A large number of the principal States import the raw material of
manufacture and carry on import and export on a large scale. The railway
system connects all the great manufacturing centres, even those which
lie far inland, with the great ports to and from which the lines of
steamers ply. The industrial life of every nation is more than ever
dependent upon its communications with and by the sea, and every nation
has become more sensitive than ever to any disturbance of its maritime
trade. The preponderance of the British navy is therefore a subject of
anxiety in every State which regards as possible a conflict of its own
interests with those of Great Britain. This is one of the reasons why
continental States have during the last quarter of a century been
disposed to increase their fleets and their naval expenditure.
In the Declaration of Paris, renewed and extended by the Declaration of
London, the maritime States have agreed that in any future war enemy
goods in a neutral ship are to be safe from capture unless the ship is
running a blockade, which must be effective.
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