The French look at the freedom of the Straits as something akin to the freedom of the seas. It is a comfortable formula without any meaning. For is not freedom that which one enjoys through the exercise of superior strength? And is it possible to enjoy freedom without denying it to others? The seas are free to the British, and the affirmation of this freedom for themselves is the negation of it to others. The British (I am still presenting the French point of view) would think that they had lost the freedom of the seas unless they were able to go where they pleased and do what their interests dictated in time of war. Now for the Straits. Although Italy is wholly and France partly and Great Britain not at all a Mediterranean power, the one of the three possessing no littoral in the Mediterranean controls both entrances to it. The French and Italians have never heard the British advocating the dismantling of Gibraltar and the application to the Suez Canal of the Sèvres Treaty provisions for the Dardanelles and Bosphorus. From the point of view of her allies, what does Great Britain mean by the freedom of the Straits? They believe that she conspired with the Greeks to close the Straits, which necessitated drastic counter-moves. And now that these counter-moves have succeeded, why all this great fuss over neutral zones? At the bottom of it (_au fond_, as the French love to say in summarizing the discussion of a problem or an argument), what the British want is immunity for their fleet from the inconveniences created by nature to free movement in and out of the Black Sea. Once this immunity is granted them, they will be in a position, owing to their naval superiority, to make it valueless to any other nation. By the treaty negotiated at Washington, France and Italy were asked to agree to a naval ratio of 1.75 to 1.75 in proportion to Britain’s 5. Together they are asked to accept 3.5 to Britain’s 5. As long as this naval proportion holds by treaty, the freedom of the Straits is valuable only for Great Britain and the United States.