The 5-5-3 ratio puts the navies of Great Britain, the United States, and Japan, for the present at least, on a strictly defensive basis. Each navy is strong enough to defend its home territory, but no one of them will be able to attack the home territory of the others. Of course it is possible that the development of aircraft and submarines, together with cruisers and other surface craft, may eventually alter the situation. Hitherto navies have existed for two purposes: national defense and the enforcement of foreign policies. The new treaty means that as long as it lasts the navies of the ratifying powers can be used for defense only and not for the enforcement of their policies in distant quarters of the globe. In other words, when disputes arise, British policies will prevail in the British area, American policies in the American area, and Japanese policies in the Japanese area. Having agreed to place ourselves in a position in which we cannot attack Japan, the only pressure we can bring to bear upon her in China or elsewhere is moral pressure. Through what was considered by some a grave strategical error, the naval treaty was completed before any settlement of the Chinese and Siberian questions had been reached. The French insistence on the practically unlimited right to build submarines caused much hard feeling in England. The British delegates had proposed the total abolition of submarines, and this proposal had been ably supported by the arguments of Mr. Balfour and Lord Lee. Unfortunately the United States delegation stood for the submarine, proposing merely certain limits upon its use. The five naval powers finally signed a treaty reaffirming the old rules of international law in regard to the search and seizure of merchant vessels, and declaring that "any person in the service of any Power who shall violate any of those rules, whether or not such person is under orders of a governmental superior, shall be deemed to have violated the laws of war and shall be liable to trial and punishment as if for an act of piracy and may be brought to trial before the civil or military authorities of any Power within the jurisdiction of which he may be found." By the same treaty the signatory powers solemnly bound themselves to prohibit the use in war of poisonous gases.