a single nation suitably placed for doing it would be more advantageous in other cases. In those instances, where a weak or backward people is capable of appreciating the alternatives, there is no reason why the choice should not be left to the people themselves. One of the further consequences of the contraction of the world is that health has become an international question. The days when a plague could be confined to a city are over.[51] The recent spread of the so-called “Spanish” influenza is an instance which proves how indissolubly bound together the world has come to be. And the system of national quarantines has to be superseded by an international organ for the localisation and the extirpation of diseases which like the bubonic and the pneumonic plagues are capable of easy and destructive diffusion; and for the removal of those conditions of filth and insanitation in any part of the world to which these scourges owe their origin. It is likely, moreover, that the great increase in pulmonary and venereal diseases as by-products of the war require international handling if their worst consequences are to be averted. Footnote 51: If, indeed, there ever were any such days. In 1665, the Great Plague was brought from London to Eyam, a little Derbyshire town, in a parcel of cloth consigned to the local tailor! It will also belong to the proposed international body to oversee and improve the facilities for travel and transport. Obviously this is largely a question of keeping the seas an open highway for traffic. The phrase “the freedom of the seas” has a special connotation in current discussions which is apt to obscure the real point at issue. The claim made by the German Government for the establishment of the “freedom of the seas” seemed and was intended to imply that British naval supremacy had constituted a hindrance to sea-borne trade in normal times. No one with any historical knowledge would be able to consent to that judgment. British naval supremacy has been in no sense a limitation upon the “freedom of the seas” in times of peace. The seas have always been free in modern times; and so far from its having been restricted by British naval supremacy, a good case may be made out for the contrary view. The safety of the high seas is possibly more connected with the efficiency of the British navy than a superficial judgment might allow. The freedom of the seas only comes in question in war time; and if we are minded to eliminate war from the world the whole problem loses its relevancy anyhow, except in so far that some measure of police surveillance may continue to be necessary. In the meantime it should be remembered that the insular position of Great Britain has created the necessity in past times for a strong navy in order to secure the freedom of the seas for its own commerce; but it is not to be maintained for a moment that it has in recent times used its supremacy to limit the freedom of other commerce.