EVASIONS OF NEUTRALITY
It must be obvious from all this that the inviolability of neutrality will always depend very much upon the ability of the state concerned to keep it so.
It is not difficult, either, to imagine various methods by which the neutrality, which is supposed to govern within the three-mile limit, may be evaded. It is only necessary to cite the case of a war vessel unable to overtake a fast merchant-man until the latter reaches neutral waters, but successful in sinking it by long-range gun-fire from a point outside the three-mile limit.
CHAPTER XXVII
THE TERRIBLE DISTRESS OF POLAND
[A LONG-TORTURED NATION AGAIN BLIGHTED BY WAR] — [DESOLATION AND FAMINE THROUGHOUT LAND] — [RICH AND POOR ALIKE DESTITUTE] — [PLIGHT OF RUSSIAN POLAND] — [NO BREAD FOR WEEKS IN LODZ] — [THREE TIMES A BATTLE-FIELD] — [UNABLE TO HELP HERSELF] — [NO SEED AND NO DRAFT ANIMALS.]
“If you imagined all the people of New York State deprived of everything they owned, left a prey to starvation and disease, and hopelessly crushed under the iron heels of contending armies, you might form a slight idea of what the Poles are enduring at present,” declared the great pianist, Paderewski, while visiting America in 1915 in the interests of the afflicted nation. “One of the worst phases of the situation lies in the inability of the inhabitants of one-half of the country to communicate with those in the other. Compared with their lot, even that of the Belgians loses some of its horror, for my unhappy countrymen have no France, Holland, or England in which they can seek refuge.”
Girt by a ring of war, Poland in the winter and spring of 1915 was in the most terrible straits. Her cities and villages had been captured and recaptured by both Germans and Russians, her fields had been laid waste, and her inhabitants were slowly dying of starvation.