The next previous article had prohibited a Government from engaging in this trade, so that the distinction between what the State and the individual may do is made perfectly clear, provided both belligerents are treated alike. To permit trade in arms with one belligerent and forbid it with another would be unneutral and illegal.
We permit the munitions trade with both belligerents, it is true, and yet, owing to the chances of war, the right to buy inures to the advantage of one only. Does this stamp our conduct as unneutral? Quite the contrary. To embargo munitions bought by one because the other side does not choose to buy would be the unneutral act. Germany doesn't buy because she cannot transport.
She cannot transport, because she does not care to contest the control of the sea with her enemies. Have we aught to do with that? To supplement her naval inferiority by denying to the Allies the fruits of their superiority would be equivalent to sharing in the war on the German side. Moreover, to assume and base action upon German naval inferiority in advance of any general trial of strength would be not only illegal, but even an insult to Germany. Notice that no complaints of our export of munitions have come from the German Government. To make such complaint would be to plead the baby act. Rather than risk her fleet by contesting the control of the sea, thus gaining her share of munitions imports, Germany has chosen to withdraw it behind fortifications, thus losing the munitions trade. Probably the decision is a sound one, but she must accept the results.
The opposition to the trade seems to come from two classes:
(1) German sympathizers who seek to minimize the advantage which sea power gives the Allies.
(2) Those who are governed by their emotions rather than by reason and respect for law. I would call the attention of both these classes to the usage, especially to the German usage, in other wars.
Professor Gregory, in an interesting article, gives statistics of the large German exports of arms to the British forces in the Boer war after the Boer trade had been cut off. In the Russo-Japanese war Krupp notoriously supplied both sides. In the Balkan war there was said to be competition between Krupp and Creusot in furnishing cannon. No state in the nature of things can satisfy its needs in war completely from its own resources. Every belligerent has bought, every neutral has allowed its citizens to sell, munitions since modern war began. England sympathized with the South in our civil war, yet sold to the North. She did the same in 1870 to France.
If the trade in munitions is to be forbidden, then every state must accumulate its own supply or greatly enlarge its arms manufacturing capacity, both wasteful processes. To say that a moderate trade is lawful which a big trade is not is like the excuse of the lady who thought her baby born out of wedlock did not matter because it was such a little one.
The critics of the munitions trade must note furthermore that in our own country that trade cannot be forbidden without explicit legislation.
At the outset of the Spanish war such legislation was passed, as a war measure, forbidding the export of coal or other war material at the discretion of the President. But by resolution of Congress of March 14, 1912, the 1898 resolution was so amended as to apply to American countries only. The reason for this distinction was, of course, to limit the danger of such exports of arms to our neighbor states, particularly to Mexico, as might endanger our own peace and safety. The general right to trade was left undisturbed.