No Seizure of Schleswig-Holstein.
Americans object to the extension of territory by force. Germany has never done that, even if one goes back as far as Prof. Eliot wishes to go. Mr. Eliot is absolutely mistaken as to the history of the incorporation of Schleswig-Holstein into Prussia. Schleswig-Holstein was a Dual-Dukedom that never belonged to Denmark, but having as its Duke the King of Denmark as long as he belonged to the elder line of the House of Oldenburg. This elder line was extinct when King Christian VIII. died without male issue. His successor wanted to incorporate the two German Dukedoms into Denmark. Then the people stood up and expressed the desire to remain with the German Federation, to which it had always belonged, and there it is now, of its own free will. The natural dividing line between Denmark and Germany, however, is the River Eider. There are about 30,000 Danes south of the Eider, who have been absorbed against their will, a thing that can never be avoided, and that has sometimes given Prussia a little trouble.
Alsace-Lorraine Originally German.
As to Alsace-Lorraine, the facts are known to be that it had belonged to Germany until it had been taken, against the will of the people, by France under Louis XIV., and it was returned to Germany as a matter of right, more than three-quarters of the population being of German descent and speaking the German language.
But let me ask in return, Mr. Eliot, when did ever in her political career England consult the will of the people when she took a country? Can he say that, when England tore the treaty of Majuba Hill, like a "scrap of paper," and made war on the Boers? Did she consult the people of Cyprus in 1878? Does he know of any plébiscite in India? Has she consulted the Persians, or has France consulted the people of Morocco, or of Indo-China, Italy the people of Tripoli? Since Germany has not acted here in any other way forty years ago than all the other nations, why does Dr. Eliot consider the American people justified in taking anti-German views for reasons of such an old date, while he forgives the nations of the party he favors for much more recent infringement of his rule?
"Americans object to the violation of treaties." So do the Germans. We have always kept our treaties, and mean to do so in the future. The fact with Belgium is that her neutrality was very one-sided; that, as can be proved, as early as the 25th of June, Liège was full of French soldiers, that Belgian fortifications were all directed against Germany, and that for years past it was the Belgian press that outdid the French press in attacks against Germany. But I can give Mr. Eliot here some authority that he has so far not challenged. When Sir Edward Grey presented the English case in the House of Commons on the 3d of August he declared that the British attitude was laid down by the British Government in 1870, and he verbally cited Mr. Gladstone's speech, in which he said he could not subscribe to the assertion that the simple fact of the existence of a guarantee was binding on every party, irrespective altogether of the particular position in which it may find itself at the time when the occasion for acting on the guarantee arises. He called that assertion a "stringent and impracticable" view of the guarantee and the whole treaty a "complicated question." So Mr. Gladstone, and with him Sir Edward Grey, has held the Belgian neutrality treaty not binding on every party, when it was against the interest which the particular situation dictated, when the war broke out. It was the interest of Great Britain to maintain the treaty, and that is why she acted. It was against German interest to maintain the treaty, and that is why she broke it. That is the British and not the German theory, and I could very well rest my case here. My theory is with the German Chancellor, that I greatly regret the necessity of violating the Belgian neutrality, after Belgium had chosen to repel the German overtures for a free passage.
It is quite certain that the breach of the Belgian neutrality by Germany was used in Great Britain as a powerful instrument to influence the public sentiment. Every war must be borne by national unity, and it is the duty of the nation's leaders to secure such unity by all practicable means. But has it been forgotten that the attitude of Sir Edward Grey caused such excellent men as Lord Morley, John Burns, and Sir John Trevelyan to leave the Cabinet, where they were looked upon as the best and most liberal members of the ruling combination? Bernard Shaw says of Great Britain that she has never been at a loss for an effective moral attitude. Such an attitude is a powerful weapon in diplomatical and actual warfare, and it must be resorted to, if the necessity arises. But that cannot blind us to the fact that the British Government allowed the political interest to be the paramount consideration in this Belgian neutrality matter. The German interest for not acting on the guarantee was just as strong as the English to act for it.
The proof is found in the English "White Paper." I cite the famous reprint of THE TIMES, (Dispatch No. 148 of Aug. 2 to Paris.) Here Sir Edward Grey says: "We were considering ... whether we should declare violation of Belgian neutrality to be a casus belli."
"Treaties Must Not Be Overrated."
I am an ardent believer in all international arrangements to prevent difficulties and wars between nations, and I rejoice with the American people in the signal success this policy is now having in this country. But international treaties must not be overrated. There are questions which cannot be settled by them. It is too difficult to explain just the nature of such situations as arose in Europe, so I may be permitted for once to ask this question: Does Prof. Eliot believe that the majority of the American people think that the unwritten Monroe Doctrine could be made the subject of arbitration, whether it had a right to exist or to be enforced? I must emphatically say, No, it could not. It can be as little arbitrated upon as a matter of religion or of personal morals.