We observe, therefore, that under our own ideas of international law the United States claims the right to disregard its stipulations if the interests of the country should require it. And the same right we should concede to other nations. Particularly to Germany in the present instance, when we find her battling for her very existence against enemies that seek to destroy her, against enemies that surround her on all sides, against enemies that do not hesitate to bring troops into the conflict from the wilds of Africa and Asia, and who do not hesitate to drag Japan into this war, causing her to disregard Chinese neutrality in her effort to capture a small settlement, lawfully occupied in China by a handful of German soldiers.
In this connection I quote the British sentiment, as expressed by Gladstone regarding Belgium neutrality in the year 1870:
But I am not able to subscribe to the doctrine of those who have held in this House, what plainly amounts to the assertion that the simple fact of the existence of a guarantee is binding to every party to it, irrespective altogether of the particular position in which it may find itself at the time when the occasion for acting on the question arises.
This shows that England herself reserved the right, whenever her interests required her to do so, to act in violation of the treaty with Belgium. That, at least, is my understanding of Gladstone's language. England did not respect Danish neutrality a hundred years ago, when she destroyed the Danish fleet at Copenhagen because her interests required, and England does not now, through its Asiatic ally, and directly, respect Chinese neutrality, claiming the right primarily to consult her own interests. Should this right, asserted by our own Supreme Court, and actually assumed by England and Japan, be denied to Germany? Finally, I understand that The Hague Conference of 1907 drafted a convention which reads:
The territory of neutral powers is inviolable. Belligerents are forbidden to move troops or convoys of either munitions of war or supplies across the territory of a neutral power. Great Britain, Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy refused to sign it and did not sign it. Russia was not represented.
MILITARISM. There is one more subject which many people in this country have failed to understand, and that is the matter of militarism. German militarism is supposed to be something dreadful, and many good people believe that it would be a great advance toward eternal peace if that militarism could be wiped out. Well, now, let us see.
If Germany did not require every one of her sons to spend a year, or at most two years, in the army, and if she had not provided for all these men sufficient arms and accoutrements for immediate use in case of war, what would have happened when Russia entered her territory, or when France came on a like errand?
Any one who lives among enemies is expected to be sufficiently prepared to defend himself should they attack him, be he ever so peaceful.
At the time the United States of America was born there was no such thing as Germany. Every country around it had a slice of it. Napoleon took the larger western part of Germany as his property, England held Hanover, the former Kingdom of Poland held Saxony, Austria held Silesia, and so there was no Germany. The Teutonic races had no home in which they could develop and live without interference by others. To prevent such interference Germany of all nations needed an army; to prevent similar interference at sea England of all nations needed a navy. That great British Navy bears precisely the same relation to the protection of Great Britain at sea which the German Army bears to the protection of Germany on land.
To sum up, what are the countries fighting for? Russia for her enlargement; she has no grudge whatever against Germany except that it exists. France for revenge; she has no grudge whatever against Germany except that she wants revenge for 1870. What grudge has England against Germany, except that Germany has grown commercially, financially, and industrially to a position which threatens to crowd England into a second rank? Jealousy appears to control the English attitude.