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WHO ARE THE HUNS?

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American "Neutrality." 301<br />

logical conception of things, acted more like British governmental<br />

agents in the question of deliveries of arms and munitions,<br />

than as representatives of a great, free and proud country<br />

and people. The nation, as such, may, of course, have made no<br />

deliveries to the Triple Entente—(in so far as that is capable<br />

of being proved here—the very opposite having been asserted<br />

in the press of neutral countries). It may also be acknowledged<br />

that a neutral power is not pledged but only justified<br />

in forbidding the export of weapons, munitions and all other<br />

supplies for the use of the army or the navy of one or the other<br />

belligerent. (See Article 7 of the 5th and 13th Convention<br />

of the 18th of October, 1907, 1st edition, page 337). x<br />

But the spirit and the significance of the two conventions<br />

proves,—and this is in no sense nullified by Articles 17b and<br />

18, since these are concerned only with the rights and duties<br />

of individual manufacturers,—that a country violates its<br />

neutrality when it permits a condition to arise, and in fact<br />

favors and supports it, in which as a matter of fact only one<br />

of the belligerents is able to receive war supplies from the<br />

neutral country in question, while it remains impossible for<br />

practical reasons for the other belligerent to take advantage<br />

of that "equality" according to which the United States is con-<br />

December, 1914. This steamer was commanded to haul down the American<br />

flag and run up the English. This provocation was swallowed as calmly by<br />

the Americans as was the complete interruption of the shipping of provisionsthrough<br />

the illegal misuse of the conception of absolute and relative contraband<br />

by England (see above). There is, further, the ignominious throttling<br />

of the entire American copper, wool and rubber trade (see "Miinchner-Augsburger<br />

Zeitung," No. 101, 1915). See also below a whole series of instances of<br />

scandalous trickery which the United States Government patiently endured<br />

from England. The protests made were the merest formalities, which raised<br />

a smile among the prophets of both sides.<br />

1 One may compare the statement of Mr. Bryan that by a prohibition<br />

of the export of weapons, the United States would violate her neutrality,,<br />

with the splendid example set by the Swiss form of neutrality. Switzerland,<br />

has, in regard to Article y of the 5th Agreement of the 18th of October, 1907,<br />

as already cited, through Article 8 of its proclamation of the 4th of August,<br />

1914, forbidden all export of weapons and munitions. Who has been so foolish<br />

as to proclaim that through this prohibition it has violated its neutrality ?<br />

Not a single soul !

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