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and the issues of war and peace entirely in their own hands. And if one result of the present war is the collapse of the autocratic or quasi-autocratic dynasties of Europe and the military castes to which they give birth, the blood of Englishmen will not have been shed wholly in vain. Purely dynastic wars are perhaps things of the past, but the influence of dynastic families may still check or override the wishes of a people to a lamentable extent. If any proof of this were needed it would be sufficient to point to the present position of Greece. The people of Greece obviously desire to ally themselves with the Entente Powers, but King Constantine, swayed by his family connections, prevents this.

WHAT strikes Dr. Gondy as one of its saddest features is the comparative indifference with which well-established rules of International Law have been violated by each and all of the belligerents, when they have run counter to their apparent material interests. The loss of moral force and self-respect by the wrong-doing State seems to be regarded as unimportant when set off against its material interests. Thus, the carefully-drafted rules of the Hague Conventions and the Declaration of London have been in large measure, to use a vulgarism, "scrapped;" even the time-sanctioned Declarations of the Treaty of Paris have not, in the matter of blockade, escaped violation. Excuses and defenses for such violations have, no doubt, been set up, but as a rule they are of a kind that International Law ought emphatically to reject. Two kinds of defense in particular have been constantly employed to justify the grossest illegalities. They are "military necessity" (or "necessities of war") and "reprisals." Neither of them have any definite meaning in International Law, and the former (though the term is sometimes met with in Treaties and Conventions in relation to particular belligerent acts) can hardly be said to be recognized by it in a general sense at all. By an act of military necessity seems to be meant an act which a belligerent holds to be necessary for the success of his military operations-he himself being the judge of the necessity. It may involve a violation of the rights of neutrals as well as of the laws of war between belligerents. In either case it can only be based on the maxim "necessity knows no law," and was frankly so based by the Chancellor Bethmann von Hollweg to justify the German invasion of Belgium. The invasion of Belgium was doubly illegal; there was not merely the entry upon neutral territory against the will of the neutral (a clear breach of the Hague Conventions of 1907), but there was also shameless disregard of Prussia's own guarantee of Belgian neutrality. What defense do the Germans make? Simply, that their military staff declared it to be vital to the success of their operations against France that their army should march through Belgium to the attack (pretended self-preservation). But what

Court of Arbiters would listen to such a plea? Or what would be the worth of a treaty of guarantee (or indeed of any treaty) into which a clause of reservation of military necessity was introduced as a limitation of obligation? The passage through Chinese territory by Japan, in her operations against Kiau-chau, is also perhaps open to animadversion, though here the gravamen of the charge is much less, as Japan was not a guarantor of China's neutrality. On the other hand, the landing of French and British troops at Salonika cannot be regarded as violation of neutral territory at all, for Greece (though protesting pro forma) encouraged de facto such landing and promised her benevolent neutrality.

Another case of military necessity being set up as a plea for objectionable action may be seen in the conduct of the war in Central Africa. Here the English Government seems to blame, though there was no positive breach of International Law. It was eminently desirable that the conventional basin of the Congo should be wholly neutralized in order to prevent the sad spectacle of the natives of Africa being armed and induced to fight against each other in a European quarrel. But for military reasons the English government declined to agree to the proposal of Belgium to this effect, made by Belgium before the war.

WE MEET AGAIN the plea of military necessity in the German attempts to justify the destruction of both belligerent and neutral merchantmen by submarines, without' provision being made for the safety of the passengers and crews. Because it was practically impossible to take them on board the submarines or land them otherwise in safety, the Germans have not hesitated to ignore the Hague Convention and the older International Law on the subjeet, and sink the merchantmen, while leaving the passengers and crews to the mercy of the waves in open boats. So, too, the destruction by Germans of merchant vessels, without warning given, because they happen to have come within certain so-called zones of operations illegitimately declared to be blockaded-seems to be defended on the same plea of military necessity. England's seizure of neutral vessels without proof of contraband on search is open to the like objections. In some of these cases, however, the plea of reprisals has been pleaded alternatively by the separate Governments. Again, in the bombardment of open towns in order to destroy military works, munitions of war, and the like, the same excuse has been brought forward. Convention IX, Article 2, of the Hague Conference, 1907, lays down in the plainest terms that "the commander of a naval force may destroy them (i. e., military works, etc.) after a summons, followed by a reasonable time of waiting, if all other means are impossible, and where the local authorities have not themselves destroyed them within the time fixed." Yet in the bombardment of the non-fortified town of Scar

borough last winter by the Germans no notice whatever was given to the local authorities; the only excuse apparently was military necessity, viz., the danger to the bombarding ships of being overtaken by British warships had there been any delay. If carried to an extreme, military necessity involves the negation of all International Law.

THE OTHER main excuse for violation of International Law is, reprisals. This is a plea which may be used to cover almost any enormity. To an uncertain extent reprisals have been at all times either suo nomine or by the name of retorsion recognized and justified by International writers. Usually they have taken place in circumstances not involving belligerency, as, for example, where courtesies or privileges commonly granted by one State to another or to the individual subjects of another have been unreasonably withheld in a particular instance, and this represents the strict or technical use of the term. In such cases the State injured may justifiably retaliate by a similar or analogous act. But the term reprisals is also applied to retaliation for illegitimate acts of war, and as such we find it employed in some military manuals. The two significations sometimes overlap. Thus, for example, so long ago as 1694, when British ships under Lord Berkeley bombarded and burned the towns of Dieppe and Havre, they did so professedly as reprisals for wrongful acts done by the Grand Monarque. But there is little authority bearing on reprisals, as acts of war, in International Law books, and by the Hague Conferences of 1899 and 1907 they are wholly ignored. The plea of reprisals can rarely be set up to advantage as justifying a breach of International Law by a belligerent. In the present war they have been carried to great lengths. When the British Government last spring, yielding to foolish outcries in the newspapers, treated the officers and crews of certain captured submarines in a humiliating way by refusing to them the privileges of prisoners of war, it did so as reprisals for their conduct in illegally sinking merchant vessels. But what was the result? The Germans retaliated by placing a number of their British prisoners in solitary confinement. And so the British government was forced, for the sake of these prisoners, to recede from the position it had taken.

WITHOUT going so far as to say that reprisals are never justifiable, they should be avoided, says Dr. Goudy as much as possible. Hardly ever are they of military value.. There can be no glory in victory by such means. If we are to be beaten, says Dr. Goudy, let us fall with honor and clean hands. If we are victorious let us afterwards exact reparation from those in authority who have been responsible for brutalities. Unless this is done, International

Law will be degraded, if not destroyed, and civilization itself will be in danger.

The paper on Neutrality and War Zones is of special interest to American lawyers, for it is written (in collaboration with Mr. Malcolm Carter) by Dr. T. J. Lawrence, than whom no English law writer is better known here and whose manual on the Principles of International Law has been for a decade the authorized text book on International Law in most of the law schools in the United States. In all great wars in the past, says Dr. Lawrence, there has been a tendency on the part of belligerents to disregard or minimize the rights of neutrals when their own warlike aims are checked and limited thereby. But the terrible conflict now being waged in almost every part of the world has already won for itself a bad preeminence in this, as in other kinds of wrong-doing. Neither side is blameless; but on the part of Germany there has been utter disregard of neutral life, as well as lawless interference with neutral property. Her theory appears to be that there is no rule, human or divine, that may not be set aside on the plea of military necessity or national self-assertion. The issue thus raised must be decided by civilized mankind. But meanwhile neutrals, and all who care for neutrality, are faced by the question whether hostilities may be carried on without regard to neutral rights, or only according to the rules that create and protect such rights. The importance of this matter can hardly be exaggerated. Those who deal with it must first make up their minds whether they desire the international society of the future to be organized and governed in the interests of war or of peace.

THREE hundred years ago powerful belligerents were apt to regard States who held aloof from the contest as white-livered cowards or calculating scoundrels. Those who were determined to avoid the risks of war, or to make profit for themselves out of the dangers and difficulties of their neighbors, might possibly, as a great favor, be allowed to remain neutral. But to respect their territory and do no violence to their sovereignty was more than could be expected of high-spirited combatants when military advantages were to be gained by disregarding them. Gradually the public opinion of the civilized world came to demand even these hard things, and the performance of them was laid as an obligation on belligerent powers, coupled with a corresponding obligation on the part of neutrals to aid neither party in the war but maintain an even balance between them. Custom followed in the wake of opinion. Internatoinal Law grew clearer and clearer; till at length. the Hague Conference of 1907 laid down in its Fifth Convention that "The territory of neutral Powers is inviolable" (Art. I), and in its Thirteenth that "Belligerents are bound to respect the sovereign rights of neutral Powers" (Art. I).

GERMANY accepted both these Conventions, and made no reservations with regard to the Articles just quoted. Yet she commenced the present war by invading Belgian territory. German troops crossed the frontier on the evening of Monday, August 3, 1914, while negotiations were still going on with the Government of Brussels, which declined to allow its country to be used as a passageway into France, and declared that Belgium was prepared to defend its neutrality by force of arms. The next day General von Emmich, the commander of the invading forces, issued a Proclamation in which he demanded a free passage on pain of "the horrors of war," a threat which the Report of the Bryce Committee, backed up as it is by similar Reports from a Belgian Commission, shows to have been carried out with true Teutonic thoroughness. The German General seems to have felt that his procedure required justification. Accordingly, he explained that he was constrained "by sheer necessity, the neutrality of Belgium having already been violated by French officers who have been through Belgian territory in a motor car, disguised, on their way into Germany" (Blue Bk., Cd. 7895, Appendix C., p. 183). Marvelous officers, who heroically invaded the enemy's country without any men to follow them, and cleverly went the longest way round in order to make their attack a complete surprise! The German Chancellor spoke the truth when he said to the Reichstag on August 4 that: "Our troops have occupied Luxemburg, and perhaps are already on Belgian soil. Gentlemen, this is contrary to the dictates of International Law;" and on subsequent occasions when he endeavored to make out that Belgium was the aggressor or a willing partner in the aggression of others he spoke what is not the truth..

BUT BAD as the German case would be if the country whose neutrality Germany violated were an ordinary State, it is made far worse by the fact that Belgium was not merely neutral, but neutralized. A neutralized State is one which is not free to make or abstain from war as it pleases, but is bound by international convention to observe neutrality towards all other States as long as they do not attack her independence or territorial integrity. The Convention which imposes this obligation on her gives her the guarantee of the other signatory Powers that they will protect her soil and sovereignty as long as she fulfils her duty of perpetual neutrality. Belgium was placed in the position just described by the Treaty of January, 1831, as confirmed by the Treaty of April, 1839. The Guaranteeing Powers were Great Britain, Austria, France, Prussia and Russia; and the obligations of Prussia in such matters have since descended on, and been assumed by, the German Empire. Nor have they become obsolete through disuse; for in 1870 Germany signed a treaty with Great Britain and Belgium, binding her to assist the former in defending the latter,

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