"The work of this permanent conspiracy against our territorial integrity and safety was darkened by a series of attempts (four in number within a few years) against the lives of valuable Austrian and Hungarian government agents, the crowning deed of which has been the assassination of Archduke Francis, heir presumptive to the Austrian and Hungarian throne, and of his wife at Serajevo.

"While negotiations were still pending the order of general mobilization was issued at St. Petersburg, though Germany had warned Russia that such an order would amount to a declaration of war, since no power could risk the chance of a conflict with Russia except by forestalling the actual mobilization of her enormous masses."

Baron Burian, the foreign minister of Austria-Hungary, said to

me:

"Russia was using Serbia as a torpedo to wreck the Austro-Hungarian empire."

A distinguished diplomat explained the situation to me as follows:

"Austria has many Irelands or Mexicos on her borders. The very existence of the empire was threatened by Serbia, backed as she was by Russia. We had reached the utmost limit of safety."

After spending nearly two weeks in Austria-Hungary I understood how utterly implacable and unrestrainable the government of the dual monarchy was in its attitude toward Serbia.

The point now to consider is well

rero:

"Why was it that on July 29, all of a sudden, less than twenty-four hours after the chancellor had made his excellent peaceable proposals to the English ambassador, the imperial government requests Russia to stop mobilizing against Austria, when Austria did not yet feel herself threatened by these Russian preparations and did not complain of them ?"

The answer is to be found in the newspaper correspondence and diplomatic documents in the adjoining columns.

On July 24 Sir Edward Grey said:

"Russia would be compelled by her public opinion to take action. * Once the Austrians had attacked Serbia it would be too late for any mediation."

Sir Edward Grey was right and the story as told in the accompanying documents shows how fatefully and inevitably the war came just as he so frequently pointed out in his wise and splendid efforts to preserve peace. June 9, 1916.

FIGHTING FOR STEEL
MARKETS

In the London Outlook of July 8 is an illuminating article on "Lorraine and German Metallurgy." It is a call to England to see that France gets back Lorraine because this would destroy the German steel industry and leave Great Britain a free hand in the export field. It is shown that Germany before 1871, when Lorraine was acquired, was rich in coal but poor in iron ore.

Take away her iron ore, and her iron industry is gone.

Figures are cited to show what England has lost and what she must regain.

In 1860 the world consumed only 7,000,000 tons of cast iron, and England supplied half of it. France only produced 1,000,000 tons, the United States 800,000 and Germany 700,000.

In 1913 the various countries producing pig iron ranked as follows: United States, 31,000,000 tons; Germany, 19,300,000; Great Britain, 10,500,000; France, 5,300,000. England, beaten in her production of pig iron, was to suffer a graver defeat still in her steel.

In 1913 England exported 3,000,000 tons of steel products, Germany 4,500,000; but in 1900 that same Germany had only exported 1,600,000, and as far back as 1890 only 86,000 tons.

One by one England's metallur

gical positions were wrested from her by the Germans.

The Outlook calls upon Great Britain to remove the Germans from Lorraine and regain the steel trade of Europe.

It is a striking illustration of the solid basis of fact that must be behind Great Britain's championing the cause of smaller nations. The history of Ireland, the Boer republic, Egypt and Persia must make it clear that small nations per se are not indiscriminately championed. The designs upon German metallurgy are a specific instance of that principle which the London Times of March 8, 1915, proclaimed in such classic form:

In this war England is fighting for exactly the same kind of reasons for which she fought Philip II., Louis XIV. and Napoleon. She is not fighting for Belgium or for Servia, for France or for Russia. They fill a great place in her mind and her heart, but they come second. The first place belongs, and rightly belongs, to herself.

-August 7, 1916.

FOREIGN SUPPLIES OF ARMS

Much stress is being laid upon the necessity of preserving for our nation the possibility of getting arms from oversea in war. It is declared that for us to cease our exports of arms to belligerents now would be to create a precedent which would be turned against us when, in our time of need, we call on foreign countries to send us the implements of war.

The danger is that this talk will delude people into thinking that they can depend on the oversea world to help when war bursts upon us. Nothing is farther from the truth.

When war comes, if we command the seas, no enemy can land on our shores, and we shall need to have no arms or ammunition sent us. If our fleet does not command the seas, the enemy will command them and confiscate any arms sent to us, no matter how much money we have to pay for them, and no matter what precedents we keep alive in this war.

Our safety is not in keeping alive this or that precedent. Our safety is a navy able to keep at arm's length any sea power in the world.-Feb. 10, 1916.

TO ELIHU ROOT

By JOHN W. BURGESS Mr. Elihu Root is reported to have said in his address to the state con

vention of his party in Carnegie Hall, February 15, that at the time of the entrance of the German forces into Belgium all the parties to the war were parties to the fifth Hague convention of 1907. Mr. Root ought to know about that, since he was secretary of state of the United States-that is, the chief diplomatic officer of the government

at the time. Nevertheless, as an old student of international law and the history of diplomacy, older even than he, and interested scientifically in getting at the exact truth in this matter and every other matter of history, I am compelled to call his statement most respectfully in question.

According to Mr. James Brown Scott's work on "The Hague Conventions and Declarations of 1899 and 1907," published in the summer of 1915, two of the parties to the present war have never ratified this convention, viz., Great Britain and Serbia. Mr. James Brown Scott was the secretary of our delegation at The Hague convention of 1907 and is an accurate scholar, having scientific interest in the truthfulness of his statements.

Now, the German troops entered Belgium on August 4, 1914. Serbia was a party to the war on and after July 28 preceding. Great Britain declared war formally against Germany on August 4, a few hours after the entrance of the German troops into Belgium, but she

had two days before this, according to the statement of Sir Edward Grey in No. 148 of the so-called "British White Paper," assured France that she would enter the war as France's ally in case of war between France and Germany, and France was a party to the war before the German forces entered Belgium.

Thus two of the parties to the war, Serbia and Great Britain, the one both formally and actually, the other practically, if not formally, were not parties to the fifth Hague convention of 1907 at the moment when the German forces entered Belgium. This fact abrogates this fifth Hague convention altogether during this war, because the 20th article of the convention declares:

The provisions of the present convention do not apply except between contracting powers, and then only if all the belligerents are parties to the convention.

Moreover, it must be remembered that in ratifying this convention the government of the United States laid down the express condition that nothing contained in the convention should be construed as requiring the United States to interfere or entangle itself in or with the political questions of foreign states or to relinquish its traditional attitude toward purely American questions.

So far as I can comprehend the issues and events, the claim of Mr. Root that this country was obligated to interfere in the conflict between Germany and Belgium, and his criticism of the administration for not having done so, have no foundation of any kind, least of all any legal foundation.

I am a Republican of the first generation, an older Republican than

Mr. Root himself. My Republicanism began on the battlefields of the civil war. My first vote was cast for Gen. Grant for President and I have never in my life voted for a Democrat for anything. I have also thought that it might have been the better policy for this country to have recognized Huerta as president of Mexico, and I have felt sure that if the administration had forced Great Britain, from the start, to respect our rights of trade with neutrals and in non-contraband with Germany and Austria-Hungary, there would have been no submarine warfare on merchant vessels.

Nevertheless, I was not prepared for such a reckless, unfounded assault upon the policy of the administration from so responsible a source. As a Republican it has grieved me most deeply, and as a loval American I cannot view this effort to influence the country to abandon its peace and neutrality and plunge itself into the cost, sufferings and horrors of war under such pretexts as anything short of an indifference to the interests of our own country which is positively appalling.

If the Republican leaders have no better principles than this platform of folly, hate and destruction to offer to the Republican voters, then I for one am done with the Republican party and shall exert every grain of influence I possess to prevent its re-advent to power.-Feb. 26, 1916.

KEEPING THE FAITH

America has been ambitious to be the champion of the rights of neutrals in this terrible world catastrophe. It has been our opportu

nity, and our duty, to keep alive these precedents which are called international law. Of the few nations apart from the conflict, we alone had the power to see to it that, in striving to injure each other, the belligerents did not strike at the lives and property of neutrals, who had no part in making this war and who should not be made its victims.

The belligerents have been fighting in two theatres-on land in their own countries, and on the seas. What happened on land was not of great concern to the neutrals; they had no business getting into the firing zone of the combatants. On the sea it was a different matter. The seas are the joint possession of all nations. Peaceful commerce has a prior right to the use of the seas. This right is modified, and not eliminated, by a state of war between two nations. The progress of international law has been a record of the restrictions of the right of those who choose to go to war to interfere with the trade and travel of those who choose to remain at peace.

This broadening basis for the security of neutral rights was built upon precedents; mainly upon cases where during war time powerful neutrals had prevented combatants from interfering with noncombatant lives and property on the high seas. To Great Britain, as a powerful neutral, the world has been particularly indebted for the maintenance and extension of the rights of the peaceful trading nations. The seas came to be regarded as the highways of commerce, in which combatants came as interlopers.

The old piratical practices of a warring sea power were limited to

definite rights of interference as fixed in the law of blockade, and, when no blockade existed, by the law of contraband. Whoever interfered with a British shipment on the high seas, except as justified by the law of blockade or contraband, was brought to terms and to apology by England exactly as if the wrong had been committed on British soil. Indeed, it had been committed on British territory, for the seas are the joint territory of all nations.

When this war broke out Great Britain was a combatant, and the duty of guarding the freedom of neutral trade and travel-the upholding of international law-fell to the United States. The small neutral countries of Europe, with frenzied belligerents on all sides of them, dared not speak. They looked to us.

We held both England and Germany in the hollow of our hand. England, by her vast purchases of supplies in America, has pawned with us her future. Germany has been convinced that this was a financial war, to be won or lost through financial exhaustion. Nothing has been more apparent than Germany's willingness to go to any length of concession to prevent our boundless financial resources from being allied to the allies. Never did a neutral have so great power, so easy of exercise.

Now at this crisis in our international relations it is worth while to take stock of our achievement. How have we guarded the heritage of international law which the course of events placed in our keeping? At the end of the war will neutral nations feel more secure because of our upholding of their rights, or will they feel that we have