er on them instead of leaving them to perish of their own
worthlessness.

4. Neither England nor Germany must claim any moral superiority in the
negotiations. Both were engaged for years in a race for armaments. Both
indulged and still indulge in literary and oratorical provocation. Both
claimed to be "an Imperial race" ruling other races by divine right.
Both shewed high social and political consideration to parties and
individuals who openly said that the war had to come. Both formed
alliances to reinforce them for that war. The case against Germany for
violating the neutrality of Belgium is of no moral value to England
because (_a_) England has allowed the violation of the Treaty of Paris
by Russia (violation of the neutrality of the Black Sea and closing of
the free port of Batoum), and the high-handed and scandalous violation
of the Treaty of Berlin by Austria (seizure of Bosnia and Herzegovina),
without resorting to arms or remedying the aggression in any other way;
(_b_) because we have fully admitted that we should have gone to war in
defence of France in any case, whether the Germans came through Belgium
or not, and refused to give the German Ambassador any assurance that we
should remain neutral if the Germans sacrificed the military advantage
of attacking through Belgium for the sake of avoiding a war with us;
(_c_) that the apparent moral superiority of the pledge given by France
and England to respect Belgian neutrality is illusory in face of the
facts that France and England stood to gain enormously, and the Germans
to lose correspondingly, by confining the attack on France to the
heavily fortified Franco-German frontier, and that as France and England
knew they would be invited by the Belgians to enter Belgium if the
Germans invaded it, the neutrality of Belgium had, as far as they were
concerned, no real existence; (_d_) that as all treaties are valid only
_rebus sic stantibus_, and the state of things which existed at the date
of the Treaty of London (1839) had changed so much since then (Belgium
is no longer menaced by France, at whom the treaty was aimed, and has
acquired important colonies, for instance) that in 1870 Gladstone could
not depend on it, and resorted to a special temporary treaty not now in
force, the technical validity of the 1839 treaty is extremely doubtful;
(_e_) that even if it be valid its breach is not a _casus belli_ unless
the parties for reasons of their own choose to make it so