gh Mr. Shaw attempts to show her innocent, for
the German Chancellor has said: "This is an infraction of international
law--we are compelled to overrule the legitimate protests of the
Luxemburg and Belgian Governments. We shall repair the wrong we are
doing as soon as our military aims have been achieved." And again the
Chancellor said the invasion of Belgium "is contrary to the law of
nature." To Mr. Bernard Shaw's peculiar sense of international morality
such dealing is not, however, repugnant.

*No "Right of Way" in Belgium.*

In his letter to President Wilson Mr. Shaw, either willfully or
ignorantly, seeks to confuse the neutrality of a neutralized State such
as Belgium and the neutrality of an ordinary State such as Italy, and he
pretends that violation of the first sort of neutrality creates a
situation in no way different from that created by the violation of the
second and normal sort of neutrality. I would refer Mr. Shaw to "The
Case for Belgium" issued by the Belgian delegates to the United States
wherein they point out that "the peculiarity about Belgian neutrality is
that it has been imposed upon her by the powers as the one condition
upon which they recognized her national existence."

The consequence of this is that whereas Italy and the United States and
other powers having a similar status can, subject to the risk of attack
from an affronted belligerent, please themselves whether or not they
condone a violation of their neutrality, Belgium and the other
neutralized States cannot condone such violation, but must either resist
all breaches of their neutrality or surrender their right to existence.
And further a neutralized State, putting faith in the treaty that
guarantees its existence and its neutrality, refrains naturally from
that preparation for war which would be deemed necessary in the absence
of such a treaty.

There is no such thing as the "right of way" through neutralized Belgium
which Mr. Shaw claims on behalf of belligerent Germany. Far from
exercising a right of way Germany has violently committed a trespass,
offering a German promise, a mere "scrap of paper," as reparation. "A
right of way," argues Bernard Shaw, "is not a right of conquest"; but
the truth is that in passing through Belgium Germany assumed dominion
over Belgium, which dominion she has since formally asserted and is
seeking forcibly to maintain.

*A New Shavian Theory.*

No comprehension does Mr. Shaw display of the