14 
LAND & WATER 
Fclirnary 22, 1917 
\ioIatc all rig;lits, but it would be a contradiction that an 
Allied war wluch professed to defend the rights should 
stoop to methods which violate them. Consequently 
ck)niination by force, an issence of war, can only be 
directed by the latter upon tlie enemy and nut u))(in 
peoples wiio ri'spcct their international obligations ami 
who keep within the limits of their own legitimate and 
prescriptive sovereign rights. 
Even if we were U) admit that certain contingencies 
imperati\ ely required a belligerent who desired to respect 
the rights of others to violate neutral territory in order 
to achieve his purpose and destroy his enemy— which 
was the attitude (iermany professed to have adopted 
in the case of Belgium at the beginning of the war- 
there would still be a difference between him and the 
belUgerent whose purpose was domination. While the 
latter- would be under no necessity to throw any scruples 
overboard the former would ha\'e to satisfy himself of 
the existence of the imperative riecessity.' Violation of 
the rights of others when deemed necessary, is part of 
the normal conduct of the belligerent whose object is 
domination ; he will resort to it readily because it is to 
his advantage. It is against the normal action of the 
belligerent who wishes to resjiect right ; he will only resort 
to it at the last ])ossible moment, and only, so to speak, 
in self-defence. 
The present war furnishes \'ery precise examples of 
these opposite \iews. The Central Empires have ne\'er 
hesitated for a moment to invoke their superior might 
without the least regard to the limits of their right. 
Serbia only had to make one timid reservation in her 
submission to the demands of the Austro-Hungarian 
ultimatum and ihe guns opened fire upon Belgrade. In 
twelve hours Belgimn served as a demonstration of the 
(ierman theory that alleged necessity makes law. As 
for Luxemburg, she was simply treated as non-existent. 
Recalling all these things one realises the insuperable 
rock of distrust against \vhich the present anxious \en- 
tures of the Central Empires are breaking. 
With regard to t*ae Allies, the Goeben and Breslau 
incidents and the events in Greece testify to their 
imwillingness to let might have precedence of right. 
Matters are dealt with politically which it would be ten 
times more profitable to deal with militarily. This 
solicitude has been carried to the point of contradicting 
the very principles of war and of compromising the 
needs of the Allies. These comparisons show more 
clearly than an\i;lung else could do how greatly the 
objects of a war influence the methods emploj'cd, and 
nothing could better explain why when the German 
press warned the Swiss of a possible violation of their 
territory by the Allien they merely shrugged their 
shoulders. 
A German Invasion 
The idea that, on the other hand, a German army 
might be capable of marching through Switzerland has 
not met everywhere with such complete scepticism. 
Belief in it is based upon the \'ery good argument of the 
invasion of Luxemburg and Belgium in i()i4, and also 
on the entire lack of scruple shown by Cierman Imperalism 
when deeming itself the strongest. It only entertains 
scruples and is solicitous of the rights <;f nations when 
it is doubtful about their state of preparedness. Its 
" notes" of the last few weeks are eloquent demonstrations 
of this truth. 
To these two arguments which are made valid b\- 
facts that ha\c happened some excitable jwrsons add 
others which appear less convincing. The German 
armies, they say, are held up everywhere at the present 
time and utterly imable to press their ad\'ersaries back 
at any point, to any appreciable extent. The German 
fronts rest upon the North Sea and on Switzerland on 
one side and from the Baltic and the Black Sea on another ; 
the same is true of the Allied fronts. Swiss territory 
offers the sole solution of the problem of extension. Now 
the Germans havp always aimed at extending their line 
of battle in the direction of empty spaces, with the main 
object of encircling the enemy fronts. They will, there- 
fore, pass through Switzerland, a more or less unoccupied 
space, whence it is still possible to encircle the Western 
front. 
Other people propound tFie other theory of " desperate 
measures." An offensive through Switzerland, they 
])rotest, would be fraught with risks for the Germans ; 
but when one has no choice of means left one uses any 
there are. All other methods having failed, the tiermans 
will maki: use of any fonc they have not tried. Does 
not the sliijjwrecked sailor clutch at any plank to sa\c 
hims<'lf from drowning ? 
We will leave comparisons alone ; they are always 
dangerous. We will merely point out that the ship- 
wrecked German must ha\'e lost his head more completely 
than there are grounds to suppose if he would adopt 
a strategy which failed to take elementary situations 
into account, and failed to see behind the trenches dug 
by the Swiss soldiers along their frontier, all the trenches 
dug by the French in their territory along the Jura and 
by the Italians in theirs along the Alps. 
As a matter of fact the arguments suggested above 
entirely overlook the essential character of trench war- 
fare, wliicii assumes the assembling of formidable material 
to push back or to penetrate a fortified front. The 
main difficulty confronting the belligerents is in providing 
their armies with a sufficiency of gims and munitions in 
the sectors where they are attempting an offensive.. In 
passing through Switzerland (iermany would have to 
solve the ])roblcm twice. She would have to succeed 
twice — on the Rhine and behind the Jura — in doing what 
she failed to do on the Yser, before Ypres, at Soissons, 
Verdun and Nancy, and succeed, moreover, in the more 
difficult conditions of the much more broken terraiii of 
Switzerland with the Swiss army added as reinforcements 
to the AlHes. 
(To be continued). 
I^abrador is Dr. Wilfred Grenfell's own country ; it is he 
who has discovered it for the majority of Britons, and in this 
new collection of stories (Tales of ihe Labrador. Nisbet 
4s. 6d. net) he again brings home to us the extraordinary 
fortitude of white men amid these inhospitable wintry wastes. 
" We err rather on the side of being too well satisfied with 
what we have than on that of being over anxious about 
to-morrow."- Through all these tales, whether .tliey tell 
of fishermen, traders or Eskimo, tliere runs a curious strain 
of reckless improvidence, backed by resolute courage, which 
is no doubt the result of the tremendous risks which have to 
be taken in order to earn a livelihood on sea and ice and 
amid the blizzard-smitten wastes and snow-laden forests. The 
last story in the book is perhaps the most vivid. It relates 
the exodus of an Eskimo settlement across the ice in search 
of a Promised I-and. The land was found, and for years 
plenty abounded ; then came dearth, and it were vital either 
to go backward or to push on. I^ut for Kommak, the Moses 
of the exodus, all must have perished. Why they did not 
must be left to the reader. " Uncle Eige's Story," telling how 
Mamie Sparks came home to Peace Haven for her burial is 
as fine a sea story as has been indited. But the book 
is one to be read from cover to cover ; it takes the reader 
to new scenes, and teaches him yet again the old old 
lesson that given faith man is unconquerable. 
A well-deser^•ed tribute to the work of the Y.M.C.A. is 
paid in One Young Man, (Hodder and Stoughton. is. net), 
which is the story of a clerk who cnUsted in 1914 and fought 
through to the battle of the Somme, where he was so severely 
wounded as to be incapacitated for further service. Mr. J. 
E. Hodder Williams, who has edited the work, has confined it 
mainly to the letters of the clerk concerned, in which is con- 
tained an excellent description of the actual work at the front 
together with glimpses of the very efficient way in which the 
Y.M.C.A. makes comfort for the men both in training stations 
at home, and out in the fighting areas. Records of war ex- 
periences are plentiful enough, but the work of the Y.M.C.A. 
deserves all the recognition that can be accorded it, and for that 
reason alone this little work is heartily welcome. 
A Liltle World Apart, by George Stevenson (John Lane. 
6s.) is a novel that chronicles no sensational happenings, 
yet to withdraw the reader's mind from present-day con- 
fusion to a quiet scene in the early seventies and there compel 
attention to its actors is an achievement for which one may 
well be grateful to the author. Applethwaite, the name of 
the country village in which the story is set, suggests a place 
kept quietly alive with gossip, kindly or otherwise, but even 
Applethwaite has its own story, which is that of the vicar 
and his daughters, their friends, and the fascinating and 
mysterious lady who comes to live among tliem. With its 
flavour of lavender and old lace, it is an excellent book for 
a fireside evening. 
