April 5, 1917 
LAND & WATER 
sink enemy non-belligerent ships of merchandise without 
safeguarding the lives of their non-belligerent crews. 
It is to be carefully noted that there was a progression 
even in this. She began by taking trouble in most cases 
to avoid the murder of these crews. She went on to take 
less and less trouble and at last, save in very.ipvicases, 
she took no trouble at all. 
(e) She next began to use weapons hitherto regarded 
with abhorrence and set aside in modern warfare, notably 
poisonous gases and burning oil. This particular novelty 
has given rise, to a great deal of controversy, because a 
whole school has maintained that the use of such novel 
weapons was merely part of the general development of 
war and that there was nothing worse in poisonous 
gases, say, than in the gases of an explosive. But 
this contention, though it has appeared even among her 
opponents (let alone among neutrals), will not bear 
examination. The possibility of using poisonous gases 
was quite open to, modern science long before this war. 
Their use was not due to the discovery of a new weapon. 
It was merely the application of one hitherto refused as 
degrading war. So abhorrent was this practice to the 
civilised mind, that there was a long hesitation and 
debate among her opponents whether reprisals in kind 
should be used or no. 
(f) She next proceeded to destroy the passenger 
ships of belligerents. The link between this and her 
lirst breach of conventions at sea was the fact that these 
jjassenger ships were also carriers of merchandise to her 
enemy. But the distinctive mark of this last step was 
that she now began to murder belligerents and neutrals 
indiscriminateljr^ and 
belligerents and neu- 
trals in no waj;^ con- 
cerned with the carriage 
of the merchandise in 
question. The sinking 
of the Lusitania was the 
lirst of these (outrages, 
and came after the use 
of gas, and long after 
the first arbitrary 
sinking of enemy mer- 
chandise. 
(g) The next step was 
the beginning of. out- 
rages against prisoners 
of war. This was the 
lirst of the Prussian 
actions not directly • 
connected with military 
advantage. It was due, 
as many more came to be, with the progress of this spirit 
of mere hostile sentiment, and it was undertaken under 
the fixed conviction that the opponents of Prussia would 
never hold a number of prisoners comparable to the num- 
ber of prisoners which Prussia held. She was wrong in 
this calculation, as she has been in every calculation 
she has made. She was particularly wrong in her calcula- 
tion that the British would never hold a number of 
(ierman prisoners greater than the British prisoners held 
in Germany. But the reason she singled out British 
prisoners was undoubtedly her calculation that she would 
always have a superiority here. 
(h) Next came the compulsion of prisoners of war to 
work for their captors in military services directed 
against their own countries. This was a clear miUtary ' 
advantage and again quite new in the story of European 
warfare. 
(i) The nexft step was the theft, 6 v military order 
and as an action of government, of private property, this 
must be carefully distinguished from loot, the action of 
individuals, which has occurred in all wars in various 
degrees. 1 am referring only to the set and admitted 
policy of taking the private propertv'of non-belligerents 
and transferring it to the permaneiit control and pos- 
session of the occupying Power, without immediate 
military necessity of any kind. The ultimate military 
advantage was, of course, the economic strengthening 
of the state at war. It is-again to be carefully noted 
that this novel policy in its turn was progressive. It 
began only in the shape of fines, which by their magni- 
Itiflo wore nnt true levies for the maintenance of the 
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army, but confiscatory. It gradually proceeded to 
what we have seen in the last three weeks, the syste- 
matic rifling of all banks and of all portable property 
dnfing a retirement, without receipt. 
(j) The next step was the compulsion of non-belligerent 
populations to servile labour for the advantage of the 
enemy's military and economic power. 
(k) The next step w-as the destruction of all shipping, 
neutral or belligerent,' without warning, wherever such 
shipping might be conveying goods or even medical 
aid to or from belliii^rcnts. 
(1) The last step h^s been taker) during the recent 
retirement in Picardj' and consists in the complete 
destruction of all the countryside over which a permanent 
retirement js taking place, including the poisoning of 
water supplies, the killing of fruit trees, and the destruc- 
tion of every sort of building. Most of this action has a 
direct military advantage. It prevents the pursuing 
troops from getting billets. It hampers them in their 
supplies, and it maV be thought to give them pause 
before they compel the evacuation of another strip of 
occupied territory. It is at the same time a perfectly 
novel breach of the customs hitherto maintained in 
European warfare. The argument that territories have 
been wasted before now in modern European war does 
not apply because there is here a vast difference in degree 
and a complete difference in intention, which makes 
the thing wholly noVel. 
Third. — This successive breaking down of military 
conventions is still in progress. It has not reached its 
limit and may continue indefinitely. At the beginning 
of the present sub- 
marine campaign not 
a few of our news- 
papers thought the 
enemy had already 
reached the limits of 
all possible action ; 
while the error already 
alluded to, that military 
convention was, as it 
were, automatic and 
imposed itself, played 
a further part in this 
misjudgment. As a 
matter of fact, things 
can go much further. 
We may have the 
poisoning of water sup- 
plies at home by agents 
within the bellligerent 
countries, the spreading 
of diseases among animals and men by other methods, - 
private assassination, the massacre of prisoners, etc., etc. 
This third consideration is not the most important, 
but it is of value because it will increase our determination 
to meet the danger in the only way it can be met. And 
that leads me to the fourth point : 
Fourth. — The only agent for recovering civilised 
practice is a complete victory. We must include in this 
the policy formed by opinion towards the war as a whole 
during its last stages. 
It ought to be perfectly clear that so long as nations 
are independent and sovereign nothing can possibly 
check the violation of international convention during 
war save universal opinion. For there is no instrument 
to correct or impede such violation while war is in pro- 
gress. Wars can only take place because nations are 
independent. All schemes to render war impossible 
between nations, or to create a physical force which would 
compel the observance of international conventions, are 
equivalent to the merging of national independence in a 
general federation or imposed Empire ; that is, to the 
creation of a new great State in which what were formerlv 
independent nations cease to be such, and become mere 
provinces subject to one central Executive. Such an 
arrangement, whether the result of voluntary federation 
or of conquest, has the advantaf,'e of making war between 
i,ts, various parts impossible, and therefore discussion 
upon its power to mitigate the horrors of war is beside 
the mark.^ It has the disadvantage of destroying full 
national sovereignty. If the arrangement is not strong 
enough, it it has not an Executive Power sufficient 
