DIPLOMATIC BELLIGERENCE.
DIPLOMATISTS, in time of war, of course become soldiers in disguise ; they fight with their own peculiar class of weapons for their country's common end, with as much zeal as those of their countrymen who carry arms and direct the movements of ships-of-war or parks of artillery. And what is more, they seldom quite succeed in suppressing a feeling that neutrals are somewhat contemptible for remaining neutrals, and can bear a little imposing upon. Count Bernstorff, able and good-tempered as he is, is no exception to this rule. He fights for his end,—to close up the gun-manufactories of England to the War-Office of France,—with at least as much energy as Von Moltke shows in the field and Bismarck in the Cabinet, and with something of the same feeling that he, too, stands in a higher position than his special (diplomatic) anta- gonist. But his duty is intrinsically more hopeless than that of his military and official compatriots. It is seldom easy to convince neutrals that they are not conducting their commerce as neutrals at all, but as partizans,—which is what diplomatists have to show if they would deprive the enemy of the resources they draw from a neutral country. The easy, obvious, and, one would say, adequate reply of the neutral is,— ' We are influenced solely by the commercial motive which is really incapable of a partizan interpretation ; if you doubt us, only test us ; come to us for the same things, and see if we are not just as willing to supply them to you as to your antagonist,'—to which, if the retort is made,— ' Ah, but we don't want these particular commodities which you are now supplying to the enemy ; we have enough of them, and therefore we want to make things square by inducing you to refuse them to the enemy,'—it plainly comes to this, that what, under the forms of a lawful international complaint, the belligerents wish to press upon neutrals is,—not to act towards the belligerents singly just as they would have acted if they had still been at peace, abstracting their minds from all the issues of war,—but to enter into an elaborate balance-sheet of the benefits which their markets confer on the opposing armies respectively, and to do all in their power that the benefit conferred on the one shall not exceed the benefit conferred on the other, by curtailing, if necessary, the exports sent to the power which seems to be benefiting the most. That this is Count Bernstorff's funda- mental idea, though he dare not of course express it in its naked absurdity, is clear enough from the following passage of his recent memorandum
have by no means asked, and far less claimed on our part, that England should transgress the bounds of a strict neutrality in our favour, and to the detriment of France. But I have asserted, and in the face of the experiences of the last few weeks, as well as in consequence of your Excellency's note of the 15th ult., must maintain my assertion, that the neutrality of England, while as I am most willing to admit, intended to be impartial, in its practical effects assumes the form of a neutrality which is benevolent and partial towards France. For my part, I have only wished a return from a lax neutrality, whereby one party is benefited, to a strict and really impartial neutrality."
The words which we have italicized, and indeed the whole tenor of the memorandum, really assume that there can be no 'strict neutrality' of which the result happens to be that one of the belligerents is in fact more benefited than the other ;—which, again, can of course only mean that a neutral country is bound to see that it does not let one belligerent buy of it more necessary and valuable things than it sells to the other belligerent. Now it is perfectly clear, we think, that this notion of neutrality is as unworkable as it is contrary to all precedent. If a tradesman is neutral in a political contest, he is understood to make no difference between the two candi- dates, but to sell to the partizans of either just as he would have done if the contest had not existed. If one of these parties happens to be a very large customer, and the other a very small, he still continues to supply a great deal to the former and a little to the latter,—to each just as much as is wanted ; and it would be strange neutrality indeed, to in- sist on cutting down the orders of the larger customer to a level with those of the former, simply in order to establish an artificial equality which had never been even in question before the contest. Yet this is practically what Count Bern- storff wants. He is scandalized that France should get arms, which she wants very much, because Germany does not happen to want them in an equal degree. Ours is, he says, a neutrality "benevolent to France," because its result happens to be to supply France with what it wants, and what Germany does not want. He forgets, of course, altogether to reckon how much of coal and other articles
of the first importance to the German commissariat we have supplied to Germany. He does not even attempt to make out that as a matter of fact, and on the whole, France has benefited from the English trade more than Germany, —which would, indeed, be quite irrelevant even if true. But he says that in the particular department of weapons of offence France has got what she wanted, arms and ammuni- tion, and Germany has not got what she wanted,—armed
• ships,—so that our neutrality has benefited France, and not benefited Germany.
The answer is so very simple, that in all probability Count Bernstorff sees it as well as we do. 'Benevolence,' in such a case, is a matter of legislative and administrative intention, and not of result. Count Bernstorff quite admits that there has been no sort of intention to favour either antagonist by our legislative or administrative measures. We prohibited the sale of ships-of-war chiefly because it is so very difficult to distinguish between the sale of ships-of-war and the send- ing out of a regular hostile expedition from our shores. In the late American war it constantly happened that many a ship intended for war sailed manned by British sailors, and that as soon as the ship was out of reach of British authority, she at once assumed, without any change except of flag and armament, the duties of a cruiser against one of the belligerent powers. To distinguish between such a case and that of a regular hostile expedition planned on our shores and executed by British subjects, is by no means easy, and therefore it seemed desirable to put an end to this danger for the future. But if you descend to the prohi- bition of the export of arms, it is hardly possible to draw any tangible distinction between arms and food, arms and coal, arms and clothing, arms and a hundred things which are quite as essential to the success of armies as arms themselves. Here, then, all we can do is to say, that neutrals have nothing at all to do with the calculation of results,—only with the principle that trade with either belligerent is equally lawful. If Germany wants coal and clothing, coal and clothing she shall have. If France wants arms and ammunition, arms and ammunition she shall have. Whether the former want is less, equal to, or greater than, the latter want, it is not a neutral's business to determine. It is not for him to weigh the trade of the world in scales, and see that each belligerent has his fair share. It may be that one neutral will supply most of the wants of one belligerent, and another neutral those of the other belligerent,—in which case the neutral powers, as a whole, will have been fair to both, though any one of them will seem to have been conferring one-sided benefits. It may be that the longer-sighted of the two belligerents got in a great store of what she wanted most before declaring war, and is therefore not in so much need of aid from neutral commerce after the declaration of war ; in that case, too, we do not see why equity requires that the one who is latest in her prepara- tions should be shut out from an attempt to retrieve the mis- take. In any case, the attempt to establish an equation between the commercial advantages actually reaped by the opposing powers is so chimerical and absurd that only a soldier in the disguise of a diplomatist would try to make neutrals consider such a point at all. Where are you to stop ? If you must not export arms to France, you must not, of course, export them to any country whence they would get round to France. If you may not lend France money, you may not lend Italy money to lend to France. If you may not send coals to Germany unless it can be proved that they are not wanted for the locomotives which are to transport troops, you may not send them to non-German ports in the Baltic whence Germany would be likely to get them. Neutral trade would be " cabined, cribbed, confined " on all sides, if you are to follow out the principle of trying to provide that the result shall not be to help either party to the war more than you help the other. There is no limit to the restrictions which such a standard of action would not impose on neutral commerce. And, after all, does the rest of the world owe any sort of duty to the contending nations to compare with that which they owe to the world whose peace they are disturbing ?
It is far too common for belligerents who have arms in their hands and power on their side to persuade themselves that all neutrals are playing a sneaking sort of part in not fighting, for which they ought to pay by being mulcted by as much of their regular gains as it is possible to invent any
excuse for mulcting them. We assert, on the contrary, that in the general way it is the neutrals who stand on the high ground, and who have a right to say that they will not allow
the conflicts of warring nations to disturb them beyond certain limits. It is perfectly obvious that if these limits are to be sufficiently strict, and to leave really free scope for the pacific dealings of the rest of the world, these dip- lomatic attempts of belligerents to set neutrals calculating whether they are benefiting this or that belligerent the most, and trimming the balance accordingly,—a process entirely alien to the habits and methods of commerce,—must be steadily resisted, and resisted without any air of excuse or apology. If it could be shown,—which we do not believe that it can,—that there is any sort of distinction between the export of arms and ammunition, and the export of food, or clothing, or money, or fuel, wanted for the purposes war,—if it could be shown that there is any of that sort of special danger attending the export of arms which attends the export of ships-of-war,—let arms be put in the same category as ships-of-war, and their export prohibited under precisely the same conditions. But wherever the line is drawn, (and for our own parts we can see no pretence for drawing it so as to exclude the export of arms more than the export of other stores essential to armies in the field), let it at least be well understood that neutral commerce, within the limits thus prescribed to it, remains in full possession of the rights of peace, and is not to be betrayed into an apolo- getic attitude towards the belligerents, but rather that the belligerents ought to assume an apologetic attitude towards commerce, for breaking in upon its wholesome industry. We have no patience with the tacit assumption of warring nations that they have reason to reproach all the rest of the world for remaining at peace, instead of feeling, as they ought to feel, that they have every reason to ask how far they were really forced into war, and whether they might not sooner have returned to peace. Soldiers in the disguise of diplomatists are very excusable and natural phenomena, but they ought to be met, as we think Count Bernatorff is being met, with dignity and firmness, and without that half-sense of shame at not being engaged in the conflict which neutrals are apt to betray when arguing for the acknowledgment of their rights.
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