General Smuts on Mr. Hoover Naval reduction leads by a
natural sequence to the possibility of revising, or reviving, the rule:: of war and to Mr. Hoover's recent remarks on this subject. Last week we regretfully expressed our doubts about the feasibility of Mr. Hoover's proposal that ships laden entirely with food should always have a free passage. He acknowledged that his proposal was the result of his poignant memories of the difficulty of feeding the starving Belgians, for the German submarines sunk the relief ships whenever they could without leaving a trace. Our own feeling is that war, being itself an atrocity, cannot be saved from being atrocious. If one nation fighting for its life breaks the rules, all the others must follow suit or allow the most criminally-acting nation to win. It is just possible that Mr. Hoover had in mind not ships carrying food in time of war, but the supply of food to a country which might be having an economic boycott applied to it by the League. If this is so, the subject is much more amenable to discussion, but we gather from the speech which General Smuts made to the League of Nations Union on Thursday, November' 14th, that he at all events understood Mr. Hoover to be referring to war..
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