If
Belgium is compelled to submit to allow her neutrality to be violated,
of course the situation is clear. Even if by agreement she admitted
the violation of her neutrality, it is clear she could only do so
under duress. The smaller States in that region of Europe ask but
one thing. Their one desire is that they should be left alone and
independent. The one thing they fear is, I think, not so much that
their integrity but that their independence should be interfered with.
If in this war which is before Europe the neutrality of one of those
countries is violated, if the troops of one of the combatants violate
its neutrality and no action be taken to resent it, at the end of the
war, whatever the integrity may be, the independence will be gone.
I have one further quotation from Mr. Gladstone as to what he thought
about the independence of Belgium. It will be found in _Hansard_,
volume 203, page 1787. I have not had time to read the whole speech
and verify the context, but the thing seems to me so clear that no
context could make any difference to the meaning of it. Mr. Gladstone
said:
We have an interest in the independence of Belgium
which is wider than that which we may have in the literal
operation of the guarantee. It is found in the answer to
the question whether, under the circumstances of the case,
this country, endowed as it is with influence and power,
would quietly stand by and witness the perpetration of
the direst crime that ever stained the pages of history, and
thus become participators in the sin.
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