Nelson's history of the war. Vol. XI., The struggle for the Dvina, and the great invasion of Serbia

THE POLITICAL SITUATION. 85

was the kind of protest which can be manufactured on any subject by men who refuse to look beyond the formal aspect of the question. It was the claim of a commercial people to be exempt from all consequences of a world war, their ““ general right,” in the words of the Note, “ to enjoy their international trade free from unusual and arbitrary limitations as if a man during an earthquake should protest that he had leased his house with a covenant that provided for quiet enjoyment. As such, it did violence to the common sense of the American people.

But in its concluding words it offended against more sacred canons than good sense and good taste. As we have already argued, America was perfectly entitled to consult only American interests and refrain from an unprofitable quixotry. But those responsible for that policy were not entitled to claim for it a loftier motive. “ This task,” the Note concluded, of championing the integrity of neutral rights, which have received the sanction of the civilized world, against the lawless conduct of belligerents arising out of the bitterness of the great conflict which is now wasting the countries of Europe, the United States unhesitatingly assumes, and to the accomplishment of that task it will devote its energies, exercising always that impartiality which from the outbreak of the war it has sought to exercise in_its relations with the warring nations.” Championing the integrity of neutral rights! The world had seen every principle of international law and decency shattered to pieces among the smoking ruins of Belgium. Then Washington had been silent, as she was justly entitled to be. But so soon as commercial interests were