The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-08-22

To those totals may be added the area and population of Japan, which is not yet fighting but soon will be. Japan has a population of 67,120000 and an area of 236.0oo. The totals of all countries already involved are population of 925, 200 900 and an area of 2s924.000 square miles. Turkey, Greece, Roumania, Bulgaria, Italy and the Netherlands may be included before the end of the war. Portugal, dominating an area of SIP, ,O00 square miles and pop ulation of 16,000o00. has already declared her intention of aiding Great Britain if aid is required.
 The population of the world has been estimated at 1929, soO.0oo. The population of the countries already at war is con siderably more than half of this total.
 It is world war.
 And in the area of fighting it is true to its scope. Europe is ablaze, north, south, east and west. There have been battles in Togoland and on Lake Victoria, in the heart of Central Africa. Within week or two, war will make the orient lurid.
 In the midst of it all, the United States follows its own straight path, but little disturbed by the almost universal con fagration. The republic of the west feels horror and pity. and realizes more than ever before it's destiny as the world s foremost exponent of peace, of live and let live; but the vacations and avocations of it's people, their daily pursuit of happi- ness, have known no change.
 r1-.--- profound satisfaction that the British people have taken note in the last few fighting has the sympathy, the virtually unqualified sympathy, of their American kinsmen. The United States government itself has, of course, proclaimed an of- fcial neutrality. It is the only first-class power of the western world that can maintain an attitude or even comparative detachment toward the combatants. As such there may be reserved for the Presi- dent of the United States a role not unlike that assumed by MT. Roosevelt in the war between Russia and Japan. MT Wilson to whom at this moment the sympathy of the whole British people is extended in his private sorrow-has, indeed already intimated his willingness to act "n the interest of European peace" whenever the occasion may present itself. But the time is still distant, and there is much stern work to be done before any government is likely to avail itself of his proffered ser vices Meanwhile the United States re- mains, and rightly remains neutral. It cannot. however, escape from many of the consequences of war waged on this un- paralleled scale. The great bulk of it's trade with Europe, which samounted last year to nearly G5O0, ,00OO0o, must of neces- sity go by the board. Financially and economically there is hardly a corner of the country that will not be affected by the strife in Europe. It is possible, Ao, time to time find themselves faced with the problems of international law that are almost bound to arise when nations with a worldwide commerce and ships in all oceans go to war. But none of these is likely to be of decisive import ance. The only contingency, indeed, that might move the United States government to depart from it's position of impartial inaction would be the systematic seizure of ships flying the Stars and Stripes and carrying foodstuffs to Europe. Any such development would be sure to arouse keen and instant resentment among the Amer ican people, but it is a contingency which could only occur on the improbable hy-
 pothesis of the failure of the British navy to keep the Atlantic clear.