Arizona republican., 1915-07-16

rly grave breaches of the law which
 affected Austria Hungary in an in
 direct and general way. Such
 breaches are to be found in the ar
 bitrary and unlawful declaration of
 France and Great Britain with regard
 tC the status of Morocco, Egypt ana
 Cyprus in the violation of the rights
 of neutral nations and in the syste-
 matic disregard of the regulations
 provided by maritime law.
 The preposterous claim of the
 hostile nations to the right to sub
 Ject the entire population of large
 countries to famine must be stigma
 tized as a sacriligious violation of
 the rules of warfare No less sacri-
 ligious is the acts of the hostile gov
 ernments in tolerating, if not actu- ally inspiring, the unprecedented agi-
 tation of a press which dissemnates lies and fosters hatred. Most of the l eXcesses to which thousands of in
 nocent and defenseless people have fallen victims are the direct outcome
 of that agitation.
 The collection of evidence, as now
 published for general information,
 cannot convey even a faint idea of the decay which the notions of in
 ternational law have undergone and which in the course of few months have destroyed many a hope it may, however, furnish some facts i for the reflection of those whose | judgment has remained unbiased as l to wto is responsible for the col ] lapse of the law of nations and of the sense of morality in a war 1 brought on by our enemies for the 1 purpose of crushing nations engaged in the peaceful pursuit of the bless | ing of civilization. and to who has the right to claim that he is fighting this sbotly- contested struggle for the sake of liberty and humanity
 The Austro- Hungarian Ministry of
 Foreign Affairs has received. since the printing of this collection was
 completed. a number of further re- ports of violations of international law committed by hostile govern ments, and among them the reports of the consular officials recently re- leased from Russia These and sim liar revelations which may come to
 sand al a future date will be pub lished in the form of supplements to the present collection.
 "The rames of a number of wit Eesses have been withheld at their own special request; they have req sons to fear that the publication of their names would tend, as long as the passions aroused by the war last. to subject them to reprisals and thus endanSer either their interests or those of other persons in hostile countries. The identity of all the witnesses has, however, been care fully established by responsible gov ernment officials; the names which have. for the time being, been sup pressed will be available when their publication will not be liable to en- tail harm to them or other sufferers of the war"
 A "typ,cal example, of the treat ment of Austrians in Belgium is de- Scribed in a letter from an Austrian merchant in the perfumery business
 who had lived for fifteen years iT Paris and was forced to leave with in twenty-four hours.
 The hostility and brutality of the population of Brussels towards Ger mans and Austrans.'' he writes con- cerning his journey throughh Bel gium, Twas beyond description. From Brussels we proceeded to Antwerp where We were arrested by the garde Civique on the station platform. My poor wife was hurried on with the butt ends of the guards rifles. As
 she took no heed of this, she was