Richmond times-dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1914-current, 1915-02-22
BERNARD SHAW DECLARES
THERE IS NO NEUTRALITY
Whole Thing Is Utter Humbug, and
Not u Real and Sacred
Doctrine.
DIsCREDITs BELGIAN PRETExT
Wants Ministers and Newspapers to
Adopt Similar CONSIDERATIONS in
West All Fighting Because They
Are Afraid Not To.

Especial Cable to The Times Dispatch.l
LONDON. February 2I.-The Nation
publishes the following from Bernard
Shaw:
Neutrality is an utter humbug.
That Is my position. There is no such
thing as Il breach OF neutrality. be
cause there IL no such thing as neu-
trality. hope that is clear enough.
The Importance of bringing this
simple and natural fact home at pres
ent arises from three considerations:
81. The danger of obscuring the real
Issue by the false issue OF the neu-
trality of Belgium.
-. The danger that. instead of real
terms OF peace. fictitious terms In the
form OF fresh guarantees OF neutrality
may be accepted as valid.
'3. The general objection to throw
Ing stones when you live In glass
houses and are allied TO eastern powers,
whose whole history Is a huge cucum-
Der frame.
COMMITTED TO
THESE PROPOSITIONS
Those who insist that neutrality Is
real and sacred are committed by the
facts TO the following propositions:
81. Germany has not violated Belgian
neutrality. She mas made war on Bel
GUM, which her guarantee of Bel
GUMS neutrality in no way abrogatcd
her right to do: and her guarantee of
BelR!um's neutrality still stands in
spite OF tho war, and actually entities
her to treat the violation OF 1t by an
other power as casus belli.
~. France and England have vio-
lated the neutrality OF Belgium by in
rading her and hghting on her soil,
though they do not war upon her.
"3. Germany offered to keep the
peace with Belgium on condition of
that right Of way which Great Britain
was the first to demand and enforce by
war in China.
-. Great Britain and France refused
to respect Belgian neutrality except
on condition which they knew would
not be fulfilled. and which. in any case,
Belgium could not control: namely.
that Germany would keep peace with
Belgium.
-. Germany offered peace in Bel
GUM
"6. Great Britain ordered war per
cmptorily.
DISCREDITS BELGIAN
PRETEXT FOR WAR
Il defy any international juris: to
put a creditablc complexion on these
propositions, except by showing that
they are the reductio ad absurdum Of
the theory OF neutrality, and by adj
hitting that Belgium might as well
have been n free country as neutral
lied one, for all the use that the guar
antec proved. And II is because I am
not duped by that theory that have
set myself to discrcdit the Belgian pre-
text for war. and to induce our min
listers and newspapers to drop it.
Il did so even before the documents
found in Brussels by the Germans left
the Foreign Office so completely bowIcd
out on the Belgian point BY the Ger
man Chancellor that IT had not n word
TO say. and was reduced to hiring
street boy TO put out his tongue at
him. That was what came Of not tax
ing my advice and evacuating an I'M
tenable position.
Il pass on to the Monroe Doctrine
cited as the supreme modern case of
naturalization. The Monroe Doctrine
Is balderdash 1t is not n doctrine at
all. Its validity to any intelligent per-
son is exactly what it was to Cortez
and Pizarro and the Mayfower Pill
Grims, 10 Give, to William the Con-
Gueror, Caesar. Napoleon, Hengist and
iiorsa. Jo:hua In Canaan. Henry V
In France. Kitchener in the Sudan,
Kruger and Cecil Rhodes in South
Africa, Strongbow in Ireland, Edward
In Scotland. Russia In Siberia, and
Japan In the advantage she has taken
or the war to make n startling Fred
crican grab in Mongolia and Man
churia- which has just leaked out az
ter months of concealment by our gov
eminent.
WILL NOT NOTICE
MONROE DOCTRINE
u have as much right to annex and
ravage the State of Colorado as Rookie
Teller. Ii the British empire ever de-
cidcs to annex the United States saw
with view TO improving the local gov
eminent. it will not take the slightest
notice Of the Monroe Doctrine. nor Will
the public opinion of the world be In
the very faintest degree biased by 1t
by the breach thereof.
IF the United States should ever de-
eide TO annex Canada or Alaska, on the
ground that the Monroe Doctrine OBJ
viously requires the extrusion of Great
Britain and Russia from the North
American Continent, they will have to
take exactly the same steps as If the
Monroe Doctrine had never been formu-
lated or thought of. The Monroe Doc
trine did not help the redskins against
the white man. and 1t will not help
the redskins conqueror when his turn
comes.
why is it that the European mill
tarists who annex every country they
can conquer are not at all likely to
annex America, and even pretend to re-
spect the Monroe Doctrine as an excuse
for not trying to? Because they are
afraid OF the army and navy and peo-
pie OF the United States .
why did Germany make war on Bel