OctoberFirst New Review

A CRITICAL SURVEY OF INTERNATIONAL SOCIALISM

TeaCents

VOL. 1 Oc. a copy Published on the first and fifteenth of the month. $1.50 a year No. 15

CONTENTS:PAGE

IMPOTENT NEUTRALITY 249Ernest Kempston

A SPORTING PROPOSITION FOR LABOR 252Helen Marot

IN NEW ZEALAND 253Edward Tregear

POTENTIAL SOLIDARITY 254Austin Lewis

"REVOLUTION BY REACTION" 257Louis C. Fraina

PAGETHE WALSH REPORT ON IMMIGRATION 260

Isaac A. HourwichLAMPITO ON SOCRATES 261

Floyd DellCURRENT AFFAIRS 263

L. B. BoudinA SOCIALIST DIGEST:Revolution in Russia; Social Democracy and War Aims; Reform De-

mands of the Russian Liberals; British "Laborism" Against Con-scription and For the War; The Propaganda For a German Peace;Austrian Socialists' Peace Manifesto; The Illusion of FinancialOmnipotence.

CORRESPONDENCE :From A. S. Headingley; Katherine C. Linn; L. B. Boudin

Copyright, 1915, fcy the New Review Publishing Ass'n. Reprint permitted if credit ii given.

Impotent NeutralityBy Ernest

SHOCKING as have been the great incidents ofthe present war, they do not call for anygreater indignation than does the incredibleweakness of neutral opinion as revealed by thoseincidents.

An innocent country has been devastated, mineshave been sown in the open seas, defenceless peoplehave been bombarded from the air, neutral shipshave been sunk, the most fiendish devices have beenemployed upon the battlefields themselves, poison-ous gases, explosive bullets, burning liquids, gunsof immense range whose missiles have the effectof a cycloneevery foul perversion of human in-genuity has marked the progress of this conflictyet what has humanity had to offer? Nothing butwords.

Rape, robbery, arson and assassination, thosefamiliar friends of militarism have, of course, beenpresent, but our enlightened age has improved uponthese primitive barbarities. We organise systemat-ic pludering, we burn villages on principle, we mur-dereven those officially admitted to be innocent ofthe crime of self-defensein accordance with thelofty theories of the twentieth century militaryhonor and dignity. What is the comment of hu-manity? Partly to excuse, and partly to mitigate,by charity, the effects of these actions, but never tochallenge the forces from which they spring. Weekafter week some fresh abomination is reportedpassenger ships are torpedoed, prisoners of war are

Kempstonmade the subject of dastardly reprisals, but still thefeelings of humanity are held in check. A cloud ofcharges and countercharges rises immediately toobscure each atrocity, a breath of sentiment stirsthe air for a moment, but the crimes against civili-zation continue to be perpetrated asor worse thanbefore.

It would be absurd to deny that some pretencehas been made of asserting the rights of civilizationsince the war began. If speeches, newspapers, pam-phlets and books could be admitted as evidence wemight say that human nature had asserted itself.Unfortunately no such evidence is admissible asproof of a serious desire to restore the world to asense of human rights and dignity. Much of thisverbal protest comes from one or other of the bel-ligerents and is thereby rendered, if not worthless,at least immaterial to the case we have under con-sideration, the case of the neutral countries. Apartfrom this, all these speeches and books and articlesare of no more account than the platonic resolutionspassed by local debating societies, and similar smallgroups of well meaning persons, calling upon theirgovernment to put into practice some favored pol-icy. Neither in national nor international affairscan any object be obtained by pious resolutions,votes of thanks or votes of censure, unless they rep-resent tangible power. No, not all the indignationmeetings nor all the vitruperative journalism of theneutral countries in the Old and the New World can

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weaken the discreditable fact that nothing has beendone to protect us from the criminal propensities ofthe militaristic Powers.

The consequences of this passive policy are onlytoo clear. Not only are the warring Powers en-couraged to flout all the laws of decency, to violateevery international agreement that obstructs thefree play of lawlessness, but the neutral Powers arecondemned to an ever-increasing impotency. Thelonger the war lasts, the more impossible it becomesfor neutrality to make itself heard. The public sensebecomes blunted by the succession of barbarous orillegal acts with which the progress of the war ispunctuated. Decent men and women who shudderedat the destruction of Belgium, and were horrified bythe bombardment of Rheims, are learning to regardthese things as mere trifles in a general campaignagainst culture. When we have been regaled formonths with stories of wholesale slaughter, of burn-ings, executions, poisonous bombs, and the like, weno longer realise to the full the savagery of con-signing 1200 civilian passengers to the relativelypainless death of drowning. What are their suffer-ings as compared with those of the men mangled,maimed, blinded and insane of which eye-witnessestellthese hapless victims of modern science andprogress? The imagination ceases to visualise whatis happening, our capacity for receiving sensationsis lessened. This is all the more natural becausesimultaneously one is losing one's power of belief.The false and the true have become so inextricablymixed that men soon cease to attach credencef ullcredence, at leastto what they hear. We are furth-er indebted to triumphant militarism for the confu-sion of all sense of values, all notion of right andwrong, truth and untruth.

The European War surely deserves to go downinto history as the war of cowardly lies and meaninsinuations. The practice of besmirching one'senemy is, with scientific savagery, the contributionof up-to-date militarism to the usages of warfare.The notion that one's adversary might be brave andhonorable has been consigned to the same limbo asthe old-fashioned vitues of fair-play and personalcourage. The new-fashioned "leader" remains wellin the rear posing to reporters and moving pictureoperators, his pride is to destroy a community froma distance of twenty miles, his men are pleased tokill an enemy they have never seen alive. At thesame time his spokesmen are sent everywhere toaccuse his opponents of foul play, to deny them theirsuccesses and to belittle what cannot be denied.Never will one side admit that the aviators of theother have struck anything more belligerent than anorphan asylum, a kindergarten school or a convoyof wounded. Similarly, while all agree that theymust attack only in overwhelming numbersthemere idea of equal combat has become grotesque!all deny with equal unanimity that such has been the

case, when they are victorious. All the time ourears are deafened by these accusations and denials,charges of cruelty and counter threats of reprisals,obviously meant to keep the neutral world turningin the same vicious circle in which the militaristnecessarily finds himself.

That this trick has been successful cannot be de-nied, for few impartial judges care to pronounceupon the cases of atrocities submitted to them. Theonly people who cry out are those directly concernedeither in proving or disproving the facts alleged.They have done this so effectively as to rally aboutthem groups of partisans, whose sole desire is tobolster up their racial and political prejudices. Butall this noise, hatred and hysteria does not offer anyoccasion for the exercise of man's indefeasable rightto vindicate the claims of civilization. This can bedone only by responsible neutral opinion, speakingcollectively, and prepared to enforce its judgments.It is not the business of the neutral to enquire whoinitiated the policy from which some particular actof barbarism derives, but to denounce every such acton principle. We may leave to the belligerents thechildishly cruel logic of the tit for tat methods theyemploy.

It is not sufficient to explain the inaction of theneutral Powers, who might easily transcend theletter and interpret the spirit of international law,if occasion demanded it. In fact, they might withmore justification violate them in the interests ofcivilisation, since they have been violated withoutscruple in the interests of militarism. In order toascertain why no strength has been manifested inthe support of these laws whose sanction is higherthan that conferred upon them by diplomatic con-vention, we must look elsewhere. This acquiescencereposes upon something more material than mererespect for technicalities. Technically none of theneutral signatories to the Hague Conventions couldinterfere with the actions of the signatories who vio-lated them. Morally the former were as much calledupon to interfere as the latter were to conform.

When war was declared the duty of holding thecombatants within the bounds of justice and hu-manity devolved upon the neutral nations. Whenthe first great crime against civilization was per-petrated, when a neutralised state was crushed be-tween the forces of two imperialisms not a step wastaken to save her. Once the irreparable had hap-pened, intervention was certainly a difficult matter.But the calamity did not fall at once, its approachwas evident, it was announced in unmistakableterms. A word in time from the governments ofthe neutral Powers, declaring their intention to de-fend the proposed victim against any encroachmentupon her territory, would have sufficed. The activehostility of two great neutral countries, and of somehalf-dozen minor ones could not have been incurredby all or any of the belligerents. They would have

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faced a boycott so powerful, industrially and social-ly, that they would immediately have rememberedobligations other than those of "military necessity."Even af