Neutrality by the Grace of England.

Janus, a mighty god of the ancient Romans, was represented as having two faces.  He could smile and frown simultaneously.

This god Janus is the personification of neutrality according to English ideas.  Neutrality smiles when violated by England and frowns when violated by other powers.

The United States got a taste of England’s neutrality when, a century ago, the English impressed thousands of American sailors, taking them from American ships on the high seas, when they searched neutral ships and confiscated the enemy’s property on board of them, until Congress in Washington voted for the declaration of war against England.

In the great civil war, 1861 to 1864, England had counted on the victory of the Southern States; she recognized them as belligerents and supplied them with warships.  This was not considered by England a breach of neutrality until the Minister of the United States declared, on Sept. 5, 1863, that unless England desisted war would result.  England yielded.

But, according to the old German proverb, “A cat cannot resist catching mice,” she secretly permitted the fitting out of privateers (the Alabama) for the Southern States and was finally forced to pay an indemnity of $15,000,000.  England gained, however, more than she lost by this interpretation of neutrality, for by the aid of her privateers American maritime trade passed into English hands and was lost to the Americans.

May God’s vengeance fall on Germany!  She has violated Belgium’s neutrality! the English piously ejaculate.  They call themselves God’s chosen people, the instrument of Providence for the benefit of the whole universe.  They look down upon all other peoples with open or silent contempt, and claim for themselves various prerogatives, in particular the supremacy of the sea, even in American waters, from Jamaica to Halifax.

England’s policy has always been to take all, to give back nothing, to constantly demand more, to begrudge others everything.  Only where the New World is concerned has England, conscious of her own weakness, become less grasping, since Benjamin Franklin “wrested the sceptre from the tyrants,” since the small colonies that fought so valiantly for their liberty rose to form the greatest dominion of the white race.

In the Summer of 1911, during the Franco-German Morocco dispute, the English were determined to assist their old enemies, the French, against Germany, and stationed 160,000 troops along their coast ready for embarkation.  For the French coast?  No, indeed!  For transportation to Antwerp, where the English were to unite with the French Army and combine in the destruction of the German forces.  But things did not reach that stage.  England was not ready.  England and France were resolved not to respect the neutrality of Belgium—­the same England that solemnly assures the world that she has never at any time or place committed a breach of neutrality.  England has observed neutrality only when compatible with her own interests, which has not often been the case.  Her whole dissimulating policy is much more questionable than our one breach of neutrality, committed in self-defense and accompanied by the most solemn promises of indemnity and restitution.