Justice toward neutrals compels that international law should be
re-established in a codified form, with sufficient guarantees so as to
save, as far as possible, all the neutrals from possible implication in
a war in which they do not take part.
(5) Germany does not strive for territorial aggrandizement in Europe;
she does not believe in conquering and subjugating unwilling
nations--this on account of a spirit of justice and her knowledge of
history. No such attempts have ever been permanently successful.
Belgium commands the main outlet of Western German trade, is the natural
foreland of the empire, and has been conquered with untold sacrifice of
blood and treasure. It offers to German trade the only outlet to an open
sea and it has been politically established, maintained, and defended by
England in order to keep these natural advantages from Germany.
The love for small peoples that England heralds now will never stand
investigation, as shown by the destruction of the small Boer republics.
So Belgium cannot be given up. However, these considerations could be
disregarded if all the other German demands, especially a guaranteed
free sea, were fully complied with and the natural commercial
relationship of Belgium to Germany was considered in a just and workable
form.
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