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to changes in the law of nations who do not mean to be bound by them.

RETALIATION, BUT NOT IN KIND.

But though, as I think, international law can hardly be literally obeyed, unless both sides are prepared to obey it, we must not conclude that the absence of reciprocity justifies the injured party in acting as if international law and international morality had thereby been abrogated. This would be a monstrous doctrine. The Germans, who began the war by tearing up a treaty, continued it by inflicting the worst horrors of war upon a people they had sworn to defend. Could we therefore argue that because the obligations of international law are reciprocal, the Allies, when the opportunity occurs, would be justified in plundering private property, shooting innocent civilians, outraging women, and wantonly destroying works of art? Could they rightly do to Germany all that Germany has done to Belgium?

Assuredly not. I preach no such doctrine. These things were brutal and barbarous before the law of nations took

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