bring down on Prince Alexander Hohenlohe and Friedrich
Curtius the disfavour of the Kaiser. This article by Curtius
appeared originally in the Deutsche Revue, May, 1915.

"_All the world must hate or love; no choice remains. The Devil is
neutral._"

So sang Clemens Brentano in the year 1813. Today, we once more realize
that the attempt to remain neutral through a conflict which is
deciding the history of the world not only brings great spiritual
difficulties, but is even felt to be a downright moral impossibility,
just as the poet saw it a hundred years ago. Legal neutrality is, of
course, a simple thing. Every state can itself practice it, and impose
it as a duty on its citizens. One may even think that modern states
should go further in this direction than they do. The indifference of
the Government toward the business transactions of its citizens with
foreign states is a political anomaly, comprehensible in an age when
foreign policy in war and peace was viewed as something that concerned
the ruler only, but contradictory in a democratic age, when wars are
peoples' wars. Today, in all civilized states, the Government is
morally answerable for those activities of its subjects which have
international results. The American policy which permits the supply of
weapons to England but allows England to prevent the export of grain
to Germany, is a bad neutrality, morally untenable, a mere passivity,
which lacks the will to do right. Such a standpoint might exist in a
despotically governed state, but in a democratic Republic it is
incomprehensible. For, from a genuinely democratic point of view, it
does not signify whether the government or the citizens intervene to
help or to hinder in an armed conflict. If we venture to speak at the
right time of the development of international law, this, before all,
must be demanded: that neutral states shall forbid the export of
weapons, and that belligerents shall not hinder the import of
foodstuffs for civilian populations.

Meanwhile the insecurity of the international attitude of neutrals is
only a symptom of the difficulties to which neutrality of view is
subject. These begin with the outbreak of the war. Each belligerent
government believes itself to be in the right, and publishes a
collection of documents which seem to it fitted to prove this right.
This literature appearing in all the colours of the spectrum is really
aimed at neutrals. For the belligerent nat