Let us now come to Belgium. Mr. Shaw protests needlessly that he holds
no brief for small States as such, and he most vehemently denies that we
are bound to knight errantry on their behalf. His objection to small
States is that they are either incorrigibly bellicose or standing
temptations to big powers. Outside the Balkans no small State is
bellicose. All are eminently pacific. That they are a standing
temptation to thieves is surely no reason for their destruction. If it
is a reason Mr. Shaw ought to throw his watch down the drain.

Mr. Shaw states that Belgium was a mere excuse for our going to war.
That there was a vast deal more in the pre-war diplomacy than appears in
the printed dispatches, or in any dispatches, I am as convinced as Mr.
Shaw is, but I am equally convinced that so far as we are concerned
there was nothing in diplomacy, however secret, to contradict our public
attitude. The chief item not superficially apparent is that the
diplomats knew all along that Germany wanted war and was doing all she
could to obtain war on terms most favorable to herself. That our own
interest coincided with our duty to Belgium did not by any means render
our duty a mere excuse for action. If a burglar is making his way upward
in the house where Mr. Shaw lives and Mr. Shaw comes down and collars
him in the flat of a defenseless invalid below and hands him over to the
police Mr. Shaw would not expect the police to say, "You are a
hypocrite; you only seized the burglar because you feared he would come
to you next." I stick to the burglar simile, because a burglar is just
what Germany is.


*The "Infamous Proposal" Phrase.*

Mr. Shaw characterizes Mr. Asquith's phrase, "Germany's infamous