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However there is a practical point that had occured to me - indeed it is not
very recondite - with regard to this war and any wars in which any state
or any individual professes to remain netural. It is sufficiently obvious that our thanks are due to Mr. Hay who has worked to restrict the sphere
of hostility. But it seems to me that this principle of restriction might
be developed much further. Belligerants are generally very much
affected by passion, but there is no reason why the neutrals should
be in other than a normal state of mind, and so presumably more
ameniable to sense than the belligerents. So on the supposition that normal
men in normal conditions feel rightly on important subjects if they are given
a good chance (and that supposition is I suppose one of the elements of optimism)
it ought to be possible, if not on this occasion still on some future occasion,
to raise a strong body of active opinion among the neutrals that it was wrong
to encourage the war in question in any way, indeed that it must be discouraged in any safe way, and that therefore (this is the practical point) the foreign loans
of the belligerents must not be subscribed to, and warlike stores and equipment
must not be sent to them.

It may be objected that such behaviour would have the poorer & weaker states even more at the mercy of the rich and strong; but this hardly amounts to much it seems to me
perhaps an unnecessary compliance with human weakness that a state should profess itself
neutral and yet allow its individual citizens to help the belligerents; however
one sees difficulties in the way of state action; for there might be
an individual or individuals (indeed there very probably would be) in a neutral
state who were honestly convinced that one of the belligerents was helping to
fight the battle of righteousness; and it might be undesirable to bring the
state into conflict with such.

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