I am not concerned with the charges of individual atrocity. The prime fact is that Belgium committed no offense whatever, and yet that her territory has been invaded and her people subjugated. This prime fact cannot be left out of consideration in dealing with any matter that has occurred in connection with it. Her neutrality has certainly been violated, and this is in clear violation of the fundamental principles of the Hague conventions. It appears clear that undefended towns have been bombarded, and that towns which were defended have been attacked with bombs at a time when no attack was made upon the defenses. This is certainly in contravention of the Hague agreement forbidding the bombardment of undefended towns. Illegal and excessive contributions are expressly condemned under Articles 49 and 52 of the conventions. If these articles do not forbid the levying of such sums as $40,000,000 from Brussels and $90,000,000 from the province of Brabant, then the articles are absolutely meaningless. Articles 43 and 50 explicitly forbid the infliction of a collective penalty, pecuniary or otherwise, on a population on account of acts of individuals for which it cannot be regarded as collectively responsible. Either this prohibition is meaningless or it prohibits just such acts as the punitive destruction of Visé, Louvain, Aerschot, and Dinant. Furthermore, a great deal of the appalling devastation of central and eastern Belgium has been apparently terrorizing and not punitive in its purpose, and this is explicitly forbidden by the Hague conventions. Now, it may be that there is an explanation and justification for a portion of what has been done. But if the Hague conventions mean anything, and if bad faith in the observation of treaties is not to be treated with cynical indifference, then the United States government should inform itself as to the facts, and should take whatever action is necessary in reference thereto. The extent to which the action should go may properly be a subject for discussion. But that there should be some action is beyond discussion; unless, indeed, we ourselves are content to take the view that treaties, conventions, and international engagements and agreements of all kinds are to be treated by us and by everybody else as what they have been authoritatively declared to be, “scraps of paper,” the writing on which is intended for no better purpose than temporarily to amuse the feeble-minded.