The course of the present administration in foreign affairs has now and then combined officiously offensive action toward foreign powers with tame submission to wrong-doing by foreign powers. As a nation we have refused to do our duty to others and yet we have at times tamely submitted to wrong at the hands of others. This has been notably true of our conduct in Mexico; and we have come perilously near such conduct in the case of Japan. It is also true of our activities as regards the European war. We failed to act in accordance with our obligations as a signatory power to the Hague treaties. In addition to the capital crime committed against Belgium we have seen outrage after outrage perpetrated in violation of the Hague conventions, and yet the administration has never ventured so much as a protest. It has even at times, and with wavering and vacillation, adopted policies unjust to one or the other of the two sets of combatants. But it has immediately abandoned these policies when the combatants in violent and improper fashion overrode them; and it has submitted with such tame servility to whatever the warring nations have dictated that in effect we see, as Theodore Woolsey, the expert on international law, has pointed out, the American government protecting belligerent interests abroad at the expense of neutral interests both at home and abroad. Not since the Napoleonic wars have belligerents acted with such high-handed disregard of the rights of neutrals. Germany was the first and greatest offender; and when we failed to protest in her case the administration perhaps felt ashamed to protest, felt that it was estopped from protesting, in other cases. England in its turn has violated our neutrality rights, and while exercising both force and ingenuity in making this violation effective has protested as if she herself were the injured party. As a matter of fact, England and France should note that in view of their command of the seas our war trade is of such value to them that certain congressmen, whose interest in Germany surpasses their interest in the United States, have sought by law totally to prohibit it. This proposed--and thoroughly improper--action is a sufficient answer to the charges of the Allies, and should remind them how ill they requite the service rendered by our merchants when they seek to block all our intercourse with other nations. They, however, are only to be blamed for short-sightedness; there is no reason why they should pay heed to American interests. But the administration should represent American interests; it should see that while we perform our duties as neutrals we should be protected in our rights as neutrals; and one of these rights is the trade in contraband. To prohibit this is to take part in the war for the benefit of one belligerent at the expense of another and to our own cost.