Whatever aspect of the question of Belgian neutrality we may consider, we always come back to this fact: Germany violated this neutrality on the 4th August, although Belgium had given her no plausible excuse for doing so. Since then the Germans have undertaken a campaign for the purpose of justifying their "injustice," as their Chancellor termed it. But none of the accusations invented after the event can in the slightest degree extenuate this injustice; their only effect has been to render still more execrable the treachery of the perjured protector. _Neutral Opinion._ It is pleasant, in this connection, to cite here the opinion of four writers belonging to countries which have not taken part in the war. A Dutch writer published in _De Amsterdammer_ an interesting article which was translated into French, but of which the sale in Belgium was immediately prohibited by the Germans. In a lecture which has achieved a very great celebrity, Herr Karl Spitteler, a well-known literary man of German-speaking Switzerland, also took the part of Belgium. We know of this lecture only by the slashing which it received in the _K.Z._ on the 30th December, in the first morning edition. Here is a passage which particularly infuriated the German paper:-- "I consider that to take the documents from the pockets of the gasping victim (Belgium) is, as to the spirit which inspired the act, a gross fault of taste. It would have been quite enough to throttle the victim; to blacken him afterwards is too much. As for Switzerland, if it associated itself with these calumnies against Belgium, it would commit not merely an infamy, but a mistake; for on the day when another Power grudges us our national existence, the same accusations might be employed against us: do not let us forget that malice is now counted among the munitions of war." Another Swiss writer, M. Philippe Godet, expresses his opinions with no less energy in the _Journal de Genève_ (8th September, 1914). _The Falsification of M. de l'Escaille's Letter._