(2) Secondly, on ground of humanity. We are said to be "starving the women and children of Germany." The answer is, first, that such a blockade is a normal measure of war in all sieges and was practised, e.g. by the Germans in the siege of Paris. It has always been understood that the siege process would be applied to Great Britain by any enemy who should command the sea. It was attempted by Napoleon, and it has been applied already by Germany, though with complete lack of success. We are doing to Germany what they are trying to do to us. Secondly, while we are a nation vitally dependent on sea-borne imports for our food, Germany is almost completely self-supporting. She can live for an indefinite time on her own produce; and the most that our "blockade" can do is to make life less comfortable, and the supplying of the army vastly more difficult. No human being in Germany need starve because of our "blockade." There is a further development of this argument which causes many people, myself included, grave searchings of heart. It is connected with the treatment of conquered territories, such as Poland, Serbia, and to a lesser degree, Belgium. By every canon of law and humanity, as well as by the express stipulations of the Hague Convention, a nation which holds conquered territory assumes serious responsibilities towards the inhabitants. All these the German Government has repudiated. It appears certain that the German Government has not only destroyed during its military operations practically all the food-supplies of Serbia, and much of the food-supplies of Poland: it has further, during its occupation of those territories, carried off into Germany, with or without pretext, almost all the food that remained in them. It has produced famine of a ghastly description, and excused itself by attributing all to the British blockade.