Such is the history of the process by which Belgium has acquired her special status. As an independent state she is bound by the elementary principle of the law of nations, that a neutral state is bound to refuse to grant a right of passage to a belligerent. This is a well-established rule, and was formally affirmed by the Great Powers at the Hague Peace Conference of 1907. The fifth Article of the Convention [3] then drawn up respecting the Rights and Duties of Neutral Powers and Persons in War on Land runs as follows:-- 'A neutral power ought not to allow on its territory any of the acts referred to in Articles 2 to 4'. Of the Articles thus specified the most important is No. 2:-- 'Belligerents are forbidden to move across the territory of a neutral power troops or convoys, either of munitions of war or supplies'. By the Treaty of London the existence of Belgium is contingent upon her perpetual neutrality:-- 'ARTICLE VII. Belgium within the limits specified in Articles I, II, and IV shall form an independent and perpetually neutral state. It shall be bound to observe such neutrality towards all other states'.[4] It is unnecessary to elaborate further the point of law. That, it seems, has been admitted by the Imperial Chancellor before the German Reichstag. What is necessary to remember is that, in regard to Belgium, Germany has assumed the position which the Government of the French Revolution adopted towards the question of the Scheldt, and which Napoleon adopted towards the guaranteed neutrality of Switzerland and Holland. Now, as then, England has special interests at stake. The consequences of the oppression or the extinction of the smaller nationalities are bound to excite peculiar alarm in England. In particular she cannot forget how she would be menaced by the establishment of a militarist state in Belgium. But since in England's case the dangers and uncertainties of a state of things in which Might is treated as Right are particularly apparent, it is only to be expected that she should insist with special emphasis upon the sanctity of treaties, a sanctity which in the long run is as necessary to the strongest nation as to the weakest. If treaties count for nothing, no nation is secure so long as any imaginable combination of Powers can meet it in battle or diplomacy on equal terms; and the stronger nations must perforce fight one another to the death for the privilege of enslaving civilization. Whether the progress of such a competition would be a trifling evil, whether the success of any one among such competitors would conduce to the higher interests of humanity, impartial onlookers may debate if they please. England has answered both these questions with an unhesitating negative. II