This was a logical development Nothing could be more understandable than the wish to remain neutral in times when wars were the result of feuds between sovereigns or later, when they became the means of solving conflicts of special interests between two countries.
As long as wars remained localized neutrality was in the natural order of things. But when the war became general, as was the case in the last world war, neutrality lost its natural quality and became a juridical construction. The rigid dogma of neutrality stifled the impulse of many nations and neutrality, as an attribute of sovereign independence, barred the road to international interdependence and ce-operation, During World War No. 1 neutrals were considered in the popular estimation of the belligerents with mixed feelings, and neutrality signified for many either a lack of conviction or a means of profiteering.
Yet on the other side neutrality could be defended on reasonable grounds. The essential prerequisite for neutrality, viz. an equilibrium of power preventing one of the belligerents from coercing weaker countries by sheer force, did then exist. In several cases there was furthermore a strong practical argument in favour of neutrality inasmuch as both belligerents had a more or less equal interest in some countries, as for instance the Netherlands, staying out of the war. Here also existed a state of de facto equilibrium between belligerent interests.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.