The Right of Citizens of Neutral Countries to Sell and Export Arms and Munitions of War to Belligerents

Since the beginning of the present war two questions as to the rights and duties of the United States have engaged the attention of our people before all others, I think because of the human interest which they involve. The first of these is the question whether the United States as one of the leading neutral nations signatory to the Hague conventions had a right and duty to protest against the violation of the neutrality of Belgium. People were interested in this because, beyond the technical questions of conventional law, they saw the ruin of a rich country and the destruction of a brave people, and ultimately a great injury to civilization itself. The second question which has evoked general interest, and to which I propose to ask your attention for a few minutes is whether the United States has either a legal or moral duty to forbid the exportation of arms and munitions of war to the belligerents. This question is not a new one, or peculiar to the present contest; witness Lowell's complaint in his inimitable Biglow Papers of a similar traffic on the part of British subjects during the Civil War, when he said

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